Midnight Revenge

by Elle Kennedy

  “He liked to fuck young girls,” D spat out. “Really young ones—like eight, nine years old.”

  Horror coated her throat. “You . . . saw him do that?”

  D shook his head. “Not before that night. He would talk about it, though. All the fucking time. Talk about how tight their pussies were, how much he loved looking into their eyes when he screwed them. He liked seeing how afraid they were, how much pain he was inflicting. I figured it was just talk at first. I spent months at that bastard’s side, and he never once hurt a child in front of me. But the night I killed him . . . he grabbed a little girl off the street.”

  Sofia’s breathing grew unsteady. “He raped her?”

  “Tried to. I stopped him.” Unmistakable pain thickened D’s voice. “It was almost midnight. I don’t know why she was even out on the street at that time of night. She couldn’t have been older than ten, and she was walking down the fucking street at midnight. Gael and I were in the car, heading back to his place in Cancún after trolling the bars. And he . . .” D trailed off.

  Sofia slid closer, resting her palm on his knee. He flinched, as expected, but she didn’t remove her hand. She squeezed his kneecap and asked, “He what?”

  “He slowed down and rolled down the window, started saying shit to the girl. I ordered him to cut it out, but he wouldn’t stop. He just kept up with the disgusting come-ons, invitations to get in the car—that sort of thing.” D’s expression twisted in repulsion. “She got spooked and started running, and that’s when he stopped the car and ran after her. He was nineteen, she was ten. The asshole caught up to her in five seconds flat. He grabbed her and dragged her into an alley.”

  Sofia gasped. “Oh God.”

  “I already told you, there isn’t a God,” D muttered. He let out a breath. “I looked the other way about a lot of the shit Gael pulled, but I couldn’t turn the other cheek that night. I just couldn’t. So I ran after them. Reached the alley in time to see him straddling the little girl. He’d gotten her on her stomach and pulled down her pants, and he was taking out his dick when I showed up.” D cursed angrily. “He smiled when he saw me. Asked me to help hold her down.”

  Rage infused Sofia’s blood. She’d witnessed plenty of gruesome things over the years, seen what people were capable of doing to each other, but she couldn’t imagine standing by and watching a grown man rape a child.

  “The girl was crying, trapped there like an animal. It reminded me of . . .” He suddenly cleared his throat, and whatever he’d been about to say didn’t come to fruition. “I snapped. I stared at his smug face and snapped. I put two bullets in his head.”

  She inhaled. “What happened to the girl?”

  “Gael’s body fell on top of her, pinning her down.” D sounded sick. “I heaved him off her. Christ, she was covered in blood. Drenched in it. I asked her where she lived, and she said right around the corner, but when I came near her, she started screaming and took off running.”

  “You didn’t go after her?”

  “I had to clean up the scene. She made it home okay—trust me, I checked. Her parents filed a police report the next morning, but the cops had no suspects or leads. I made sure Gael would never be found.”

  Sofia swallowed the horror, but not the pride she felt. The pride she let surface. “You did the right thing,” she said quietly. “You saved that girl’s life.”

  D glanced over in surprise. “You’re actually commending me for killing a man in cold blood?”

  “For killing a child rapist, Derek. You did a service to the world.” She meant every word. The thought of Gael Mendez trying to rape a little girl made her want to throw up.

  “Yeah, well, Mendez would disagree with you. His son could do no wrong in his eyes.”

  They went silent again. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking, what he was planning, but her mind was stuck on that one teeny detail he’d almost revealed.

  Before she could stop herself, she reached out and touched his cheek. His face stiffened beneath her fingers, his wariness unmistakable.

  He didn’t like to be touched. She’d noted that the first time she’d ever treated him. It had been six, maybe seven years ago, and he’d arrived at the clinic with a gash on his chest, courtesy of a machete. Every time her hands had made contact with his skin, he’d winced, and not from the pain.

