Contents

title page

Copyright

dedication

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2

3

4

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Acknowledgements

About The Author

Tell Me Your Favorite Bits!

Copyright © 2014 Callie Hart

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at callie.law.author@gmail.com

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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places and characters are figments of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. The author recognises the trademarks and copyrights of all registered products and works mentioned within this work.

All rights reserved

ISBN:978-1495927851

Formatted by Frankie Rose

frankierose101@gmail.com

Once there was a boy who lived in the dark…

And he liked it there just fine.

When I say I’m a ghost, I’m not being literal.

I’m very much alive. Or at least some days I hurt just enough to know I’m still clinging onto a heartbeat. No, when I say I’m a ghost, I’m referring to the fact that people rarely see me. I’m the girl in the background. The average height, average weight, average hair color, non-event that eyes skip over instead of lingering on. I slip silently through this yawning city I live in without smiling. Without having to greet anyone for days at a time. It’s been that way for the last six months. It’s rare that I have to speak to strangers, and when I do it’s perfunctory; people know instinctively that I’m not primed for small talk. Today is no exception.

“Here’s your room key, Ms Fredrich.” The receptionist in downtown Seattle’s Marriot hotel slides the plastic key card across the marble countertop. Once she’s withdrawn her hand a safe distance, I reach out and palm it.

“Thank you.”

Eyes down, she’s stapling the paperwork created by my payment. “So…business or pleasure?” The warmth in her eyes dies when she finally looks up at me and registers the blank look I’m wearing. The smile slides from her face like butter from a hot knife.

“Business,” I tell her, because nothing has ever been truer.

“Okay, well…I hope you enjoy your stay.” She looks away as soon as she’s done with the appropriate front desk script. She doesn’t ask why I’ve turned up at her hotel with no bags, or why I’m only booking in for one night. Or why I’ve left a spare key card at the front desk for a Mr Hanson. She doesn’t ask any of that; she’s not supposed to. Eli’s given me a rundown of how this thing will play out, and so far it’s almost to the letter. I lift my purse from the desk and head to the elevator, straightening my coat.

Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen, eighteen….

I watch the numbers light up one by one. Each disc, the size of a dollar coin, lights up and darkens in turn, and the elevator descends while I wait, patient and unblinking. There are other people waiting for the car to arrive. If this were an office building or a shopping centre, I’d take the stairs; closed spaces and I aren’t exactly the best of friends, but since this hotel is forty-seven-floors high and I’ve booked a room on the forty-second floor, I’ll just have to tolerate the inconvenience of their presence.

The doors slide back and I walk in first. The other hotel residents—four businessmen—are staying somewhere mid-level, and I don’t want them brushing past me as they exit. It’s easy to label them as mid-level guys. They’re wearing mid-level guy suits, and all four of them have mid-level guy haircuts. Their accommodation is being paid for by a cost centre funded by an accounting department, and accounting departments don’t spring for penthouses. They spring for double rooms with en-suites that have access to the gym and not much else. No mini bar for you, Mr Corporate.

The lift doors roll close and I retreat within myself, pressing my back against the rear wall of the elevator car. I close my eyes, exhale down my nose. This will all be over soon, but my heart still dances in my chest all the same. The fear of being trapped, of what I am about to do, is like a coiled snake, ready and waiting to wreak havoc on my insides.

“Hey. Hey, are you okay? You’re looking a little freaked out.”

One of them talks to me. He thinks my panic is tied to the elevator ride, which it is, but only partially. He has brown eyes, a soft, warm color that reminds me of melted chocolate. He has dimples, too, probably twenty-three or so, around my age. He looks nice. The kind of nice I might have dated once upon a time, before…before any of that became impossible.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I tell him.

“Good.” The guy with chocolate eyes smiles at me. “Deep breathing sometimes helps my sister. She’s not fond of elevators either.”

He’s so sweet. Way sweeter than I deserve, considering my purpose here today. I reward him with a watery smile—he grins back—and then the doors open, and the four of them leave. I jam my hands into my pockets to stop them from shaking. I’m alone for eighteen floors, which is better than being trapped with four strangers but still not great, and then, finally, it’s my turn to alight. This hotel is much like any other I’ve stayed in. The only difference about it, the thing that will define it from all others in my memory for as long as I live, is that I’m here for a very specific reason: to have sex with a total stranger. And I’m doing it to find my baby sister.

******

By the time I’m inside and my coat is hung neatly on the hook behind the door, I’m pretty much ready. I’m wearing what I’ve been told to wear—black lace. Eli, the private investigator I hired to help me find my sister, wasn’t any more specific than that. He’s the one who set this whole thing up.

“Sometimes money just isn’t enough to buy what you’re looking for, sweetheart. Sometimes it takes a little more…persuasion to buy information like this. I tell you what…I’ll share what I know in return for a little favour.”

“What kind of favour?”

“You spread your legs for a paying customer and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” The disgusting pig has the audacity to smile. “Oh come now, Ms Romera. Don’t look at me like that. You want to find your sister, don’t you?”

And in the end, I’d agreed. He was right; I do want to find Lex, and I’ll clearly do anything to make that happen. Even if I’ll never be able to live with myself afterward.

Aside from the lingerie, Eli told me to bring something else with me today, something hidden in the pocket of my jacket. I take it out and put it on. The mask is a black lace number with blood-red lace edging and makes me a feel a little more disguised at least. I hit the light switch in the bathroom and rummage in my purse for the only thing that’s going to keep me sane during this experience: a box of Valium. One of the perks of being a fifth year resident is that there’s always someone available to prescribe medication when you need it, no questions asked. The sedative’s not even in my name, will never appear on my medical record. I pop one, just enough to keep me calm but not enough to make me drowsy, and then I peer into the mirror, fixing the band of my mask underneath my hair.

You look like shit, Sloane.

I tell myself this every time I look into a mirror these days. It may be the truth, but then again it may not. I’ve been staring at myself in mirrors for so long now that the reflection just doesn’t make any sense anymore. Lex was always the beautiful one. I know I have a nice body. Eli said that was the only reason he was willing to do business with me, because my tits were real and I had a nice ass. Your height might make some guys uncomfortable, but hey…not a lot you can do about that. I focus on the dark rings under my eyes, trying to remember that this is all temporary. It’s not forever. I’m a medical student after all. The body is just a machine, full of cogs and intricate parts all ticking away, working in harmony to keep you moving. Having sex is just making use of that machine, nothing more.

You can do this, Sloane. You can do this.

And then, not even two seconds later…

Lex wouldn’t want this for you. She wouldn’t want you used and abused, selling yourself for so little. I hate that voice inside my head. It makes it so hard to justify going through with this, but it’s not as though I’m auctioning off my most valuable possession for drugs or money, or even fame and fortune like some girls do. No, I am doing it out of love. Love for Lex. Any sister would do the same.

It’s been six months and I’m still no closer to finding Alexis, and this really does feel like my last resort. Eli’s smart—he’s given me just enough information to keep my hope alive but nowhere near enough to risk me backing out of our little arrangement.

Thud, thud, thud.

“Holy shhhh—” The door. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, trapping the curse word behind my teeth. It’s go time.

Mr Hanson will have collected his key from the chirpy concierge downstairs, but I was told to expect the knock. Let’s me know the guy I’m going to be sleeping with is here and I have to wait in the bathroom until he comes to get me. I pull the door closed and for a brief second a rush of fear grapples hold of me. If I lock myself in here and refuse to come out, how long would he wait until he gets pissed off and leaves? I can’t do that, though. Eli would never hold up his end of the bargain, and besides…none of this matters anymore. None of it. It’s just something I have to get through.

I hear the electronic beep of the key card being accepted into the door, and the rough catch of the lock sliding back. Silence follows after that. The edge of the sink digs into the back of my legs, as I remain frozen, leaning heavily against it, before I remember I shouldn’t do that. It’ll mark my body, and that’s against the rules, even temporary marks like that.

Thankfully the drugs begin to kick in, washing over me with a muted sense of peace. A good thing, too, because whoever is out there takes their sweet time in making themselves at home. Without it, I’d have been on the verge of on making a run for it by the time a knuckle raps against the door. “Come on out. Turn the light off first,” a voice commands. It’s gruff and full of gravel, maybe the voice of a smoker? Fucking great. I’m going to have to spend the next two hours with my tongue down a smoker’s throat, and then I’m gonna have to bleach my mouth out. I turn the light off and open the door, and I’m perplexed by what I see beyond.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. The room is pitch black.

“Couldn’t find the light switch?”

“Don’t touch it. Just come here,” the voice tells me. He sounds young enough, and he’s alone. Not that I was expecting more than one guy, of course. Eli swore it would only be the one guy. And only this one time. I step gingerly into the room, wishing I’d paid more attention to where the furniture was positioned before I’d locked myself away. I immediately stub my toe on god only knows what and hiss with pain.

“You okay?” There’s an amused lilt to his voice, which is kind of irritating. What kind of a guy gets off on a girl breaking her toes?

“Well…I can’t see a thing,” I mutter.

“That’s the point, I’m afraid. Come here.”

If I knew where here was, I’d probably be a little less turned around. I try again, and this time I manage to stumble to the bed without colliding with anything else. The mattress dips as I climb onto it, wondering where the hell he is. I’m not half as scared as I should be. In fact, I feel almost a little giddy.

“Sit in the middle of the bed with your hands behind your back,” he whispers. I wonder if he’s going to tie me up. That should bother me. Would bother me any other time. “Do you need a name?” I ask him; Eli said I should ask.

A low rumble, deep and throaty, breaks the silence of the room and I realize he’s laughing. “Are you offering to tell me your real name?”

“Eli said that’s against the rules.”

“Then no.” The mattress dips again. He’s moving, coming closer. His hot breath grazes across the skin of my neck when he speaks. “I don’t need to call you Melody or Candy or some other fake-ass name. We’ll just be strangers for a while. That square with you?”

“Yeah, I—I guess.”

In the darkness my skin is alive. So are my other senses. My nose keeps on whispering to me, hints of mint and the ocean. Whoever he is, this guy smells incredible. Not a whiff of cigarettes on him at all, which means that voice…that voice is one hundred percent natural. I’m curious about him in the most detached way.

“You done this before? Like this?” he asks me.

“Never.” My breath actually catches in my throat. I’m so spaced out that I can barely think straight, but the lack of lighting in the room is making my heart race. Maybe it’s because this guy could be a serial killer. He could still be a serial killer with the lights on, but at least I’d have the chance to see it in his eyes and run for my life.

Mystery Guy exhales, sending another warm breath across my chest. My nipples harden even though I’m not cold. I’ve never experienced that before. Never. Probably because I’ve never been this close to a guy before. “Place your hands in your lap,” he tells me.

I do it. I jump a little when I feel his hand reach out and touch my leg. “Scared?”

“No.”

He laughs, and it’s a cruel and wicked thing. His hands gently trail up my leg until he finds my hand, where he fingers curl around my wrist. “You’re braver than most girls.”

“You do this with a lot of girls?”

“Yes.”

Well at least he’s honest. He lifts up my hand and brings it toward himself, and stubble prickles against the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist.

“You smell like flowers. What perfume do you wear?”

“Afresia,” I tell him.

“It’s clean. Not too heavy. I like it.”

So glad you approve. I feel like giggling. His nose brushes against my wrist and then the soft touch of his lips follows soon after. The kiss is barely even there, soft and gentle, but I can read a lot from it. His lips are full and he’s gentle with his mouth. That’s unexpected. I fidget on the bed, wondering where this is going. Where his mouth will be going next.

“Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be blind?” he rumbles.

“Why? Are you blind?”

“No. Answer the question.”

“I suppose so. Sometimes.”

He guides my hand upwards and takes it in both of his, uncurling my fingers so that my palm is open. He does it slowly, running calloused fingers down the length of my own, and I can’t help but shiver. It’s a fairly simple thing, but the way he does it feels intimate and considered, not just grabbing and touching for the hell of it. I hold my breath as he guides my hand again, until my fingertips meet his hair, and then down to his face.

“Tell me what you think I look like,” he says, his voice a resonating growl. He lets go of my hand, and I have to lean forward to reach him properly. I shimmy closer, tucking my legs under my butt so I can balance properly, and then I raise my other hand to his face, too.

His hair is short, a little stiff from the styling product he’s got in there; his facial features are strong, pronounced. Jaw’s a little square, nose mostly straight apart from a slightly flattened part near the ridge of his brow. His eyelashes are surprisingly long, and his lips…I was right. His lips are full and way softer than any guy’s lips have a right to be. Especially a guy with a voice like his. From the tingling pads of my fingers, I can sense this guy has the face of an angel. A barbaric one—maybe like one of those guys who did a lot of smiting back in Babylon.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“I think you’re probably very attractive,” I admit.

He grunts. “And what about the rest of me?”

He applies a little pressure to my forearms so that they travel down to his chest, where my fingers meet with smooth skin and hard-packed, rippling muscle. His pecs twitch as my hands brush lightly over them, and then downward. I come across three horizontal ridges in his skin that shouldn’t be there, to the right of his abs spaced a couple of inches apart, and my fingers draw circles over them, trying to tease their story from them, trying to figure out where they came from. There’s an untold history of violence here, written in the planes of his formidable body. He shakes a little as I explore him, probing with a feather-light touch until I’ve traced my way across his washboard stomach and up over his obliques. He sucks in a sharp breath and tenses when I do that, and I smile a little. I actually smile. This guy’s ticklish. He doesn’t laugh or tell me not to touch him there, but his body tightens further still when I go over the area one more time to test the theory.

I move up to his shoulders, which are powerful and strong, and I lace my arms around the back of his neck, feeling over his shoulder blades. He’s huge, but I’m not really afraid of him. Of course I should be, yes, but I’m not. The valium has flattened out my fear, and besides, the way I’d imagined this, the guy was going to come in here and want to lay his hands on me; he’d poke and prod and examine every inch of me, and he’d most definitely want to see what he was paying for. So far, this guy has touched me sparingly and that was on the hand.

“Well?” he asks.

“Where did the scars come from?”

“I was stabbed.” He doesn’t ponder on whether he’s going to answer me; he just comes right out and says it.

“Did you nearly die?”

“Yes.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes.”

I let my hands fall from his shoulders and find the scars again, one, two, three of them. They feel jagged and terrible under my fingers. “What happened to the person who did this to you?” I almost don’t want to ask. Mystery Man’s been unnervingly candid since we began this bizarre interaction five minutes ago, and I’m afraid his answer will finally put the fear of God into me.

“He got what was coming to him,” he says softly. The bed sheets rustle when he moves, his stomach muscles contracting under my hands; when he touches my hair, tangling his fingers into it, I’m still trying to decide whether he means he killed whoever did that to him.

“I’m very particular about what I want. You need to do what I ask you without question and this will go nicely for both of us, okay?” he breathes.

A shot of adrenaline finally lights up my nerve endings—the appropriate reaction to my situation. What the hell have I gotten myself into here? Valium or no Valium, I know that sounded like a threat. I’m in way over my head, but there’s little I can do about it. Besides, Alexis. Always Alexis. “I can do that,” I whisper.

“Good. Lie on your back.”

I let go of him and suddenly I feel like I’m afloat in the middle of an ocean, drowning, with no way of saving myself. The sensible, smart part of my brain that still clings onto a vague sense of self-preservation is screaming that I should probably get the hell out of here, and for the first time the wrath of Eli almost isn’t enough to keep me pinned to the bed. But the thought of finding Alexis is. My muscles are jumping, ready to explode into action, when the guy gently takes hold of my right ankle.

“Did you touch yourself today?”

What the?! “Do…do you mean—”

“Have you made yourself come today? Have you played with your pussy?”

My cheeks heat up to an uncomfortable temperature. No one has ever asked me that before. “No. No, I—I haven’t,” I stammer.

“Good. Then you’ll taste so much sweeter.” Instead of hooking his fingers under the waistband of my panties and pulling them down, he draws them to one side. My legs lock up when I feel his hot breath skimming over my exposed flesh. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with my hands. This is untrodden ground for me in a very big way. When a guy gives you head, it’s usually because he’s done something very, very bad and needs to make up for it, or at least that’s what Pippa, my only friend in the world, says. I’ve never had a boyfriend to treat me badly in the first place, so I’ve never experienced it myself.

“Do you want me to lick you?” His voice is even deeper now, laden with the promise of sex.

“I want whatever you want,” I gasp. That’s what he’s paying for, after all. That’s what’s going to help me get Lex back. He grips me hard around the top of my leg, squeezing until I cry out.

“That’s not the game we’re playing, here. Own me, or I’ll own you. And trust me…you don’t want that.”

