Page 125 of With Spite

I shot forward. “They did?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Here.”

My mouth fell open. “What?”

“Sterling and Torren caught him in the parking lot trying to sneak inside,” he said.

I lowered my voice. “What are you going to do with him?”

His eyes gleamed. “Bury him alive, of course.”

I had no clue what that meant.

In fact, we were all ushered out.

Every last Dixie Warden left, leaving the diamonds we had yet to find behind.

We followed a van to our Airbnb, then Hux ushered me to the van and said, “I want you to make sure it’s him.”

I steeled myself, then glanced inside when they barely slid the van doors open.

“That’s him,” I confirmed, seeing his soulless eyes staring back at me.

He looked unsurprised that he’d been caught and didn’t look like he even cared that his reign of terror was now over.

I stepped away, feeling this weight lift off my chest, and said, “Take him away, Hux.”

He cupped my chin. “Don’t worry about a thing, baby. I got him.”

And I knew deep down in my heart that he did. This man would tear the world apart for me. One serial killer wasn’t going to stop him.

“Guess we’ll have to come back sometime to find my diamond, huh?” I asked.

He winked. “Of course.”

The rest of the night, I didn’t worry about a thing.

I had fun with my new friends.

I went to bed late. And when Hux crawled into the bed with me later that night, I turned to him and knew that it was over.

Randel and Chan wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

Thirty-One

I was a good kid, and it got me nothing.

—Bernice to Hux

Hux

The night before had gone exactly as I’d planned it.

We’d known that he’d do one of two things.

Lie in wait for us to come back, then make a mistake and out himself. Or he’d follow us here and fall right into our trap.

He’d chosen door two, and we’d caught him and taken him out to an abandoned property near the diamond field.