Judas moved and my attention went back to him, lips parting in equal parts shock and disgust as he brought the side of his glove still wet with my saliva to his nose and sniffed.
“You still use the same mouthwash.”
What the hell? I scooched backward to put some space between us before picking myself up off the floor. A bevy of emotions rolled through my chest as I stared at this intimately familiar stranger. I grasped at one I was well acquainted with.
“Why the fuck are you in our apartment?”
Paying my hostility, the same amount of attention someone would a hissing kitten, he lowered his hand and smoothed out the suit I’d wrinkled.
“You’re still as reckless as ever.” His eyes slowly swept over me from head to toe, “And even more beautiful. Why are you so pretty?”
In a camisole and short set, I wasn’t close to being naked. His predatory regard gave me a strong urge to cover myself. If it weren’t for the pounding of my heart or adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I wouldn’t believe this was real. I had just been watching television with…
Oh, no.
“Rhia!” Audrey called.
Ignoring her, I took off back across the apartment and re-entered my bedroom, flipping on the light as I crossed the threshold. It was a total wreck in here.
Rounding around to the opposite side of the bed, I approached Diego as if he were still sleeping but there was no denying that the man was dead. A small bullet hole was in the center of his forehead.
That must have been what woke me up, the muffled gunshot. I swallowed and reached out to gently close his eyes before covering him with the comforter.
When I looked up, Judas was watching me from the doorway. I refused to hold his stare, focusing on the black duffel bag in his hands. He hadn’t had that just a minute ago and it didn’t belong to me or Audrey, which could only mean he’d brought it with him.
He walked over to my dresser and began pulling open my drawers as if he were looking for something.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping you…” He tilted his head and reached down into the bottom drawer, pulling my vibrator from beneath a pile of leggings. “What the fuck is this supposed to be?”
“Why don’t you shove it up your ass and see?”
“It isn’t doing much if it’s going inside your ass. You need something bigger than this.”
“Just get out!”
“Lower your voice and stop being so hysterical. I came here with a duffel bag. Do some basic deducing. I’m not leaving without you.” He stood and tossed the vibrator down on the dresser. “I can give you ten minutes to pack anything sentimental, but I would appreciate it if you made it less.
“You would appreciate it?” I sputtered angrily. “I would appreciate it if you got the hell out of my apartment, that you’d never shown up here in the first place. And this?” I pointed to Diego’s covered body. “Why did you do this?”
“For the same reason, I got rid of the boy you let touch you in Crudele. You remember what happened back then, don’t you?”
“How could I ever forget? It was the summer you ruined my life.”
“Oh, how I’ve missed your melodrama.” He turned all the way around and tossed the duffel bag onto the bed, then with all the confidence of a man who did whatever the fuck he wanted and answered to no one, he waked over to where I was standing.
He stopped a mere few inches away, making it nearly impossible to avoid looking at him. I still managed, eyeing the duffel bag he’d so carelessly tossed onto my bed beside Diego’s covered corpse.
“We can play a game of hunter and prey for as long as you’d like, principessa. It will always end the same.” He stepped closer and spoke almost directly into my ear. “Pack. Now.”
The command and use of his favorite pet name had my stomach flipping. I lifted my chin to face him head-on. He'd always been taller than I was, but this was much more than that. Everything about him seemed to have been amplified.
His voice was huskier. His features were sharper, the eyes regarding me from beneath dense lashes unnervingly cutting and much prettier than I remembered.
His body was visibly more defined; I could tell by the way his suit fit him. The only thing remotely the same was his head full of tapered dark hair that could’ve been featured in a shampoo commercial, and how smooth his skin was.
He was aging better than the finest wine, but none of his beauty could hide that the boy I once loved was gone. In his place was a man more vicious than he’d ever been. It was evident in the way he carried himself and the dangerous aura too big for my apartment.