Shit. “Y—yes, I want you to lick me.”

He makes a satisfied grunt and immediately moves, pushing his way between my legs. When his tongue darts out and laps at me, my leg muscles tense up. It feels hot and…and good. What the holy hell? I shouldn’t be reacting like this. Embarrassment prickles at my cheeks. What sort of person am I, enjoying a complete stranger giving me head? And under these circumstances? I can’t help it, though. My whole body feels like it’s being caressed.

His tongue moves expertly, applying a subtle pressure to my clit, stroking up and down in a rhythmic pattern that sends wave after wave of heat crashing through me. I’m just letting go, letting the tension in my arms and legs relax, when he stops lapping and sucks.

“Fuck!”

He doesn’t stop. He growls when I push back against him, rocking into his mouth shamelessly. I’ve never felt anything like this before. It feels…incredible. I’m panting and moaning like an animal when he pulls away, running his hands from the very tops of my knees, down the insides of my thighs to my panties. He rips them off in one swift motion.

“How badly do you want me to fuck you?”

I’m not here because I want to fuck him, but it is my job to make him think I do; yet the lines between acting and the truth are so blurred when I murmur, “Really bad. I want you really bad.”

“Spread your legs,” he commands. I spread them, wondering what’s coming next. The room is like a black void, so dark I can’t even make out the shadow of him as he moves quickly around the bed. I hear a zip being undone and then the rattle of metal, like a buckle being undone. Sucking my bottom lip into my mouth, I wait for him to do whatever he’s about to do, worryingly piqued with curiosity. He restrains my left leg first, strapping something wide and tight around it and then affixing it to the bed. My right leg is next, and then he carefully does the same to my wrists. I’m star-fished on the bed and completely vulnerable. His restraints aren’t the kind for show; they’re the kind made to stop people from getting away, and I’m sure as hell not going anywhere. Six months ago, I might have said a prayer. Now I just whimper, half out of fear and half out of anticipation.

He climbs up onto the bed, kneeling at my side, his breath still playing across me. I tense when I feel something cold and hard press against the skin of my stomach. “Are you still a brave girl?”

“Yes,” I exhale.

He doesn’t reply or tell me what he’s going to do. The cool, sharp object he’s leaning into my skin travels slowly upwards until it’s poised directly under my breasts. I gasp lungful after lungful of air into my lungs, trying to keep still, because I know what it is he’s got in his hand: it’s a knife. A really fucking sharp knife.

His fingertip lifts the underwire of my bra in the middle, and then in a single, clean sweep, it springs apart, freeing my breasts. He cut through my bra! This is the most exposed, terrified, exhilarated I’ve ever felt. My Mystery Man straddles me, and the material of his pants, rough, slides up against my sides. He lays the flat, cool edge of his knife against my right nipple, sending a bolt of panic through me.

“Don’t move,” he whispers. I don’t move. I am the stillest still thing ever. He leans down and touches me, his hand finally finding my breast. “You’re so fucking perfect,” he breathes. “So well behaved.” And then his mouth is on my nipple, licking and sucking, hotter than anything I’ve ever felt before. My back arches up off the bed, and he chuckles. “You want me inside you?”

“Yes.”

“You sure? Be careful what you wish for.”

I wish for death on a daily basis. I wish for pain and suffering and blood and misery upon the heads of those who took my sister. Wishing for this feels just as dangerous but somehow safer than all that at the same time. He wanted to me to own him, and despite the fact that he’s tied me up now, I still think that’s what he wants. I brace, hoping this is the right thing, and I demand, “Do it. Fuck me now. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

The knife vanishes from my skin. He shifts off the bed, and I hear him undoing his pants; slipping them off; the swish of him drawing something hard over something soft. Panic sings through me again when I hear another buckle.

“Ready?”

There’s no backing out of it now. “I’m ready.”

And he does something I hadn’t even considered. Not even for a second. He threads a loop of leather over my head—his belt—and cinches it tight. I’m in trouble now.

“Open your mouth.”

“I—”

“Do it.” The tone of his voice is firm yet gentle at the same time. He brushes a hand down the side of my face, a reassuring gesture—this is scary right now, but trust me. Trust him? I’d be fucking mad to trust him. And yet I do what he tells me to. He pushes forward and guides his cock into my mouth. I’ve never done this before, so I’m basically wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do now. He’s rock hard and tastes clean and slightly musky…and he’s massive. I can barely fit him inside my mouth. I can tell he only fits half the length of him inside before he hits the back of my throat.

“Shit!” He hisses as I suck, forming a vacuum around him. I think I got that part right. His hips rock back and he slides out of my mouth causing a wet popping noise. “Still think you want me inside you?” He knows just how big he is; he’s fucking smug about it. This is going to hurt like nothing else, but I don’t want him to realize I’m a virgin. Even Eli doesn’t know that part. I’m sure he would have charged this guy a whole lot more if he did, and that thought just turns my stomach.

“Yes,” I tell him. “Yes, I want you.”

“Good. But let’s do this first.” He fists a handful of my hair and lifts my head closer to him, and then he pushes back inside my mouth, thrusting in and out while applying a gentle pressure to the back of my head. I writhe on the bed, surprising myself with how much this turns me on. I’m floored when he tugs on the belt strap, though.

Floored.

My eyes, even in the dark, see stars. I can barely breathe with my windpipe cut off and his cock pulsing in and out of my mouth. “Stay with me, okay?” he grunts.

Fear and excitement pool in my stomach. It’s the same sort of sensation I used to get when I was a kid waiting to ride a rollercoaster, only amplified a thousand times. And a whole lot scarier. Between my legs, my pussy tightens as he works his hips back and forth, keeping just enough tension on the belt strap so that I can drag the tiniest amount of oxygen into my lungs.

He shivers as his erection turns granite-hard. If he doesn’t stop now, I think I know what will happen. But he does stop. Breathing heavily, he withdraws and couches down beside the bed, easing his fingers beneath the belt and loosening it. His face is so close to mine, I can feel the intense power of his gaze as he stares at me in the dark. I still can’t see a thing, but maybe he has better night vision than I do.

“Your mouth is perfect,” he whispers. And then he does two things that surprise me. Firstly, in the most reverent of ways, he brushes his hand against my sweat-soaked skin, sweeping my hair out of my face. And then secondly, he places the softest kiss against my forehead.

“For being such a good girl, I’m going to make you come now,” he breathes. A tremor of anticipation shimmers across my skin, and he chuckles. “You’re being a very good girl.”

He climbs up onto the bed and positions himself, hooking his arms underneath my hips, hoisting me up to meet him. The position is awkward with my ankles still bound to the bed, but all thoughts of my discomfort are forgotten when he buries his face between my legs and starts sucking on my clit again.

“Ahhh!”

The sensation is too much. I can feel myself climbing, ascending higher and higher as an unfamiliar, unfathomable feeling builds between my legs. It unfurls in gentle pins and needles throughout my body, growing more and more intense…and then…

I’m screaming. Unintelligible screaming. I’d scream for God but I doubt He would approve of this situation right now, and I have no idea who this guy is so I can’t scream for him, either. I just scream for myself and the fireworks going off inside my head, the inferno licking over my skin, burning me out, leaving me hollow and spent. I fall slack, trembling as he continues to sweep his tongue over and over my clit.

“Stop, stop, please,” I rasp.

“Mmm, so selfish,” he hums into my pussy, making me clench. “Don’t forget. It’s my turn.” He fiddles around for a moment—condom? Fuck, I hope that’s a condom. And then he drops my hips and thrusts into me in one fluid motion, his hands tight on my pelvis, trapping me.

Oh…my…

The pain is almost crippling. An uncomfortable feeling, a build up of pressure and then a stinging release, let’s me know that it’s done. He stops.

“What…?” He inhales deeply. Exhales. “You probably shouldn’t have kept that from me,” he says softly. He sighs, as though he’s disappointed in me, which is the most messed up thing ever. “Are you ready?” he asks.

My voice is a faint whisper when I reply, “Yes.”

“Try to relax.” He fills me up, stretches me, makes me whole. He starts off slow, gentler than I think he would have done if he hadn’t just deflowered me. After a while the pain subsides, gradually transforms until I’m no longer tensing with every thrust, but leaning into it. By the end, he’s fucking me like a freight train—unstoppable and raw with need. He comes so hard, he practically roars.

I don’t, of course. It’s my first time, and the pain just about outweighed the pleasure. My mind is too fogged to understand what’s going on as he climbs off me and slides down my body. His lips caress the inside of my thigh, and I shiver as his fingers carefully stroke over my core. The touch isn’t designed to excite me—it’s more of an apology. He moves around in the dark, undoing my wrists, my ankles.

“You enjoy that?” he rumbles, and the depths of his voice make my legs press together.

“Yeah, I—I did.” The most startling thing, the thing that makes me most sick, is that I’m telling the truth. What the hell is wrong with me?

He grunts, unthreading his belt from around my neck. The release of pressure makes me feel like I’m floating two feet off the bed.

I’m immobile as he packs up his things. I can sense him next to me pulling on his clothes. Then, when he’s dressed, he stands beside the bed looking down on me. He brushes his fingertips against my cheek again, so soft it’s almost not a touch at all.

“Be seeing you.” He heads for the door, and the light from the hallway nearly splits my skull apart when he opens it. And there my mystery man pauses, and I catch the one and only glimpse of him I ever get. Wearing a worn leather jacket, his back to me, a black duffel bag in his right hand, he tips his head down to his shoulder. He’s doesn’t look back at me. He hovers there long enough for me to make out the silhouette of his profile, his dark, mussed hair, the bruised pout to his full lips.

And then he goes.

I never find out his name.

Eli isn’t answering his phone. I’ve been calling for three days, and Eli—lying, manipulative, disgusting Eli—isn’t answering his phone. I’ve only been to his P.I. office once, a dark, depressing studio above a liquor store in Ranier Valley that stank of stale Chinese food. I’ve skipped rounds at the hospital this morning so I can find out what the hell is going on. A small part of me has been going crazy since I left that hotel room.

You’re a stupid fool. He tricked you. You slept with a complete stranger, gave up a part of yourself you’re never going to get back. Ever. And, now what?

And, now what? I will only have an answer to that question once I speak to Eli.

The stairs up to his office are slick with hard-packed ice. I navigate them with the greatest of care, holding my breath as I take each step. His piece-of-shit car is parked in the lot below so I know he’s here. I just don’t know what I’m going to say to him. I can hardly threaten to go to the cops if he doesn’t give me the information he promised me. That wouldn’t work—I have zero proof that I have an arrangement with him, and besides, Eli’s a private investigator. Would the police even take my word over his?

I go straight in, knowing that if I knock I’ll only chicken out and run. I start talking as soon I see the man sitting in his chair.

“What the hell, Eli? I’ve been call—” My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; my brain shorts out. This…this can’t be happening. “Oh….oh, my God.”

The smell hits me first. Oh God, the smell. I try to breathe in through my nose but the air actually stings my sinuses. I cover my face with my hands, trying to process the scene in front of me. Eli was a large man before but now his distended stomach has bloated to obscene proportions, pressed up against his desk. I’ve witnessed the same thing before on my rotation as an intern, primarily in the morgue. Bloating. All of that gas and bacteria wants out, and by the looks of things it will have it’s way sooner rather than later.

Eli hasn’t been answering my phone calls for the past three days because he’s dead. His office looks like someone went on a crazy, blood-fuelled rampage in here. It covers the walls and his desk; it’s crusted and dried in the already stained carpet. Eli’s mouth hangs open in a grim yawn, his eyes rolled back in his head. His skin is a sickly grey color everywhere apart from his hands. They rest on his desk, his fingers tinged purple-black by all of the blood that has coagulated in his palms.

I’m crying by the time I finally regain control of my body enough to pace into the room properly and stand in front of the man who cheated me out of my virginity. Not because I feel bad that Eli’s dead. No, I have reasonably positive feelings about the fact that he’s been stabbed to death with his own letter opener (still sticking out of his chest). I’m crying because he’s dead. He’ll never be able to tell me where Alexis is now. I’ll never know if he was telling the truth. If she’s even alive.

But no, that can’t just be it. It can’t be over just like that. There has to be something here, some way of figuring out whatever he was going to tell me. My mind locks up as I realize what I’m going to have to do. I’ve seen far more horrific things than Eli’s dead body, but it’s not how gross he is that makes me feel like passing out. It’s my anger. I’m so angry, so cheated, so furious that I’m scared of what I might do if I have to go near him. I certainly couldn’t be arrested for stabbing him again since he’s already dead, but still… I don’t even want a dead man’s blood on my hands.

I suck in a lungful of air and hold it, and then I take an unwilling step forward. I just need to get through this, for Alexis. This is all for Alexis. Maybe he kept the information in a file somewhere. That’s something a regular personal investigator would do, surely? Eli was more than a P.I, though. He was a drug-dealing pimp, too. Admin probably wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. I’m retching as I pick my way through the devastation of his office, climbing over an up-turned chair to reach the small, three-drawer filing cabinet. It’s not locked. The top draw is severely dented, like someone took a crowbar to it. Inside, there are files. My heart soars when yank open the middle draw and find one labelled with my sister’s name: Alexis Romera. Missing Person. With trembling fingers I pull the thing out of the cabinet and almost sink to my knees. I see right away that it’s empty. There’s nothing inside, not a single sheet of paper.

“No, no, no, come on!”

The other files all have paperwork inside them. Regular information about bail bonds and cheating spouses. It’s just Lex’s that’s empty. What the fuck? There are no papers on Eli’s desk and none on the floor either. No hidden drawers that could be containing the information I’m looking for. It’s gone. Someone’s taken it, and I have no idea who. I suddenly can’t hold it in anymore—I lean forward and the past three days finally take their toll. I vomit, throwing up my meagre breakfast of dry toast and orange juice so violently that it strips my throat raw.

I’m sobbing as I leave Eli’s office. I feel useless. So powerless. Weak.

“I’m so sorry, Lex. I’m so sorry…” She can’t hear me, but I have to say the words. Admitting them out loud makes me own them instead of hiding them away inside my chest, letting them burn me from the inside out. I’ve let her down. All hope of finding her is gone. The very worst part of acknowledging that is the relief. It courses through me like a single exhaled breath, rushing from my head to my feet. There’s nothing more I can do. The responsibility is no longer mine. I am the very worst of people. I don’t even bother to report Eli’s death.

I leave him there to rot.

"You're a scandalous human being." Lacey's laughter is grating the fuck outta me this morning. She’s been riding me all day about the two girls I brought home last night then promptly kicked out at three in the morning when I was done riding them. The woman just doesn't know when to shut the hell up. We've been stuck in the car for the past twenty minutes, and twenty minutes in the car with Lacey is basically twenty minutes in hell.

"How 'bout we don't talk for the next while, huh, Lace?"

"How about you tell me what this guy is done and I'll shut my trap? That sounds like a fair trade."

Lacey's tiny. She was malnourished as a kid and didn't quite get the nutrients she needed to grow, which means her head barely hits me mid-chest. Her long, blonde hair, straight as straight comes, and pale blue eyes give her an angelic look, but the damn girl is anything but.

I'd have left her at home today but the she’s not a fan of her own company. Bad shit goes down when she's left in her own devices and a trip to the hospital is the last thing I need tonight. Not after I've done what I'm about to do.

"Frankie's been bad. That's all you need to know."

"When isn't Frankie bad?" Lace pouts. She and Frankie fucked a couple times, back before she showed up at my doorstep like a stray cat and refused to leave. Since then she's been focused on more delicate prey, namely the female of the species. Most times, I have to be careful about the chicks I bring back to the warehouse. I let 'em out of my sight for ten minutes, Lace'll have their panties around their ankles and her face buried between their thighs. The girl knows no bounds.

But anyway, I think she still got some sort of grind for Frankie. She went quiet for a moment when I told her where we were headed and that doesn't happen too often.

"Just don’t cause a scene, okay? Wait in the car like a told you. I'll be five minutes max." Truth is even I don't have a clue what Frankie's done. All I know is that I've been sent to pay him a visit, and that only happens when someone has grade-A fucked up.

Charlie isn't exactly a lenient man, but he only brings out his most expensive toys for his most expensive problems. Miss a payment on a loan? Charlie sends Sam out to relieve you of a few fingernails. Lose a shipment of coke with the equivalent street value of a five-bedroom house and you get a visit from me. Horses for courses, that's what Charlie says.

