Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck Series Book 3)

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.

—William Shakespeare

I hid in a closet from my boyfriend after stupidly spilling a bowl of tacks. I then crawled into a tiny media box in Jake’s van, and hid there for an hour while he did his weekly basketball excursion with his kids that I help fund a special program for. I was stuck there because the box wouldn’t open from the inside.

The prick did that on purpose to teach me a lesson, and I’ll kick his ass later for that.

I’m exhausted and just ready to curl up on the bed until Logan can break away, when I round the hotel hallway and see Hadley glaring daggers at me, waiting by my door.

I wish she’d leave this hotel.

“You!” she hisses.

“What’d I do?” I ask, confused.

“Roses ring a bell?”

I smirk as I push open the door, and she barges by me, ramming her shoulder into mine on the way.

“Want to come in?” I ask dryly.

The door shuts and she whirls around, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

“Don’t get cute, Lana. You sent roses to Lisa. I know it was you. You let her think Logan did it, and now that she knows he didn’t do it, she’s nauseated, certain it was Plemmons.”

I guess Hadley’s humor is on the fritz, because that shit’s funny.

“The Boogeyman is dead, and what makes you think it was me or that those were ever my intentions?” I muse, hiding my smile.

“I know it was you. The roses were paid for with a prepaid Visa. Plemmons was done with Lisa, but she’s Logan’s ex, and you chose a poor way to fuck with her.”

“She actually fucked with me first. I just sent her some roses,” I say with a coy grin.

Her face gets redder. “Don’t fuck with my team, Lana. You have too much too lose to play games with us.”

“Us? I’m not playing games with anyone but her, and she started it. She did everything but piss on Logan. And the roses were ages ago. It’s not even a good joke if she doesn’t get it when the guy is still alive. In case you’ve forgotten, I sort of killed him, so she has no reason to be afraid…unless she’s scared of serial killer ghosts.”

I grab a flashlight and shine it under my chin, and Hadley’s eyes narrow to slits. She seriously needs a sense of humor.

“This is crazy stuff. You know that, right?” she snaps.

I roll my eyes, cutting the flashlight off. “No, crazy is being his ex and getting all bitchy toward me. And you said I couldn’t kill anyone who didn’t truly deserve to die. You never said I couldn’t send roses to a girl who was an utter bitch to me.”

“Don’t downplay this,” she hisses. “You sent those roses to terrorize her. Mind fuck her even. The guy carved an actual word into her arm while she was conscious, and he damn near killed her and Elise before Lisa managed to get a few shots off.”

“And missed him,” I remind her. Who can’t shoot a guy that size?

“Grazed him,” she corrects.

“Missed him,” I say again, smirking at the funny little shade of red she continues to turn. “I didn’t miss him. And, again, the guy is dead. The joke isn’t funny now. How ungrateful is she to just now be thanking Logan for the flowers she arrogantly assumed he sent?”

Her mouth opens and closes, and I half wonder if her skull is going to blow off like it does in the cartoons.

“It’s not funny at all! It’s cruel. And wicked. And—”

“Lisa your bestie?”

“No,” she says, frowning.

“Saved your life or something?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you even like her?”

Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t respond to that question.

“I’ll take that as a no. So why the self-righteous, indignant act over me poking a little fun at a bully bitch? I couldn’t outright put her in her place, so yes, I fucked with her head a little. And it wasn’t even a good head-fucking because she caught onto the joke too late. No harm. No foul.”

“It’s the fact you targeted one of our team members, and you don’t even realize how sick and twisted your joke was.”

My smile vanishes. “I could have sent her a pig’s heart or something, if you want sick and twisted. I could have sent a bouquet that spelled KEEP. I could have sent her the twisted Russian song of the Boogeyman. I sent her roses, Hadley. A tiny little mind fuck, as you like to call it. That’s all. I spared her, if you really think about it. We both know I could be a lot colder.”

Her look pales a little.

“No,” I groan, rolling my eyes. “That was not me threatening to kill her.”

She drops to the bed, running a hand through her hair. “This is too much. You’re too much.”

“You’re overreacting to some roses. Calm down, Hadley. If you didn’t want the truth, you shouldn’t have searched for answers.”

She looks up, and genuine exhaustion shines in her eyes.

“Logan’s morals aren’t as skewed as mine, Lana. If you really love him, you’ll stop this quest for revenge. Let us try to figure out a way to take the others down. We can—”

“Take down an entire police force? Take down rapists whose word will be against mine? The daughter of a convicted serial killer who was wrongly profiled by one of your own?” I deadpan.

“Logan knows the profile was wrong,” she says, shocking me.

She studies my face.

“This is the first you’ve heard of it, isn’t it?”

I nod, slowly lowering myself to the seat.

“You really don’t ask him any questions about your case, do you?”

I glare at her this time. “If I wanted to know what you all knew, I’d have Jake hack the cameras. I don’t need to use my boyfriend or betray him like that. I hate lying to him as it is.”

