Lady Killer (Dead Girls Club #2)

35. Lucian

Chapter thirty-five

Lucian

“ W hat do you mean, it wouldn’t be your first time?” I said, working to keep my voice even.

I was starting to understand Locke’s perspective. The little brat got under your skin.

My brother and Everest were increasingly obsessed with her. Even Nixon and Locke seemed to have a fixation with her.

Which was going to make it all that much worse if I had to kill her.

Luz cut off a small piece of steak. “Aaron wasn’t my first kill,” she said and popped the bite in.

“Who else?” Nixon asked, leaning forward on his elbows.

She took her time, chewing her steak slowly. “My mother killed my father and stepmother when I was eight.”

That much I knew already. As a Blackwell, I had heard of a lot of fucked-up shit in my life, done a lot of fucked shit, but her story had left me speechless.

“Technically, I wasn’t involved in the killing, but I knew what she did and never reported her, so you could consider me a very willing accomplice.”

It was no wonder Alister and Ever had fallen so hard for her.

“Who else have you killed?” I said with my jaw clenched.

“Kai Jameson, when I was sixteen, and Asher Rheinhold, just after I turned eighteen.”

I frowned. How had this girl managed to hide so much of her past from us?

Yes, she was stunning, with an air of innocence that belied just how wicked she was. The temptation was understandable, but we were smart enough men not to be led around by our cocks.

“Details,” I ground out. “As per our revised contract. ”

“I didn’t, don’t, have a lot of friends. Mami and I moved around a lot, and school always made more sense to me than people.” Luz dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, still taking her time.

A brat through and through.

“But in tenth grade, I had a lab partner. Neveah Martinez. She was popular and social, everything I wasn’t, but she was also smart, hardworking . . . kind. We weren’t friends, but I liked her.

“She killed herself in February of that year,” Luz said without emotion. “Neveah had been at a party that fall. Kai had been by her side, feeding her drinks all night. Her friends said she was wasted, and that at some point, the two of them disappeared. Rumor was that Kai had photos of her, from that night. Of Neveah passed out and naked.”

Her eyes bore down on me in a challenge. She was testing me as much as I was testing her.

“It was almost too easy to get him alone that night. At another party, just like how he targeted Neveah.”

Locke scoffed. “You were supposedly a loser and they just let you into the party?”

She looked over at him derisively. “Maybe things are different in whatever posh boarding schools you got sent to, but in Texas, the schools are big. The parties are big. A pretty girl can walk in and stalk her prey with ease. ”

Nixon tried to hide a laugh behind his hand. She had Locke there.

The vixen had trained killers wrapped around her little finger. Manipulating idiotic teenage boys would have been child’s play.

“I let him think he was in control, that he had the upper hand.” She smiled.

It was a sly, vicious thing, and for the first time, I saw the true predator lurking beneath her skin.

“He didn’t even question the pills I shared with him, or why mine looked a different from his. By the time he stumbled into the bedroom he wanted to show me, his speech was slurred, his reactions delayed.”

She took a sip of her water.

“The first dose of fentanyl was pharmaceutical grade. I’d measured it out ahead of time to make sure it didn’t kill him. But it did give me enough time to get into his phone. The monster hadn’t even tried to hide the photos.” Her voice grew colder as she stared at Locke head-on. “And she wasn’t the only one. I didn’t have enough time to go through every single one, but I saw enough to know he had to die.”

While she was baiting Locke with her casual indifference, I could see she was also truly secure in her decision to kill the boy .

“I deleted the photos, and from there, it was simple. One more shot of fentanyl, and Kai would never hurt another person again.”

She was just but ruthless.

Luz arched a brow at Locke before returning her gaze to me.

“And no one suspected you?” I asked.

“He was a known partier found with a cornucopia of drugs on him and in his system. No one remembered the girl he had been with that night because everyone was used to overlooking his bad behavior at that point,” she said before pausing to eat another bite.

An exquisite little killer.

“And the other?” Alister had been sitting quietly until now, but it was clear he was engrossed in her every word.

Luz speared the last of her mushrooms with her fork and brought them to her mouth before chewing them slowly. “Asher was two years and two schools later. Mami had passed away that fall, and I was . . . lost without her guidance.”

My fists clenched under the table. Luz clearly had a type as a killer, and I already knew where this was going.

“Maybe that’s why he thought I was an easy target, the new girl whose mom had just died. Maybe he would have gone for me no matter what. Regardless, I didn’t see his . . . attention coming.”

“What the fuck did he do?”

Luz offered Alister a tight smile. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

My taciturn brother growled.

“Don’t worry, Ali, he didn’t get that far,” she said quickly, a rare look of genuine concern gracing her face as she sought to reassure him.

