Chapter 8 CARLOS POV

CHAPTER EIGHT:

I don't have an issue with marriage. I have an issue with Thalia claiming she has a husband.

"I've got to give it to her, Don. She's relentless." Damien's smirk appears as he checks his side mirror, prompting me to do the same.

A brown Dodge Durango trails us, one car behind.

My lips curve upward. Her persistence is admirable.

Since age ten to now thirty-one, all I've known is kill or be killed. Each day bloody boring. I find new ways to entertain myself: leaving them crippled for hours, giving them weapons to end me. None ever could.

My latest game: keeping someone alive for revenge after a mass killing. Watch them plan my death. End them when they show their claws. They think they're in power, but all the while, they're just my source of entertainment.

Like Thalia Easton.

"Lose her at the next intersection."

Damien nods and I tune him out with AirPods-Thalia's, actually. After she fainted, keeping her alive was instinctive. Could've called 911 like Damien suggested, but the thought of her shock seeing me when she woke up won. After the in-house doctor confirmed she's fine, just PTSD symptoms.

I searched her bag for medication or anything she uses tp keep herself alive. Can't have her die before killing me now, would we?

She had none.

So I took her AirPods as a souvenir instead. My would-be killer has exquisite taste in overpriced electronics.

"Lost her."

Satisfaction curls through me at the thought of her frustration.

I've been watching her for over four years now, well enough to know she has anger issues, and I've come to admire how her gray eyes glisten when she crinkles her face in rage. The quick retaliation she displays-sometimes hitting the person, other times whatever object is nearby. Most times, she digs her nails into her palms, attempting control and failing beautifully sometimes.

Her lack of control pleases me immensely.

I increase the sound to drown out Damien's incoming lecture.

The one he's been repeating for three weeks

"You're playing a dangerous game."

Speak of the devil.

Now he thinks I'm insane for making Thalia my PA. I humor him, though.

"It's not a nice game if it ends quickly brother." he glares

"And there's nothing dangerous about entertaining a wet kitten."

Damien's response is to jolt the steering wheel hard right without warning.

The abrupt turn sends me sideways. My skull thuds against the passenger window with an aching crack. Stars explode behind my eyelids.

"What the bloody hell!" I press my palm against the throbbing spot. On God, if he didn't mean so much to me, I'd smash his head through this window.

"She threatened Jerol two weeks ago to tell her our shipment plans." Ignoring my outburst, Damien launches into his prepared speech. "Before winning against me on Friday, she slashed four of our tires.

Four! Then played against us like she's innocent."

My lip curve up at the image of Friday's play. After the death of her family, it was just a mindless monitoring during her high school year. Intrigued to see what a bratty violent kid will do.

Then she got interesting by training under her high school badboy- Vaughn.

"She's not afraid of you, Carlos. That's not the kind of person you hire as your PA."

His worry is becoming nauseating. Everything he finds concerning about her is precisely what keeps me entertained.

The mystery of her next move, discovering her plans before she executes them-it ignites something in me I haven't felt in years.

"She's still a pawn, no matter what. Keep your enemy close and all that..."

THUD!

This time he yanks the wheel left with the energy of a man who's decided vehicular assault is valid communication.

My shoulder slams into the door panel. I taste copper where I've bitten my tongue.

Then an abrupt stop that throws me forward against my seatbelt.

"WHAT THE HELL, BROTHER!"

Like the lunatic he is, he ignores me, staring straight ahead with white knuckles gripping the wheel.

"Did you lose your sight or your limbs?!"

One more of this bullshit and I'll forget he helped me break free from Zara.

"Neither, Terrius!" He only uses my surname when he's furious.

"You lost your damn mind! She's destroying you, and you're burying yourself deeper!"

His voice matches my earlier volume, coated with frustration and my favorite weapon: fear. But I don't appreciate it from him. He looks genuinely scared.

"It's just Thalia. A twenty-three-year-old girl with only six years of fighting experience." The calmness I want to project isn't working. His frustration is infuriating me.

"Just Thalia." Damien's laugh is sharp and humorless.

"Right. 'Just' the woman who slashed our tires, threatened Jerol with his own intestines for information, who blurred the cameras in the apartment you built for her"

"It's for surprise. Future evidence" He glares at me

"To proof I've been watching her too"

He shakes his head then continues

"She carved 'Fuck You' into your windowsill with what I can only assume was her lipstick and sheer spite."

"It was a waterproof lipstick. Dark red. Post violence makeup."

We watched it together and it makes her more interesting. That she could plan such on the spot

"A water...-" Damien closes his eyes briefly, and suck in a breath.

"Carlos."

"Have fun Damien. She's just a wet kitten"

"Don." he looks comical. Nose red and flared. Eyes straight forward with hands gripping the wheels like he assumes It's my neck.

"Love of my life in occasionally violent way." he continues

"You're describing someone who won't hesitate to stab you like a feral cat!"

"She's more precise with her cuts."

"What?"

"If she stabs me, it will be precise"

He presses brake so fast I'd have hit my head, but I'm better prepared.

Never letting him drive again

"HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!"

He thunders, eyes glued on me with hands that flair in the air.

Silence stretches between us.