(Theme Song of the Chapter: Animals - Maroon 5)

Sophie◆Cruz

HIS EYES POURED in to me as he sucked in a breath.

"Get out, Sophie." He demanded.

My heart pounded as I fumbled for the door handle, my fingers trembling. The rain pelted against the windows, masking the sound of my panicked breaths. I hesitated, staring into Aiden's fiery eyes, hoping for a glimmer of sincerity.

"Don't make me tell you again..." He added, his deep voice cutting through the drumming rain.

I took a deep breath, finally pulling the handle and pushing the door open. The cold rain instantly soaked me, but I hardly noticed as I stepped out, my eyes locked on Aiden. He motioned with the gun, urging me to move faster.

"Aiden, what's going on?" I managed to ask, my voice shaking as much as my hands.

Aiden's expression softened for a split second, a flash of something crossing his face, but it was quickly replaced by that same burning spitfire of  intensity.

"Just follow my lead and you'll be fine," he said, his voice almost pleading.

Follow his lead?

I barely knew this man.

My eyes trailed down to Earl's body on the wet ground, and I let out a choked sob. The sight of him motionless and soaked by the relentless rain sent a wave of nausea through me.

"We need to call an ambulance! We need to try to get him help." I pleaded causing Aiden to snap his eyes to me with a look that silenced my cries.

"Sophie...you don't know what kind of man that was." He said lowly.

Was. His words affirming what my mind didn't want to grasp.

Was Earl a problematic creep? Yes. But did he deserve to die in his own puddle of blood? I mean he was a father, a husband—a horrible one at that. He still meant something to numerous people.

Aiden crouched over Earl's body, his gloved hands rifling through the man's pockets. He muttered a curse word when he pulled out a crumpled piece of cloth, shoving it back with irritation.

"W-We'll tell the p-police it was self-defense. He's dying! We can't leave him here."

Aiden's mouth twitched into a smirk. "We're not."

I shrieked as another large and strong man emerged from the passenger seat of Aiden's dark car parked a few feet away.

"Clean this shit up. Call Monte; he can get this sorted smoothly with the press. He's missing. Period. This scumbag was a troubled family man running from the law, got it?" Aiden ordered.

The man nodded, his expression cold and unflinching. "It wouldn't be a lie," he retorted.

My eyes widened as I watched the two men, my heart pounding in my chest. The stranger moved toward Earl's body with a disturbing level of ease, while Aiden's grip on my arm tightened, pulling me further away from the scene.

Oh my gosh.

Aiden Accardi was a calculated, sociopathic genius. He had no intention of getting this man any help. He was spinning a narrative.

"Get in the car, Sophie," he growled, his hand on his opened car door.

He was holding the door open for me—such a normal chivalrous act that held such a different tone at a moment like this.

"No, not until you explain to me—"

"Get in the fucking car," His grip on the door tightened, the metal creaking under the pressure of his hand.

Maybe there was a perfect explanation for this? There was a legitimate reason for this man's death, right? I mean Earl was following me and being heavily confrontational. Like Antonio said...there were those that acted out of need and those who acted out of want.

I wanted to believe Aiden acted out of need. I wanted to believe that this was a one time thing, but based on how coolly he was handling himself and the fact that he had "clean up" on speed dial, I knew that was the contrary.

I get inside the passenger seat of Aiden's car. Aiden shut the door before he made his way around his car and slipped into the driver's seat. I watched as he calmly took off his gloves tossing them in the back seat of his car.

"M-My c-car..." I whispered.

"Matteo will take care of that." Aiden responded starting the car.

Aiden Accardi had clearly done this before.

"We need to get him—"

"He's dead, Sophie," he snapped before I could finish my sentence.

I sat in silence as the car sped off into the night, my hands trembling in my lap. I kept my eyes away from the imposing man next to me.

"Are you a serial k-killer or s-something?" I asked, the pent up anxiety taking a toll to my voice.

I wanted him to deny my accusations, to tell me this was all in the name of self-defense. But, mysterious as ever, he wasn't saying much of anything. He just let out a low baritone laugh, then clenched his fist on the wheel and tilted his head back.

I looked at him in horror. How could he laugh about this?

"I'm worse than that, sweetheart."

Realization crashed over me like a wave. Aiden was a murderer, a cold-blooded killer. He was not merely the notorious powerful socialite and businessman of Miami city, but he was notorious in the darkest of ways.

And I couldn't live with this knowledge, couldn't be complicit in his crime. I couldn't live with a murderer.

"Aiden..." I whimpered. "I wanna get out. Drop me off at the nearest bus station. I wanna go back to my apartment."

He didn't say anything, but his foot pressed down further on the accelerator.

"Okay..." I breathed out, trying to keep my cool despite feeling my very being beginning to unravel. "I get it. You can't just release me, right? Because then you put yourself at risk?" I said knowingly, but the man kept his eyes fixed on the road, not giving me any reaction.

"How about I tell you one of my crimes in exchange as insurance that I'll stay silent?" I leaned forward, my hands gripping the edge of the seat.

He didn't respond, but I heard him let out a low chuckle.

I took a shaky breath, nervous and ashamed of what I was about to reveal. "I got a speeding ticket a month ago that I still haven't paid for."

I know. It was horrible of me. I was planning on paying it off last week, but it slipped away from my priorities.

Aiden didn't seem fazed by my confession. In fact, I could see his lips twitch into a humored smirk.

