Shit—weapon.
Monica scrambled around the table. The knife was right there, waiting for her. Her fingers closed around the hilt just as Kyle let out a roar of fury.
The gun. No.
She spun around. He had the gun aimed at Luke, aimed straight at his heart. His finger squeezed—
“Watchman!”
He hesitated, started to swing toward her.
She came up on him fast and drove the knife into his chest. As deep as she could.
His eyes widened. His lips trembled as if he would speak.
She twisted the knife, then ripped the gun from his hands.
His knees gave way, and he hit the floor hard.
Monica’s breath heaved as she crouched over him. Blood trickled from his lips. His pupils were dilating, blackness spreading.
A moan bubbled in his throat.
She knew her weapon had found its mark. In that split second, there’d been no time for taking chances. She’d had to stop him, and she’d gone for the kill.
Monica yanked the knife free. Blood splattered in the air. Leaning down, she put her lips close to his ear. “Are you scared?” she whispered.
Monica felt his nod against her cheek even as she smelled death approaching.
“Good.” She drew back and finally gave him a smile of her own. “Hell’s waiting, a**hole.”
His eyes widened. A gurgle rose in his throat. He lifted his hand, bloody fingers reaching—
And went to Hell.
The hand fell back against the floor, and his breath choked away.
The door flew open behind them. “FBI! Don’t move!” Kenton yelled.
The cavalry had arrived. Too late. She’d expected them sooner. Bastard must have broken my cell phone, messed up the signal.
Figured. Kyle had known all the tricks.
He’d been prepared for her.
But then, she’d prepared for him, too.
She stared into those sightless eyes. It looked like she’d been wrong. Kyle wouldn’t spend the rest of his days rotting in a jail with Romeo.
Romeo would be all by himself. Just what the bastard feared. She knew his fear. Knew what scared him most. She’d learned the truth in a blood-stained room years before when the cops took her away from him and he’d been the one to scream—for her.
Romeo wanted someone to share his darkness. Someone who understood death and horror and fear. Someone just like him.
But he’d lost her, and he’d lost Kyle. Now he was alone.
Exactly what Romeo deserved.
Hyde shoved through the door right behind Kenton. His gun was up, steady and tight in his grasp.
The scent of blood hit him first. The stench of death.
Monica rose from the chaos. Her shirt was stained with blood, and there was a dark, purple bruise on her forehead that skimmed down the side of her face. She lifted her arms slowly, and he saw that she had a knife clenched in her right fist.
“Suspect is down,” she said simply, and her voice didn’t shake. Didn’t so much as tremble. Rock steady and cold.
Not the girl she’d been. The woman she was.
This time, she’d taken down the killer.
And sometimes, so many times, he wished he’d let her take down the other bastard.
But then what would she have become?
And what is she now?
She dropped the knife. “Vance Monroe… he’s Kyle West. He killed his mother sixteen years ago, murdered Saundra Swain, Sally Jenkins, Patty Moffet…” she swallowed, “Laura Billings, and he-he attacked Special Agent Samantha Kennedy.”
What is she?
A f**king fine agent.
“Monica.” Dante’s voice. His was boiling with emotion—fury, fear, need—the opposite of Monica.
He’d always been her opposite. Hyde had known that from the first moment he saw them together at Quantico. The two of them together were one powerful team.
When Monica heard Dante’s voice, she blinked, and the ice melted away. “Luke.” She spun and lunged for him.
Dante sat up on some kind of makeshift operating table. Long, thick straps held down his legs and his h*ps and, shit, it looked like the killer had been carving him up.
“Got an injured agent!” Hyde yelled. “Get the EMTs in here now!”
Two deputies lay on the floor. Vance Monroe wasn’t breathing, and he had a gaping stab wound in his chest. Lee Pope’s chest was rising and falling, but he looked like shit.
“Deputy down!” Kenton called.
Down, but still alive.
