Free Even Villains Fall in Love by Liana Brooks Page A

you. I don’t believe in past lives or
anything like that, but I feel like I know you.” She squeezed his
arm. “I’m so glad you’re here. We’re going to be great
friends.”
    He stared at her.
    “ I don’t even know you.” She’d said as she walked out on him. The words reverberated
through his brain. Gently, he lifted her hand to his lips. “You can
trust me. With everything.” He kissed her hand as Rugby Thane
butted back in. “Ready to fly, Z? We’ve got kicking dinner plans
tonight.”
    Tabitha turned to Thane, the smile falling from
her face. “Sounds great.”
     
     
     
     

Chapter Thirteen

    I should probably say a word about my
competition. There is none. As far as you and the rest of the world
is concerned, I am the pinnacle of creation, and I have a machine
that will make you nod your head in agreement as I say
that.
    There are other super villains, of
course. They tend to crop up like mushrooms in the wake of every
major disaster. I consider them useful. They keep the super heroes
occupied and out of my hair while I take over the world. Some of
them are even good enough to become reoccurring headlines. But they
aren’t as good as me.
    Seeing Tabitha with another man,
seeing her smile and leave with another man, was a punch to the
gut. I’d give up major limbs before I let another man have my wife,
but what could I do? She acted like she didn’t know me. Like seven
years of marriage never happened. I couldn’t compete with
that.
    If Tabitha wanted me, I’d fight to the
death for her. But when she walked away of her own free will, I was
lost.
    ***
    Evan strode out of the building, ready to kill
someone for the first time in his life.
    She didn’t know him.
    She didn’t know him, and she was going to dinner
with another man.
    He dialed the lab. “Hert, I need perfume
samples. Lots of them. And I need the Morality Machine dismantled
now. Now! There’s something wrong here. What? What girls?”
    His girls. He was already going to hell for not
belonging to any of the right religions, stealing money, and being
a super villain. Compared to that, forgetting his daughters for a
few minutes while his life fell apart was... He took a deep breath.
Unforgivable. No wonder Tabitha didn’t love him.
    Rubbing his wrist, he took the mini
Agree-With-Me Ray off. It hadn’t worked. Maybe it even hurt her. He
sucked in the pine-scented night air and tried to focus.
    Evan could think of two possible explanations
why Tabitha didn’t remember him. The first, and the most obvious,
was that the Morality Machine had affected her memory and
personality more than he’d anticipated. She still seemed attracted
to him, so had he been breaking down her memories all this time,
rather than her morals?
    The other option was that something else had
stolen her memories. A head injury in the fight? She hadn’t hit her
head on the ground, but maybe she had a concussion from the
creature hitting her? Or she was so angry with him she’d blocked
him out of her memory? Or...he dug through his mental file of
possibilities.
    The smell of Thane’s homeopathic treatment
bothered him. Maybe because her shirts reeked of it when she came
home from the fight. Evan looked up at the cold starlight. The
smell, the T-shirts, and a tall blond man.
    He’d never paid much attention to super heroes
and their identities. Some villains dedicated years to researching
a nemesis. A few went as far as fixating on super heroes, but that
was too creepy-stalker-freak for him.
    Super heroes came, and after a polite chat, they
went away. Except Tabitha. He’d been too spellbound to speak before
she broke the Agree-With-Me Ray.
    But the big, blond Thane, he looked... Evan
slapped his thigh. Time for the professor to do a little
homework.
    At home, Evan pulled out all the reference
material he’d amassed on superheroes, super villains, and the
unsolved crimes of the last century. Most of it he’d stolen, some
of it had been compiled from court