"Such a horrible offense..." he said sarcastically. "You deserve life in prison. No parole."

Very funny. I wished I could wipe that smirk off his stupidly handsome face. But the gravity of the situation loomed over me, and his mockery only heightened my fear. I was trapped in a car with a murderer, and I had no idea how to escape.

"Aiden," I whispered his name, the very simple act now chilling me. "I quit, okay? So I no longer work for you and you need to let me go home."

"No," The word left his mouth like a thundering finality.

His eyes stuck to the road and I could see his jaw tick for a brief second. The veins in his inked arms were still so prominent in the dark.

"You're gonna sit your little self in that fucking seat and you're gonna shut that mouth of yours, understood?"

Fear gripped me as I sank back into my seat, realizing any hope of escape was slipping further away with every passing mile.

◆◆◆

We were now back in his estate, and inside his luxurious mansion with the lights from the moon illuminating the inside of the house from the windows. It was quiet and all his staff seemed to be gone.

He held my hands, his fingers causing shivers to run up my spine, leading me into a specific area of his house before I felt myself enter a room.
I could hear Aiden shut the door to the room and turn on lights.

With the lights now on, I shuddered at the sight of blood on me...Earl's blood. We were in a large bathroom.

The bathroom was vast, with sleek marble tiles stretching across the floor and up the walls, reflecting the harsh, cold light from the elegant overhead fixtures.

A massive, ornate mirror dominated one wall, its pristine glass now a haunting backdrop to my terrified reflection. The room, despite its luxury, felt sterile and unwelcoming, amplifying the dread gnawing at my insides.

I watched enough true crime documentaries to know this was enough to send me to prison. I was technically an accomplice to murder.

"Wash up," His deep voice sounded in my head, echoing off the walls before he left the bathroom abruptly.

My fingers shook as I gripped my shirt before prying it off my body and tossing it to the side in disgust. I took off the rest of my clothes before filling the bathtub with water and settling in.

The water turned a light red as I cleansed my body. My breathing quickened and I panicked at the sight washing myself as quickly as I could and draining the water. Still feeling dirty, I went to the shower and rinsed my body off for a couple of minutes before finishing up and wrapping one of the hung towels around my body.

His heavy steps sounded as Aiden made his way back inside the bathroom. His eyes were steady on me, and he handed me a large T-shirt that I assumed was his.

I hesitantly took the T-shirt in my hands before my eyes fell to the floor.

"Why kill him?" I questioned him, the strength in my voice now back.

"He wronged me." Aiden replied, the cold tone in his voice apparent and unyielding.

I shivered. "This isn't normal. Normal people don't go around shooting people in some vigilante attempt at justice. We need to call the police, okay? If what he did to you was so bad that you deemed it justifiable to kill him, I'm sure that will be factored into the case."

I was certainly bluffing. But I couldn't remain an abetting witness to this crime.

His face flickered with something dark, he could read right through the nonsense I was spewing.
"Normal?" The word escaped his lips, filled with such ridicule.

His pearly white teeth are now full on display and the intensity of that look—the brooding
calculative stare—said more than words could. "Now you want normal?"

He slowly closed the little gap in between us and I felt myself growing small.

"I get you, a sweet innocent woman, to quit her stable job at some mediocre clinic by offering you pay–pay that not even Bezos would cough up—so that you could privately work for me."

His feet stopped right in front of mine, I could feel his cool breath on my skin. His menacing eyes don't break their contact with me. The heat of his body from our close proximity felt like a blanket over my body.

"You live in my house, under my roof. I call you whenever I need you and I can disregard you whenever I see fit."

He clicked his tongue, the craze in his eyes never vanishing.

"And just a couple of days ago you were looking so good with my fingers inside you." He spat. "And you enjoyed every second of it."

As he spoke, his brash words humiliated me.
"How the fuck...was any of that normal?"

He was right. The twisted reality of his words sank into me like a stone. The luxury, the power and pleasure—it was all a facade for something darker, something far beyond normal.

The very air around us seemed to thicken with his dominance, making it clear that I was utterly trapped in a world I had barely begun to understand.

"You don't get to make a deal with the devil, and then try to play by the rules now." He spoke smoothly.

Aiden Accardi was the devil and I had made a deal with him unbeknownst to what this man was truly involved in.

"And to think that sick fuck was trying to knock you unconscious and there you stand trembling in sympathy for him." He continued on, studying me. "There was chloroform in his pocket."

My stomach sunk further. His words confirmed what I knew deep down. Earl was trying to to hurt me.

But for some reason, I still couldn't bring myself to justify Aiden's actions. Because one monster saving me from another, didn't make me feel any more safe.

It didn't change the fact that he was still a monster.

"You're a murderer." I said. "You killed that senator too, didn't you? Well, I'm not abetting a crime. I'm going to the police–"

Aiden's hand reached for my jaw and grabbed it firmly. The gun he concealed in his pocket was now in his hand and I could see him rotate it.

"And sweetheart, as you have just seen, I have the power to make things go away...real easy."
My breath hitched as his dark chocolate eyes continued to investigate me.

"You have blood on your hands..." I whispered.

His gaze flickered down to my neck. He licked his lips before tracing the necklace on my neck with the gun in his right hand, the cold metal giving me goosebumps.

"Did you buy this with the first check I sent you?" He questioned, the edge in his voice still present. "My very own blood money all around your pretty little neck."

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