We pull up outside Monterello Farm Markets and I slam the gear stick into neutral. It's raining. Surprise sur-fucking-prise. Welcome to Seattle. The windshield turns opaque, blasted by raindrops as soon as the wipers quit. For a moment it’s just me and Lace inside our own little, messed up world. “You hear me, right? Stay in the car.”

She gives me the three fingered boy scouts salute—the one that generally means she’s not feeling all that compliant but doesn’t want to argue. “Gotcha, Boss Man.”

She’s called me that since the day I started paying her to launder my money for me. I could have hired the Jews to do it but they’re already rich enough. Besides, Lacey needs a purpose, even if it is an illegal one.

“Be right back.” I jump out of the car, collect the black duffel from the back seat of the Camaro and head into Monterello’s without looking back. Doubt Lace will disobey me today, anyway; rain’ll wreck her perfectly straight hair. It really is fucked that I know girl shit like that.

Inside, Archie Monterello, Frankie’s brother, stands behind the counter double bagging for an old woman with a stooped back and perfectly styled white hair. Probably a wig. He drops the bag when he sees me, tomatoes bouncing out onto the counter and rolling away.

“Frankie ain’t here today, Zeth. He’s outta state with Cindy.”

I ignore the kid. He’s paid (barely) to keep the front of store charade respectable, believable, if you will, and that includes running interference when a member of the family’s in trouble.

Looks like I’m expected.

I head straight for the swinging doors to the rear of the store, while Archie scrambles over the counter, green apron twisted over his shoulder. “Zeth, I mean it, man. Frankie ain’t here.”

But when I slam through the office door hidden out back, Frankie most definitely is here. His beat up, junkie wife is on her knees, blowing him good. The black-and-white striped dress she’s wearing is hiked up so high I can see her ass cheeks. The look of surprise on Frankie’s face is priceless; he’s so stunned that it takes a minute for him to slap Cindy’s shoulder. Another minute still for her head to stop bobbing.

“Put your dick away, Frankie. We’re having words.” The last thing I need to see right after dinner is Italian cock. I roll my eyes to the ceiling while he zips up. Cindy stands, one hand balancing herself on Frankie’s desk, the other hand tugging her dress down. Her eyes are bloodshot, totally vacant. In other words, she’s baked.

“The fuck you think you’re doing, Zeth? You can’t just barge in here whenever you feel like it, y’know?”

Her husband slaps the back of her leg—crack. “Watch your mouth, bitch. Be careful how you speak to my business associates.” He might as well have thrown a bucket of water over her. A spark of life reignites in her eyes.

“Well fuck you, Frankie. I got better things to do than stand around defending you all day.”

“You were on your knees if I recall. Now get out of here. Zeth and me gotta talk.” He either has no idea why I’m here or he’s trying to ingratiate himself to me. It doesn’t matter. There’s no sweet-talking me, no point in brown-nosing. I curl a lip as Cindy storms out of the office. She shoulder barges me, and I raise an eyebrow at Frankie.

“Bad attitude,” I tell him.

“Bad everything,” he replies. Frankie and Cindy were like Bonnie and Clyde ten years ago but now he’s a two-bit womaniser and she’s a used-up whore. Frank still has his looks, though—the only reason Lacey looked at him twice. She’s shallow like that. It’s part of her charm. Frankie leans back in his leather chair, eyeing me.

“You know why you’ve been given this ticket, Zeth?” he asks.

“Am I supposed to?”

Frankie shrugs. “Most times people know why they’re killing a man.”

So he does know why I’m here. Hardly surprising; you don’t piss of Charlie to this degree without realizing you’re gonna reap the consequences. “I’m not what you’d consider…inner circle. I get an address and some instructions, nothing more.”

“And a suitcase full of cash, too, right?”

My turn to shrug. No point in being shy. “Right.”

“Well how ‘bout I offer you two suitcases full’a cash instead, Zeth? Hire you to go right back where you came from and put an end to this once and for all?”

“You want to hire me to kill Charlie?”

“Why not?” Frankie is one composed motherfucker. He’s richer than God—the eighties might be long gone but cocaine is still Seattle’s drug of choice—and I doubt this is the first time he’s offered to buy his way into someone’s good graces. No doubt he’s never had anyone tell him no before, though. See, the thing is I don’t have any good graces. And I don’t need his money. I dump the duffel I’m still carrying onto his desk. Unzip it. Pull out my go-to—my duster.

Frankie’s still not blinking. The fucker must have cast iron balls. “I’m Charlie’s man, you know that, Frank. Now, I have other jobs to get to tonight. Let’s tidy up these loose ends, huh?”

The reason for Frankie’s calm appears in hand a split second later. The little shit’s had a gun on me under his desk the whole time. Desert Eagle 50-calibre. Nice. He holds it up at shoulder height, arm held straight out. “Shame you won’t just do the job for me. Charlie’s been running this place into the ground for years. Time for him to move on if you catch my drift. And time you were leaving right now, okay?”

I’ve had a lot of guns aimed at me over the years. A man’s intent is always right there, shining in their eyes, to be read like the pages of a book. Some of them just wanna scare you enough that you back off; some of them are so desperate in trying to hide their own fear that they forget to make you believe they mean it. You gotta mean it. And some of them are sharks. Stone cold. People who’ve pulled the trigger countless before and haven’t thought twice.

Frankie, the little fuck, is a shark.

I’d never have called it. I clench my fingers around the duster, staring down at my fist. There’s little to be done about this now. Things will play out the way they’re meant to. “I suppose this is where you shoot me, then?”

“I suppose it is,” he answers.

Someone, somewhere, said something I felt compelled to have tattooed onto my chest when I was drunk once: So it goes. I know it was Billy Pilgrim from Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five, but I frequently pretend I don’t. That would mean admitting to the fact that I actually read something in high school before I dropped out. But never mind that. As the bullet zips through the air, I realize how absolutely fucking perfect that saying is. So it goes. There is something so inevitable about me getting shot here tonight. Something so obvious and unbelievable, all at the same time.

Pain ricochets through my body like a hot, white lance. The bullet hits me in the chest, two inches below my collarbone…and suffice to say, it hurts like a bitch. Frankie seems stunned that I'm still standing. If I were him, I would already have shot me another five times and emptied the clip just to make sure I was dead. Fucker’s gonna wish he had. I launch myself across the desk and grapple the gun from his hand, ripping it free from his grip.

"Big mistake, Frankie. Big mistake." I raise my fist and bring it sailing down into his face with a brutal force. The crunch of metal crushing bone, skin and muscle separating, isn't something I ever get used to, but on occasions like this I allow myself to enjoy it a little. Just a little. We have to try and enjoy our work, after all, and pain always awakens my dark side.

Frankie’s head rolls back as I pound my fist into his face over and over and over again. My hands, T-shirt, jacket, jeans, everything is covered in blood by the time the guy falls slack. I’m laughing hysterically as bubbles of blood form on his lips.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he mumbles. His now broken teeth make the words a little muffled, but I get the gist. “You lock people inside a sealed shipping container for three…three days, they’re gonna d—die, Zeth. How…how is that my fault?”

The burritos I ate an hour ago start churning in my stomach. What the fuck is he talking about? I raise my fist to smash it into his mouth again, but…I can’t. Just…this is just fucking perfect. “What people?”

“The ones Charlie’s been bringing in through the docklands. Girls. Girls in con…containers.”

I let Frankie go. Girls in containers? Charlie promised me two years ago that he didn’t deal in girls. Drugs and guns, yeah, but he swore no skin trade. “What’s he moving girls for?” I hold my hand to my shoulder, wincing past the pain. It’s growing now that I’m not inflicting it onto someone else.

“Why do you think?” Frankie rasps. “He gets twenty grand a pop if he can prove they’re still…still in….in tact.” He chokes on the blood welling in his mouth; it runs down his chin, dripping onto his ruined shirt.

“You’re lying.”

“I ain’t,” he says, and I believe him.

Fuck.

Charlie’s the one who’s been lying to me all this time. A part of me wants to believe this is a new development, but I know my boss. He’s got a degree, masters and a goddamned doctorate in lying. Especially when it concerns money. No way he would pass up twenty thousand bucks for a nobody kid he could have snatched off the street. My head spins, numbed and disoriented from the pain of the bullet lodged in my shoulder Through the mist slowing down my mind, I still think it, though. Did that mean I’d been right about the girl? Did that mean Charlie had taken the girl’s sister nearly three years ago?

The first time I’d seen her, she was working a night shift at the hospital. My sack of shit uncle had just been eighty-sixed—that hadn’t worked out so well. To be eighty-sixed you have to actually be buried the prerequisite eight feet down and six feet under instead of dumped out of a moving car on the side of the freeway—and it had been on me to identify the body. Well, what was left of it. Sloane was a broken bird, I could tell. Beautiful in an understated way, luminous brown eyes, wavy brown hair. It was the fight in her eyes that had captured me, though. Captured and enthralled me in the space of ten seconds flat. We’d stood face to face in the corridor as she waited for the elevator, and her eyes had met mine. I felt like I was being gutted stem to sternum, and all the while I knew she wasn’t seeing me at all. She was seeing some distant horror that I could only guess at. And I didn’t like guessing.

I’d made it my business to find out everything there was to know about her, which was when I’d discovered that her sister had gone missing. Just snatched off the side of the road, only eighteen years old. Sloane’s family were Christian to the core—promise rings, hymns every Sunday, no cursing, no drinking, the whole nine yards. Except when her sister had been kidnapped, Sloane had stopped going to church. Didn’t wear the cross I knew her mother had given her. She’d given up believing because it was just too hard to keep her faith alive when something so terrible had marred her life.

And then on top of everything else, and in keeping with the truly vile motherfucker that I am, I’d taken her virginity.

I’d found out Eli Harris was bribing her when he’d shown up to pay his dues to Charlie. He’d been bragging about the trade he’d made with her as he handed over the protection money he paid each month to ensure Sammy and the boys didn’t fuck up his business. The sick bastard thought it was hilarious that he was about to sell her ass to the highest bidder, a guy I knew from reputation alone. A guy who liked to beat his women black and blue while he screwed them. I’d paid big to take his place, double Eli’s month’s protection money, and then afterward I’d made Eli spill everything, everything he’d known about Alexis Romera’s disappearance. The pimp had said it was Charlie all along. I hadn’t believed him. I’d killed him for breathing the very words, and Charlie had been mortally offended when I’d confronted him about it.

You know me better than that, Son. I’m signed up for some questionable dealings but I’m not fucking interested in pussy. The karma on that shit is too raw; now get the hell outta my face.

I’d had my one night with Sloane and then severed all ties. Left her with no way of knowing what Eli was promising to tell her. It had been harsh, yeah, sure, since she’d carried out her end of the bargain and never gotten the lead she was after. But fuck, I’d at least made sure she’d enjoyed it. Made sure she wouldn’t have nightmares about my face every second she closed her eyes. I know I could have just walked away, left her in that hotel room still a virgin, unspoiled, but then again I couldn’t have. This is me we’re talking about. I had to have her. Besides, she’d kept that one little titbit a secret, anyway. Maybe if I’d known she was still riding on her V card, things would have gone differently.

Yeah, right.

“You’re sure about this?” I tighten my grip around Frankie’s neck and his eyes damn near bug out of his head.

“Yeah, man! Yeah, I’m sure!”

Screw you, Charlie. I stoop and pick up the piece from off the floor where Frankie dropped it. Desert Eagle: I don’t usually kill with guns, but sometimes for a work of art you’ve just gotta make an exception.

“Zeth! Zeth, man, don’t! I’m sorry, okay? I’m—I’m sorry I shot you!”

Begging makes me feel queasy. I do it. I pull the trigger and Frankie’s head kicks back like a rock-em-sock-em robot, except there’s blood. A whole lot of blood and fragments of bone, like little pieces of smashed china.

“Why am I right all the time?”

I turn and Lacey’s standing there in the doorway, the heel of her right palm pressed into her sternum. She’s soaked to the skin and panting.

“Lacey—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells me. “I already knew.” She stumbles into the room and looks down on Frankie, eyebrows banked together, mouth drawn down in a confused pout. I’d like to think this is her first dead body, only I know better. She faces me, holds her hand out. “Come on. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

I don’t take her hand.

“No. Not the hospital. I’m not going there.”

I’m not gonna risk seeing Sloane again. Not until I hear the truth come out of Charlie’s mouth. Even if I have to beat it out of him.

I will learn the truth.

"Ten CCs of epinephrine. Call ahead to the O.R, let them know we're coming up."

"Yeah, I…I got it."

I look up and the skinny intern with the bad haircut is still standing there, staring at the guy bleeding out on the gurney in front of him. The guy I'm buried wrist deep inside. "What are you waiting for? RUN!"

The fresh intake of interns is always a nightmare. They're so green they’re absolutely no use to anyone, and yet in between people severing their limbs in car crashes, people getting shot, and the world falling down around our heads, we are supposed to teach them how to fix people. I'm supposed to teach them, which is insane because I've only just learned how to do all of this myself.

"He's crashing, doctor. Adrenaline?" the nurse asks. Adrenaline is the last thing this guy needs. His heart is already near spent as it is. What he needs is the gaping hole in his stomach to be repaired. God knows how many of his internal organs are shredded in there. I'm not going to know until I can open him up properly and clear out all of the blood. Right now, I can't tell a damn thing other than the fact that this guy is going to die unless we do something. And soon.

"Let's just get him in the elevator," I tell the female nurse. She nods, unlocks the gurney wheels, and is barking orders at her team without even blinking. Grace is a pro. She'd probably be able to save this guy all on her own if she had to. Half the nurses in this hospital probably could if push came to shove. They’re all massively undervalued, underpaid, and overworked.

Bodies hustle as we guide the gurney to the elevator, my hands still lodged inside the patient. I'm bouncing on the balls of my feet while we watch the numbers count down. I'm not fazed by elevators anymore; too many trips like this have desensitised me to the cramped space. The hospital's only four storeys high and yet it seems to take an eternity for the damn doors to slide open. Eventually they part and then we’re racing against time again.

"Inside, inside! Move!" The intern I sent to warn the O.R., Mikey, I think he's called, makes it just in time to catch the doors. "They know we’re coming?"

"Yeah."

"He's coding, doctor." Grace tells me this as the heart rate and BP monitors start screaming. I pull my hands out of the guy and grab hold of Mikey.

"Hold him together."

Mikey looks like a rabbit in the headlights when I gesture to the patient's wound. "Wh—what do you mean?"

I take both his hands and place them where I need them. "I mean hold this guy’s fucking intestines inside his body!”

Mikey may or may not obey the command. I don't waste any more time. I lean as far as I can over the patient and start compressing his chest.

One, two, three, four, five…

The powers that be decided a while back that you don't need to give an arresting patient any breaths. Keeping the heart pumping is the number one priority here. Grace is on it, anyway. She starts bagging him, forcing regular gusts of oxygen into his lungs, and I grunt over my work.

The doors open again.

"Okay, let's move." I can't compress and run at the same time, so I hop up onto the foot rail at the bottom of the gurney and hitch a ride to the O.R. I used to see doctors do this back when I was as green as Mikey and I could never picture myself being composed enough to be that person. A lot has changed over the past four years, though.

Lex’s disappearance, trying to find her, has changed me so dramatically that I'm not the same person I was back then. I'm exactly the kind of person I need to be to excel at this instead. I'm cold. And calculating. I don't buckle under pressure. I get things done. It all started back in that hotel room. I traded a part of myself that night, sold or flat out extinguished a part of myself that would only have prevented me from doing what had to be done.

The very first surgery I performed was on my self; I'd carved out my weakness with a rusty scalpel and revelled in the glorious void that had remained afterward.

The nursing team are already waiting by the time we reach O.R. three. I've been keeping our as yet unidentified patient alive for two hundred fifteen seconds. Time is running out. Dr Massey is scrubbed and ready to go when we reach the sterile anteroom between the corridor and the O.R. Massey's good, a gun with trauma. I'm so relieved I almost grin when I see his face.

"No ID, MVA, unknown internal injuries. BP tanked between ground floor and level two." Massey nods, face already obscured behind his mask, but his eyes are steady. They say he's got this.

"Go scrub, then get your ass in here. This looks like a job for two pairs of hands." The O.R. nurses take charge of the gurney and disappear through the double doors with my patient. My patient. When you've had your hands inside a person, whether they live or die, they become your responsibility.

"Hot damn." Mikey is standing next to me, blood mottling the latex of his gloves and soaking his scrubs. It looks like he just went on a killing spree. "That was intense."