And his agents had survived. Hyde tried to take a deep breath but the stench of blood choked him.
Way too much blood. The EMTs needed to move their asses. Monica threw her arms around Dante. Held him tight.
Crushed her mouth to his.
Not ice.
Not anymore.
Luke pulled Monica against him. He buried his hands in her hair, and he tilted her head back.
The better to take her mouth.
Fear pumped through his blood. Too close. Nearly lost her.
His lips closed over hers. His blood smeared her, but he didn’t care. That bastard had tried to take her away. When Kyle or Vance or who-the-hell-ever he was had gone across that table after her…
My heart stopped.
The killer had played him well. He’d been trapped, helpless to fight back, and he’d known what was coming for him.
Then she’d come for him. Gotten him free. Saved his ass.
And killed the serial.
His fingers tightened in her hair. She was real. She was alive. He could feel her heart pounding, racing just like his.
Safe.
Never letting go.
“Ah… Agent Dante…”
His lips pressed harder on hers.
“Dante…”
Hyde’s voice. Probably should care that his boss saw him devouring her mouth, but he didn’t give a damn.
Monica was alive. He was alive—and this was just the beginning for them.
“You have to let the EMTs look at you—both of you.”
Luke pulled away from her. Monica was hurt.
Kyle had punched her hard, and her jaw was already swollen, darkening to match the bruises on her face and forehead.
“Do I look as bad as you?” she asked him quietly, and it took him a minute to realize the woman was joking.
“Baby, you look beautiful.” To him, she always did.
“Oh, Christ,” Kenton muttered from somewhere behind them. “He must have head trauma. EMTs!”
But Monica smiled at him.
The EMTs swarmed. “Blood loss… close the wounds… possible concussion…”
They pushed between him and Monica. Her smile dimmed and she slipped back.
He grabbed her hand. His hands were wet with blood. Didn’t matter. He caught her fingers. He knew he’d never really know—not completely—what those dark times with Romeo had been like for her.
Romeo let me watch.
Had the sick f**k made her watch him hurt those women? Or had she just been playing a dangerous mind game with Kyle? A game that had worked. She’d gotten free and killed the a**hole.
Either way, it wouldn’t change things for him. They’d deal with her past and his, and they’d face the future.
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
And she nodded.
Monica’s fingers twined with Luke’s as they carried him out on the stretcher. The blinding sunlight hit her first. So bright.
She’d gone into darkness before. When Hyde had come for her years before, it had been so dark.
The swirling ambulance lights were there just like before, cutting through the trees with red and yellow lights.
Deputies, so many men and women she’d never seen. Probably called in from other counties. Swarming around, racing to secure the scene.
Just like before.
And the stares… those were like before, too. The wide eyes when they saw her. The mouths that parted in surprise.
Luke’s fingers tightened around hers.
Not alone. Saved someone this time.
The EMTs shoved Luke into the ambulance. His fingers broke free from hers.
She glanced back.
That place—so like the prison she’d known.
But it was just an old cabin. So small, really.
Hyde stepped outside and watched her with his hands on his hips.
There would be questions. There always were. The scene had to be secured. Reports needed to be written.
And the news crews—the vultures would be swarming soon.
“Monica?” Luke’s voice.
She nodded to Hyde, then climbed into the ambulance.
“Ma’am, you should lay down. We need to check your head, your pupil response is—”
She ignored the EMT and ran her fingers down the side of Luke’s face. “You sure you can handle me?” Because she knew the darkness inside her would never go away. She’d been marked too young. She’d carry that mark to the grave.
But Luke was different. Trying to save the world. Because of his mother. It made sense now.
She hadn’t been the only one to keep secrets.
Maybe that had been part of her attraction. Luke was a hero, wanting to help, to protect.
Had he sensed what she was inside? Lost and alone.
His lips curved. “I’m sure.”
And so was she.
“You’re not getting rid of me,” he told her. “Not again.”
