by Bo Reid
Deception
The Reapers Series Book Two
Bo Reid
Edited by
Chanderella Editorial Service
Contents
Note to Readers
Poem
1. Chapter 1: Anthrax
Agent Talin Marks
2. Chapter 2: Tetrodotoxin
Nash
Hunter
3. Chapter 3: Ricin
Morana
Six Months Ago
4. Chapter 4: Vx
Ranger
5. Chapter 5: Cyanide
6. Chapter 6: Batrachotoxin
7. Chapter 7: Maitotoxin
Talin
8. Chapter 8: Botulinum Toxin
9. Chapter 9: Mercury
Morana
Talin
10. Chapter 10: Arsenic
11. Chapter 11: Ammonia
Ranger
12. Chapter 12: Benzal Chloride
Ranger
13. Chapter 13: Formaldehyde
14. Chapter 14: Chloroacetic Acid
Morana
15. Chapter 15: Strychnine
16. Chapter 16: Hydrocyanic Acid
Ranger
17. Chapter 17: Dimefox
Jason
18. Chapter 18: Ethylene Oxide
Talin
19. Chapter 19: Gallium Trichloride
20. Chapter 20: Oxamyl
21. Chapter 21: Valinomycin
Morana
Talin
22. Chapter 22: Sarin
23. Chapter 23: Zinc Phosphide
24. Chapter 24: Phenol
The End… For Now
Acknowledgments
Further Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Bo Reid
Copyright © 2019 by Bo Reid
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by Chanderella’s Editing Service
Cover designed by GermanCreative
Created with Vellum
Dedication
For those still trying to find their place, you got this, I believe in you, take the leap, and fly.
Note to Readers
Hey beautiful reader you!
First, thanks for picking up a copy of Deception. You don’t know what it means to me to have your support.
WARNINGS, POSSIBLE SPOILERS & ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Deception (Book Two) and the rest of The Reapers series is considered a new adult, dark, medium burn, reverse harem contemporary romance. So, what does that mean? It means our badass female lead, Morana Valdis, will end up with three or more love interests before the series is completed.
This series is not meant for sensitive readers or readers under the age of 18! The F-word is used, as well as other curse words. There are detailed murder scenes. Mentions of depression, and an unconventional suicide attempt. Assaults both sexual and other will be found in this series, in varying degrees of detail.
Even though the series starts out when our main characters are in their teens and contains flashback memories it is a new adult novel.
Our mains will get a happy ending in the fourth and final book — unless I get overly stabby, you just never know.
As always enjoy your Reapers.
— Bo Reid, The Murder Queen
Writing Human Monsters with Heart.
Please visit The Graveyard to become an official Reaper.
Poem
“Walls have ears.
Doors have eyes.
Trees have voices.
Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain.
Beware the snow.
Beware the man
You think you know.”
-Songs of Sapphique
Chapter 1: Anthrax
Morana
“Morana Valdis, you’re under arrest for the murder of Aeron Valdis.”
The words ring in my ears, bouncing around in my brain but I don’t understand them. They don’t make sense. Handcuffs are slapped on my wrists and I’m being read my Miranda rights for a crime I didn’t commit.
There’s irony in here somewhere, being charged for a murder I didn’t actually do after countless kills lay on my shoulders. I could laugh if I wasn’t being dragged down the hallway in handcuffs in nothing but Ranger’s oversized t-shirt. I wasn’t exactly expecting to get arrested this morning.
I just have one problem with this situation, actually, I have several but let’s talk about the main one; my father isn’t dead. At least not last time I checked.
The arresting agent pulls me towards the stairs harder than he needs to. I’m not resisting. I can hear the guys yell and scream from the open apartment door, and the sounds of a scuffle at my back echo down the hall. They’re going to find themselves in cuffs too if they don’t calm down.
“Guys, stop!” I yell over my shoulder as I’m being dragged towards the stairway. “Call my lawyer!”
“Where’s he taking her?!” I hear Ranger yelling, but I’m too far away to hear the agent’s response.
The trek down the four flights of stairs is a silent one, the agent’s grip on my bicep is tearing at my stitches. I can feel the warmth of my blood begin to trickle down my arm. When I look over at him I see the slight smirk on his face as he grips me even tighter.
In the garage, I’m hauled into the back of one of the waiting blacked-out government issue SUVs. The agent leans over to put my seatbelt on. When he pulls back, he roughly cups my exposed thigh, running his hand towards the hem of my shirt. Panic swells in my chest, but I manage to keep my face neutral. I won’t give him what he wants. A reaction, a rise.