"That was sloppy," I correct him. "You can't freeze like that, Mikey. Your hesitancy could cost someone their life." I feel like I've just kicked a puppy. Mikey’s probably only three years younger than me but in our reality, three years’ worth of experience is a lifetime. Him giving me the sad eye treatment isn’t going to earn him an easy ride with me, though. We aren’t allowed feelings like remorse. Remorse means we did something wrong, or we didn’t do enough. There’s no room for wrong or not enough in this hospital.

"Are you going to save him?” Mikey asks.

Can I do it? Can I do for this patient what I couldn’t do for my own sister? I tell Mikey the same thing I tell myself each morning before I even step foot inside the hospital.

"I'm gonna try. I’m gonna do my best."

******

We lose him.

Sometimes, no matter how much blood, sweat and tears you pour into someone, your best just isn't good enough. Gary Saunders, twenty-seven, bleeds out on the table, while Dr Massey and I battle to save him. His internal organs were minced, though, and sometimes that's all there is to it. I've learned to accept outcomes like this; I feel no guilt. I'm a human being, capable of only so much. People forget when they walk through these doors that they're putting their trust in mere mortals. I'm not God. I'm not even close to a miracle worker. Some days there are people you can save and those are the lucky days. The good days that make it feel like the sun is shining that little bit brighter. But then there are shitty days, too. Days like today.

I'm in charge of telling Gary's pregnant wife that he’s dead. I get landed with this job a lot; my colleagues think I have a skill for breaking terrible news, when really I’m just the same as any of them. It still hurts like hell. The difference between me and them is that I can distance myself from the pain. I'm an expert at distancing myself from pain. If it were an Olympic sport, I'd be a gold medallist. I head to the family room and knock quietly at the door. Inside a brunette woman with a swollen belly twists in her seat, and my stomach bottoms out. The chart I’ve been carrying crashes on the floor.

"Lex? Alexis?" I realize it's not her a split-second after the name tumbles out of my mouth. Confusion flickers across the woman's face. "I'm sorry, I—“

This woman is older than Lex would be now. Her eyes aren't the same shade of brown—slightly lighter, almost hazel. She frowns at me. "Do I know you?"

"No, no. Sorry. For a moment I thought you were someone else."

“That's okay. I'm just glad to see another member of the human race. I've been waiting here for hours. No one’ll tell me anything. Can I go see Gary now? He's going to be so mad if he has to miss work. He’s never taken a sick day in his life." She's rambling. The smile makes a lot of sense—she's plastered it on to keep from crying alone in an unfamiliar, strange room. She can act as easy breezy as she wants, though. She knows. Or she at least suspects.

“I'm sorry, Mrs Saunders, could I sit with you for a moment?" Her smile disintegrates. When she slumps back into her seat, she's already entered the first stages of grief: denial.

"No. No, they said he was going to be fine. There must have been a mistake. Please can you go and make sure you're supposed to be here?"

I'm the Grim Reaper. I may as well be the embodiment of death to these people. My face is one they will forever associate with the worst news they are ever likely to receive. "I'm so sorry, Mrs Saunders. I’m sorry but it’s true. I am supposed to be here. Gary…he didn't make it."

Charlie left England back in the eighties but thirty years hasn't dampened his cockney accent. It took me a long time to figure out what the hell he was saying when I first met him but now I understand him perfectly.

"D'you need me to clear out your ears for you, boy? I ‘ate ‘avin’ to repeat myself. My import, export business ain’t none of your concern.”

Sitting behind his imposing monstrosity of a desk, it's easy to see how he scares the crap out of the younger guys. Even the older guys. He looks like a pumped-up Robert De Niro, except his presence is far more intense. He’s in his late sixties but the guy still fucks anything that moves, still snorts anything vaguely white and powdery, and still kills anybody who looks at him sideways. He brought me into this world of violence, though, so it's not in me to be intimidated by him.

It's been three weeks since Frankie. Three weeks since I had a slug tweezered out of my shoulder by some bumbling moron who was too scared to even look me in the eye. Three weeks that I’ve had to recover and do a little snooping.

"I didn't even know you had an import, export business, Charlie. Thought you bought your product from the Russians. Mexicans when you had to?"

He opens the drawer to his desk and pulls out a small wooden box with a fleur-de-lis engraved into the lid. That box is a childhood relic to me. Charlie used to sit me on his knee and teach me how to roll smokes for him; he's always kept his stash in that box. He hasn’t asked me to roll for him since I was ten, though, twenty-three whole years ago.

"I'm sure there's plenty of things about my business you are not privy to, Zeth. That's not your fault, I know. When I took you under my wing, I watched you for years thinking to myself, where will this small boy fit best into my organisation when he sprouts hairs on his balls? I watched and I took note.

"If you’d displayed even the slightest scrap of business sense, I would’a had you involved in that side of things and you'd know all about my side projects. Everything else pertainin’ therein. But that's not what I saw in you, Zeth, is it? I saw that you were a savage little shit wiv a nasty temper and I found other uses for you. Other uses that have funded your escapades for quite some time now."

The message is more than clear—don't bite the hand that feeds you. Charlie’s always liked messages. Don't shit where you eat. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. You get the picture. "I appreciate everything you've done for me, Charlie. You know that's not what this is about."

He finishes rolling his smoke. He pops it into his mouth and then purses his lips, drawing it out and sealing the handmade. When he lights it, I can smell the sickly sweet stink of the Mary Jane he laces his tobacco with. He holds the smoke in his lungs before exhaling, fixing me with razor sharp, ice blue eyes. "Then what exactly is this about?"

"It's about girls. Kidnapping and selling girls, taking them from their homes."

"I never had you pegged as the sentimental type, Zeth.”

"Not sentimental. Just not a monster."

That puts a shit-eating grin on his face. "We both know you are, in fact, a monster."

Maybe that's true, but even I have boundaries. Selling girls for sex is most definitely crossing the line in my book. "Just tell me the truth. Was Frankie for real when he said you had a fucking shipping container of dead girls roll into harbour?"

Charlie plucks a flake of tobacco from his time. Flicks it away. "If you insist on knowing the truth, then yes, okay. Seventeen dead Mexicans. I had to pay off the port authority to make them disappear. Very messy business."

Even though I'd known it was true before he'd confirmed it, a small part of me had hoped otherwise. I explode out of my chair; it kicks back and falls to the floor with a clatter. Charlie watches my reaction with a blank expression.

"You fucking lied to me."

"Am I beholden to you, Zeth?” He asks me so calmly.

I clench my jaw. "No."

"Do I owe you anything at all?"

"No."

"Then why do you presume that I would bow and scrape to your crazy questioning? You weren’t right in the ‘ead when you asked me 'bout the girls last time. You had that fucked up…” he waves his hand in my general direction, grimacing, "…bloodlust in your eyes that you only get when you've got something stuck up your ass."

"You had a girl kidnapped. A girl from Seattle, two and a half years ago. Where is she now?" I brace myself by my fingertips against Charlie's desk. I'm doing everything in my power to hold back the wild creature that’s just begging to mess him up. Charlie smiles a benevolent smile, like my anger is endearing. Like I'm a puppy simply baring his teeth. Fucker.

"I don't take Americans. And I don't shit where I eat, you know that."

See.

“I thought I knew a lot of things about you, but looks like I was wrong.”

“What d’you care ‘bout some fuckin’ kid that got snatched two and a half years ago, anyway?” He flicks his cigarette into the crystal ashtray, so big it’s almost the centrepiece of his desk.

“She doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“But she means something to someone else, right? That little slut you been shacked up wiv the past little while?”

He knows about Lacey but he’s never mentioned her before. She’s too far below him to be even on his radar most days. “No. This has got nothing to do with her.”

Charlie grunts. “Well, either way, I can’t help you, son. I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout some missin’ hooker. I’d forget all about ‘er if I were you. Sounds to me like you bin carrying this ‘round wiv you the past two years. You carry it ‘round much longer, I think maybe you and I are gonna develop a little bit of a problem.”

I tilt my head to one side, considering the dangerous look on Charlie’s face. We’ve already developed a problem; he just doesn’t know it yet.

******

I’ve got fifteen minutes to get home before Lacey officially freaks the fuck out. I’ve been gone all day today waiting to speak to Charlie, the first time since Frankie laid me up with a gunshot wound, and my co-dependant houseguest became even more co-dependant during that time. Like, forget the co. She’s just dependant. I’m only just starting to graze the surface on the girl’s backstory. She’s already told me some dark shit that went down in her household as a kid, but I know there’s more. She had it way worse than me. Fucked as it may sound to me now, she didn’t get lucky like I did. Charlie is a hateful, vengeful, evil son of a bitch every day of the week that ends in a Y, but he saved me. I’d literally be dead right now if he hadn’t have taken me from my uncle when I was six.

You really know your problems are bad when you wish a psychotic, drug-pushing Englishman had come to your rescue as an impressionable youth. I don’t know if Lace does wish for that, though. I just know she gets fucking crazy when I leave the warehouse for too long. If this version of me right now could go back in time, say, fifteen months and have a conversation with the me from that time, I think past me might shank current me in the ribs for going so damn soft. I mean, shit. I’m rushing home for a woman. And I’m not even fucking her.

Her phone keeps on ringing out every time I call, and that makes my palms sweat like a rapist sent down the line at Chino. I did a stint in Chino one time; let’s just say I saw first hand what happens to guys who force themselves on others. Women, kids, animals, doesn’t matter. A rapist in a prison like that is a man living on borrowed time.

“Come on, fuck, Lacey. Pick up the goddamn phone.” She doesn’t pick up the phone. I break every speed limit and run every red on my way home, gunning the Camaro’s engine to the hilt. It’s raining when I finally arrive. The warehouse is a two-storey fortress, silhouetted and daunting in the storm-colored evening. The huge steel doorway, covered in blistered red paint, is still locked and chained like I left it, but Lace has a key. She could have left if she wanted to. The thumping music coming from inside tells me she hasn’t gone anywhere, though. Maybe that’s why she didn’t hear her phone.

Hope. Hope is a nasty little bitch.

I know I’ve fucked up as soon as I step foot through the door. The place is trashed. Broken furniture lay discarded like kindling on the floor; the TV is smashed but still works well enough to produce skull-splitting white noise and a fuzzy, distorted screen. There are shattered beer bottles all over the place and clothes absolutely everywhere, both mine and Lacey’s. Shit.

“Lacey! LACE, WHAT THE FUCK?” I roar. I charge from the main living space through into my bedroom—she hides in my bed sometimes when she’s really struggling. I’m never in it, you feel, but sometimes she says it makes her feel safe. She’s not in my bed, however. And not in hers, either. It’s full blown panic stations when I find her in the bathroom.

She’s gone and done it a-fucking-gain.

Her skin is almost blue this time. Her body floats fully stretched out in the water filling the tub, which is a deeply offensive shade of crimson. I jump in feet first, dragging her limp body out with me. She weighs nothing at all, so lifeless in my arms.

“Fuck you, Lacey. Fucking fuck you.”

Her wrists are a mangled mess. I wrap her up in her duvet and dump her ass in the passenger seat of the Camaro, and then I drive. I drive her to the one place on the face of this planet I really don’t want to go. The place I chose not to go when I was in trouble myself—St. Peter’s Mission of Mercy Hospital.

Coat? Check.

Purse? Check

Car keys? Check.

Twenty hours after the shift from hell began and it finally looks like it’s ending. I always feel like a fraud when I put my civilian clothes back on. Like I’m only pretending to be a functional member of society, someone who shops at The Gap and remembers to color co-ordinate their jacket to their handbag. I’m most at home in my scrubs, but people tend to look at you funny if you do your grocery shopping in a pair of blues.

“Night, Sloane. You working tomorrow?” Jerry, one of the orderlies, is here almost as much as I am. He’s a young guy, twenty-two perhaps, with a growing family to feed. Works every hour God sends.

“Sure am, Jer. Catch you for some coffee?”

He grins. “Count on it. I’ll need it after tonight.”

I’m within sight of the exit when I start to get nervous. This is where it always happens. The fourteen-foot stretch of floor space between the reception and the entrance is like some kind of magical hot spot. Nine times out of ten, something or someone will charge through that door while I’m occupying that space and I’ll end up turning right back around.

Ten feet.

Five feet.

I hold my breath.

I’m at the door. Seattle’s autumn wind buffets me, whipping my hair up as the doors slide back to reveal a clear night sky beyond, a bruised shade of royal blue. I breathe a sigh of relief. I did it. I’m free and clear for a whole seven hours. I’m going to spend every single one of those seven hours in bed and it’s going to be amazing.

I’m in my car, pulling out of the parking lot, when a souped-up black Camaro screeches around the corner, nearly crashing straight into me. We both manage to brake in time, but barely. The driver of the Camaro leans on their horn, shattering the peace of the nearly empty parking lot.

I can’t see whoever’s at the wheel but I know they want me to get the hell out of the way. There’s only one reason a car would come tearing at breakneck speeds into a hospital lot and that’s because of an emergency. I reverse so hard my tires spin.

The Camaro roars up the sliding doors that I just left behind and a wave of regret washes over me. I might as well kiss those seven hours goodbye—I’m a glutton for punishment.

It takes me thirty seconds to park up and run back inside. A nurse is already calling for assistance over the tannoy, and a guy in black is hunched over a child on the floor. There’s a blood-soaked duvet abandoned by his side, and he’s slapping the child, the little girl, in the face. I skid to halt beside him, not thinking. I grasp hold of his wrists and shove him back hard enough that he topples sideways and lands on his ass.

“Move away from her. Let me see.”

A guttural, choking sound comes out of him as I make a quick observation of the little girl. She’s not as young as I first thought, but she’s tiny. Her pale blonde hair is died pink with blood. The insides of her wrists are torn to shreds, and it takes me a full second to compose myself. She really meant it when she did this to herself.

“How much blood did she lose?” I check her pulse, bend down to place my ear over her mouth. Any breathing sounds? Faint but there. Pulse is thready but present, too. I look up, still waiting on my answer, and the guy who brought the girl in is propping himself up by his elbows, staring at me with his mouth open. His eyes are huge, the color so dark it’s almost black. Looks like he’s in shock.

“Listen, I really need to know how much blood she’s lost,” I tell him.

“I—I don’t know. She was in the bath.” He whispers the words so quietly I can barely hear him. The front of his T-shirt clings to him, hugging his chest—he found her in the tub, went in and fished her out. Suresh Patel, one of the on-call doctors, arrives on scene a second later and we get the girl onto a gurney. Her body temp is low, her stats uneven. She’s a coin toss at best.

I’m sucked back into the hospital as I work over the small woman. Hours pass. We replace liters of blood and end up having to wrap the girl in four blankets before she finally picks up enough for us to attempt surgery to fix the mess she’s made of her wrists.

It’s five in the morning by the time I go looking for the guy who brought her in. I find him sitting in a corridor, elbows resting on his knees, head resting in his hands. He looks up and sees me, and then does the damnedest thing: he gets up and starts to walk away. Fast.

“Excuse me. Hey!” He stops but doesn’t turn around straight away. He waits a beat, like he’s building up to it. “I need some details from you about your girlfriend. You can’t just leave her here to wake up alone.”

Finally, he turns. His jaw is clenched so tight the veins in his temples throb with the flow of his pulse. He just stares at me. His shirt has dried out now but it’s still clinging to him in the most distracting fashion, the arms of the material rolled up one turn to reveal strong, tattoo-covered biceps. Ink in black and blue and red surges down his arms in waves. His almost black hair is spiked every which way, tousled, still wet; delectable. I kick my own ass when I realize I’m checking him out.

You’re mad at him, Sloane, remember? He was just leaving. Going to walk right out of the door.

“You think you can at least give us some history before you vanish into the sunset. Or sunrise,” I say. He blinks at me, and then folds his arms across his chest. He opens his mouth to say something and stops himself. Scowls. He turns toward the door and it looks like he’s considering bolting anyway. Bastard.

“On second thoughts, if this is because of you, then maybe you should go,” I say. There are no bruises on the girl’s body but I’ve seen enough cases of domestic violence to know that it’s not always physical. A broken spirit can be just as damaging as a broken bone. This guy could have made his girlfriend’s life so miserable that she simply wanted to end it. The scars on her arms say this wasn’t the first time she’s tried it, either.

Tall, Dark and Handsome glares at me with a pure fury that makes me rethink my suggestion. He faces me properly, like he’s committing to sticking around now, and finally speaks. No, he growls. “I’m not her boyfriend. And I’m not leaving her.”

My stomach lurches. That…

That voice.

Holy…I hold my fingertips to my lips, scrutinising every last square millimetre of him. “Do I know you?” I whisper.

A cruel smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “No.”

