Pretty Monsters Read online

  Pretty Monsters

  Pretty Monsters Trilogy, Book 1

  Kimberly Carrillo

  Copyright © 2020 by Kimberly Carrillo

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or distributed in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copywriter law.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living o dead are purely coincidence.

  Edited by Samantha Eaton Roberts

  Cover by RECreatives, Renee Ericson

  Formatted by Linnea Valle

  This one is for me.

  I’m writing it because I fucking want to.

  I guess you can read it though.

  Contents

  1. Moonlight and Shadows

  Sin

  2. I Am Justice Incarnate

  Sin

  3. My Personal Ghost

  Raven

  4. Beautiful Broken Things

  Sin

  5. No Tell Motel

  Sin

  6. One of the Boys

  Raven

  7. Death as a Babysitter

  Sin

  8. Dust and Doilies

  Raven

  9. Locked Up

  Sin

  10. Distraction

  Sin

  11. Embers

  Raven

  12. Wishes and Warnings

  Sin

  13. Piece of Cake

  Raven

  14. Revelations

  Sin

  15. New Friends

  Raven

  16. Solace

  Raven

  17. My Own Worst Enemy

  Sin

  18. An End and A Beginning

  Raven

  19. Epiphany

  Sin

  20. Confrontation

  Raven

  21. Harbinger

  Raven

  22. Fear of Falling

  Sin

  23. Netflix and Chill

  Raven

  24. Decisions

  Sin

  25. One Step Back

  Raven

  26. Instinct

  Sin

  27. Letting Go

  Raven

  28. Ambush

  Sin

  29. A New Plan

  Raven

  30. Options

  Raven

  31. Descent Into The Black

  Sin

  32. Public Display of Affection

  Sin

  33. Full Circle

  Raven

  34. Betrayal

  Sin

  Playlist

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Kimberly Carrillo

  Moonlight and Shadows

  Sin

  Flicking the lid off my lighter, I touch the flame to the end of my cigarette. The paper crackles with the first satisfying pull of nicotine into my lungs. I move to sit on the edge of my windowsill and swing my legs to hang outside. There’s just enough light to see down to the ground below, but as usual nothing here is worth looking at.

  For probably the millionth time, I wonder if tonight will be the night I let go and fall into oblivion. Who would miss me? I only have one friend, and absolutely no family. If that were all, I could go out into the world and build a life, but what kind of life could I build on a foundation of blood and bones?

  A board creaks on the porch three floors below me. All the outside lights are off and I can barely make out a delicate figure running across the manicured lawn toward the gazebo. It’s enough of a distraction to snap me out of my morbid thoughts. Perhaps I just need change, anything different from the banality and darkness of my daily life.

  A woman I’ve never seen before, certainly not in this house of horrors, enters into the silvery moonlight. There’s a lonely grace to her movements. I watch with rapt fascination as she hastens across the wide lawn, her long, dark hair dancing behind her in the breeze.

  She wears a white nightgown that falls to her knees, but the weak light penetrates the thin material, making it mostly translucent. The garment looks like something a child would sleep in, but the shadow of her body underneath is clearly that of a woman.

  I've lived my entire life, at least the parts I can remember, in this house. There is never a shortage of women, both guests and servants, but I'm certain I’ve never seen this woman before. An air of innocence clings to her that doesn’t exist anywhere else in this godforsaken place.

  The innocent don't belong here. This is where monsters dwell. Here we don't hide in the shadows. If she's trying to escape, which would be wise, she's running the wrong way.

  I throw my cigarette out the window, not caring if it lands on the slope of the roof below me. Let this mother fucking house burn to the ground. Nothing good lives inside these walls, myself included.

  Climbing down from the roof isn't easy, but I've done it many times, so I move over the shingles with ease. I know where to step without causing tiles to loosen and slip off the aging structure. When I get to the edge, I hang on and let myself drop down to the next level. From there I dangle off the side again to wrap my legs around the post holding the eave over the porch. It's a lot of work to get down, but it beats moving through a crush of bodies. There always seems to be too many people inside.

  Unlike my prey, I keep to the shadows. I don't want her to know I'm here, watching her. People react differently when they know they're being watched, and I want to see who she is without any pretense.

  She leans against the rail of the gazebo, staring up at the stars as if there's an answer to a question written in the flickering balls of gas. Soundlessly, I move to stand in the shadow of a large oak tree, just feet from where she leans out to stargaze.

  Under the moonlight. I study her features. Her dark hair falls to her waist in a tangled mass of waves and curls. Her nose is small and slightly upturned making her look like a wood nymph from Greek mythology. Her skin is pale and reflects the moonlight back into the night.

  If I believed in angels, I'd think I was looking straight at one. She is everything good and pure that I stopped believing existed years ago. I want to break her, if for no other reason than because seeing her reminds me how far I've fallen.