“He was more like Aaron, always around, trying to befriend me . . . Only there was no Autumn for him to use to get close to me.” She sighed.

“For the longest time, he just tried to talk to me. And when he asked me out, I said no. He told me he would get me to change my mind. I said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.” She shrugged before picking up the crucifix that hung around her neck to play with.

“Asher took my lack of interest like a challenge, and over time, he got bolder, more aggressive. He started showing up at my cousin’s house, following me to and from school.” She twirled the cross in her fingers.

“Then he showed up at the nursing home where I volunteered.” Something dark flashed in her eyes.

“It was late—I had stayed past my normal hours to help one of the aides clean up after a party we’d held for the residents. Asher was there, waiting for me in the parking lot.”

She spun the cross faster. “He offered me a ride, and I said no, for what had to have been the hundredth time. It must have been one time too many because he finally snapped and shed his nice-guy facade.”

She turned back to Locke as she continued her confession, her gaze cold and hard. “He grabbed me and threw me up against his car, before slapping me across the face. He said he was tired of me playing games . . .”

The cross stopped spinning, and she shook her head as if waking up from a dream. She looked at me and frowned.

“I can still taste the blood in my mouth, you know?”

Frozen, I said nothing. Did nothing.

Because I did know.

When I didn’t respond, she shook her head again before continuing her story. “So I nodded along obediently when he told me to get into the car. I didn’t argue when he said that we were going out on Friday night.

“Numb with fear, I climbed into the car with him, terrified I might have to kill him then and there.” She looked at me. “I didn’t have a plan, yet. I needed time.”

That I could understand.

“He drove me back to my cousins’, kissed me good night, and told me he was excited for our date . . . I think”—she paused, considering her words—“I think he really thought he’d won.”

I looked over at Everest, certain I would find murder in his eyes, but his expression remained curiously blank.

“Asher’s death was harder to figure out. I had some drugs I’d swiped from the nursing home but no fentanyl, unfortunately.”

How had she gotten her hands on a highly controlled opioid?

“The best I could do was triazolam, which wound up being a blessing in disguise because I was able to grind it up into the bottle of cheap whiskey I brought on our date. He was more than happy to drive out somewhere private with me, eager to take swigs from a bottle that never did more than touch my lips.”

Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“We made out, and every time he touched me, I soothed myself with the notion he would soon be dead.”

That he was already dead was probably the only reason the men around me weren’t calling for his blood.

“The drug combined with the alcohol worked quickly, and it wasn’t long before he was more or less . . . pliant. I crawled to sit on his lap and drove us in the direction of his house, taking the back roads. I took us to the more rural lands on the other side of where he lived. There was a massive substation out there, and then it was just a matter of setting up the steering wheel and putting a brick on the gas.

“He crashed headfirst into an electrical pole. When I opened the door to take the brick out, I realized that unfortunately, he was still alive. But a quick tinkering with the fuel line and a match had the car alight, and that was the end of Asher.”

Nixon growled appreciatively.

“When the police came by to let me know he had passed away, I recounted him acting out of it and drinking during our date. I let them know how relieved I’d been when he dropped me off at home earlier that night. With the bag of pills I’d planted in Asher’s car, along with the booze, the police were more than happy to accept that his death was a tragic accident resulting from driving while under the influence.”

Luz looked thoughtful. “A couple of days later, I got my early acceptance to Hollow Oak.”

If I wasn’t careful, Everest would run away with her to Vegas and get married.

“Injecting a boy you’ve already drugged half to death is a far cry from successfully administering an intravenous drug to a madman who wants you dead,” Locke said in a tone that suggested he very much hoped the madman was successful.

Luz’s expression darkened, but he wasn’t wrong. “And that is why I have the taser, but we can put some contingencies in place,” she ground out. “The twins and Everest can practice attacking me”—Alister’s eyes went wide, and Everest choked—“and I can demonstrate my technique. Plus, we can set up some kind of alert system, so you know when they arrive . ”

She had a point. Locke was assuming the killer was male.

“Olanzapine is an antipsychotic,” Alister said.

“Yes, but it’s also used to rapidly sedate violent patients and can be injected intravenously or intramuscularly.” She cut a nasty glare at Locke. “Which makes it ideal to take down a violent opponent. And since we aren’t worried about ethics, we can be generous with dosing . . . assuming the all-powerful Blackwells can get some for me.”

I waved a hand. “We can, whatever you need, but I still have questions.”

“Such as?”

My grip tightened on my tumbler. “Let’s start with how you learned how to poison and drug your victims, so . . . skillfully.”

Luz broke out into a dazzling smile.

“My mami taught me everything I know.”