Relief floods through me, but my body refuses to accept the sensation. “I could swear I recognised your voice.”

“I was born here. We all sound the same, sweetheart.” He continues to deny it, but with every word my stomach twists a little further. I hear that voice in my dreams; I’d know it anywhere. I’m not wrong. I am so not wrong. This…this is him. The guy who brought in the tiny, broken girl is the very same guy who tied me up and fucked me senseless two years ago. The guy who took my virginity. His brooding eyes are fixed on me with such intensity, that I know he’s just waiting for me to realize.

“I—I need to know who your friend is,” I stammer, and he smiles. It’s a breathtakingly wild and treacherous thing, seeing this guy smile. The gesture’s so sharp it could flay a man alive.

“Carrie. Her name is Carrie.”

“Insurance?”

He shakes his head. His eyes never leave mine. “I’ll pay.”

“You’ll need to go speak to reception. Give them your credit card details. And your name.”

He smirks, looks down at his shoes and then raises his eyes to mine again so that he’s looking up at me from under those dark eyebrows. “I’ve got cash. And you don’t need to know my name. Better if you didn’t. Better you forget I was ever here.”

He starts pacing backward, arms still folded across his chest, and I act without thinking. A part of me is already wondering where the nearest phone is so I can call the cops, but the rest of me follows him down the corridor. Damn, stupid body.

“Wait! I—don’tmakemedothis!”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know! I—it was you. Admit it. Admit that it was you.”

“I didn’t hurt Carrie.” His smirk vanishes, replaced by a cold and calculating stare.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

He pouts, and any remaining doubts I might have had are banished just like that. Those lips—I may not have seen them in the dark, but I sure as hell felt them. He’s the guy. He sees it now. Knows that I know for sure. “Maybe I do know what you mean. That doesn’t change the fact that you should forget I was ever here. Best for everyone involved. You don’t want to know me, sweetheart.”

His arrogance is freaking unprecedented. I take four hurried steps and stab my index finger into his chest. “You!”

Up this close, he’s so tall it’s frightening. “Me,” he agrees.

I ask him the one question that’s been burning in my mind for the past two years. “Did you have anything to do with Eli’s death?”

He looks away, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. That’s a yes if ever I saw one. “Let’s just say Eli and I had a disagreement.”

“Fuck! I knew it. Did you take Lex’s paperwork?”

He’s like Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde. One minute he’s standing there, watching me like I’m a genie and I might disappear in a puff of smoke any minute, and then he’s pure, raw anger. He grabs hold of my wrist and moves with lightning speed, shoving me roughly back against the wall. The corridor is empty at this time of morning so I’m completely alone and vulnerable. His hand closes around my throat, just tight enough to terrify the shit out of me. “You like feeling like this, Sloane?”

Hearing my name come out of his mouth makes my eyes well with tears. He’s known who I am all along. I shake my head. “No,” I gasp.

“Then you need to treat Carrie, make sure she gets better. I’ll be coming back for her in two days. Don’t let the goddamn shrinks near her. Don’t let them section her or I’m gonna be seriously pissed.” His body presses up against mine—he’s like a wall of muscle and testosterone that’s trying to possess me. I’m too frightened to do anything but nod my head. Something changes, then. I could be fooling myself but I think I see his eyes soften. “Do you remember?” he whispers.

I nod.

“And when you close your eyes?”

I know what he’s asking. I nod again. “Yes.”

“Do it, then. Close your eyes.” His hand tightens fractionally, making me gasp. I take one long hard look into the bottomless depths of his eyes and then, just like the last time, I do as I’m told. I close my eyes.

His lips brush lightly against mine, and my mind stills. His breathing is fast, ragged and hot against my mouth. It has the most devastating effect. I’m practically tearing myself apart over how conflicted I am. Should I kiss him back? Should I knee him in the balls? He blows all argument right out of the water when his tongue darts out and meets my parted lips. He slowly teases it over my mouth, so carefully, lovingly, like he’s tasting me. I react on impulse. I open my mouth wider, welcoming him inside. He doesn’t accept the offer, though.

“Two days, Sloane. Two days and I’m coming for you,” he whispers.

The next thing I know I’m sinking to the floor. When I open my eyes, all I see are his black boots walking away.

The coffee at Fresco’s is particularly bad today, but that’s no great surprise. Everything here tastes bad. The bagel I'd tried to force down my throat for breakfast might as well have been made out of sawdust. There are a thousand different, but more importantly palatable coffeehouses in the greater Seattle area, but Fresco’s is a tradition for Pip and me.

We've been meeting here ever since we were poor, struggling students and their drip coffee was all we could afford. I see my best friend arrive, looking immaculate as ever. Her hair is swept back into a classic chignon and her pantsuit is perfectly creased in all the right places. I look like a tramp in my cuffed-up jeans and my long-sleeved t-shirt.

Pippa breezes through the café, grinning at Marcus the barista, who will have her regular double espresso on the table precisely sixty seconds after she sits down. She dumps her Louis Vuitton onto the bench beside me and slumps down into a seat.

"Morning, stranger." It's been a week since I've seen her; that's a lifetime for us. She gets comfy, giving me a wink. "What's so urgent it couldn't wait until after I'd finished with my twentieth slightly deranged patient later on today?”

Pippa opted for psychology instead of medicine. We graduated at the same time; she's been certified by the Board of Psychiatric Medicine for the last fourteen months. She works out of an office downtown, dealing with patients who have been sentenced with mandatory therapy in one form or another. A lot of violent offenders walk through her doors. She could easily have chosen to work with Prozac-happy, depressed housewives but she wanted more. Said it felt better to help those who really needed it.

I stare into the bottom of my empty coffee cup, suddenly doubting whether I should tell her anything that happened yesterday. But…but I think I need to. She's my best friend, but she's also always been able to see things from an unbiased point of view. That's exactly what I need right now.

"If I told you I had a patient who had an issue they needed to talk through, you'd already know I was talking about me, right?"

"Yep."

"Okay, well, I won't bother with that spiel then."

Marcus drops her coffee off. She sips at it, raising one eyebrow at me. "Would save some time, yes."

"Okay, well…” I just need to spit it out. “I had sex with a guy."

She spits her espresso back into the tiny cup. "What? Who? When?"

I cringe. This is going to be really bad. Pip’s thought I'm going to be the last virgin standing for a long time now. "It wasn't recently. It was…it was two years ago."

Her shoulders stiffen. The incredulous look she was sporting a second ago, turns into something much colder. She's pissed. I knew she would be. She puts her coffee down, staring at the tabletop. "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"It wasn't…it wasn't something to sit around and dissect over a tub of ice cream, Pip. It wasn't something I was exactly proud of¸ either."

"What does that mean? My God, you weren't raped were you?"

"No, no, of course not. But…" This is the part where I either tell her the whole truth or I go for a watered-down version. I’m a complete coward in the end. She would never think badly of me for what I did but I just can't bear the shame of admitting it. I sold my virginity for information. Information that I didn't even get, which means I sold it for nothing. "I didn't know the guy. I didn't even know his name. I…I was drunk and we did it in the dark. I couldn't have even told you what he looked like until yesterday."

Pip closes her eyes and presses her fingertips into her forehead.

Please don't think I'm a slut. Please don’t think a slut.

“Sloane, jeez…” she groans.

"I know, I know."

"I don't even know where to begin with this."

"How about after the judgemental part?"

"Oh, babe. I would never, ever judge you. I'm just…I just wanted something special for you. Y’know, romance, red roses, champagne, fireworks…"

I should have known she would never judge me. I push my bagel crumbs around on the plate sitting in front of me, pouting. "Oh, there were definitely fireworks. None of the other stuff, but definitely fireworks."

She sighs and then reaches across the table, removing the plate so she can hold my hands in hers. "So this has been playing on your mind for two whole years and you didn't tell me why?"

"Because it wasn't exactly normal sex, if you get me."

Pippa looks like she doesn't understand, and then realization dawns on her face. "So…you let some guy screw you and he was into some freaky stuff?"

"Pretty much."

"And wait, you said you didn't even know what he looked like until yesterday. What happened yesterday?"

"He came into the hospital. His friend tried to kill herself."

She exhales. "I need another coffee for this." She orders one for herself and one for me, and when she comes back she has more questions prepared. "I just don't get it. How did you know it was him?"

"His voice is quite distinctive. I practically came out and asked him if he was the guy and, well, he didn't deny it."

"Okay, so aside from the obvious conversation we should not need to have about you making smart choices, why are you cheering your nails off over this guy? You haven't heard a peep out of him since this happened?"

"No."

"So what?"

"So…he kind of kissed me."

"Ah.”

"And it was kind of while…" I take a deep breath. Here goes nothing. "While he kind of had me pinned up against the wall…with his hand around my throat." Pippa’s eyes are probably the most expressive part of her body—they almost double in size.

"He attacked you?"

"It was more of a threat."

"Why on earth would he do that?"

"He doesn't want his friend to be sectioned. Probably thought I could pull some strings and have the whole incident brushed under the carpet."

She snorts. "Well, good luck with that, buddy. Girl tries to kill herself, she gets automatic couch time with a professional at the very least. But anyway, he forcefully kissed you?"

"No. I sort of…allowed that."

"Fuck, Sloane. I don't know, this almost sounds like grounds to call the cops to me. Why the hell did you let him do that? Is he unhinged? Are you unhinged?"

I let out a bitter laugh. "That's a possibility on both counts."

She laces her fingers together, frowning. She's not supposed to frown; it gives too much away. "You already know what I'm going to say to you, don't you?"

"Yeah. I do." I sigh. The weight of this whole thing is an impossible burden on my shoulders. It feels good to have shared even a small part of it, and I’m not done yet. "There’s something else, Pip. He might know something about Alexis."

This information freezes her in her seat. I don't often talk about Lex; I rarely even mention her name, so the fact that I've brought her up now is a really big deal. "How?" she asks calmly. "Did this guy have something to do with her disappearance? Oh my God."

"No. Or at least I don't think he did. I can't…I can't really explain it right now."

She doesn't like that, not one bit. She huffs out a long breath, staring at me like have gone mad. "I have a bad feeling about this, Sloane. Aside from the fact that you still know nothing about this guy—” she pauses, as though something has just occurred to her. "Do you even know his name now?" I shake my head, no. She looks mortified. "Okay, well he hasn't offered any information to the cops about Lex being snatched, and you won't tell me how you think he might know this mystery information. That leads me to believe he is probably involved in some bad shit. Up to his neck in it, no doubt. And he tried to choke the life out of you?"

“I know," I tell her miserably. When she puts it that way, it really does sound pretty messed up.

"I know you want to find her, but this guy sounds dangerous. It sounds as if he's more likely to stab you than help you find Lex. I want you to stay away from him, okay? There's no way you should have anything to do with him. Please, Sloane? For me?"

I bury my face into my coffee cup. I knew she would do this; I knew exactly what she would say, and I’m kind of relieved to be honest. It's like I have permission to avoid him like the plague now, even though he might have some idea where my sister is. I should just tell the police that he practically admitted to hurting Eli yesterday and then they can do all of the questioning. I can stay the hell out of it entirely.

"Okay, yes, you're right. I'll stay away from him,” I say. But for some reason, I don't tell her that he is returning to the hospital tomorrow. I don't tell her that he promised he'd come looking for me.

The unsettled feeling lingering within me is a mixture of guilt and anticipation. I’ve never been one to lie or to hide things, and it’s all too worrying that the only things I’ve kept from my best friend are related to this guy. I can’t help but wonder, am I asking for trouble by keeping secrets? It seems like a futile argument; where he is concerned, I sense that trouble is going to find me regardless.

******

The morning drags unbearably as I try to stretch out my rounds, doing my best to make my other patients’ needs more time consuming than they need to be. Eventually I can't put it off any longer, though. I've done everything that needs doing and since Dr Patel is off today, that makes the girl my responsibility.

Carrie is sleeping when I go to her room, and she's not alone. Kim Perez is from psych, an incredibly lovely woman. She is motherly and warm, the first person they send down here when a kid needs assessing. Carrie’s no kid, but they obviously figured she’d respond to a maternal presence.

"Hey, Sloane,” she whispers, putting Carrie’s chart back into the slot at the end of her bed. "Heard you performed quite the miracle with this one."

"Suresh did most of the work." I smile, returning the same warmth she shows to me.

"Poor girl." She turns to look at Carrie; the girl’s definitely a little worse for wear. There are dark purple rings around her eyes, and her skin is still a deathly white. "I'm just waiting for her to decide to wake up. Any idea how long I'm going to be hanging around?"

"She's not sedated anymore. Could be a couple of hours, could be a day or more. She was in a pretty bad way."

Kim wraps her arms around her body and tuts, frowning at the young woman in the bed. She always takes these things to heart, no matter that she has never met the patient before. "People say that suicide’s the coward's way out, but they couldn't be more wrong. It takes nerves of steel to commit like she did. It's good that she is here now, though. She can get the rest she needs, hopefully develop a different perspective on things. She'll have a whole team of people on hand just waiting to help her."

Dark brown eyes flash inside my head. I swallow hard even though there's nothing constricting my airway. Don’t let them section her or I'm gonna be seriously pissed.

"She's lucky she came to St Peters," I whisper. "She couldn't be in better hands." My mind goes to dark places when I worry. Maybe Alexis is alive—maybe she’s been suffering just like Carrie. Who knows the things she’s been put through if she is still alive. It doesn’t even bear thinking about. Maybe…maybe she’s been laid up in a bed somewhere, recovering from trying to end her own life, too. She wouldn’t have been taken to a hospital, though. Too many opportunities to ask for help. Too many exits through which to make a run for it.

Lex wouldn’t have had a woman like Kim to help her. That thought makes me so devastatingly sad. That guy, whoever he is, is crazy if he thinks I’m going to hand Carrie over to him. Just absolutely fucking crazy.

“Hey, Kim, I really have no idea when her sedative is going to wear off but I’m done with all my work for the time being. Bar an emergency, I have a little while to sit with her. Why don’t you head back upstairs and I’ll come find you if she wakes up?”

Kim smiles at me like I’m the most thoughtful person in the world. “Thanks, Chiquita. I have a mountain of paperwork that’s not going anywhere if I don’t chain myself to that desk. You got my pager?”

I tell her I do, and she leaves, softly squeezing the top of my arm as she passes me.

I already know the girl is awake. She’s just playing dead at the moment, assessing her surroundings before she decides if it’s safe to be conscious. Kim doesn’t deal with patients emerging from anaesthesia every day like I do, and Carrie’s breathing is shallow, quiet and controlled instead of the deep, regular draw it should be if her lights were out. I shift the lounge chair from underneath the window to the bedside and sit myself in it. From there I watch Carrie, trying to figure out how best to proceed.

“So…I went and had coffee with my best friend this morning,” I tell her. “She’s a little prim and proper sometimes but she’s always been there for me. I’ve always been able to rely on her when I’ve needed to. This morning I told her something dark about me. It was a conversation I’d been considering having with her for a very long time, but I’d been waiting for the right time to broach it, y’know? I’m good at making excuses, though. I’ve always managed to put it off before.

“So like with everything else, I left it until the very last minute, until something happened and I didn’t feel like I had a choice anymore. She gave me some solid advice that made perfect sense, and I just kept thinking on my way to work, why the hell couldn’t you have just made that decision for yourself?” I lean back in the chair, watching Carrie’s eyelids flutter. She’s listening.

“I think it’s because we’re so entrenched by our problems that we often can’t see our way out of the maze we find ourselves in. Or we close our eyes and walk blindly because we’re too scared to acknowledge the mess we’re in. The darkness we create ourselves is better than the darkness waiting for us with our eyes open, because we’re in control of it that way at least.”

She doesn’t respond. I’m no psychiatrist. I’m not qualified to try and iron the creases out of this girl’s life. But I am so curious about her—why he cares so much for her, who she is to him. How it was that he came to be the person carrying her lifeless body into my E.R. “You know, if you’re scared…if you’re in a position you think there’s no escape from, let me tell you now…there is always an escape. A way out. If you need somewhere to go, if you need someone to talk to, all you need to do is say so now. I can make it all happen.”

Carrie’s eyelids flutter once more, and this time they open. The girl’s eyes are pale blue, the color of compacted ice. Like an iceberg. They’re filled with tears. Most people would have turned to look at me but she doesn’t; she stares up at the ceiling, her chest heaving as she battles against her emotions.

“I don’t need your help. I don’t need somewhere to go.” Tears streak from the corner of her eyes, chasing each other across her temples and running into her ears. “I just need Zeth.”