  I grab another cigarette from the pack inside the pocket of my hoodie and light it. It takes her a second to see the burning tip and smell the smoke, but when she does, she lets out the most satisfying gasp of surprise and fear. I can almost smell the acrid scent of it over the tobacco.

  Now that she knows I'm here, I don't have to worry about being silent. Moving toward her, twigs snap under my boots and dry leaves crunch. "You shouldn't be here," I rasp in warning. She wraps her arms around her chest, probably trying to hide her tits under that flimsy excuse for clothes she's wearing.

  "A little late for covering yourself up, sweetheart. I've already seen the goods while you were wishing on stars." I smirk at her, the corner of my mouth curving up in a way that usually turns girls on and pisses them off at the same time.

  I blow out a stream of smoke and continue moving toward her. She responds, exactly as I want, with a step back. "Now, you're going to leave?"

  "I thought I was alone," she whispers. Despite how quietly she speaks, I can hear how raspy and low her voice is. Judging by how she's wrinkling her nose, I'd guess she doesn't get it from smoking.

  She turns to head back to the house.

  "That's the wrong way, sweetheart," I call out to her.

  She turns, hair and nightgown twirling around her. "
And why is that?" She doesn't seem to be trying to be quiet any longer.

  "A girl like you doesn't belong in Devil's Crossing, let alone that house. You're too pure for the debauchery I've seen go down inside. Find a different city, and forget this one exists."

  "A girl like me? You make it sound like I'm a porcelain doll."

  There's a pull toward her, and before I know it I'm standing right in front of her. "Fragile enough." I reach out and run my knuckles over her pale cheek.

  "Well," she sighs, "then there's a problem, because I have to go back into that house. You see, I'm home from school for the first time in years, and that's my dad's house. Where else am I supposed to go?"

  My hand falls like I touched a flame. In a way I did. If anyone knows I touched the princess of the manor I might as well eat a bullet.

  "Your dad will kill whoever let you out of your room. You better get back up there."

  She laughs without humor. "Do you know what it's like to be trapped?"

  "You're hardly trapped. I'm sure you want for nothing. You've always been taken care of," I tell her. Even I can hear the bitterness creep into my words.

  "My cage is pretty, sure, but it's still a cage. I've never had a friend not chosen by my father. I can't go out without a chaperone. I'm eighteen years old, and I'm still babysat like a toddler. You say I'm taken care of, but really I've been stored away, and I still don't know what for. My parents have made it more than clear they don't want anything to do with me."

  Every second I'm near her I'm at risk. She might be trapped, but the difference between us is if I step outside of my boundaries, there is a hole somewhere in the woods for me. She is more valuable to Damian Blackthorn than I'll ever be.

  "Go back to your room, princess. It's temporary anyway, you'll be back at school soon enough."

  I don't spare her another glance, and run off into the woods. The house suddenly feels too small and far too dangerous for me to go back to.

  Deep in the woods, where briars grow freely and the gnarled tree branches cast spooky shadows sits an abandoned cabin. At one time it was probably someone's hunting cabin, but now it sits empty in Damian Blackthorne's woods falling further into disrepair every year.

  I've made some repairs to the roof, which doesn't leak nearly as bad now, and I've replaced rotted floor boards. It wouldn't stand against a strong storm, but it does provide a drier place away from rain and shelter from the wind

  I'd stay here and never come back if someone wouldn't eventually come looking for me. As it is now, there's only one other person besides myself who uses this place as a temporary escape. Lucien Blackthorne, prince of the Blackthorne empire himself.

  The closer I get to my sanctuary, the more I realize I will have to share it with his highness. A large bonfire crackles in the night, and embers float away from the kindling as it lights up the night.

  "Why the fuck didn't you tell me you had a sister?" I shout when I'm close enough to see the icy blue of his eyes.

  The girl, who's name I never asked, has the same look as Lucien. They both have thick dark hair and pale skin, and both have piercing blue eyes. It’s a striking combination you don’t see often, and I should have noticed the connection immediately.

  "Hello to you too, dickface." Lucien remains seated on the stump he's using as a seat around the fire drinking from a can of beer.

  "Sister, fucker, why didn't you tell me you had one?" I persist.

  He tips his can back, draining the contents, before crushing it and throwing the empty can into the fire. "What difference does it make? I barely know her. My dad keeps her locked up when she's home, and that's very rare. She's been away with a nanny until she was old enough to send to boarding school. I think there's something wrong with her."

  Unless innocence is a debilitating condition, I don't think we are thinking of the same girl. "Why do you think something is wrong with her?" I grab a beer out of his cooler without asking him.

