THERE WERE SOME PEOPLE so cold, so ruthless, so calculating that they craved the kill. Savored the pain they inflicted. Tasted the blood of their victims and drank it down like fine wine.

      They were born to kill.

      He knew their kind. He was one of them.

      As he had thought Damon Dubois had been at one time. But Damon had betrayed him.

      Just like the others.

      The Dubois family—they had to pay.

      He had found the perfect way.

      The woman, Kendra Yates, had served his purpose well. He studied the dark lock of hair he had kept from her. His trophy, the police would call it.

      He rubbed its fine silky texture between his fingers and recalled the way he’d wrapped it around his hands just before he’d pressed the blade of the knife to her pale throat. She hadn’t understood that she was a sacrificial lamb for his cause.

      A chuckle rumbled from deep in his chest. The file she had on Antwaun would be like a torpedo rocking the bastard’s world. He would choose the exact moment that information would be revealed.

      Making Antwaun suffer by being arrested for Kendra’s murder was the perfect way to torture the man before he exposed him for what he really was.

      The son of a murderer.

      The brother of one as well.

      Yes, he held the knowledge to tear the Dubois family apart once and for all. And he would enjoy every moment of their suffering until they begged for his forgiveness.

      Just as Kendra had begged for her life.

      The shock on her face when he’d made the first slice had been sweet. She had known her time was up. That she wouldn’t die quickly or easily.

      That he intended to carve her up in little pieces for his own pleasure.

      He slid into the dark haunting shadows of the bayou, inhaling the musky scent of the swamp, the coppery scent of fresh blood from a dead animal, the pungent odor of the devil’s breath heating the mossy banks and whispering through the tupelo trees.

      The dense overgrown foliage hid his form as he slithered through the cypress trees toward his lair. Blood splattered the floor and walls of the dilapidated cabin, the smell of ripening flesh mingling with the loamy scent of the earth. The sound of Kendra’s terrified screams still echoed in his ears, as shrill and chilling as the alligator’s attack cry just before he bit into his victim.

      He stepped into the cabin, his nose burning from the acrid odors of waste and rotting flesh.

      Aah, sweet heaven.

      Antwaun and Damon Dubois had both been shocked by the woman’s severed hand.

      Laughter bubbled in his throat. He couldn’t wait to see their reactions when they found the rest of her.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CRYSTAL TWISTED THE BEDSHEETS in her fists, the sound of a chilling cry ringing in her ears. Her own scream of terror boomeranged back, having fallen into deaf air, reminding her that she was alone.

      Dying. No, alive. Barely. But forced to live in pain.

      Because of the car explosion. The fire that licked and ate at her face and body.

      She could almost feel the scalpel slicing through her frail skin. Cutting away dead flesh. Peeling away the brittle ashes and papery fabric of her face until her hand touched shattered bone.

      She stared into the mirror, praying, hoping the nightmare would end. But horror seized her at the reflection that faced her. Gory and inhuman were the only two words to describe her. A hideous, faceless monster sentenced to live in the shadows.

      A scream tore from her throat as the outer skin of her new forehead begin to peel away. One by one like the layers of an onion, the layers slid down her cheek, cracking and breaking into a thousand black pieces that scattered over the white bedsheet like charred ashes of a fire. The muscle of the right side of her face drooped, causing her lip to sag downward, and the bones in her face shifted, cracked and turned jagged, splinters of bone jutting out as if toothpicks had been jammed into her cheeks. Her right eye settled over the place where her cheekbone lay, while the left one inched upward, the eye milky-white.

      Nausea gripped her stomach as her eye sockets curled, and her eyelids fell away. Her eyebrows disappeared into the folds of dead skin on the bed, and she felt her lips swelling, then bursting open. Blood dripped down her chin and trickled into a red river, the scarlet droplets splashing against her scarred breastbone.

      No…

      Her sob wrenched the air, and she balled her hand into a fist and slammed it into the mirror. Glass shattered and slivers pelted her, yet she hit the glass again and again. Blood cascaded down her wrist and fingers, and she picked up a fragment of jagged glass and held it to her wrist. Slice the main artery and she could end the pain and suffering. Never have to face the monster again.

      It was so tempting.

      She lifted the shard, jammed the point to the curve of her wrist, but suddenly a scream ripped through the air.

      No…Don’t die. Please don’t die.

      She whipped her head around. Was someone there? Calling to her? Someone who wanted her to live? Someone who cared…

      Maybe a family, a man, husband, lover, child who wanted her.

      And more children…the ones who needed her.