Good. Because if she lost Luke, it would tear her world apart.
The driver slammed the back doors of the ambulance. One, then the other. She leaned in close to him, remembered the smell of death and the demons from the past.
No, no more fear.
“I love you, Luke Dante,” she whispered, and the sirens wailed as the ambulance lurched forward.
Hyde watched the ambulance pull away. Another EMT crew was busy hauling out Lee Pope. The deputy was coming around again, talking fast, slurring as he said, “V-Vance hit me.… H-he… came at me… I-I don’t…”
Understand.
No, he wouldn’t.
“It’s okay, Lee. Everything’s going to be fine.” A female deputy, a small woman with tears trickling down her cheeks, hurried by his stretcher.
“Mel… what—wh-why?” The deputy’s voice seemed lost.
Hyde would have to talk with Monica. He’d get her full report and find out just what the hell had gone down here.
But right now, the facts were simple. Their killer was dead. Monica had said Vance Monroe was the serial, and he believed her.
The whys—he’d deal with all of them later.
Right now, he had a scene to secure.
Sheriff Davis came out shaking his head, rubbing his eyes. Hyde’s mouth tightened. “It’s over, Hank.”
Hank blinked and raised his chin. “H-he was the one… who told me to contact you….”
Hyde’s gaze narrowed.
“After… after the second body… he said he’d read about a department in the FBI… hunted killers.” He swallowed. “He mentioned your name, I—it clicked for me.… I called you.”
A set-up.
The guy had probably been tracking his team for months. Studying them all and digging into their pasts. No wonder he’d been so prepared for Sam. He’d probably known what she feared long before the team came down South.
Going head to head with his agents must have been the ultimate challenge for the Watchman.
One he’d lost.
“It’s over,” he told Hank again. “Tell your people that their county’s safe again.” It would be a hard sell. Folks would feel betrayed, afraid, especially when they found out a deputy had been doing the killing.
But they’d heal. The thing about people—they always healed.
Maybe not perfectly. The scars stayed, sometimes deep inside, where you couldn’t see them, but the wounds healed.
Monica had taught him that.
He strode inside the cabin. Crime scene techs were already there, snapping pictures of the body. Dusting for prints. Searching for DNA and every scrap of evidence they could find.
In death, Vance Monroe aka Kyle West didn’t look so fierce. But then, he’d never looked particularly fierce to Hyde. Sometimes, killers could hide behind the simplest of disguises.
Like a smiling face.
Or a badge.
“Hyde, did you see this?” Kenton demanded.
Hyde glanced over his shoulder. The agent stood next to an open door. A closet. Barely big enough for a person to stand in.
“The inside of the door knob was removed, but it—it looks like someone punched through the wood that was put there.”
Monica’s knuckles had been bloody. Hyde smiled. “He made a mistake.”
The scene had been set so well. An almost perfect match for Monica’s nightmares.
A whistle from his right. “Stab wound straight to the heart,” Gerry the tech said. “Someone wasn’t playing around.”
No, Monica didn’t play, and that had been the killer’s mistake. He’d thought Monica would play his way.
But the minute he’d taken Monica, it hadn’t been Kyle’s game any longer.
It had been hers.
CHAPTER Nineteen
Monica kept her voice calm and steady as she finished recounting her version of the events that had culminated in the death of serial killer Kyle West. “After Lee Pope distracted the perpetrator,” and got his head smashed in for his efforts, “I managed to free Agent Dante. There wasn’t much time.” She turned her head, barely feeling the ache in her jaw now.
It had been twenty-four hours since she’d walked out of that little cabin in the woods, but she could still see Kyle’s eyes, wide open, staring at Hell. “Agent Dante punched West when he attacked again and managed to get the cuff keys away from him.” A fast move that still impressed her.
“I unlocked my cuffs, managed to get the knife West had dropped, and when he came at me I had no choice but to use deadly force to defend myself and to secure the scene.”
