Ho Ho Homicidal Maniac (Murder and Mistletoe #2)

Chapter 24

Nico

The air is fragrant with blood, and when Blake steps inside, I feel as though I could move mountains. I have fulfilled my promise, and while he’s rejected me, the need to ensure he gets home safely is impossible to ignore. Maybe I’m just torturing myself, but what would be the harm in spending the next three days in the car, collecting our last memories together?

But as he limps inside, the pant leg flopping around his bloodstained skin, I see him staring at the pile of minced meat resting on the floor with a letter opener in the eye socket, and I clench my teeth, offering him a nod. “It’s done. He won’t ever harm you.”

Blake lifts his hands, covering his face, and his entire form shakes, as if this was the start of an earthquake. “Oh God, it’s really him… he’s dead,” he utters in a broken voice .

I dash toward him, restless and needy. But when he fills my arms, when his face is buried in my chest, and his lovely, elegant hands slide to my back, I’m at peace in a way I’ve never experienced.

This must be what having one’s heart full feels like, and I kiss the top of his head, shushing my gentle pet. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

He shakes his head, and I pull away, hurt that even now he insists on seeing me as a threat. He’s staring at the glowing red button Carl had managed to push before his death.

“The security will be here in just a few moments.”

My face falls, because this is it—the moment I’m forced to flee and leave Blake to the fresh start he wanted. If he still has the slightest sense of loyalty to me, I’ll never hear from him again, unless I tune in to his podcast. Perhaps the next time he discusses the Christmas Killer, I’ll hear fondness in his smooth voice and entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, something about our brief relationship was real.

But now he can wash his hands of me and pretend my bloodstained chest didn’t make him feel at home.

“I’ll go,” I tell him, but before he can answer, a door slams in the distance.

“No,” Blake says, squeezing my hands. “You don’t have the time. Here,” he tells me, dashing toward the bookcase featuring many leather-clad tomes. He twists his hand, so as not to leave any fingerprints, slots it behind the statue I remember him mentioning, and pulls.

The fancy wooden panels below the shelf pop open and he steps away, gesturing at it as numerous footsteps resonate farther down the hallway.

“Mister Augustus?” Someone calls out, and Blake sucks in a lungful of air before screaming .

“Help!”

I sneak into the narrow space in the wall behind the bookshelf. It feels like a coffin when he locks it in front of my face, drowning me in darkness. I wonder if he’s enticed me in here to safely pass me on to security or the cops. After all, while I stood close or held him in my arms, I could have snapped his neck at the first hint of betrayal.

What he might not know is that I never would have. I would have taken my punishment like a dog that knows its master is angry.

Instead though, as I stay so still I don’t even know if I’m still breathing, Blake has a full-on meltdown on the other side of the secret door, and I have to give it to him that he’s a damn good actor.

One of the guards is helping him deal with what he thinks is a panic attack, as other frantic voices discuss calling the cops over.

I bite my lip, trying not to make a sound as Blake shrieks, screams, and calls his brother’s name before telling all the guards to leave him alone with his ‘beloved brother’.

I admit I might not have been this smart at eighteen.

I’m lost in my thoughts and freeze as the door opens again. Blake’s face is tear-stricken as he lets me out, still shaking from his Oscar-worthy performance. “Quick, you need to go before the police arrive,” he stutters out, grabbing my hand.

I’m so torn. At this point, I want this room to become my tomb, because I’m leaving my heart behind anyway.

But Blake pulls me along, so I follow him to an adjacent room, which has a sizeable table in the middle, and a television mounted high on the wall. But we go straight to a cupboard, and when Blake opens it, I realize it’s one of those kitchen elevators I’ve seen in the movies .

“In here,” he says and urges me with a gesture. “This will take you to the kitchen. Just go back the same way we entered the house. The passage unlocks when you press on a brick with the initials LM .”

“Did I do well?” I ask, needy for his approval even though my job here is done, and we both know I shouldn’t stall any longer.

He blinks at me, dumbstruck, and his face scrunches as tears roll down his cheeks. “Y-yes…”

I cup his face. I could get lost in his forest green eyes. “I’m sorry if I hurt you in any way. You didn’t deserve my silence. I wish you… everything. Just everything . That’s what you deserve. I understand your choice.” Even if I hate it and the monster inside me rattles its cage, itching to take Blake with me, put him in my basement and never let him out.

Blake sobs and hangs his head, squeezing the suit jacket he so obviously liked on me. His voice remains choked, because he doesn’t want to alert the security, but I still hear him when he says, “no, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… and now you need to go. Please,” and pushes at my chest.

But the monster wins and I pull him in for a hungry kiss, uncaring that his brother’s blood is all over us. It’s all teeth, and tongue, and he gives in so pliantly despite the tang of copper. When he pushes on my chest, I let go, but not without one more nip to his tongue for him to remember me by.

There’s commotion in the other room as I pack my bulky form into the small cubical compartment, and no more words pass between us. I just stare at him, not even blinking until the door of the dumbwaiter shuts in front of me and I’m sent down.

It feels like a descent to hell.

Where creatures like me belong.