  He shrugs. "Because my parents don't seem to want anything to do with her. Even I'm not allowed to talk to her. I've only seen her a few times. More often when we were kids. She seemed fine back then, but once I got closer to twelve I've seen less and less of her. Before that I saw her a few times a year."

  I toss my own empty can into the fire and stare at it as the flames blacken the aluminum. "You've got a fucked up family."

  "You don't have one at all," he says without any hint of anger or irritation.

  Lucien never broadcasts what he's feeling or thinking. That is assuming he even has feelings.

  "Family and friends lead to attachments, and that's a weakness," I finally reply.

  "We've got a trip." Next to him is his leather duffel bag. He reaches inside and throws me a large manilla envelope.

  I set it down next to me. It doesn't matter what it says. I'll do as I'm told, like always.

  "Don't you want to look at it?" he asks.

  "Does it matter?" I shoot back.

  He shrugs. "I made the same demands I always do."

  I nod. He and I are cut from the same cloth. I can follow orders without questioning them, because Lucien has already made sure the very few scruples I have remain intact.

  "What time do we leave?"

  Lucien looks at his watch. "We've got to go early to take care of this one. We've got to time everything right, because the security system is a bitch, but there's a vulnerability."

  "Let me guess, when someone is leaving or entering the premises?"

  He nods. "Yep, so you and I are going to ghost in as the maid sets out in the morning to go get the pastries the fat fuck likes every day. We'll only have about thirty minutes before we need to be ready to slip back out though."

  "Is there a preference?" I ask, but I don't really care.

  "I'll let you come up with that after you look inside the envelope," Lucien says.

  I'm guessing whatever it contains is what has him out drinking by the fire. I sit down and take a peek inside. A normal person would probably vomit, or at the very minimum utter a curse word or two.

  Pictures of grown men and children burn my retinas. My hand clenches around nothing, and I can't wait to feel the hilt of my knife filling the void. There's a special place in hell for people who hurt children. I like to think it's my job to send them there.

  "Knives it is then," Lucien says, reading my expression.

  I nod, and throw him back the envelope. I get up and start to head back to the mansion, sure that his sister is safely locked away for the night.

  "Oh, Sinclair," he calls out.

  I stop and turn around to face him.

  "Stay away from my sister. I don't know what her story is, but my dad seems hell bent on keeping her separated from everyone."

  She's beautiful and innocent. The urge to break her calls to me. I'm not sure what it is about her that makes me want to see some cracks in the perfect façade she presents to the world. She would be even more beautiful with an imperfection.

  Maybe because she seems so fragile as she is, and imperfect things always seem to endure more than the perfect. Ever see a snowflake withstand even a single day? Flowers bloom and wither away. Yet, here in this wood, I'm surrounded by craggily, old trees that will surely outlast me.

  Either way, it's better for Damian to keep her locked in a tower, especially when there's more than one monster living under the same roof.

  I Am Justice Incarnate

  Sin

  Lucien takes the long way to Lakeshore, the ritzy town the soon-to-be dead fucker lives in. Predictably the enormous house is at the end of a street filled with other enormous houses. All of them set apart from each other, which aids my cause greatly. The further away the neighbors are the less likely anyone will hear him scream and end the fun early.

  He's going to scream. That's certain. How long he screams just depends on how much time Lucien can give me.

  Unfortunately, since this is rich asshole country, there are cameras everywhere. If we even drive down the s
treet we risk getting picked up on security footage. Instead Lucien drives down a forest road a mile away from the kiddie-lover's compound.

  While he sleeps soundly, dreaming his sick fucker dreams, Lucien and I move through the forest like fog rolling across the ground. We're barely seen, not heard, and vanish without a trace. Despite the undergrowth and fallen leaves, we don't make a sound as we move quickly through the trees.

  The animals know we're here though. Birds stop their morning song the closer we get, and the scurry of tiny rodents can be heard as we move along. Unlike humans, animals always know when a predator is nearby.

  I'm not sure why Damien is sending us after this particular sicko, but I don't ask those reasons. The only concession I've ever gotten was that I'm only sent to take care of the truly evil.

  Perhaps it's hypocritical of me to judge. There's not a shred of doubt in my mind that I'm a monster, but I don't kill for money, and I don't sell or use children for money either. I'd like to think it sets me apart from the human stain I plan to gut and throw away as the garbage he is.

  When we finally get to the wall surrounding his property, Lucien takes out an electronic device from the bag he carries with him. After he pushes a few buttons he puts it back in the bag.

  "The cameras are set to a loop. We won't be picked up on any recordings, but we still have to be in and out before the maid returns."

  I have another demand he always made for me. I would not kill an innocent person. No employees, witnesses, no one. There is only one person who deserves the end of my knife or a bullet, and that is the person who hurts innocent people, especially if they do it for profit.