Monica scrambled around the table. The knife was right there, waiting for her. Her fingers closed around the hilt just as Kyle let out a roar of fury.
The gun. No.
She spun around. He had the gun aimed at Luke, aimed straight at his heart. His finger squeezed—
“Watchman!”
He hesitated, started to swing toward her.
She came up on him fast and drove the knife into his chest. As deep as she could.
His eyes widened. His lips trembled as if he would speak.
She twisted the knife, then ripped the gun from his hands.
His knees gave way, and he hit the floor hard.
Monica’s breath heaved as she crouched over him. Blood trickled from his lips. His pupils were dilating, blackness spreading.
A moan bubbled in his throat.
She knew her weapon had found its mark. In that split second, there’d been no time for taking chances. She’d had to stop him, and she’d gone for the kill.
Monica yanked the knife free. Blood splattered in the air. Leaning down, she put her lips close to his ear. “Are you scared?” she whispered.
Monica felt his nod against her cheek even as she smelled death approaching.
“Good.” She drew back and finally gave him a smile of her own. “Hell’s waiting, a**hole.”
His eyes widened. A gurgle rose in his throat. He lifted his hand, bloody fingers reaching—
And went to Hell.
The hand fell back against the floor, and his breath choked away.
The door flew open behind them. “FBI! Don’t move!” Kenton yelled.
The cavalry had arrived. Too late. She’d expected them sooner. Bastard must have broken my cell phone, messed up the signal.
Figured. Kyle had known all the tricks.
He’d been prepared for her.
But then, she’d prepared for him, too.
She stared into those sightless eyes. It looked like she’d been wrong. Kyle wouldn’t spend the rest of his days rotting in a jail with Romeo.
Romeo would be all by himself. Just what the bastard feared. She knew his fear. Knew what scared him most. She’d learned the truth in a blood-stained room years before when the cops took her away from him and he’d been the one to scream—for her.
Romeo wanted someone to share his darkness. Someone who understood death and horror and fear. Someone just like him.
But he’d lost her, and he’d lost Kyle. Now he was alone.
Exactly what Romeo deserved.
Hyde shoved through the door right behind Kenton. His gun was up, steady and tight in his grasp.
The scent of blood hit him first. The stench of death.
Monica rose from the chaos. Her shirt was stained with blood, and there was a dark, purple bruise on her forehead that skimmed down the side of her face. She lifted her arms slowly, and he saw that she had a knife clenched in her right fist.
“Suspect is down,” she said simply, and her voice didn’t shake. Didn’t so much as tremble. Rock steady and cold.
Not the girl she’d been. The woman she was.
This time, she’d taken down the killer.
And sometimes, so many times, he wished he’d let her take down the other bastard.
But then what would she have become?
And what is she now?
She dropped the knife. “Vance Monroe… he’s Kyle West. He killed his mother sixteen years ago, murdered Saundra Swain, Sally Jenkins, Patty Moffet…” she swallowed, “Laura Billings, and he-he attacked Special Agent Samantha Kennedy.”
What is she?
A f**king fine agent.
“Monica.” Dante’s voice. His was boiling with emotion—fury, fear, need—the opposite of Monica.
He’d always been her opposite. Hyde had known that from the first moment he saw them together at Quantico. The two of them together were one powerful team.
When Monica heard Dante’s voice, she blinked, and the ice melted away. “Luke.” She spun and lunged for him.
Dante sat up on some kind of makeshift operating table. Long, thick straps held down his legs and his h*ps and, shit, it looked like the killer had been carving him up.
“Got an injured agent!” Hyde yelled. “Get the EMTs in here now!”
Two deputies lay on the floor. Vance Monroe wasn’t breathing, and he had a gaping stab wound in his chest. Lee Pope’s chest was rising and falling, but he looked like shit.
“Deputy down!” Kenton called.
Down, but still alive.