******

“I can’t wait another day. He wouldn’t leave me here if he knew I was awake.” Carrie is barely composed. She seems so anxious that I’m considering given her another sedative just to calm her down.

“Then give me his number. I’ll let him know.” Zeth. His name is Zeth. It feels strange having a name to put to his face, but then I only got to put a face to the voice yesterday so I guess this whole thing is strange.

Carrie gives me a look—nice try, bitch. “How about you wheel me out of this room and to a payphone so I can call him myself?”

“You’re not ready for that yet, Carrie. You’re too weak.”

She looks confused. “Carrie?”

“Yeah, Zeth said your name was—” I break off when I realize I’ve been stupid. Of course he didn’t give me her real name. Why would he? He paid in cash for her treatment ($17,000) and signed her paperwork off as K. Vonnegut, for fuck’s sake. “What’s your real name?” I sigh.

“If Zeth says it’s Carrie then it’s Carrie.” She crosses her arms over her chest, staring glumly down at her bandaged wrists.

“Well okay, Carrie, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but you’re not leaving this room. And they’re going to be asking a lot of questions when Dr Perez comes down here later on.”

“She the shrink?”

“Yep. She’s going to wanna know why you did this to yourself.”

“Who said I did it to myself?” She’s pouting like a petulant child, but my heart still starts thrumming in my chest.

“Why, did…did Zeth do it?”

“No. Of course he didn’t.”

The girl is playing with me. I don’t have the inclination to deal with her today even if I do have the time. I’d rather be helping the nurses change bedpans than deal with attitude like this. “Alright, well, whatever. You can tell it to Dr Perez when she comes down here.”

Carrie stops scowling and sits bolt upright, a real emotion finally controlling her face: fear. “No! Please. I—I can’t handle a shrink. Don’t leave me. Please.” She reaches for my hand, gripping the rail of her bed, and weakly clasps hold of my wrist. It’s going to be a while before she regains any strength in her hands considering how deep she went with the razor or whatever she used yesterday. “You don’t understand,” she breathes.

“Dr Perez is amazing, Carrie. You should trust her. She might be able to help.”

“She can’t! Please. Zeth’s the only one. The only one. I need him. If you leave me with that shrink I—I swear I won’t mess it up this time. I’ll kill myself. I’ll do it and it’ll all be your fault.”

I don’t usually bargain with patients in this situation. They’re hardly ever in a position to know what’s best for them, but I can see from the desperation in her eyes that Carrie’s telling the truth. She really will kill herself.

“Shit.” I exhale, squeezing my hand into a tight fist. “I made a promise when I became a doctor, Carrie. I swore that I would do no harm, and I consider you not seeing Dr Perez harmful.”

“Do you see me dying as harmful? Because that’s what’s going to happen if that bitch comes down here and tries to psychoanalyse me.”

Double shit. I run a hand back through my hair, trying to think of a way to convince her that she’s being foolish. There’ll be no reasoning with her, though. I can see that. But she definitely needs help. There’s only one resolution I can think of where she gets what she wants and I do, too. “Alright. I’m not saying that I’m going to help you leave here because I’m not. That goes against everything I stand for as a health care provider. You still need at least another three days bed rest and we need to check the range of movement in your hands to make sure none of your tendons were permanently damaged. But…I will loan you my cell phone, and I will be gone for the next three hours on afternoon rounds. And I won’t make you see Dr Perez, but I want you to see my friend instead. I can ask her to see you off the books, so you won’t need to tell her your details.”

She’s already shaking her head before I can finish my sentence. “They’re all the same. Your buddy’s not going to make any difference, okay?”

It’s clear that I’m not going to get anywhere with her. That makes me remarkably sad. “How old are you, Carrie?”

She supplies the information begrudgingly, after considering my question and obviously deciding no harm can come from answering. “Twenty-six.”

I nod, thinking this over. “We’re the same age, then. And tell me, Carrie…how long have you felt…” Suicidal. Useless. Unable to control your path through this life. “…like this?”

“Always.” Her swagger from earlier was pretty transparent, but she’s dropped the act altogether now. She’s just a broken girl in a sea of hospital sheets, still clinging onto my wrist like she needs the physical connection to stop herself from drowning in them.

“So for twenty-six years you’ve felt a despair so grave that you wanted to end your life because of it. That seems pretty awful to me. When you look to the future, can you imagine feeling like this for another twenty-six years?” Her bottom lip wobbles, but she keeps quiet. “Wouldn’t it be better if you saw someone who could help you work past whatever is making you feel the way you are? That way, in twenty-six years’ time, you can look back and see the light you’ve had in your life, and not only the darkness.”

Carrie remains so quiet, fixated solely on her knees, which are covered by her blankets. If I were a betting woman, I wouldn’t be laying down money that my little speech was going to have any effect. But the girl surprises me when her shoulders sag. “Okay, fine. I’ll go and see this chick once. If she’s full of shit, then I’m leaving.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Now hand over that cell phone.”

“Fine. Just make sure you leave it in the drawer of the nightstand when you’re done.” When you go. I can’t believe I’m condoning this.

Despite the bad vibe in my gut when I give her my phone, I also feel like I’ve won three small victories. The first: she’s going to get help, even though I’m going to have to literally beg Pip to take her. The second: she’s going to be out of here today, a full twenty-four hours before Zeth promised to come looking for me. The third: she’s probably going to be too overwhelmed to realize that she’s typing the bastard’s telephone number into my cell phone. Having his number will feel like a small piece of power I’ve taken back, something I have over him. Something I can provide to the cops if I need to.

I go on afternoon rounds, careful to avoid the east wing of ICU where Carrie is being kept; the last thing I need is to run into Zeth when he comes to secret her out of the hospital. It’s the end of my shift, seven p.m., by the time I head back to her room to collect my phone. Just as I’d suspected, Carrie’s bed is empty and her ruined clothes from yesterday are gone. But when I look in the drawer of the nightstand, I’m less than happy when I realize that she’s also taken my cell phone with her.

Fuck.

Pippa. 11.33

I hope you really heard what I was saying, Slo. Stay away from that guy. I mean it!

I get tingles when I read through Sloane’s messages. Kinda fucked up, I know, but I’m that self-obsessed. I get the warm and fuzzies when I realize she’s been talking about me to her friend. I haven’t mentioned her to a single soul on the face of this planet, but then that’s what guys do; we hoard our shit. Refuse to let anything slip. Chicks aren’t like that—they gossip like mother hens. I’m absently wondering whether she’s told this Pippa how big my dick is, if she remembers how big my dick is—of course she does—when the phone fucking chimes in my hand.

(816) 5466 7980 21.32

Asshole.

I know it’s from her. And I know it’s meant for me. I grimace as I reply:

Me: Bitch.

(816) 5466 7980 21.38

That phone is on a plan. Be good to get it back.

Me: Have to come get it then, won’t you?

I’m playing with fire right now. I shouldn’t be trying to get her to meet me. I should be cutting all ties with her entirely. Since I brought Lace home and forced her into her bed to rest, I’ve questioned her eighteen different ways from Sunday. Did you give her an address? No. Did you tell her where I worked? No. Did you give her your real name? No. Did you give her my real name? Lace? Did you give her my real name? Yes.

Well, shit.

It’s not her fault. The girl was drugged up to the eyeballs and I hadn’t had chance to give her our story, but still…I’m fucking furious that Sloane has my name. Somehow feels like a gross imbalance in power now. I know everything about her and she knows next to nothing about me, but I liked remaining an anonymous party in this shit fight of a situation.

(816) 5466 7980 21.32

Give me an address. I’ll send the cops around for it asap.

She’s grown feisty since we met again in the corridor of St. Peters. It’s easy to be shitty with someone in a text message, though. Different story face-to-face. Body-to-body. I’m yet to get a proper read on the girl, but I’m concerned she’s not as smart as I think she is. She’s a doctor now, so you’d think she had some brains—will let this drop and will forget all about me like I told her to. But I know first hand how desperately she wants to find her sister, and I doubt time has done much to change that.

Me: Apt. 12c, 515 West Ave. 8pm, tomorrow. Wear something nice and short. And I’d seriously recommend leaving the five-oh at home. We don’t play well together.

I’m smirking when I hit send. That’s not the address to the warehouse; that’s the address of the apartment downtown where I host my little get-togethers. Get-togethers isn’t exactly the right term for the gathering, but Lacey thinks it’s better than what I’d called it before—the fuck-fest. The first Saturday of each month is always the same at 515 West Avenue, and tomorrow night will be no different. My cock stirs in my pants just thinking about Sloane knocking on the door, absolutely no idea what lies beyond on the other side.

I’m taking precautionary measures. If she doesn’t follow Pippa’s advice and shows up tomorrow night, I’m going to make sure that, no matter how badly she wants to track down Alexis, she will run at the sound of the name she now knows belongs to me.

******

I’m pumped all of the next day, waiting for it to be time. I’m always pretty antsy by the end of the month, anyway, purely because the parties take the edge off my more outlandish tastes. I go to nights held by other people—Frankie used to host a downright dirty one—but it’s not the same. I am in control when that stuff goes down under my roof; I get what I want with whomever I want. The release just isn’t the same when I’m not the only master to be obeyed. It’s not that I don’t let other dudes in; that just wouldn’t work. But every guy who enters knows who the boss is, and that’s the way I need it to be.

It’s almost dark when I’m finally driving over to the place in the Camaro. Lace is laid out on the back seat, sleeping. I’m not leaving her alone for a second, even if that means she has to sit in a room with Michael keeping an eye on her all night. A cell phone alerts, making her grumble drowsily; I remove the one in my left hand pocket, trying to remember whether this one is Sloane’s or mine. It’s mine, and funnily enough the alert, an email, is from Michael.

From: mikeywest@webhostprime.com

To: 443232111@connectlive.com

Received: 02/21/14 19:21

Hey, boss, just a quick head’s up. Still haven’t found anything on the girl. If Charlie has buried her, he’s buried her deep. Got some of Rufus’s boys looking, too. They don’t know any names. I’ll be over in an hour.

I may call Charlie my boss, but there are plenty of boys out there who reserve that title for me and me alone. Michael’s been on my payroll for the last five years; he’s handy with his fists and has nerves of fucking steel. With Charlie’s non-too-subtle threat at the end of our last meeting, I know he’s probably got people on the alert for me snooping around in his shit. I’ve always kept Michael separate from Charlie, though. He won’t be on the look out for a six-foot-five motherfucker from Boise, Idaho. I slip the phone back into my pocket and process the information Michael sent me—he still can’t find the location of the girl, or even any record to confirm she still exists, but he’s still on the job. I know he’ll eventually turn something up. It’s just a matter of waiting.

We arrive at the apartment not long after that. I park the Camaro in the underground lot and collect Lacey from the back seat, careful not to wake her as I lift her out. She loops her arms around my neck and I carry her to the elevator. On the fourth floor, the apartment door is open and Ganya is hefting crates of vodka in from the hallway.

“Thought you liked the girls conscious at the beginning of the night, Zee.”

I shoot him a dirty look and head on inside, ignoring the jibe. I go to the end of the corridor on the eastern side of the sprawling, six-bedroom apartment, and settle Lacey inside the last room, making sure the door locks properly—we’ve had problems with unwelcome visitors taking liberties before. It does lock so I leave her while she’s sleeping, then I make sure the rest of the place is ready. At the front door the masks are already set out on a table. The theme for this month is gold, and so most of them are either white or black, coated with gold glitter or whatever that shit is they put on Venetian masks. I pick the ugliest one I can find—a devil’s mask complete with horns and downturned mouth—and set it aside for myself. I’m pleased when I find that everything else has been organised and set in place, as well. The lighting is low, a burned, honey-yellow that casts as many shadows as it does highlights. Sliced fruit and other treats are laid out for the guests, and silk screen partitions cordon off discreet corners of the various rooms, where people can gain a little more privacy should they want it. Most of the people who come here don’t, but there you go.

Guests begin to arrive, dressed in tuxedos and shimmering evening dresses, hair coiled in sweeping, elegant styles, just begging to be messed up. Names aren’t exchanged. Masks are kept in place. I go and get ready, trying to keep my head clear. The fucking thing won’t stop racing, though. Will she come? Will she dare? And if so, what the hell is she gonna do when she sees all of this.

I must be sick in the head.

Not only have I not spoken to the cops, but I’m on my way to the address Zeth sent me, and I’ve worn the shortest, slinkiest dress I own. I don’t know why but his text felt like a dare. He didn’t think I would do it, which made my rebellious streak stick its middle finger up. It’s been a while since that happened. After the worst day at work, being interrogated about Carrie’s disappearance—you were the last to see her, Dr Romera. Are you positive she didn’t mention anything about leaving—a fight with this guy is the very last thing I need. I’m not stupid, though; it’s probably going to happen, so I’m primed for one, regardless.

I leave my car two streets over and make my way to the apartment building, wondering if I should have at least told Pippa where I was going. If I go missing and am never heard from again, at least that way she could report my last known location. But I can’t. One, because I don’t have my bloody cell phone anymore and I’m not a savant with numbers, and two, because she would probably carve me a new one for not listening to her.

I press the buzzer for 12c, wondering if Lacey is going to be here. I’ve brought my medical bag with me just in case she is, so I can inspect her wounds and change her dressings, plus a crap ton of antibiotics that she’s definitely going to need. There’s a crackle over the intercom, but no one speaks; the speaker blares as whoever is upstairs presses the entry key, and the door clicks open.

I climb four flights of stairs before I hear the rumble of music and laughter. Someone’s having a party. A lone guy, suited up with his hands folded in front of him, stands at the end of the hallway, already watching me approach. Doesn’t take long for me to realize the music is coming from the apartment I’m after, and the guy in the suit? He’s standing watch over the door. What the hell?

“Can I help you, madam?” he asks me. His voice is smooth and low, his skin the color of warmed honey. With his shaved head and imposing six-and-half-foot stature, he’s intimidating in the most gentile of ways. Like a stiletto blade—slender and beautifully made, but still as deadly as can be.

“I’m—Zeth told me to come.” I’m majorly pissed that he would tell me to come while he’s having some kind of blow out. It was probably his idea of damage control, make sure there are plenty of people around so I can’t cause a scene about…well, everything.

“May I have your name, Miss?”

“Sloane. Sloane Romera.”

The tall guy doesn’t check a list or speak into an earpiece, which wouldn’t really have surprised me; he just seems to already know my name. “Welcome, Ms Romera. My name is Michael. If you need anything this evening, please don’t hesitate to find me.” He steps to one side and opens the door behind him, blocking the room inside from view with his body. He gestures to a table behind the door with an open palm, smiling courteously. “Please, if you would kindly select a mask.”

Select a mask? My toes curl inside my shoes. The last time I had to wear a mask was back in the hotel when I’d met Zeth the first time. It hadn’t mattered in the end because of the dark, but still, the associations are enough to make liquid dread cycle through my veins.

“I don’t think so,” I tell Michael. He gives me an understanding nod, like he’s been through this before.

“I apologise Ms. Romera, but without a mask I’m afraid I can’t let you inside.”

Mother. Fucker. I want my phone back. I want to see if Carrie/whoever the hell she is, is alright. I want to find out what Zeth knows about my sister. My jaw sets as I look down on the table, which is considerable in size. There are six masks left, and four of them are plainly masculine. The two feminine ones are both black with golden swirls, but one of them has a shining, metallic black, purple, green feather plumed from the side of it. It’s pretty so I pluck it up and Michael does me the honor of affixing it into my hair. Seems like the guy has done this before. “Thank you for obliging us, Ms Romera,” he says, and then he moves back so I can see into the room. And my stomach bottoms out.

******

I’ve heard the term before, but I’ve never seen it in real life: Orgy. Group sex. Gang bang. My mind shorts out after that. I can’t think of any more names for what I’m witnessing right now.

The apartment immediately opens out into a large open-plan space, and in that space at least fifty people are in various degrees of undress. Some men are still fully attired, while lithe women, dresses delicately slipped down to reveal a perfectly shaped breast here, ridden up to reveal shaven pussies there, sit on their laps or kneel at their feet on the floor.

Black leather bindings bite into flesh wherever I look, interspersed with couples kissing and groping at one another, hands everywhere. On the far side of the room, a man rocks his head back in sheer bliss as a woman on her knees, completely naked, sucks on his rock solid cock for everyone to see.

My mouth hangs open. I turn around and Michael, still standing there, shrugs. “If you’re looking for Zeth, he’s in the back room. But you’ll have to go through the apartment to reach it.” A slow smile spreads across his face. “Boss told me not to close the door right behind you, though. Doesn’t think you’ll make it.”

