I’m surprised.
Not just him … but her too?
Did they sneak out without my knowledge?
Or is something more nefarious going on here?
I home in on her face, her round lips swollen, pink, and freshly kissed.
Fuck.
“What is she doing here?”
Crystal’s pupils dilate, and Caleb steps in front of her to save her from my ire. “I brought her with me.”
I never thought he’d actually have the balls to show her the truth.
But I guess he would eventually crack.
I grip the door. “So … you brought her here out of all places,” I mutter. “For a second there I almost believed you let her escape.”
Caleb swallows. “I was going to take her back straight away.”
Crystal gawks at him.
“Right,” I reply.
I stare at them both until they get the message.
“Let’s go,” Caleb says.
Crystal nods and follows him outside under my watchful gaze.
“How did he find us?” Crystal whispers to Caleb.
“He’s not the only one who knows how to put trackers on phones,” I reply.
She seems spooked I responded, throwing glances at me over her shoulder every so often as we walk down the hallway.
It’s almost cute.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she most definitely tried to fucking escape.
When we get downstairs, Crystal pauses. “How did you get here? There’s no car.”
“I had a taxi drop me off. We’re traveling together,” I reply, holding out my hand. “Caleb. Keys.”
He sighs out loud and chucks them my way. But he knows better than to make a fuss right now. And there’s no way in hell I’ll let him behind the wheel in his condition.
The drive all the way home is quiet. Too quiet. And the two of them are sitting in vastly different corners, pushed against the windows, like they’re desperately trying to avoid touching each other …
For fear of what might happen?
Or for fear of what I might say?
My eyes narrow on them in the rearview mirror. Something happened between those two, something more than just a kiss, and I want to know exactly what that is.
I park the car in front of the Tartarus building, and Caleb jumps out first, causing us both to be at her door, simultaneously trying to open it up.
My eyes connect with his, visceral anger firing me up.
He backs away, and I pull the handle without saying a word.
Crystal’s eyes bore a hole into my head as she steps out, close enough for me to take a whiff of her scent. My hard-on twitches as she steps away and waltzes toward the front door with a snooty look on her face.
We all go inside, and I take a deep breath when the door finally closes behind me. “Caleb.”
“I’m fine,” he grits, hands in his pockets.
“Caleb. Pockets.”
His nostrils flare, and he pulls out his knives and places them on the table.
“The others too.”
He rolls his eyes and takes out more from his inner pockets and boots, chucking them all onto the floor. “Happy now?”
“Good boy,” I say, my lip tipping up into a brief smile.
A blush creeps onto his cheeks. “I’ll be in my room.”
“Don’t stay alone in there too long,” I say. “I’ll have Blaine check on you.”
“Blaine?” Crystal mutters.
“Yes. The guy you chained to the bed and stole the key card from.”
Her eyes widen while I hold out my hand.
“I can hear you, you know,” Blaine yells from atop the banister. “And if you wanna know, Ares was the one to free me.”
“You’re welcome,” I tell him.
Crystal leers up at him. “Yeah, sorry for leaving you hanging. Literally.”
“Ahh, it’s fine, I loved it,” he muses, sauntering off. “But do tell me the next time you plan on leaving me butt-naked, darling.”
She blushes and rubs her lips uncomfortably, like she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s had sex with him. But I know everything that goes on in this house.
“Aren’t you mad?” she asks.
I narrow my eyes. “You think I didn’t know what you two were up to?” I eye one of the cameras in the corner, pointed directly at her guest room door.
She shivers. “You were watching me.”
A smile tips up my lips. “There has never been a time when I haven’t, little rose.”
I hold out my hand.
Finally, she surrenders the card along with the phone.
“Good girl.”
Her face contorts with both a hint of pleasure and hostility. “You’re a menace.”
I corner her against the wall, planting my hands beside her head so she can’t escape me again. “Try to run away again, and I will break every bone in your mother’s body.”
She grimaces. “You’re a monster.”
“Call me what you want. It doesn’t change anything.” I turn around and waltz off.
“You had no right to take us away from there.”
I pause without looking at her. I fucking can’t.
“Caleb needed to see his mother,” she adds. “And you forced him to leave.”
My teeth grind together, and I ball my fists.
“Why?” she asks.
“You have no idea what I do for that boy …” I growl. “No idea what it’s been like to have to watch the one person you need fall slowly into death’s claws.”
I can hear her gulp. “What?”
I turn to face her. “If I hadn’t told him to drop those knives, he would’ve ended himself up there in his room.”
Her pupils dilate. “No.”
“Don’t you understand? He’s in agony. And you almost pushed him over that edge again.”
She shakes her head, tears welling up. “I didn’t. It wasn’t on purpose.”
“There’s a reason he doesn’t fucking tell people the truth. Every time he revisits the trauma, he gets worse.”