And his agents had survived. Hyde tried to take a deep breath but the stench of blood choked him.
Way too much blood. The EMTs needed to move their asses. Monica threw her arms around Dante. Held him tight.
Crushed her mouth to his.
Not ice.
Not anymore.
Luke pulled Monica against him. He buried his hands in her hair, and he tilted her head back.
The better to take her mouth.
Fear pumped through his blood. Too close. Nearly lost her.
His lips closed over hers. His blood smeared her, but he didn’t care. That bastard had tried to take her away. When Kyle or Vance or who-the-hell-ever he was had gone across that table after her…
My heart stopped.
The killer had played him well. He’d been trapped, helpless to fight back, and he’d known what was coming for him.
Then she’d come for him. Gotten him free. Saved his ass.
And killed the serial.
His fingers tightened in her hair. She was real. She was alive. He could feel her heart pounding, racing just like his.
Safe.
Never letting go.
“Ah… Agent Dante…”
His lips pressed harder on hers.
“Dante…”
Hyde’s voice. Probably should care that his boss saw him devouring her mouth, but he didn’t give a damn.
Monica was alive. He was alive—and this was just the beginning for them.
“You have to let the EMTs look at you—both of you.”
Luke pulled away from her. Monica was hurt.
Kyle had punched her hard, and her jaw was already swollen, darkening to match the bruises on her face and forehead.
“Do I look as bad as you?” she asked him quietly, and it took him a minute to realize the woman was joking.
“Baby, you look beautiful.” To him, she always did.
“Oh, Christ,” Kenton muttered from somewhere behind them. “He must have head trauma. EMTs!”
But Monica smiled at him.
The EMTs swarmed. “Blood loss… close the wounds… possible concussion…”
They pushed between him and Monica. Her smile dimmed and she slipped back.
He grabbed her hand. His hands were wet with blood. Didn’t matter. He caught her fingers. He knew he’d never really know—not completely—what those dark times with Romeo had been like for her.
Romeo let me watch.
Had the sick f**k made her watch him hurt those women? Or had she just been playing a dangerous mind game with Kyle? A game that had worked. She’d gotten free and killed the a**hole.
Either way, it wouldn’t change things for him. They’d deal with her past and his, and they’d face the future.
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
And she nodded.
Monica’s fingers twined with Luke’s as they carried him out on the stretcher. The blinding sunlight hit her first. So bright.
She’d gone into darkness before. When Hyde had come for her years before, it had been so dark.
The swirling ambulance lights were there just like before, cutting through the trees with red and yellow lights.
Deputies, so many men and women she’d never seen. Probably called in from other counties. Swarming around, racing to secure the scene.
Just like before.
And the stares… those were like before, too. The wide eyes when they saw her. The mouths that parted in surprise.
Luke’s fingers tightened around hers.
Not alone. Saved someone this time.
The EMTs shoved Luke into the ambulance. His fingers broke free from hers.
She glanced back.
That place—so like the prison she’d known.
But it was just an old cabin. So small, really.
Hyde stepped outside and watched her with his hands on his hips.
There would be questions. There always were. The scene had to be secured. Reports needed to be written.
And the news crews—the vultures would be swarming soon.
“Monica?” Luke’s voice.
She nodded to Hyde, then climbed into the ambulance.
“Ma’am, you should lay down. We need to check your head, your pupil response is—”
She ignored the EMT and ran her fingers down the side of Luke’s face. “You sure you can handle me?” Because she knew the darkness inside her would never go away. She’d been marked too young. She’d carry that mark to the grave.
But Luke was different. Trying to save the world. Because of his mother. It made sense now.
She hadn’t been the only one to keep secrets.
Maybe that had been part of her attraction. Luke was a hero, wanting to help, to protect.
Had he sensed what she was inside? Lost and alone.
His lips curved. “I’m sure.”
And so was she.
“You’re not getting rid of me,” he told her. “Not again.”