But I have to resist every urge in my body that’s telling me to fight him. After Maverick, those urges aren’t easy to fight against.
He leans in close to my ear. “I’ve been after you for a long time, Sweetheart, and I can’t wait to play with you,” he whispers before he nips at my neck and I fight the urge to flinch away from him. Bile rises in my throat that I have to swallow down.
Never react. Never show your hand.
This cannot be happening to me, not after everything I just went through. Gosh, would you listen to me? I’m a murderer, a killer, a psychopath without empathy or remorse, and here I am crying, “oh poor me.”
But I was done with all of that, fucking done. Again, with the irony here. We were done, we were going to walk away. Leave this place behind and walk away from a life covered in the constant red stain of someone else’s blood.
We just spent the last week looking up properties for sale in Aspen, Colorado. We were in contact with a realtor and had flights booked for the end of the week to go look at properties. And then this shit happens?
On top of this just being beyond shady and the timing too coincidental, I get saddled with some crooked FBI agent?
Fuck. My. Life.
What did I do to deserve this? Oh yeah, I killed like, a ton of people, gotta remember that. Sometimes it’s hard; when you don’t feel bad, when your actions don’t weigh down your mind forcing you to feel guilty, those actions are hard to even remember.
My monster’s been quiet, she hasn’t been urging me. There’s been no blanket of coldness and fog, no red haze of f
ire and anger. I’ve just been calm, at peace. For the first time since Hades was taken from me, I feel sane.
But it's more than that, even with Hades I felt the pull of my monster. I could always feel her beating against her inner cage, thrashing to be let out, urging me to accept her. She’s always wanted to bathe in blood and pain. She wanted to revel in the slaughter.
But she’s been quiet, she’s been content.
Until now. Now she wants to lash out, she’s begging me to break out of these cuffs and rip out this agent’s throat. To cut his still-beating heart right out of his chest. I can’t promise I won’t if he fucking touches me again.
When the other agents finally meet us in the parking garage, I see Nash landed himself in cuffs. I can’t even pretend I’m surprised he did something stupid in order to come with me, but that’s Nash. As logical and laid back as he is, he’d never leave me and he’d do anything to protect Ranger and Hunter. I’m sure that’s another reason he’s being hauled into the other SUV and not them.
I see one of the other agents is bleeding from his now broken nose, dripping the prettiest shade of red onto his white undershirt. Nash winks at me through the open door before he’s hauled into the SUV. I bite back a smile and an eye roll; he would get arrested.
It’s strange when you think about everything. I took my first life at fifteen and never even blinked. Countless others have been lost in the last several years, honestly, I couldn’t tell you just how many. But I’m arrested for the one murder I didn’t commit?
If my father’s even dead.
I can’t wait to see what bullshit evidence they think they have on me. I don’t leave behind evidence. There haven’t been any bodies left over in the last few years thanks to the incinerator in our basement. So, if my father is really dead, and if there’s enough evidence leftover to prosecute someone, then this is a setup, and someone just signed their death warrant.
I won’t go down for things I didn’t do. I’ve done plenty of shit in my life to put me in the chair, so I won’t take the fall for the one thing I didn’t actually do. If they want me, they’ll have to get me for something I did, it’s only fair.
The agent that joins us in the SUV turns in his seat and trails his eyes over my bare thighs. “She’s prettier than I thought she’d be. Smaller too. How many murders did you say she’s accused of?”
“No one knows the actual number, but I’d bet it’s in the hundreds,” Mr. Touchy says as he looks at me through the rearview mirror.
I keep my face a mask of indifference. I’m not concerned about bogus charges, and I’m not worried about what they think they know. At least not yet.
“Hey, Sweetheart, want to give us a definitive number?” Mr. Touchy asks from the driver’s seat as we pull out of the parking garage.
I should really get his name, it’s only polite to add actual names to murder lists, at least I think so. It sounds like a nice thing to do if I had a murder list. Maybe I’ll start one.
“For what?” I ask in an innocent voice.
“Body count,” the partner says as he turns in his seat to face me again and I plaster a sugar-sweet smile on my face.
“Eight,” I say as I shrug one shoulder and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.
“You confessing to eight murders, Sweetheart?”
“Oh, murders? Gosh no, I thought we were talking about how many people I’ve fucked,” I reply, batting my eyelashes at him. He scoffs and turns back around to face his partner.
“Yeah right, like a girl that looks like that has only had eight dicks.”
“Who said I’m only fucking dicks?”
Mr. Touchy almost loses control of the car when he jerks around to look at me, and I just smirk.
They’ll be so much fun to mess with, men are so easy. Tease a little pussy in their faces and they lose their fucking minds.