  “What did it remind you of?”

  D tried to ease his head away from her palm, but she curled her fingers around his jaw, cupping his chin.

  “You said that seeing the girl like that—trapped—reminded you of something,” Sofia pushed. “What was it?”

  His muscular chest sagged on a deep exhalation. “Leave it alone, Sofia.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” D glowered at her. “What the hell does it matter?”

  “Because it does. It matters.” She stroked the dark stubble on his cheek and gazed at him, but he was still refusing to meet her eyes. “It matters to me, okay? For once in your life, can’t you let someone in?”

  He began to laugh. Low, humorless laughter that brought a chill to the already cold cell. “You think if you know what happened to me you’ll magically be able to figure me out? Fix me? Baby, nobody can fix me. I’m broken beyond repair.”

  It was the first honest thing this hard, elusive man had ever said to her.

  “I still want to know,” she insisted.

  D rolled his eyes.

  She found herself begging. “Please, Derek. Just . . . please. Tell me who you are.”

  “You know who I am. I’m a soldier. I’m an asshole.”

  Frustration lodged inside her. Sometimes she truly hated him. She hated how closed off he was, how little he cared about others. About her. They were currently sitting in a prison cell, and he couldn’t be bothered to reassure her or comfort her or even confide in her.

  Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have pushed him any harder. But these were not normal circumstances. These could be the last moments of their lives. They could fucking die in here.

  “You were raped as a child,” she said bluntly. When he didn’t respond, her tone went even sharper. “Am I wrong? Because I don’t think I am. I think someone abused you. I think someone took advantage of you and made you feel unsafe and stole your ability to trust. And I think it was someone close to you. Someone close to you broke you, broke your trust.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Am I wrong?” Sofia repeated.

  Several seconds ticked by. Minutes. And then a soul-sucking breath shuddered from his chest. “No. You’re not wrong.”

  Her heart squeezed painfully. “Who was it?”

  “Who the fuck do you think?”

  “Your father?”

  “Yes.” D made a disgusted sound. “But my mother joined in too.”

  Sofia’s breath hitched. “Your parents . . . both of them?”

  “Most families only have one sick fuck to contend with, huh?” He chuckled. “I was lucky enough to have two.”

  “Derek . . .” She had trouble speaking past the lump in her throat. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was a long time ago.”

  His careless answer worried her, because she didn’t believe it was false. He truly didn’t care. It truly wasn’t a big deal to him, at least not anymore.

  “How old were you?” she whispered.

  “I was eight when it first started. Lasted until I was fourteen.”

  Six years. Jesus Christ. His parents had sexually abused him for six years. And he was sitting here reciting the details as if he were reading from a manual.

  “Why . . .” She wasn’t sure how to phrase the question.

  “Why did they do it?” he filled in knowingly. “Because they liked it. They liked screwing their little boy. Well, my father did—he was the one who did all the screwing. My mother just liked to watch.”

  Sofia’s gag reflex almost kicked in. “She . . . watched.”

  “At the beginning she would
hold me down for him,” D said, shrugging. “That was back when I thought struggling would make a difference. But I realized pretty early on that fighting them only got them more excited, so eventually I stopped trying. That made my mother happy.” His jaw tightened against Sofia’s hand. “It gave her time to sit in the chair next to the bed and touch herself.”

  It took some serious effort not to throw up. Tears stung Sofia’s eyes as she tried to tamp down her nausea. She wanted to throw her arms around him. She wanted to comfort him. But she was scared he would push her away.

  “She would watch me the whole time. She got off on seeing my pain.”

  Sofia blinked rapidly, trying hard not to cry. “What happened when you turned fourteen? What made it stop?”

  “I ran away. Lived on the streets for a few years, then enlisted in the army.”

  “And your parents? What happened to them?”

  D’s gaze finally locked with hers. The animalistic gleam there sent fear trickling down her spine. “I killed them.”

