Blood to Dust (38 page)

Camden Archer wasn’t difficult to find.

He’s been all over the news, giving interviews about the death of his father. He said he died in his sleep, probably because he didn’t want to tell the world the horrid, revolting truth. Camden’s now officially the heir to his father’s businesses, and the last thing he wants is for people to find out just what happened at his father’s place the night Pea took his life.

Archer’s long awaited wedding to Lady Hilary Thompson (can you believe that shit? The guy who raped my girlfriend continuously is marrying a
lady
) is off. I’d say I feel sorry for him, but the truth is, I can’t wait to meet him so he can get to know my fist.

One thing’s for sure—Camden Archer knows that we killed his old man, and that we’re coming for him. His death won’t be as easy as Sebastian’s, or as lucky as Godfrey’s. We’ll need more. More resources, more planning, more luck. More fucking everything.

According to the news, Camden flew to California to deal with his father’s funeral arrangements, and will be back next Friday. We’ve got a plan mapped out for him. He’ll go back to his father’s house in Kent, thinking we’ll be waiting on him near his Marble Arch apartment in London.

But he’ll be wrong. We’ll be waiting in Kent. This time, with actual weapons and a detailed strategy of how to take him down.

As we wait for him to arrive back in England, we get some down time. The last four days have been nothing short of fucking heaven.

The minute we landed in London, Pea and I checked into Piccadilly Backpackers, a hostel in the center of the English capital. We’ve been sharing communal showers and toilets with high school graduates from all over Europe and Australia and sleeping on the same level in a bunk bed, curled into one another like sardines. We eat Kettle chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner and drink pints of Guinness at the Dublin Castle in Camden Town. At one point, we even decide to splurge and spend a few pounds to get into the Music Room and listen to a local indie band perform.

The band is shit but we don’t care. We make out on a wooden bench the whole time. My hands slide into her new Primark skirt (she made us go all the way to Tooting Broadway because she didn’t want to visit the Primark in Marble Arch. It reminds her too much of Camden.) I finger her through soaked panties in front of a bunch of drunk people we don’t know. Stifling her moans against my lips. Making her come against my whole fucking fist.

We go to Madame Tussauds and I take a picture of her cupping David Beckham’s balls, and she takes a picture of me pretending to plow into Kylie Minogue from behind.

Subsequently, we get kicked out of Madame Tussauds, but we’re laughing so hard while stumbling out, our abs hurt. It’s definitely worth the slap on the wrist.

We sneak into buses and stand for two fucking hours in a London Eye capsule next to a Japanese couple who are fighting furiously and their kid, who smears snot all over the glass.

At night, I hold her so close my heart expands, filling every inch of my body. I make love to her and make hate to her, because sometimes, the best kind of sex is the angry shit you just want to screw out of your system.

But in London, Prescott doesn’t ask for Beat. She asks for Nate. For the first time in my life, I dig inside myself, trying to find who he is. How he’d act in bed with the woman he loves.

Turns out I can be a gentle little shit. Not vanilla, I still like to bite and pinch and pull at her nipples and her clit until she swats my shoulder and twists away, but Prescott introduces me to something called ‘relationship sex’.

“It’s basically a lazy fuck,” she grinds herself on top of me cowgirl style, placing her fingers on her lips, kissing them and then brushing them against mine. She moves leisurely, and I enjoy my view, a relaxed smirk on my lips. “It’s how people fuck when they’re not being chased by the whole goddamned world,” she winks.

“Hmm,” I slide my hands up and down her body, rubbing her nipples with my thumbs before moving down to flick my finger over her swollen clit. “I ain’t familiar with this concept, and frankly, don’t care for it. What the fuck am I supposed to do with my life if no one’s after my ass?”

“Live it,” she pants, relishing my touch on her skin. I pinch her clit and bite her wrist. “Enjoy it.”

“I do enjoy it,” I suck on her fingers. We hear the Italian girls in the next room giggling. They’ve been eavesdropping on us having sex for days. “Do you enjoy fucking me as much as you enjoy killing people, Cockburn?”

“Yes,” she pants. “Of course.”

I hook my finger into her pussy and curl it. That’s when she bends down to kiss me and I whisper into her face. “Because sometimes I think you’re hungrier for blood than you are for cock.”

She comes on top of me, shaking and smiling, and I come inside her, groaning and laughing.

I could get used to that. Live like this forever. I’d take the fucked up Burlington-Smyth baggage she brings along with her, Preston included. But my girl wants to kill the man who ruined her, and we’ll do it, one way or the other.

She’s got one more piece of her soul to collect.

Dealing with Camden will burst our bubble. After we’re done, we’ll figure out where we want to live, what we want to do.

Today, we are going to go over our plan to corner him after his father’s funeral. We sit at a small coffee shop in Chelsea, expensive as fuck but this place is dear to Pea’s heart. It’s where she often ran away from her cheating boyfriend to window shop. I stand up from my seat, stretch, gulp my small shot of espresso in one go and slam it against the wooden table.

“I’m going for a piss. Wait here.”

“Worry not, I’ll never leave your side,” she says with a wink.