Well fuck me, he was right about that. I don’t need this shit. I shake my head, stepping toward Michael and the still-open doorway. Michael lifts one shoulder again. “He said you were a prude. He bet big on you walking out as soon as you saw…” he looks over my shoulder into the room beyond, smirking. “Well...”

“He’s an arrogant son of a bitch,” I snap.

“He sure is. You wanna teach him a lesson, you could go find him instead of leaving. Go tear his head off?”

I narrow my eyes. “Did you bet money on this?”

“Thousand bucks,” Michael informs me.

A thousand dollars? Zeth is so sure of my reaction to all of this that he put a grand on the line. I know that’s probably pocket change to him since he paid cash for Carrie’s hospital bill, but hell. Surely it would sting to lose it. I suck in a deep breath.

You’ve come this far. You’ve already seen what’s going on behind you. All you have to do is go find him.

“Fine.” I don’t give myself time to think. I spin around and make for the hallway on the other side of the huge room. I’m stepping over bodies before I know it. I do my best to keep my eyes up and front, but I can’t help catching sight of a few things. Things that will be burned into my mind for all time.

When I reach the hallway there are eight doors, four on either side. Most are open but a few are closed. Low moaning slides under the wood; groans of ecstasy and the loud slap of skin on skin. I’m too scared to open the closed doors, so I peek into the open rooms instead, bracing myself each time: a tangle of arms and legs greet me first, four women and two guys so interlaced it’s hard to tell where each one of them begins and the other ends. I back the hell out of there pretty quickly. The second room contains a group of men and women all still in their suits and beautiful dresses, watching a couple screwing on the floor. The observers all sip politely from their champagne flutes while touching each other subtly, a hand slipped up a dress, rubbing at sensitive skin; another manicured hand squeezing a hard on over the top of clothes. A guy wearing the most ornate tiger mask complete with fierce golden stripes turns and sees me. He takes a sip from his drink, pauses in caressing the exposed breast of his companion, and holds out his hand to me.

Oh, hell no!

I backtrack quickly, heading for the last door on the right. For a second I think the door’s closed and I’m about to turn around, but then I realize my mistake. The door is wide open. The lights are just turned off.

You son of a bitch.

I grip hold of my medical bag, clenching my fist around its handle, and take a deep breath. I walk inside.

“You’re sick, you know that?” I say into the darkness. A soft rustling sound greets me, followed by the shift of movement. Yes, the lights are off but the corridor is lit behind me so it’s not like last time. I can see enough to make out the looming figure that slowly paces toward me.

“I know I’m not normal, if that’s what you mean.” A terrible devil’s mask appears before me, two feet away; Zeth is dressed entirely in black, the suit he wears obviously a thing of beauty even in the muted light. His dark eyes shine from within the mask, sharp and hungry. “You’ve surprised me, Sloane. I like being surprised,” he rumbles.

“Well you’ve surprised me, too. Although I can’t say the feeling is mutual.”

He laughs, his voice so deep and powerful I can feel it in the soles of my feet. “You should open up a little. You never know what you might enjoy until you try it.”

“I know exactly what I enjoy, Zeth, and standing around watching fifty naked people grind on each other isn’t it.”

The eyes behind his mask flicker with annoyance when I say his name. He stalks toward me and reaches out, tracing his fingertips across my jawline. He seems pensive, intrigued\ by my stillness—I can’t freaking move—as he touches my skin. “If you don’t like watching, Sloane, you can always join in.”

I slap his hand away from my face, glaring out of my own mask. “Give me back my phone.”

He watches me for a second, smirking, before sliding a hand into the pocket of his pants and pulling out my cell phone. He offers it out to me, and I just know he’s planning on snatching it away from me as soon as I reach out for it. I hold out my open palm instead, waiting for him to place it into my palm. He pouts, game ruined, and does it. I slide it into the medical bag I’m still clutching hold of for dear life. “I came tonight because you needed to know that I’m not scared of you, Zeth. And I want to know what you know about my sister.”

“Really?” he eyes the bag in my hand. “By the hand luggage, it looks like you knew all about our little gathering and brought some toys to play with.”

I remember his black duffel, the one he’d had with him at the hotel, and I harden my jaw. “Like yours, you mean? I’m not the perverted one who carries around a stash of bondage gear.”

Zeth looks down, a calculated tilt of his head. His bag is sitting on the floor by the doorway to my left; I shiver when I see it. “My bag of tricks is slightly bigger than yours, Sloane. And there’s more than bondage gear in there, too. Maybe if you’re brave you’ll open it and find out?”

Infection is a major problem after surgery. We doctors spend a great deal of time battling to ensure that it doesn’t happen, that the wounds we create or try to fix remain clean, but sometimes it just happens no matter how careful we are. A body gets cut and ultimately infected; organs become enflamed, the body rejects new limbs. I’ve watched it happen time and time again, but I’ve never experienced it first hand. Yet it feels like I am right now—it feels like Zeth is performing a butcher’s surgery on my open chest cavity, and my heart is already enflamed. It pounds in my chest, fighting against the strange, alien feelings he’s purposefully infecting me with.

“I’m not touching that thing, okay? And I brought my medical bag with me so I could see to Carrie.” I emphasise the name so he gets that I know it’s fake. He doesn’t seem remotely fazed.

“Carrie is sleeping. But you’re more than welcome to play doctors with me? With the right inspiration, I can be a very good patient.” His hand rises slowly; he moves it the same way a person would when going to pat a horse. My mom showed me how to do that when I was a kid—let him see your hand, honey. Let him know you’re not going to hurt him. But I can see from the amused spark in Zeth’s eyes that he is going to hurt me. One way or another. He’s going to tear the bottom right out of my world. He makes contact with my cheekbone, his fingers so barely there that it takes concentration to feel them. It makes a huge difference from the last time he touched me back in the hospital, but that doesn’t make up for his rough treatment.

“I’m not playing anything with you, Zeth. You’ll let me see Carrie if you care about her at all. Her wrists are nowhere near healed. She needs medication and she needs her dressings changed.”

“She’s on amoxicillin and her dressings are changed three times a day. More if they need it. She has a drip to help replace the plasma she lost, and she’s been restricted to bed rest. And right now, she’s sleeping,” he growls. I’ve pissed him off; that much is clear. I swallow when he shifts forward, subtly leaning into me so that his body is less than a foot away from mine. Twelve inches has never felt like such a short distance. “Now, Sloane, if you don’t mind, I’m hosting a party here. If you’re a coward and you’re going to bolt, then I suggest you do it now before things really heat up.”

Before things really heat up? I dread to think what that means, especially if he thinks things haven’t already escalated to surface of the sun type degrees out in his formal lounge. Maybe he hasn’t been out there. Maybe he has no idea what’s going on. Maybe he thought his guests would actually use the finger food to…well, eat. My subconscious laughs at me, practically pointing a finger. He was sitting here in the dark…waiting for you. He knows exactly what’s going on. He knows perfectly well, you stupid girl.

“Fine. I’ll happily leave, but first you have to tell me one thing. Is…is she alive, Zeth?” My stubborn exterior slips. There are times when I let myself bawl over the loss of Lex, sob until I’m sick, but the single tear that escapes me now seems filled with an unfathomable sadness way more profound than any that. Zeth huffs and does something unexpected; he carefully takes off his mask. He tosses it onto the bed that I can barely make out behind him, and then his huge hands begin to work at the cufflinks at his wrists.

“What…what are you doing?”

“You need to see,” he says curtly. The door’s still open behind me, and I know I should use it, turn around and walk right back out of it, but something about the way he pins his dark gaze on me has me rooted to the spot. Our interaction since we met again forty-eight hours ago has been based on a system of theft, threats and dares, but now it feels like a barrier is coming down and something honest is about to happen. That thought in itself is so confronting that I want to run and hide. His suit jacket comes off, and he hangs it over the shadow of a high-backed chair beside him. He then unbuttons his shirt, which strains against his shoulders, the material drawn tight over his arms as he bends them to free each fastener from the neck down. Underneath the shirt he’s wearing a black singlet that hugs his torso, clinging to every ripped inch of him. He looks like a goddamn UFC fighter. His skin is pale, ivory marked with splashes of black—tattoos. He looks up at me from under his drawn eyebrows and I feel the need to wipe my slick palms against my dress. Hot damn. I kind of hate him, but his larger-than-life presence, his magnetism, the way he looks at me like he’s already inside me…he slays me.

In a swift and frankly mesmerising motion he rips the singlet from his body, tearing the thing over his head to reveal a wall of muscle that flexes, each individual part of him working together as he moves. There are four or five small tattoos across his chest, aside from the ones marking his arms, but they’re tough to make out. A huge fleur de lis rides just above his hip, though—that one is easy enough to make out, along with the eagle over his left pec, its wings outstretched. Script writing dips down around his neck, elaborate wording I can’t quite discern. He steps forward, and I step back, holding my breath. I’m hovering in the doorway now, and Zeth’s movement has brought him into the light, but only really halfway. The front of his body, his chest, his defined stomach, the deeply cut V that slices over his hipbones and disappears down below his belt, is bathed in light from the hallway. The rest of him is cast in shadows.

“This,” he says, pointing to his abdomen, “is where I was stabbed the first time.” I can see the bruised color of the scar he’s pointing to, and my body remembers. It remembers his body. If I closed my eyes, I would know what that scar feels like. I’ve relived touching it so many times when I’m on my own in the dark. My fingers tingle with the echo of the memory, how it feels rigid and tight. “These two were the second time,” he says, trailing his own hand down over his skin. The scars aren’t neat and tidy like the first one; they’re jagged edged and angry-looking, two inches long and almost purple. They definitely weren’t stitched properly. It’s typical that he’s showing me this and my inner monologue, ever the professional, is critiquing the handiwork of whoever saw to saving his life. I could have done a much better job.

“And this is where I got shot.” He angles himself so that his upper body moves a little farther into the light, and I immediately see the red, swollen wound a couple of inches below his collar bone. So close to puncturing his lung. Another inch and it would have caused some serious, maybe irreparable damage. The wound is obviously still damned fresh. I can’t help but gasp.

“When did that happen? Why?”

Zeth carefully takes my hand and draws me to him. My feet are trying to stay glued to the spot, but the rest of my body sinks toward him like it’s been inevitable this whole time. He places my hand over his bullet wound, staring me in the eye. His skin is searing hot, so hot it feels like my hand is on fire. “’Bout three weeks ago,” he says softly. “And it happened because the guy I was sent to kill didn’t feel like going quietly.”

Fuck! I try to pull my hand away, but he clasps hold of it so tight, pinning it to his skin, that I can’t go anywhere.

“This is my world. It’s a world where people get shanked and shot on a regular basis. It’s dark. It’s scary. People die. If your sister has been sucked into this world, do you think she’s survived it?”

Tears well in my eyes. I want to hit him. I want to smash my fist into his face so hard I feel bones break—his or mine, it doesn’t really matter. I’m so enraged that I actually do lash out, but with my open palm. I slap him so hard his face snaps to the side and my hand stings like a bitch. When Zeth’s head rolls back to face me, a slow and considered movement, I’ve already started panicking. There’s a tiny stain of blood on his lower lip where I split his skin. My heart hiccups, already well aware that I made a really stupid move. A really, really stupid move.

“I thought you didn’t want to play, Sloane,” he growls. Still holding onto my hand, he starts to back into the room, pulling me with him. This is the most afraid I’ve ever been in my life. I tug back against him but he doesn’t let go. He moves quickly, bending and picking me up so fast I don’t have time to scream. In three long strides he closes the distance between the door and the bed and dumps me onto it, still picking me over with those almost black eyes.

“I swear to God, if you rape me I’ll kill you,” I spit.

Zeth makes a feral snarl in the back of his throat, wild and dangerous. “I don’t force women, Sloane. If we have sex, it’ll be because you want to.”

“Is that why you’ve just thrown me onto this bed?”

“I threw you onto the bed because you hit me and that was very bad of you, but I’ve decided to make you a deal.”

I eye the doorway. It’s only ten feet away, but I doubt I could make it without him tackling me. “What do you mean, a deal?”

He crouches down besides the bed and I’m transported back to the hotel room again, but this time I can see the inquisitive, knowing look on his face. His powerful jawline puts most men to shame, and coupled with the other unique elements that make up his face—dark eyebrows, dimpled chin, pouting lips, a cheekbone structure more women would die for—he is probably the most savagely beautiful human being I have ever seen. It’s not his looks that freeze my limbs to stone, though. It’s the way he looks at me, like for this split second I am the sole focus of his entire world.

“I want to ask you two questions,” he says carefully. “And then you can stay here and do what I tell you to do, or you can leave. You can go home and forget all about this and me and what you’ve seen here tonight. It will be your choice.”

Seems like a no brainer. I don’t think he’s lying to me—I believe without a doubt that he’ll let me walk right on out of here. I can see it in his eyes. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he says. A thrill of nerves tingles through me when he rises and sits on the very edge of the bed; he leans over and places his left hand beside my head, supporting his weight so that he hovers above me. “Have you had sex with anyone since me?”

What the hell kind of question is that? He waits patiently for me to answer while I feign anger over the indignity of the question. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s pissed me off. He’s just waiting for my answer, and the sooner I tell him then the sooner I can go. Fine. I have no reason to lie to him, so I tell him the truth. “No. I haven’t had sex with anyone since you.”

Zeth’s only reaction to this is a crinkling at the corner of his eyes when he narrows them at me. “Good. Thank you for telling me the truth. And now answer me this and if you still want to go, you can…”

I suck in a breath and hold it. This is going to be messed up, I just know it.

“Back when we first met, I told you that you had to own me or I would own you. You’ve been thinking about what that would be like ever since then.”

“No, I haven’t.” My voice shakes so bad I sound like a terrified little girl. Zeth tuts.

“You did so well just now when you told me the truth. Don’t ruin it now, Sloane. And that wasn’t my question. I was telling you that because I know it’s true.” He lowers himself down so slowly as he speaks, until his face is a mere inch away from mine. He tips his head to the side and dips lower, buzzing his nose along the side of my jaw, inhaling slowly and then exhaling, so that his hot breath sends a shiver through my body so powerful that I have to lock my muscles to stop it. “You haven’t been able to get me out of your head. You think about me all the time, wondering who I am, where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m fucking.” He breathes that last word directly into my ear, and my legs clamp together. “At night, when you’re alone, when you touch yourself, I’m the one you’re wet for. And this whole time you’ve been wondering…wondering what it would have been like to have me own you that night. What I would have done to you. How I would have made you mine. So my last question for you, Sloane, is this: are you strong enough to admit that this is what you want? Are you brave enough to find out?”

I feel stripped bare. It’s like Zeth has somehow found a way inside my mind and read all of my most personal thoughts. He has no way of knowing those things about me, but he says them with such an unequivocal certainty that I know he knows it’s true. And it is. Fuck. I close my eyes, trying to breath through the panic. Panic due to Zeth hovering over me, pure sex and malice wrapped up in one blisteringly hot, tattooed package.

“I—I don’t want that, Zeth.”

If he’s disappointed, he shows no sign. He sits back, giving me some space. “Fair enough. It’s been a very pleasant visit, then, Sloane, but it’s time you were going.”

I sit up, watching him. He’s serious. He really is going to let me go. I slowly swing my legs from the bed, tensing, ready, just in case this is all some kind of trick. He stands and picks up his dress shirt, slipping his arms through the sleeves. It hangs open as he collects his cuff links from a dark, anonymous piece of furniture. The outline of him, the tattoos, the face, the open shirt…he has every right to the animalistic and deeply sexual way that he moves. It’s not an attitude. I can tell that already. It’s just who he is.

“Well?” he asks.

“What…” I can’t wrestle the words out. I hate that I’m even thinking them. “What are you going to do after I leave?”

Zeth walks back to the bed, comes to stand right in front of me. My eyes are level with his belly button, which is just about goddamn perfect (how the hell does a man have a perfect belly button?). He curls his index finger and tucks it under my chin, lifting my face so that our eyes meet across the length of his torso.

“I’m going to go out there and drink some champagne and then I’m going to find someone who wants to play.”

“Play?”

“Yeah. Not fucking chess, Sloane. Someone who wants me to fuck them until they can’t see straight. Someone who’ll let me sink my tongue into their pussy. Someone who’ll let me taste them. Someone who’ll let me restrain them and scare the living shit out of them. Someone who likes that. I was hoping it was going to be you tonight, but…”

I swallow.

I swallow again. My throat feels like I’ve inhaled the fucking Sahara Desert. I have to get out of here before I do something stupid. I stand up so quickly, Zeth has to step back to avoid injury. “I—I have work tomorrow. I—” I hurry to the door, fighting for…what? The strength to leave?