We drive through the streets of Sanorah, the familiar scenery passing the window. The same people opening their shops on main street walking their dogs, and dropping their kids off at school. If my father’s really gone, what will that mean for the people of Sanorah?
We might not be the best people to look to for leadership, but the fact remains that we are the only protection they have. The Valdis name protects this town from the bangers and thugs who would seek to come here and turn the streets into a madhouse.
I might not be the person anyone is looking at to lead when my father stepped down, but better the devil you know and all that. Any Valdis is better than no Valdis.
After a few minutes we pull up to the local sheriff’s station and I feel a small sense of relief, at least I’m not being transported too far away yet. Mr. Touchy gets out of the driver’s seat and opens my door. Making it a point to run his palm up my thigh when he goes to unbuckle my seatbelt, and I make it a point to headbutt him in the nose as I’m pulled out of the SUV.
“Fuck!” he yells and drops his hold on my arm as he reaches up to cup his nose. I slip and almost crash to the ground but I’m able to steady myself on the open SUV door. Blood runs from his hand as he holds his almost broken nose. I’ll make sure to hit him harder next time.
“Oops. I slipped,” I say innocently as one of the agents from the other SUV comes around to see what the commotion is.
“Connors, what happened?” he asks.
“The bitch headbutted me,” agent Connors says as blood drips onto his suit, staining it with a memory of me.
“It was an accident, I slipped getting out of the back seat. These SUVs are just so high off the ground, and I missed the running board when agent Connors pulled me out,” I lie and make my face look as apologetic as possible. It’s not easy when you lack empathy.
“Go get yourself cleaned up. I’ll get her into a room,” the other agent says as agent Connors grumbles something I’m sure sounds like, ‘bitch’.
The new agent looks down at the trail of fresh blood running down my arm. “You going to give me trouble?”
“Of course not,” I say and smile. He wraps his hand lightly around my bicep, leading me towards the station.
“Yeah right. A girl like you? You scream trouble.”
“A girl like me huh?” I ask him and he nods.
“Yeah, I know all about your type. Beautiful, smart, manipulative, parents got you whatever you wanted growing up. Heiress to a criminal network and you got away with murder, literally, but not anymore Miss Valdis. You’re going down. That’s a promise.”
When we enter the station I scan the room, spotting Nash as I watch them lead him into a holding cell. When he catches sight of Connors’ nose he smiles at me, and I shoot him a wink. Yeah, your girls still got it.
The agent leading me stops to talk to someone about where to put me. When he gets the interrogation room number he leads me down the long hallway to the room in the back. The place they take you when they don’t want accidental witnesses.
“What’s your name?” I ask him. He looks at me warily from the corner of his eye as we walk down the station corridor to the interrogation rooms.
“Agent Marks,” he states with such conviction in his title that it’s cute. He actually thinks being an agent will help him in Sanorah. These are still my people.
“Well, Agent Marks, what if I told you that you were wrong about me? And what if I told you that I know all about you?”
“Oh yeah? What do you know?” he snorts.
“Let’s see, I bet you grew up in a small town without a lot of crime. Your dad was a police officer, probably a sheriff deputy, career law enforcement. Something happened in your town, something drastic, an event so heinous that they’d never seen anything like it before. But they never talk about it anymore, it’s like it was erased from history. Your dad was killed as a result.” I watch the ticks of his face carefully; they tell me I’m spot on.
“Being a small town, things were probably swept under the rug, and your dad never got justice. You vowed from a young age to make a difference. To make him happy and to arr
est the bad guys without prejudice. You were recruited by the FBI out of college. Agent Connors is your command leader, and you know in your gut he’s dirty. But you have no evidence to prove that, and so you keep working with him. As the years have gone on you know it's best if he isn’t left alone with suspects or evidence. You try your very hardest to be a good agent, but sometimes cases eat away at your gut until your mind doesn’t know what’s right and wrong,” I say as we stop in front of an interrogation room door.
“You think you know me so well after just five minutes, and a handful of words?”
“Oh agent,” I chuckle shaking my head, “they should really up their training at Quantico. I read people for a living. In my world, you die if you read someone wrong and if you have five minutes to figure them out that’s generous.”
“And what is it that you think I don’t understand about you?”
“Well first, you don’t know anything, you’ve been told something and taken it as Gospel, Bible. That’s not how life works though, agent.”
“Then enlighten me,” he says, dropping my arm and crossing his defensively over his chest.
“Happy to. What if I told you my mother walked out on us when I was three years old? My twin brother was gunned down in front of me at fifteen, and I just got out of the hospital after extensive torture and rape.”