  Sofia gulped.

  “The night before I left for basic training, I went back to that house—no, that hellhole—and I killed them.” He smiled. “Him first, of course. Because she liked to watch, remember? So I made her watch. I gutted him like a goddamn fish and made her watch every second of it. But once it was her turn, I didn’t drag it out. I slit her throat and left her on that chair like the piece of garbage she was.”

  Deafening silence crashed between them.

  Sofia didn’t know how to respond. How to react. He’d just revealed himself to be the bloodthirsty monster she’d always secretly believed he was. His macabre description of killing his parents should have appalled her.

  And yet she wasn’t recoiling from him.

  She . . . God, she didn’t blame him. His parents were the monsters. His parents had brutally victimized an eight-year-old boy. How could she ever blame that boy for slaying the monsters when he had the chance?

  “What, no response?” D said mockingly. “No horror? Judgment? I just confessed to slaughtering two people, Sofia. That is who I am.”

  He startled her by holding out his right wrist, drawing her attention to the two lines of black text tattooed there. Two dates. The first dated back more than twenty years ago. The second was about ten years after the first.

  “See these tats? They spell out exactly who I am.” D laughed harshly. “The first date? That’s the first time my father shoved his cock in my ass. That’s the day I saw the world for what it was. And the second one? It marks the night I killed them, those people who called themselves my parents. I’m proud of that one, Sofia. I think back to that night and I feel pride for what I did. No regret, no shame. I would kill them all over again if I could.”

  Her throat worked with each desperate swallow. But her hand . . . her hand stayed on his cheek, her fingertips continuing to stroke his scratchy beard growth. Tenderly. God, what was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she afraid of this man? Why wasn’t she horrified by his confession?

  “Still no response,” he mused. “How much more do you hate me now, baby?”

  Sofia’s fingers trembled on his face. She slowly dropped her hand. “I . . .”

  “You what?” He was taunting her again.

  “I killed someone once,” she blurted out.

  D looked startled by that. Then he snorted. “Good one, Doc.”

  “It’s true.” Unlike him, she did feel shame, bone deep and merciless. “A woman came to the clinic with her two kids, a five-year-old and a seven-month-old infant. Her husband . . . he beat them.”

  D frowned. “When was this?”

  “Three years ago.” She bit her lip. “They lived in a small town about twenty minutes from the clinic. The father worked in an orchard. Picked fruit during the day, and drank himself stupid at night. I guess he got drunker than usual that night, and he totally lost it. Because his dinner was cold when he got home.”

  Sofia battled a burst of disbelief. “His fucking dinner was cold, so he decided to punish his wife by beating the shit out of her. And when she tried to take the kids and run, he hit the five-year-old girl, then snatched the baby boy from her arms and threw him against the wall.”

  D hissed out a breath.

  “The wife grabbed a knife from the table and stabbed him in the arm. Not a lethal wound by any means, but he ended up tripping and cracking his head on the table. Knocked himself right out. She took the kids and ran all the way to my clinic on a broken foot.”

  “How bad were their injuries?”

  “Bad. The mother had a broken jaw, broken foot, fractured ribs, black eyes, dislocated shoulder. The five-year-old got off the easiest—a few bruises and a bloody lip. And the baby . . .”

  Sofia swallowed. “He suffered a skull fracture when his head connected with the wall, but that wasn’t even the biggest concern. His spleen had ruptured, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I’m not equipped to operate in the clinic, and even if I were, I have no experience operating on babies. So I called the medevac and had the family airlifted to the hospital. The baby died on the helicopter, though. Too much internal bleeding.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.” Her heart ached at the memory, then hardened when she remembered what happened next. “The husband showed up at the clinic the next morning, wanting me to treat his arm.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Why wasn’t he arrested?”

  “Because his wife refused to press charges, and the police couldn’t be bothered to arrest him themselves. You know how the cops in that region operate—if it’s not a slam-dunk case, they don’t bother. Without the wife’s testimony, they didn’t see the point in building a case against him.”