Good. Because if she lost Luke, it would tear her world apart.
The driver slammed the back doors of the ambulance. One, then the other. She leaned in close to him, remembered the smell of death and the demons from the past.
No, no more fear.
“I love you, Luke Dante,” she whispered, and the sirens wailed as the ambulance lurched forward.
Hyde watched the ambulance pull away. Another EMT crew was busy hauling out Lee Pope. The deputy was coming around again, talking fast, slurring as he said, “V-Vance hit me.… H-he… came at me… I-I don’t…”
Understand.
No, he wouldn’t.
“It’s okay, Lee. Everything’s going to be fine.” A female deputy, a small woman with tears trickling down her cheeks, hurried by his stretcher.
“Mel… what—wh-why?” The deputy’s voice seemed lost.
Hyde would have to talk with Monica. He’d get her full report and find out just what the hell had gone down here.
But right now, the facts were simple. Their killer was dead. Monica had said Vance Monroe was the serial, and he believed her.
The whys—he’d deal with all of them later.
Right now, he had a scene to secure.
Sheriff Davis came out shaking his head, rubbing his eyes. Hyde’s mouth tightened. “It’s over, Hank.”
Hank blinked and raised his chin. “H-he was the one… who told me to contact you….”
Hyde’s gaze narrowed.
“After… after the second body… he said he’d read about a department in the FBI… hunted killers.” He swallowed. “He mentioned your name, I—it clicked for me.… I called you.”
A set-up.
The guy had probably been tracking his team for months. Studying them all and digging into their pasts. No wonder he’d been so prepared for Sam. He’d probably known what she feared long before the team came down South.
Going head to head with his agents must have been the ultimate challenge for the Watchman.
One he’d lost.
“It’s over,” he told Hank again. “Tell your people that their county’s safe again.” It would be a hard sell. Folks would feel betrayed, afraid, especially when they found out a deputy had been doing the killing.
But they’d heal. The thing about people—they always healed.
Maybe not perfectly. The scars stayed, sometimes deep inside, where you couldn’t see them, but the wounds healed.
Monica had taught him that.
He strode inside the cabin. Crime scene techs were already there, snapping pictures of the body. Dusting for prints. Searching for DNA and every scrap of evidence they could find.
In death, Vance Monroe aka Kyle West didn’t look so fierce. But then, he’d never looked particularly fierce to Hyde. Sometimes, killers could hide behind the simplest of disguises.
Like a smiling face.
Or a badge.
“Hyde, did you see this?” Kenton demanded.
Hyde glanced over his shoulder. The agent stood next to an open door. A closet. Barely big enough for a person to stand in.
“The inside of the door knob was removed, but it—it looks like someone punched through the wood that was put there.”
Monica’s knuckles had been bloody. Hyde smiled. “He made a mistake.”
The scene had been set so well. An almost perfect match for Monica’s nightmares.
A whistle from his right. “Stab wound straight to the heart,” Gerry the tech said. “Someone wasn’t playing around.”
No, Monica didn’t play, and that had been the killer’s mistake. He’d thought Monica would play his way.
But the minute he’d taken Monica, it hadn’t been Kyle’s game any longer.
It had been hers.
CHAPTER Nineteen
Monica kept her voice calm and steady as she finished recounting her version of the events that had culminated in the death of serial killer Kyle West. “After Lee Pope distracted the perpetrator,” and got his head smashed in for his efforts, “I managed to free Agent Dante. There wasn’t much time.” She turned her head, barely feeling the ache in her jaw now.
It had been twenty-four hours since she’d walked out of that little cabin in the woods, but she could still see Kyle’s eyes, wide open, staring at Hell. “Agent Dante punched West when he attacked again and managed to get the cuff keys away from him.” A fast move that still impressed her.
“I unlocked my cuffs, managed to get the knife West had dropped, and when he came at me I had no choice but to use deadly force to defend myself and to secure the scene.”
