I couldn’t fucking believe this shit.

“You need to get back into bed, Mr. Killian. The swelling hasn’t decreased as much as I’d hoped. Your rage is a side effect of your injury. The prefrontal cortex is in charge of abstract thinking and thought analysis. It’s also responsible for regulating behavior. I don’t believe—”

I laughed. “The bump on my fucking head isn’t the cause of my behavior; it’s because my woman is missing.”

Mo placed himself in front of the doctor. “Kill, this is serious. If you don’t let yourself heal, you might suffer long-term effects.”

“Yes, like … eh …” The doctor scrambled. “Your normal reactions and moral judgments might be impaired. Choices between right and wrong could be compromised. You won’t be as quick to predict probable outcomes. The prefrontal cortex governs social, emotional, and sexual urges.”

“I don’t fucking care!” I roared. “All I care about is getting her safe. Healing can come later.”

“But you might not heal correctly if you damage yourself further!” the doctor yelled, finally finding some balls. “I refuse to sign you out until you are well. You’re my patient. Your recovery is on my conscience!”

Putting one bare foot in front of the other, I shoved aside Mo and towered over the doctor. “Listen to me, and listen good. I am no longer your patient. I can take care of my fucking self and if that means I damage myself in order to save her, then so be it.” Bending so our eyes were level, I glowered into his mousy brown ones. “Get it?”

He swallowed. “Fine. I’ll let you leave. But you’ll sign a waiver saying you refused treatment in case you become a damn vegetable.” In a flurry of blue scrubs, he dumped the clipboard on my abandoned bed and shot out of the room.

“Kill, you really should stay. Everything depends on you and that genius brain of yours. How will you run the Club, the trades—shit the whole fucking operation if you can’ t—”

I snarled, “Shut it, Hopper. This is the way it has to be. I won’t waste another moment arguing when Dagger Rose has my woman.”

Mo sighed. “Despite what you think of us, we did send a couple of men to the compound to spy and report back. They say they’ve seen her. She’s alive and unharmed, Kill. You could afford to heal and let us take care of this.”

That didn’t make me calm down. If anything, it made me worse.

I couldn’t speak. I only glared. It was enough for Mo to shut his hole and nod.

My father had Cleo.

The same fucking father who’d orchestrated an entire murder, sent me to life imprisonment, and left my lover to burn.

I’ll fucking kill him.

Screw my plans. Screw my vengeance. I wanted his soul. And I wanted it now.

The heart monitor squealed as my pulse skyrocketed with another dose of adrenaline. Reaching down the front of my hospital gown, I ripped off the sticky sensors and threw them on the floor. “Call reinforcements. The entire crew. We’re going after her.”

Grasshopper grabbed my elbow as I swayed a little to the side. The room faded in and out, an irritating fog consuming my vision. As much as I hated to admit it, the doc was right. The ease and supercharged highway of my thoughts was blocked and faulty.

I wasn’t myself.

But it didn’t matter.

“Kill, seriously, man, you’re not in a condition—”

I shoved Grasshopper away. “He’s hurt me for the last time. This time there will be no elaborate schemes, no long-winded plans to destroy him piece by piece. This time … I want his head at my feet, his blood on my face, and his soul hurtling toward hell.” Pointing a finger at Hopper’s chest, I said coldly, “Don’t try to stop me. You’ll lose.”

Hopper nodded. “What do you want to do?”

I know exactly what to do.

My lips stretched over my teeth. “We kill them, of course. Slowly, painfully. I want them to scream.”

Chapter Three

Cleo

We climbed on the roof of the Clubhouse again tonight.

We ignored our parents and stargazed until the bugs drove us inside. Lying beside him, discussing Orion’s Belt and the Milky Way, I’d never felt so close to him. When we’re up there, we aren’t boy and girl or neighbors or even friends. We’re infinite … just like the stars shining upon us. —Cleo, diary entry, age twelve

More time passed.

How much, I had no idea. There was no way to tell.

Hunger twisted my stomach, my head ached from dehydration, and my bladder was uncomfortably full.

I’d investigated until I’d memorized the pattern in the brown carpet and become best friends with every streak in the terribly painted walls. There wasn’t a rusty nail, paperclip, or even a pencil to turn into a weapon.

Nothing.

No tool to pick a lock or phone to call for help.

But I had a more pressing problem: I couldn’t stand another moment without a bathroom.

As much as I didn’t want to bring attention to myself, I had no choice.

Swinging my legs from the bed, I stomped over to the door and banged on it. “Hey!”

I paused, straining my ears for any movement outside.

Only silence returned.

I hammered again. “I need the bathroom!”

My mind left the confines of the room and traveled through the house that I’d been in so many times as a child. Would it still look the same? The Killian household wasn’t big: three bedrooms all joined by a short narrow corridor with one bathroom in the middle. The lounge was open plan with a kitchen where Art and I would spend many hours watching his mom bake and complete our homework.