“Isn’t it the most exquisitely painful thing you’ve ever felt?” I jerk her head closer, wringing another gasp that skitters across my lips. “You’re mine, Adeline,” I growl. “I don’t care if we're reincarnated or not. Here and now, this is fucking real. And in this lifetime, you are mine.”

I let her go, and she doesn’t waste time scrambling up and plastering herself against the house, her hands gripping the siding as if I had shaken her world, and she’s grasping for something to ground her.

I can feel the intensity radiating off of me. The buzzing has grown louder, and I’m not sure whether I need to fuck Addie or go shoot someone in the face.

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly, sensing the turmoil raging inside of me.

I look over to her, and it seems as if she shrinks beneath my gaze. It’s not until I notice the tremor in her hands that I realize I’m glaring.

“Fuck,” I say, swiping a hand roughly down my face. The raised scars only serve as a reminder. “I’m sorry, mouse. I got shitty news this morning. I keep getting shitty news.”

She frowns, a crease forming between her brows.

She clears her throat, draws the robe closed, and cautiously steps back towards me, fidgeting with the belt again.

Brave girl.

Her awkwardness almost makes me smile, but I feel a little too empty to do anything other than stare.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asks, glancing up at me before she reaches for her coffee.

“Do you want to hear about it?” I counter, cocking a brow. A red flush rises to her cheeks, but she lifts her eyes and holds them steady.

“Yes.”

This time, it’s me who looks away.

“That involves hearing about what I do for a living. Which is kill people.”

She releases a shaky breath, but instead of retreating as I had expected, she nods her head. “Okay.”

That single word only made up for four letters, meant more to me than she could ever imagine.

“You’re not going to like what you hear,” I argue, and for the first time, I think I’m searching for an excuse not to tell her. I’ve always been honest with her, but right now, I don’t think I can handle her vicious rejection.

“Maybe not,” she concedes. “But you said before you save women and children. Was that not true?”

I pin her with my stare, conveying just how serious I am. “That is what I do. All of what I told you is one hundred percent the truth. I just didn’t go into detail about what I do once I catch them.”

“Torture them,” she easily guesses. Those four politicians exposed that truth.

She pauses, her caramel eyes boring into me. She’s absently chewing her lip, contemplating something, it seems. Whatever she decides, she nods her head slightly to herself.

I’m very curious to know what’s going on in that head of hers.

“Tell me,” she says, her tone firm and unyielding. “I want to know everything… about you.” She ends her sentence with a wrinkle of her nose as if she thought she’d never say those words. It brings a small grin to my face.

“You mean besides what it feels like to have my cock in every hole of your body?”

She scoffs, a pretty blush staining her cheeks.

“You have not,” she snaps.

“Yet,” I promise. I haven’t taken her ass yet, but I fully intend to. Soon.

“Zade, focus,” she hisses. But her clenched thighs and blown eyes don’t go unnoticed.

I look off to the side and stare out at the Bay, focusing on something mundane, despite how beautiful it is with the water sparkling beneath the sunlight.

Everything is mundane when Addie is present.

There’s a small thicket of trees leading up towards the cliff, the crooked branches deprived of leaves and reaching towards the sky as if begging for life again. They’re dying, and it imitates what I feel on the inside right now.

“I target specific people. Politicians. Celebrities. Businessmen. People in positions of power or who have money. And even people who are the lowest of the totem pole and will do anything to get by. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what their job is or how much money they have because they’re all the same. They’re human sex traffickers.

“For years, I’ve been targeting pedophile rings and dismantling them. Rescue the girls and children and either send them back to their family or send them to a safe, undisclosed location where they can live the rest of their lives in comfort.

“But about nine months ago, a video leaked of a sadistic ritual taking place. They were sacrificing a child and drinking his blood. Since then, a few more videos have leaked, including one last night.” I pause, clenching my jaw and trying to regain the composure that is beginning to slip through my fingers.

Blowing out a deep breath, I continue. “I’ve told you already that Mark was in the first video, which is why I targeted him and the three other men I killed. All four of them were performing the ritual. The night I killed Mark, he disclosed the location to me, so I went there yesterday to insert myself, gain trust, and be invited into the dungeon. They were drinking out of the same goblets that they use in the ritual.”

I pause, nearly blind from rage as I admit, "I think this recent video was from last night, and those goblets were full of blood from a sacrifice they performed while I was there."

The coffee cup clatters against the metal table, nearly toppling over as Addie attempts to set it down. Her hand is badly shaking and it looks like a piece of the ceramic breaks off.

“What the fuck,” she breathes, her eyes wide with shock and repulsion. Though, they don't stray from me as she says, "Zade you couldn't have known that's what was happening. You can't blame yourself for that."

I clench my teeth against the snarl threatening to take over my face, the muscle in my jaw threatening to burst. "The fuck I can't," I snap.

She flinches, her face softening.

"I didn't build Z and become who I am today to allow for a child to be sacrificed right fucking below me. And watch sick fucks drink their blood like its goddamn water."

Tears form in her eyes, but she stays silent while I work to calm myself down.

"I've dedicated almost six years to eradicating human trafficking. Seattle happens to be a prime location for pedophile rings, but in reality, they’re everywhere. And I plan to take them all down. Or as many as I can until this life takes me down first.”

Addie doesn’t speak. She stares into her nearly depleted coffee as if it’s an 8 Ball that will give her whatever answer she’s looking for. The sound of the furnace kicks on, filling the otherwise static silence.

After a few moments, she looks up at me, an unreadable expression on her freckled face.

“Why?” she whispers. “Why did you choose to put your life in danger and hunt down these people and kill them? What made you decide to do this?”

Her tone isn’t laced with judgment, but the need to understand. But I’m not sure my answer will offer her the understanding she's asking for.

“Because I want to, baby.”

Her brows jump in surprise, not expecting my answer. “You’re expecting me to give you a legitimate reason for why I took this path in life. Maybe I had a sister or mother who was kidnapped and sold. Maybe I was myself. But none of those things are the case. When I learned about human trafficking and the depths of its depravity, I was sickened. And I have the skill to do something about it, so I am. I’m saving innocent people because I want to. And I’m torturing and murdering the bad because I want to.”

Her eyes widen in surprise when I prowl towards her. She doesn’t back away from me, but I see the tension roll into her shoulders like thunderclouds swollen with rain.

I grab the back of her neck and pull her into me. She stumbles, steadying herself with her hands on my chest. Her breathing has escalated, the short little breaths escaping through her puffy, bruised lips.