“Wait, we shouldn’t leave him alone then,” she mutters.
“Blaine will watch over him.”
“That’s not enough.”
“He won’t allow either of us in his room, trust me,” I grit. “Why do you even care?”
“Am I not allowed?” she growls back.
My jaw tenses. I don’t understand how she went from hating his guts to wanting to console him … unless …
“Grief. It’s a fickle thing, isn’t it?” I say. “So volatile …” I step closer to her again and grab a strand of her hair, curling it around my finger. “So vivid it controls your every waking thought.”
My eyes home in on her from under my lashes, and her green irises are barely able to rip away from mine. “It almost makes you believe you’d want to die too.”
She shudders when I tuck her hair behind her ear.
“Come with me,” I say.
“Why would I?”
I throw her a warning with just my eyes, and good thing it’s enough to make her move from her corner.
“Let’s choose a better outfit,” I say, walking upstairs with her following suit.
“Why? Where are we going?”
I open her guest room door. “You’ll see.”
I open the closet and pull out a fancy, sparkling dress with golden chains instead of straps, as well as a pair of metallic high heels. Perfect. She’ll blend in well.
“Put these on,” I say, chucking them her way.
She barely catches them. “Turn around.”
I snort, amused she’d still try to hide. “I’ve already seen and touched every inch of your body, and you’re still afraid to show a little skin?”
Her whole face turns red, and I sigh out loud.
“Fine.” I turn, but there’s a small mirror next to her closet, through which I can still watch her pull off those tight leggings, and I lick my lips at the sight of those wet pussy lips. She pulls her top over her head, her perky nipples screaming to be licked.
I don’t think she understands what she does to us … what she does to me.
But she will.
When she finally has the dress on, I turn around. “Perfect.”
Crystal
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” I say as he grabs my hand and drags me out the door.
“You’ll know when we get there,” he replies, pulling me to his Lambo. He opens the doors and pushes me inside before he jumps behind the wheel and closes the doors, sealing us inside.
Good God, what a luxurious way to die.
The car begins to drive, and every second feels like an hour stuck in here with him.
I don’t dare to look. His frame alone is intimidating enough, let alone that penetrative gray-eyed stare. Something about his aura gives me the freaks. It’s like his whole body is on fire, and if I dared to touch him now, I’m afraid I’d get burned.
But there is one thing I didn’t forget.
The knife still in my pocket.
The knife he didn’t know I got back from Blaine.
I managed to pull it from the pocket of my leggings while he was picking out clothes from the closet and snuck it into the lining of my dress near my tits. He didn’t even notice what I was doing. He was too busy looking at my thighs and boobs through the mirror to care.
I swallow away the lump in my throat, viscerally aware of the blade settled beneath my dress.
He parks the car outside a grimy-looking parking lot enclosed with a broken wire fence. There are not a whole lot of streetlights in this area of Crescent Vale City, and the place looks eerie this late at night.
Ares opens the doors, but I hesitate to get out. He walks to the other side of the car and holds out his hand, waiting until I grab it, but I’m not prepared for how warm he feels and just how snugly my hand fits into his.
But the moment I exit the vehicle, I spot a rat running across the parking lot, and I squeal out loud. “A rat!”
Ares pulls me to him, my back pressed against him as his arm envelops me, and he slaps a hand in front of my mouth. “Shh … Don’t scream. Don’t shout. Don’t let anyone know we’re here.”
I frown, confused.
When he finally pulls away his hand, I whisper, “Why?”
He tilts my head toward the building we’re in front of. On the door is a symbol with bones on it … And my whole body feels like it’s going numb.
“Where we’re going, people disappear without a trace,” he whispers into my ear. “Once you’re in there, you don’t exist until you come out safely. Do you understand?”
I nod, my feet wishing I could turn around and flee, but my head telling me to waltz right in there.
That symbol … I remember it as vividly as the day my father died.
“Don’t let go,” Ares says as he hooks his arm through mine, and we walk up to the door.
He knocks a couple of times in a strange pattern, after which a slide is opened. Someone peers at both him and me, and my heart begins to race.
The door opens, and the guy steps aside. “Welcome to The Tomb.”
“The Tomb?” I whisper as we head down the stairs. “What is that?”
“Part of a network of underground dealers and hustlers.”
“Wait … Mafia?” I mutter.
He nods, and we enter a main area where a ton of people dance to music blasting through the square basement. There are many doors and more hallways, most blocked off by scary-looking guards.
“Come with me,” Ares says, hauling me through the crowd.
“What are we doing here?”
“I have a rendezvous with a particularly hard-to-find regular,” he says, swooping me across the dance floor until we’re in the middle, where he wraps his hands around my waist and sways me around.
Ares pulls me close, too close for comfort, as I can hear his heartbeat through his chest. “Pretend we’re dancing.”
