Page 90 of Temptation
“It’s okay,” she promised him. “No one else will know. Trust me. And I will trust you.”
“You don’t have a bad secret in your past. You didn’t kill anyone.” They were not the same.
“It’s not my past that I’m trusting you with. It’s my future.” Then she snuggled up against him. “I haven’t killed yet, but I will.” A yawn. “It’s all a matter of time.”
He blinked at that unexpected response. “Just who are you planning to kill?”
“Cody Crenshaw.” An instant answer. “If he gets parole, he will come after me. He swore to me once that I would be dead before he ever let me go. I believed him when he made that promise, so when he comes for me again. I’ll be ready. I will kill him. That’s my confession to you.”
No, angel, you don’t have to kill him. Preston’s lips brushed against her temple. If that prick gets out of prison, I will kill him for you.
It had been surprisingly easy to kill the first time.
His eyes closed. And the past swallowed him whole.
“He got away! That monster got away! He tried to murder our boy—and he escaped!”
“No, No, Sylvia, he didn’t get away. The cops said they shot him. He fell into the river. He’s dead. He’s just…they just haven’t found his body yet.”
A choked sob. His mother’s sob. Sylvia Byron didn’t cry often. In fact, Preston had never seen her cry at all in his life. Until that night. Until she’d arrived at the scene in the woods and rushed toward the ambulance. Tears had streamed down her face, streaking her mascara, and huge sobs had shaken her chest as she hugged him, over and over again. As if she never wanted to let go.
“He buried my baby.” Pain broke his mother’s voice. “He buried my baby, and then he got away. What if he comes after Preston again? What if he comes after our son? We can’t let that happen. We can’t!”
Preston stood behind the door. They were at a small hotel, one on the outskirts of the Eldorado National Forest. He’d been checked at a nearby hospital, released, but the cops had wanted him staying close by while they searched for the man who’d taken him.
“He’s dead, Sylvia. Dead. Doesn’t matter if we have a body or not. The cops shot him, and that man will never hurt our son again.”
But I’m not your son.
Preston edged away from the door. Even as he’d been hauling himself out of the ground, that bastard who’d taken him had been laughing. And clapping. Like Preston had just performed some kind of fabulous trick.
“I knew you could do it, boy! Come out of the dark and be reborn! My son. Mine!”
The man had shone a flashlight at his own face. Under his chin, pointing upward. He’d been terrifying and yet…familiar. Because when Preston looked in the mirror, he saw a younger version of that face. Cheekbones not as sharp. Not yet. Jaw not as hard. Not yet. But…
I see myself in that face. What I will become.
Preston had heaved up, sprawling face-first near the grave, spitting out dirt, and sirens had blasted into the night.
“Shit. They’re coming. Too close. I have to go.” A hand had slapped on his shoulder. “It’s gonna be me and you, son. Me and you. You’re the one I want with me.” Then he’d rattled off coordinates. Longitude and latitude. As Preston had struggled to breathe. “My special spot. Meet me there.”
Pounding footsteps had rushed toward them. The cops. They’d come in with their guns and their flashlights and the man who’d taken him—the man who claimed to be his real father—had fled into the night.
Preston heard gunfire blasting when the EMTs pushed him into the ambulance, as his mother hugged and hugged him…
At the hospital, a police officer had told him that he was safe. That they’d shot the man who abducted him.
But…
They just hadn’t found his body yet.
Preston hadn’t mentioned the coordinates. Not to anyone. He should have. He’d thought about telling everyone but…
But rage had burned inside of him. A dark, twisting rage.
As he stood in his hotel room, as he heard his parents, that twisting rage spread throughout his whole body. His adoptive parents. He’d always known he was adopted. They’d told him the truth for as long as he could remember. He was their gift, the perfect son they’d prayed to have.
I am not perfect. I’m evil.
