“Just a little nibble,” he says.

I press my lips tight. A choked growl of protest vibrates in my throat as he smears my bloody skin across my lips.

“No?”

His counterfeit pout turns into a reptilian grin.

David’s tongue slides out between his teeth and he lays the skin across it like a veil, holding it out for me to see. He closes his lips around it, lets it wiggle against his triumphant smile.

Then he sucks it into his mouth.

Eyes closed, his jaws work slowly, like he savors every bite as he rolls it between his teeth.

His audible swallow turns my stomach.

“Such a delicacy. So very rare.” He turns away to the table and drags a bottle of Pont Neuf across the stainless steel counter. “You know what else is rare?”

My answer is only ragged breaths.

“A woman like Sloane,” David says.

I’m going to be fucking sick.

I have never, never felt like this. Like there’s an empty pit in my stomach. Like I’m falling into it from the inside out. So helpless. So fucking desperate. That look in her eyes when I told her I didn’t love her, it haunts every breath I take. Those goddamn tears rip me apart.

“Not many people would do what she did for me,” David says as he spins the corkscrew into the bottle. It squeaks with every metronomic turn of his hand. “But then, that’s her way, isn’t it. Just like she protected that friend of hers, the Montague girl. So strange how that teacher just suddenly disappeared from their boarding school, don’t you think? People do have a funny way of conveniently disappearing around the Montagues.”

“Leave her alone,” I grit out.

“Though when I dug and dug and dug for answers, it seemed as though there were already rumors swirling about the things he did to the girls there. Terrible things. Depraved things. Deviant things. But at least he did one good thing—he made the Orb Weaver. A beautiful monster.”

The cork pops free of the bottle.

His voice drips with feigned innocence when David says, “Do you think she would want to do those deviant, depraved things with me?”

My vision reddens with rage as I thrash in the chair. “Leave her the fuck alone,” I snarl.

David sighs as he pours himself a glass of wine. “I don’t think she wants to either. But I’ll make her.”

I erupt within my restraints, unhinged. Wild. Insane.

But I go nowhere.

“Maybe I’ll take my time,” he continues as he unwinds the cork from the metal spiral. “Make her trust me. Maybe I’ll even make a miraculous semi-recovery. You know, not so much that I don’t still tug on her little black heartstrings, but just enough that she can convince herself into fucking a lobotomized man. Or maybe I’ve used up all my patience already. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, you know. Maybe I’ll just follow her all the way back to 154 Jasmine Street. I could break into her house and bring her a doggie bag. Feed her little pieces of you and then fuck her until I tear her apart, until she’s nothing more than another piece of bloody, pulverized meat destined for the trash.”

He saunters closer until he’s right in front of me, his gaze caught on his wine as he swirls it in the glass and then takes a sip.

“Either way,” he says as a smile sneaks across his lips, “the sound of her begging will be a beautiful symphony. A masterpiece.”

My throat clogs. My eyes fucking sting.

I know there’s no reasoning with him. There’s no bartering. I have nothing to offer. But I try anyway.

For her.

“Please, please, just leave her alone. If you want begging, I’ll fucking beg. If you want money you can have everything I own. If you want to cut me up into a thousand pieces, you can. Do whatever you want with me. Just please leave her be. Please.”

David leans closer. His eyes scour every inch of my face. “Why would I do that, when I can have you both?”

A flash of movement. Silver in the dim light.

Pain erupts in my wrist and agony spills from my lips. I look down to where the corkscrew is buried in my flesh, twitching with every beat of my heart.

“The Pont Neuf,” David says as he holds his glass beneath my bound arm. Blood trickles into the wine. “It’s nice, but a little bland for my taste. I like something full-bodied.”

He leaves the corkscrew in my arm as he takes a long sip. When David’s eyes fix to mine, they’re hazy, half-lidded. His slow smile is exultant.

“So much better,” he whispers, and swirls the wine and blood together before drinking more down. “That little tang of iron really adds another dimension to the mix. As insufferable as that pretentious old windbag was, I must admit—Thorsten really was on to something. And all this talking? Well…it’s made me hungry. I bet you’re famished too.”

David turns away toward the counter where the mandolin lays in a smear of blood on the stainless steel.

It’s Sloane’s face I see when I drop my chin to my chest and close my eyes. It’s her tears I feel when sweat slides down my face to drop on my lap. I think about how fucking beautiful she was when I told her I didn’t want her, her skin radiant with the pain of my words. I watched her heart shatter, and I twisted that knife for nothing. Because I’ll never be able to save her. Not from this. Not from him.

I can only hope that she disappears the way I know she can. They way she should have, from the first moment I let her out of that cage.

I’m thinking about that first day I met her in the bayou when I notice David go still in the periphery.

When I drag my gaze from my lap, he’s still standing at the table where the mandolin is, but his posture is different. Stiff. Tense. He pivots a slow turn with his back to me, his head angled at the length of the prep table to his left and then the counter on his right.

“Looking for something?” a voice says from the shadows.

Shock and confusion. Desperation and fear. It all crashes into my chest as Sloane steps into the light, David’s gun raised in her hand.

She’s so fucking beautiful. So brave. The gun doesn’t waver in her hand as she keeps it trained on him and walks forward to stop enough to the side that I can see her clearly. Her skin glows with a light sheen of sweat. Hazel eyes rimmed with black liner and thick lashes flick to me.

Her face is expressionless as she takes in my bloody arm and the corkscrew embedded in my wrist.

She looks to David. A slow smile creeps across her lips.

“Hello, David. I’m so happy we finally have a chance to talk,” she says.

And then she lowers the gun.

“I was wondering when you’d finally make your move.”

Her smile takes on a dark edge. A sharp edge. One that slips right between my ribs.

Sloane doesn’t look at me. Not even a glance in my direction. She keeps all her attention on David, warmth and wonder in her eyes, that fucking dimple a shadow next to her lips.

I want to rip his fucking skin off.

“I admire your work,” she says. “The South Bay Slasher. I assume you befriended Thorsten while you were in Torrance, am I right?”

David smirks before raising the glass to his lips and taking a long sip of wine, then he sets it on the counter next to the mandolin and crosses his arms. “So, you’ve been stalking me. Can’t say I’m entirely surprised.”

Sloane shrugs. “I like to know who’s out and about.”

“I know. I’ve been doing some stalking of my own. I’m aware of the caliber of prey you hunt. You’re here to kill me.”

“If I was,” she says as she raises the gun and examines the barrel, “I would have done it already.”

David lets his gaze travel the length of Sloane’s body. There’s a flash in his eyes, a flicker of all the things he wants to do to her, all his depraved desires. “I was watching your special little moment with this asshole a couple of hours ago, don’t forget. I know pain when I see it. You could say it’s my specialty.”