He spins me around and pushes my ass against his hips so I’m forced to sway along with him, his hand on my waist, guiding my body to move to the rhythm. One hand grabs my hand and lifts it to drape around his neck, fingers slowly sliding down the back of my arm, causing goose bumps in their wake.
“Make them believe it,” he whispers into my ear.
“Who?” I murmur, having trouble focusing.
I can hear him smirk. “Everyone.”
I try my best to move to the music, but my heart races in my throat because of where I am right now … and with who.
This place is a gateway to hell, and I’m dancing with the devil coaxing me to lick its flames.
His hand slides down my chest, and I suck in a breath as it dips between my legs, only to narrowly avoid my most sensitive area. On purpose, of course.
He spins me around again and pulls me close to his chest, rubbing his hand over my ass. And I don’t think I’ve ever hated something as much as being turned on by dancing with my enemy.
“Do you see that hallway behind me?” he whispers in my ear.
I nod while trying my best to ignore his hand as it rolls around my ass.
“Tell me when you see a chubby man with a yellow bow tie enter.”
That’s oddly specific.
“Keep dancing,” he says, swirling me around, only to end up in the same spot while I keep my eyes fixated on the hallway.
But his hands … God those hands of his make it hard to concentrate.
“Having trouble focusing?” he asks.
“Shut up,” I retort.
He smirks and spins us around until we’re both facing the hallway, and his hands are all over my waist and hips again. “Can’t be as hard as my dick.”
My cheeks glow red in the dark, and I’m so glad these strobe lights hide most of it from the people in front of me.
Good God.
He rubs himself up against me, and my body zings in response to the way he so expertly sways me around. It’s almost like he does this daily. The thought of him dancing with other people really doesn’t sit right with me, but I keep my mouth shut.
“Are we here to dance or to find someone?” I hiss.
“Both,” he muses, swirling me around so we’re face-to-face again. Every time I look at his sharp features followed by those beaming gray eyes, I nearly melt away in the heat.
My eyes widen when the man in the yellow bow tie glances at the party before heading into the hallway. “He’s there. Saw him enter.”
The guard follows him inside, and the hallway is left unattended.
“C’mon.” Ares grabs my hand and pulls me into the same hallway as that man.
We pass room after room with only curtains separating us from them … the people having sex behind each of them. The kind of sex that’s probably not allowed, with weapons and blood and pain, and I swear I could see someone beg with their eyes.
I swallow as Ares wraps his arm around my shoulders and tugs me along. “Focus on my voice. This way.”
We turn a corner where there are more curtains with couples behind them, but at the end of the hallway is a room with a door. In front, a guard stands waiting.
“Pretend you’re drunk,” he whispers.
I giggle at him and slap him on the chest as we approach the guard, my heels a perfect height to accidentally fall into him. “Sorry!”
“Private area. Move back,” the guard growls at me.
“Excuse us,” Ares mutters before pulling out a gun with a silencer and shooting him point-blank between the eyes.
Poof.
Just like that. Gone.
The man sinks to his knees, and Ares catches him before slowly dropping him to the floor and releasing him. He snatches the key card from his pocket while blood stains the floor. I stare in shock as Ares holds the key card over the lock and pushes open the door, pulling me inside before shutting it behind him.
A man sits in a circular booth, watching a woman behind a glass windowpane dance against a pole. He’s oblivious to the fact that we’ve entered the room, sipping his drink while rubbing himself.
Ares approaches him with the gun pointed at the back of his head and slowly pushes it into his skull.
Only then does the man stop drinking and rubbing himself, his hand still down his pants.
“Don’t move an inch. Don’t speak a word unless I tell you,” Ares says as he guides me forward until we’re both in front of the man instead of behind him.
“You …” the man mutters.
BANG!
Ares shoots the couch right beside his head.
“Last warning,” Ares growls. “Tell the woman to leave.”
The man slowly bends over to press a button on his table and talk into a tiny speaker. “Leave.”
The woman stops dancing and glances at the window in a frustrated way before exiting the room.
Ares glances at me. “Sit on the table.”
I swallow but still do what he says, sitting on the table with my legs crossed, as far away from the man as possible.
“Have you ever seen her?” he asks.
The man vigorously shakes his head. “Never.”
Ares sits down on the couch behind me, opposite the man, and I’m acutely aware of his presence as he places the gun on the table, his hands slowly finding their way to my waist as he grips me tight.
“Are you sure about that?”
The man gulps and glances at the gun.
“Who … who is he?” I mutter, glancing at Ares over my shoulder.
“Wayne Ferry. A man who works for the people who own this establishment,” Ares says, keeping his gaze fixated on the man. “The man who was directly responsible for your father’s death.”
All the oxygen instantly evaporates from my lungs.
Because I never told him about my father …
Or that he was murdered.