“No more games on my team members,” she says, frustrated.

“Only if she leaves me alone,” I tell her, watching her as she thinks that over.

“Nothing so morbid.”

I shrug, grinning. “I have a morbid sense of humor. And I’m territorial. At least I didn’t piss in the roses before sending them.”

She studies me; I grin at her.

“You’re so confusing, and I stupidly think you really do love him.”

“I do love him,” I tell her on a long sigh.

“Nice to know.” Logan’s voice has us both screeching, and Hadley actually drops to the floor.

Logan grins at her as she bounces back up to her feet. If he’s grinning, then he missed all the important bits about me being a killing psycho, right?

“How long have you been standing there?!” Hadley demands, looking every bit as guilty as a killer herself.

“Long enough to hear a confession I don’t think I was meant to hear,” he says, his smile turning into a smirk as he looks at me with heat in his eyes.

Yeah, he totally missed the part where I’m a killer. I need to be more cautious.

“Confession?” Hadley asks, all the color draining from her face.

This girl could never be a killer.

“Yeah,” Logan says, his attention focused on me as he stalks forward.

“Logan, this isn’t what it looks like. She—”

Her words thankfully die when Logan grabs me at the waist and pulls me to him, crushing his lips to mine. I almost climb up him, making it easier to kiss him without so many tiptoes and bending getting involved. Hadley makes a strangled sound, and I kiss Logan harder to distract him from the leaky sink she is.

No wonder the Boogeyman duct taped her mouth shut.

“Right,” Hadley says as Logan continues kissing me. “I’ll just go now.”

He doesn’t even acknowledge her as he kisses me harder, pushing me back against the window that overlooks the city. My mouth stays fused to his, needing this so much after the week of little face-to-face time.

“I’ve fucking missed you,” he says against my lips, still kissing me stupid.

I can’t even respond, because he doesn’t let me break my mouth apart to reciprocate. Instead, he starts tugging my pants down, pushing me harder against the glass.

My fingers find their happy place, digging into his hair, and I shudder in anticipation when he shoves my pants to the floor. Roughly, he breaks the kiss to tear my shirt over my head, as though he’s in a hurry to get me as naked as possible.

“I missed you too,” I say while I have the chance, but he’s all serious, and that heated gaze could scorch a lesser prepared woman.

He strips out of his clothes as I toss away my bra and shimmy out of my underwear. In the time it takes me to do that, he’s fully naked and lifting me so fast my breath catches.

My back hits the glass, and my legs go around his shoulders. My eyes screw shut when he puts his face right where I want it, and he latches on to that bundle of nerves he knows how to manipulate too well.

He’s more aggressive than usual, almost as though he’s punishing me, taking no mercy on me when I whimper and squirm and try to make him bald with my hold on his hair.

My head falls back against the glass as I cry out, already lost in sensation from the masterful mouth he owns. He drops me to the ground in a smooth motion, and spins me to face the glass.

My palms shoot up, catching me before I slam into it, and he lifts my lower half, lining it up so he can thrust in forcefully.

It feels too good, and he bends, kissing my neck with just as much roughness as he’s taking my body. “You should have told me first,” he says, giving me insight as to why this feels like an incredible punishment fuck.

If these are the repercussions of disappointing him, I’ll never be good again.

It’d be nice if this is how he punishes me when or if he ever finds out who I really am.

I hope that day never comes. I’d rather not know what he chooses.

I push my hands harder against the window, and he keeps me lifted from behind so he can control every second of being inside me. He doesn’t stop until I’m crying out, and his hips thrust in hard one last time before he rocks in a slow circle, his breaths labored as he bends over, resting his forehead on my shoulder. He’s still holding me in place, and I grin against the window.

“I didn’t mean to tell Hadley,” I say, breathless and grinning. “She figured it out on her own.”

He leans forward, kissing my shoulder.

But he doesn’t say it back.

I’m not sure why that makes me feel a little self-conscious, but I try to ignore the seed of doubt that’s been planted.

“You can’t stay gone that long again. You’ve only been in town one day this week,” he says, kissing the column of my throat, running his hands over my body.

“If this is the reward I get, I may not be able to help myself,” I quip, smiling when he releases a rumble of laughter.

He pulls out of me and slaps my ass, and I turn just as he winks. “Get on something nice. I’m taking you out on a real date tonight.”

Grinning like a girl, I rush into the shower. But as soon as I step under the spray, Logan is climbing in with me, his lips finding mine as he pushes me against the wall.

“We can go out tomorrow,” I murmur against his lips, feeling him grin as he slides inside me again.

Just as he starts a steady rhythm, his lips break apart from mine, and he starts kissing his way to my ear.

“I love you too, Lana Myers,” he says so softly.

And in that moment, I’m completely his. There’s no revenge; there are no deaths staining my hands. I’m just a girl in love with a man who’s destined to hate me when he learns the truth.

And it’s devastatingly tragic; more so than any Shakespearian play ever was.