I kiss her lips and walk toward the restroom. While taking a leak, I whistle and watch my cock through lazy eyes. It’s been buried in Prescott’s pussy and ass so many times recently, it can practically call them home. I wash my hands and look at myself in the mirror, and the shit-eating grin I’m sporting these days will have people thinking that I’m happy. Shockingly, I am. I’m really fucking happy, for the first time in my life.

I’ve been through so much shit, killed so many people recently, and still, I’ve never felt more alive.

Alive because there’s another heart I need to live for.

It’s beating against mine every night.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

I look down at my phone, texting a guy from Brixton who offers muscle for hire. We’ll need all the help we can buy when we strike Camden in Kent. Typing fast, my finger pads furiously tapping the screen, I pause when a whiff of an expensive cologne hits my nostrils. My hands stop, my brows furrow. It’s familiar. . .and revolting.

I don’t dare lift my eyes from the screen.

“
Diabla
,” his low voice is so chilling, he sounds like the reaper himself. “So beautiful, kissed by the Californian sun. Shame you won’t be seeing it ever again.”

I dart up from my seat, about to charge through the door and run for my life, but I’m too perplexed. Camden clasps me in his arms before I get the chance to slip away, engulfing me in an embrace. His arms circle my neck like we’re old friends sharing a moment, and I feel a blade pressing against my carotid artery. People can’t see it. His hand is curtained by my long hair. But it’s there, and the insanity twirling in his sapphires tells me he’s still crazy.
Crazy enough to kill me.

He buries his face in my shoulder as he hugs me tighter, inhaling my scent like an addict snorting a line of coke.

“Show the smallest sign of distress, and I’m slitting your throat and leaving you to die on this floor, sweetheart.”

I gulp, staring at the car that’s waiting for him outside. A flashy Alpha Romeo. I recognize his driver through the rolled down window. Simon. He used to drive me around when Camden and I were together. My ex said we were too good for the tube.

“Follow me. Don’t worry, your lover will join you soon.” He grabs a napkin from under my coffee mug and jots his address down with the same object he threatened me with. One end is a pen and the other is a knife.
Clever
. And so very Camden.

I let him throw me into the backseat of his car for no reason other than the fact I’m in shock. He’s not supposed to be here. Yet he very much is.

Camden slinks onto the leather seat, crossing his legs and lighting a smoke nonchalantly. He stares out the window as he speaks. “You did me a huge favor. I always wanted to inherit the family business. My old man got sloppy with age and with pride. Those are the things that usually kill you.”

Should I attack him? The doors are locked and it’s just us and Simon. Camden is not Nate. He’s not as tall, strong and monstrous. As if reading my mind, my ex-boyfriend shrugs, turning his gaze to me. He blows smoke into my face as he speaks. “See this pen?” he fingers his weapon. “It’s a custom-made blade. Sharp like a hunting knife. It could cut your skin like butter. Gorgeous, really. My fiancée bought it for me for Christmas.”

“Lovely,” I fold my arms over my chest, mimicking his posh accent. “I’m glad she nurtures your inner psychopath. I let it starve for years.”

Camden laughs and tsks, moving closer to me. He brushes my hair away from my neck and kisses it softly, speaking into my skin in a hushed tone. “I’ve missed our banter, Diabla.”

I suck in a breath. The scent of cigarette and expensive cologne suffocates me. “And I wouldn’t go around labeling people as psychopaths with your track record. You murdered my dad.”

“Your dad murdered my soul,” I hiss back, scooting so close to my side of the car, my whole body is pressed against the door. “
And
my baby.”

He lets out a groan, twisting my face by squeezing my jaw in his palm, forcing our gaze to meet. “Look at me now, Prescott. Has my dad really raped you?”

I nod slowly, not breaking eye contact. “I wouldn’t have killed him otherwise.”

His azures drown in my hazels. He’s getting lost deep inside me, and me? I’m pulling him in. I can see it through his dilated pupils. The compassion. The guy who bought me a ticket to London after a first half-date underneath the stars. The guy who fell in love with a girl whose father is responsible for him becoming an orphan. It’s all there, in our messy, dirty truth. His eyes drop to my lips.

“Prescott.” He breathes. He moves to kiss me, and I purse my lips instinctively. “Let me go.”

It’s an order.

“Never.”

It’s a promise.

He kisses me again, this time harder, on the mouth. I gag a little, but remain composed. When his lips leave mine, he’s still gawking at me, taking another silent drag of his cigarette.

“Tell me the truth, Prescott. Is the giant twat a pawn?”

I shake my head slowly. “I’m in love with him.” I find the strength in me to smile. That’s the last thing I say before he smashes his fist into my nose and my eyes roll back into darkness and I see stars.

Nate.

Even before I walk back to our seat by the window, I know something’s wrong. I can feel it in my bones. They’re cold. When I round a corner and Prescott is not seated on the sofa overlooking the busy street, cold turns to hot. When I pace over to where we sat, cutting through charged air that seems to lack oxygen, hot turns to sick. There’s a small napkin on the table with an address scribbled on it. I look it up on Google Maps, unsurprised to see that it’s in Marble Arch.