  “What’d he do when he showed up?” D suddenly frowned. “Did that bastard lay a hand on you?”

  “No. He was more concerned with the infection in his arm. His wife had stabbed him with a dirty kitchen knife, and the wound was badly infected.” Sofia’s teeth dug into the inside of her cheek. “I refused to treat him. I told him I knew what he’d done and that I’d rather die than help him. So I sent him away, and a couple days later, I found out he died from septicemia. The infection poisoned his blood and he died.”

  D’s voice contained a twinge of satisfaction. “Good.”

  “I took an oath to save people,” she said miserably. “But I didn’t save him. I couldn’t.”

  “He didn’t deserve saving.”

  A choked sound flew out. “I attended the funeral for the infant the week after I let that man die. Have you ever seen a baby’s casket, Derek? Do you know how small it is? It’s fucking tiny. I went to the funeral and stood there next to the baby’s mother, all the while knowing that I let her husband die. But I didn’t feel guilty about what I did. Because you were right the other day—some people do deserve to die.”

  It was the first time she’d ever told anyone about that incident. She’d almost told Chris about it once, but she’d been too afraid he would judge her. That he’d look at her differently. But she wasn’t worried about any recrimination from D.

  Neither of them spoke for a while. Faint sunbeams sliced into the cell through the barred window, forming a pattern of lines on the dirty floor. Dust motes danced in the air, and Sofia watched them swirl in the light, wondering if Sullivan had done the same thing when he’d been here.

  She prayed he was still alive. She’d always liked the guy, no matter how many times he shamelessly flirted with her. Despite his cocky exterior, he seemed like a truly decent man. One of the good guys.

  “I don’t like kissing.”

  D’s abrupt confession made her jump.

  She turned to look at him. “Um. Okay.” Where the hell had that come from?

  “I’ve never liked it. Having someone’s face so close to mine. And their mouth . . . and tongue . . .” His voice went gruff. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She had no idea how else to respond.

  “When you kiss
ed me at the safe house earlier . . .” His pants rustled as he shifted, and suddenly his intense gaze pierced her face. “It felt . . . nice.”

  Even in their current predicament, her heart still did a little flip.

  “I wanna do it again.”

  The defensive set of his jaw brought a smile to her lips. He looked like he was waiting for her to argue.

  But instead she let out a laugh. A strangled, slightly hysterical laugh that caused D’s eyes to flash.

  “Hearing how I indirectly killed a man turned you on?” she blurted out. “Seriously?”

  “No. It’s an idea I’ve been entertaining since this morning.”

  An idea he was entertaining? Gee. He made it sound so romantic.

  Then again, they were in a cell at the moment, the last place where romance could ever thrive. Yet her heart was somersaulting faster now as honest-to-God anticipation rose inside her.

  Which, for some reason, only made her laugh harder.

  “Whatever,” he muttered. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, I won’t.”

  Sofia’s laughter died. His expression had become downcast, his jaw softening in defeat. She was stunned to realize she’d actually hurt him.

  “No,” she said quickly. “I do want it. I . . . I really want it.”

  His gaze found hers again. “I might not like it,” he said awkwardly.

  And for the first time in seven years, Sofia witnessed genuine vulnerability in his eyes. It was enough to send her heart soaring, enough to spur her into his lap before she could stop herself. He looked startled by the sudden movement, stiffening as her thighs straddled his, but she didn’t give him time to back out.

  “Kiss me,” she ordered.

  D’s throat dipped.

  She swept her fingers along the hard edge of his jaw. “Kiss me, Derek.”

  “Ah . . . all right.”

  Using the word adorable in relation to this man hadn’t seemed possible, but right now, it was the only one to describe him. Adorable and awkward, the polar opposite of the cold, self-assured D she’d come to know.