“Ahem.”

He’s washed in pale yellow light when I turn around. “I think you’re forgetting something.” He bends and picks up my medical bag, lifting it in front of him. He smirks when he sees the look on my face. “Y’know…you can stay if you want to, Sloane. You don’t need to actually say the words. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re strong.”

I walk back to him, staring him straight in the eye. I can’t…I can’t do this. I’m not this type of person. Am I? Do I even know who I am? He offers me the handle of my bag, arching an eyebrow at me. “What’s it gonna be, brave girl? You want the bag, or you want me?”

He said I didn’t have to say the words. He said it didn’t make me weak. But maybe…God, maybe, just for a second I want to be weak. I’ve been strong for the past two years. I was strong when Lexi was taken. I was strong when I gave up my virginity in order to find her. I was strong when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to save her. I am so sick of being strong. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, already regretting what I’m about to do.

I shift around him and sink down onto the edge of the bed.

Zeth’s low voice breaks the silence, a rich, electrifying sound.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

This girl’s a ticking fucking time bomb, and she’s about to go off in this bed. I’m gonna make sure of it, if only to reward her for not pissing her pants when I told her I killed someone less than a month ago. Most girls would have reacted, but not her. I’m not blind—I know that I scare her. That just means she’s not a fucking moron, though. There are a small percentage of women out there who wouldn’t care that I take people’s lives when the occasion calls for it; they’re the ones I like to term fucking mental. Why would I want to screw an unhinged person?

Sloane has a healthy fear or me, and that suits me just fine. She doesn’t know what she’s just signed herself up for, though, not really, which positively fucking thrills me. I’m still sticking to my scare the living shit out her plan, but the greedy side of me wants her to enjoy it a little first. I might just enjoy it a little, too.

I smile like the cat that got the fucking cream when she tells me yes. I knew she would; there is no reality in which she was ever going to say no. I stand up, leaving her rigid on the bed, and walk over to the doorway.

“Stand up,” I tell her. She moves slowly, watching me, like she’s waiting for me to morph into some kind of monster or something. Poor pet. She should already know this is what a monster looks like. Once she’s standing, I lean against the doorframe and fold my arms across my chest.

“Strip.”

She wants to say no. I can see it on her face, but she’s trying hard not to upset me, too. She takes a hold of the hem of the tiny, skin-tight black dress she’s wearing and hikes it up enough to show me that she’s wearing proper stockings and a garter belt. I’m fucking crowing on the inside. No girl wears that shit unless she knows she’s getting fucked. Sloane can deny it all she wants to, but she knew this was happening tonight. Her fingers move carefully over the catches on the suspenders and then she props her foot up onto the bed, gently sliding the stockings first down her right leg and then her left. Her measured movements aren’t because she’s a master of strip tease—they’re because she’s shitting her pretty little lace panties—but she’s having the same effect on me regardless. My dick is throbbing in my pants as I watch her, but I don’t touch it. I won’t touch it for a while yet.

“Now the dress.”

She wriggles out of the dress, easing it up over her body, and my hands twitch as I imagine her fingers are mine. I would have removed the dress differently, though. I’d have torn that shit right off her. Her hair tumbles around her shoulders like a goddamn waterfall when the dress comes over her head. I was right about the underwear: she is wearing black lace panties, and a matching lace bra, too. That’s just too fucking good. Eli, the disgusting shit, had told her to wear black lace when I’d come to her before, told her that’s what would make me happy, and here she is standing right in front of me in black lace. That speaks volumes.

“Pull your bra down,” I command. She looks startled, like she’s finally realizing what she’s doing and she wants to get the hell out of here. I wouldn’t stop her if she tried but then again I don’t want to advertise the fact. Now that we find ourselves in this position, I need satisfaction. “Do it, Sloane. If you don’t, you’ll be punished.”

Her hazel eyes, just visible in the light spilling in from behind me, grow extra round. She doesn’t say anything, though. On the inside I’m clapping her courage as she slips the straps of her bra from her shoulders and pushes the whole thing down to reveal her breasts. They are big, natural and perfect, just how I remember them from our night together. I may have given her shit for it, but she’s not the only one who’s coveted our experience in the dark. I’ve licked and sucked at those tits, but I’ve always been sore that I never got to see them. Until now.

Her nipples pucker as I stare at them, trying to keep my thoughts from my face. It’s not a hard job, really—I’m a master of intimidation, and this shit is child’s play. Her body is incredible, perfect in every way, but I don’t let her see that. My role here is to remain as clinical as possible.

“Now lie back onto the bed.”

She teeters backward, still in her low heels, and sits stiffly back onto the bed. Oh, dear…she’s still a little uncomfortable. Time to fix that. Time to strip every ounce of self-consciousness from her until she’s putty in my hands. There’s only one way to accomplish such a feat, and that’s to make her body mine, so she doesn’t even think of it as her own anymore. There will only be one thought, one desire in her world, and that will be to please me.

I reach out and drag her body toward me, pulling her legs back to the edge of the bed so I can position myself in between them. I sit on my heels, grinning when I see she thinks I’m going to go down on her. No such luck, sweetheart.

“Touch yourself, Sloane.”

“Wh—what?”

The little mouse is scared. I pinch the inside of her thigh hard enough for her to flinch. “Touch yourself.”

I’m astonished when she does as she’s told. Her small hand darts between her legs and she begins to rub herself over her panties. That’s good, but not good enough. I growl, pressing my thumb into the skin where I pinched her a second ago. She pauses, and I can see her close her eyes. The hand goes underneath the panties this time, and she stifles a whimper.

“Good girl.” I pull her panties to one side so I can see what she’s doing, and I’m momentarily glad she has her eyes closed, because I slip. For the first time in forever, I slip. The sight of her middle finger working the slick flesh between her legs, teasing over her clit, is enough to make me groan. I have to ball up my fist and bite down on my knuckles to stop the sound from escaping me. A shadow falls across the doorway, blocking out the light, and Sloane’s hand immediately freezes. Her eyes snap open and we both turn—two of my guests have come exploring, a guy in a tiger mask and a tall, leggy blonde with a short, sparkly black dress. The girl is still wearing her simple golden mask, but the bottom half of her face is uncovered. Her mouth parts into a seductive smile when she sees what’s going on inside our little room.

“Oh my God.” Sloane’s scrambling to sit upright on the bed, but a scenario plays out in my head and has me aching in two seconds flat. I place a hand on her stomach to stop her.

“Lie back down.”

“But—”

I harden my gaze, sending her the message loud and clear. If she wants to make me happy, she’s going about it the wrong way. The indecision in her eyes is interesting. The internal battle she wages lasts ten long, drawn out seconds. She finally eases back onto the bed, observing the couple in the doorway warily.

“Sit down on the sofa. And no touching,” I tell them. “Not until my friend says you can.” I give Sloane this piece of freedom because I know she needs it right now. She visibly relaxes on the bed, although she still shrinks in on herself a little when the couple enter the room and sit down on the two-seater hidden behind me against the wall. I turn my focus back to Sloane.

“Where were we?”

She whimpers, but takes the hint and starts touching herself again. She doesn’t know it yet, but she is perfect for this. Perfect for me and my dark and nasty desires. I run my hands up the insides of her legs, stopping just shy of her pussy, and she rocks her pelvis up in the most inviting gesture. Not yet, sweetheart. Not yet.

Despite the wide eyes and the hesitancy, she’s so turned on I can smell it pouring from her. Her pussy is wetter than wet and I haven’t even touched her yet. She slips a finger inside of herself and stutters out a moan, and I hear the woman behind us suck in a sharp breath. I can’t blame her—she can see what I see over my shoulder and it’s a fucking hot sight to behold. I hear the soft rustle of material as my guests start to move. That’s okay, totally allowed. I’ll put a show on for them the likes of which they’ve never seen before.

“Take off your panties,” I demand. Sloane responds straight away this time, shimmying them off her hips and kicking them to the floor. Her eyes are closed again, which is fine for now, but that can’t last forever. “Open your legs.”

With her legs spread wide, my cock is straining against my pants, begging to be set free. I’m surprised I’m not light headed with how much blood is being diverted to my dick right now. It’s time for the bag. I get up, heading for the door, pausing when I see that our visitors are already thoroughly enjoying themselves; the woman’s dress is up around her waist, and the guy’s fingers are buried deep inside her. His dick is out of his pants, and he’s stroking it slowly, leaning casually back against the chair.

Sloane makes a muffled sighing sound—she’s dared to peek and has seen what they’re up to…and she doesn’t seem as freaked out as I would have thought. Such a good girl. I grab the bag and hurry back to the bed, need finally taking over. I take out the items I require, four heavy leather cuffs, and I see recognition flash in Sloane’s eyes when she sees them. Yeah, she knows these are the very same cuffs I used to tie her up with last time. She’s very well behaved when I fasten them around her ankles and her wrists, securing her to the bed. There’s a certain level of panicked trust in her eyes, which makes my stomach roll. God knows what I’ve done to deserve that, but it shouldn’t be there.

The woman on the couch moans softly, and Sloane turns to watch. The guy has pushed back his tiger mask and is on his knees, going to town between her legs. She’s palming her own tits, which is kinda hot, her eyes fixed firmly on Sloane’s prone body. I know what this chick is into, know what she wants—I just don’t know if Sloane’s going to extend the invitation. I plunge my hand into my bag and pull out the one thing I’ve been waiting to use since I met her. The one thing I had to fight to put away last time: my knife. Blondie moans again when she sees it, but Sloane goes deadly still on the bed.

“Remember how this works?” I ask her.

She nods just once. “Stay still,” she whispers. This is going to be too perfect, I can already tell. Most girls would start screaming around about now, but Sloane seems ready to accept what I’m about to do. I’ve waited long enough, so I get rid of my shoes, suit pants, and my boxers, and I stand completely naked by the bed. I palm my dick, squeezing it—that feels fucking good—and Blondie grinds her hips into her partner’s face, mouth gaped open in desire. Sloane’s torn between staring at the contents of both my hands—my dick and my knife, like she’s not sure which one to be more scared of. I give her my most brutal grin, and then climb up onto the bed. Her body quivers when I set the sharp edge of the hunting blade to her skin.

“Zeth,” she whispers.

Names aren’t a part of this game; I give her a warning look. She bites her bottom lip, nodding her head to let me know she understands her mistake. I never promised her that I wasn’t going to hurt her, but I try to at least soften my eyes so that she knows no harm is going to come to her. No real harm.

She watches me closely as I trail the sharpened steel over her body. Her breasts, her nipples, down her sides, over her thighs. She’s shaking so hard I have to be careful not to cut her. The woman on the couch starts to cry out as I’m doing this. She’s on the edge, close to coming…and Sloane seems torn between watching that and paying attention to where I’m applying my knife. I flip the thing over in my hand so that I’m palming the blade, and I close my fingers around the ferociously sharp edge. A familiar, blazing slice of pain tears through my skin, and I grin. With the weapon now handle first toward her, I guide it down between her legs.

Terror grips her for a second until she realizes it’s not the business end. I work it firmly into her slick flesh, stroking myself harder when I see the feeling take hold of her—she may be scared right now, but she likes it. She fucking likes it. I go all the way and slide the handle inside her, all the way up to the hilt.

“Oh…fuck.” She rocks against it, clasping her hands to reach the sheets on the bed, but they claw at open air, the cuffs restricting her motion.

“That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” Blondie groans. The guy stops eating her out to turn and see what she’s talking about, and his eyes flash with something dark and animalistic—he’s just like me, this guy. He stands and picks the girl up roughly, guiding her so that she’s sitting down on his dick, her back to him. They both watch me pump the handle into Sloane as she writhes and bucks on the bed, moaning. Never in a million years did I think this was going to happen. Never in a million years did I think she would let me near her like this. The reality of it is thrilling and also worrying. If she’ll let me do this to her, then where will she draw the line? Because this…this is nothing for me. I withdraw the knife and clasp hold of it hard one last time, enough so that I feel the metal dig in a little deeper, and then I throw the thing as hard as I fucking can. It needs to be far away from me right now. The knife embeds into the wall seven feet away, juddering with the force with which I threw it.

My hand is dripping blood, and Sloane’s body is arching up toward me just begging to be taken. I suck on the wound—deep, the length of my palm—and the copper sings on my tongue. I lean over Sloane and place my lips to hear ear.

“What do you think, pet? Do you want to play with our friends?”

A guttural sigh stutters from her mouth. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

“It’ll be fun, I promise.” Her eyes meet mine and I see it again—trust. I wish I didn’t see that.

“Okay,” she whispers. I turn and beckon to the blonde before Sloane can change her mind.

******

The girl steps over her partner as though he no longer exists. I’m fighting to maintain control, fighting to keep my panicked objections on the inside, while Zeth, completely naked, sits back on his heels.

He continues running his hand up and down the length of his shaft, watching me twist on the bed with a stern expression on his face. I know most guys would be going crazy right now—two girls, one them half-naked, tied to your bed, the one other halfway there and willing to do God knows what. There’s a small part of me that’s shaking its head, sighing with disappointment at the way this evening is turning out. It’s the same part of me that also objected to me wearing the stockings and the matching underwear.

The other part of me is rejoicing, because I decided this for myself. I wasn’t pressured into it because I was after something, but because I wanted it. I’ve wanted to relive the night in the hotel for a long time now, but I’ve never been brave enough to admit it to myself. Zeth, with his confronting nature, has brought this out of me, though. He is my maker. And he’s created a monster. I’m horrified that I liked the knife. The way he used it on me had me vibrating with terror and want, a collision of two such powerful emotions that even I couldn’t tell which way I was going to lean—into the pleasure of it, or away, screaming at the top of my lungs.

And now this…

I’ve never been with a girl before. However, by the way the blonde woman crawls up onto the bed, shooting Zeth a possessive look, I’m guessing this isn’t her first rodeo. Zeth smirks, a deviant smile so sexy it makes my skin burn, and then he moves back, giving her some room.

The blonde dips down and laps at my pussy, tongue gentle and careful, not like Zeth when he’d done it. He’d feasted on me with the abandonment of a lion tearing into his kill, whereas she is more delicate. Her tongue is still damn persuasive, though. Her eyes watch me as she works, but I’m watching Zeth.

He gives me that knee-trembling smirk and carries on touching himself, completely unashamed. He owns his body, wears his skin with such a raw confidence that it makes me want to feel the same way.

“You want your hands?” he asks me.

I nod. He gets up and unfastens the cuffs at my wrists, securing me to the bed, leaning over me so that his cock is only inches from my mouth. I want to lick him. I want to suck him. I want to devour him so badly that my lips are tingling with anticipation. Making that move feels bold, though, so I angle my head and graze my teeth against his strong thigh muscle. He laughs silently, looking down at me.

“You’re gonna have to beg before that happens, sweetheart.”

With my hands free it would only be a simple matter of reaching up and taking hold of him, but I know instinctively that I would be asking for a whole world of trouble if I did. I let my head fall back onto the bed, groaning. The woman licking at my clitoris moans too, as she slips one of her fingers inside me. The sensation is huge, overwhelming, frightening and thrilling, mainly because of the way Zeth hovers over me, pumping his cock in his hand as he studiously observes my reaction. I thought I’d been turned on before, but this is something entirely different. This is consuming and powerful, a desperate need to please him. I reach down and bury my hands into the woman’s hair, grinding my hips up to meet her as she thrusts her fingers inside me.

I’ve forgotten all about her partner. I’m reminded of the other presence in the room when he approaches the bed, now completely naked. Zeth shoots him a warning glance, fierce and primal, and the guy nods his head, as though he understands exactly what Zeth is telling him. He hops up behind his girl—still totally focused on me—and pushes into her from behind. She cries out, momentarily stopping what she’s doing before carrying on. The guy starts fucking her, all the while staring down at my naked body in front of him.

The blonde lifts a hand and drags her nails down Zeth’s side, groping for his cock. He shies back, an irritated look on his face, and then slaps her ass so hard it even makes my eyes water. She cries out again, this time louder and filled with pain.

“Not for you,” he growls. He looks back down at me and, fuck, I want him. “Only for her. Only when she begs for it.”

The woman doesn’t seem to mind that Zeth is entirely off limits. She buries her face deeper between my thighs and sucks at my clit, making my legs tremble with pleasure. It feels incredible, but it’s not what I’m desperate for. I am desperate for him. I know what I have to do to get what I want, and I’ve made my peace with it.

He wants me to beg…I’ll beg.

He wants me to plead…I will.

Because right now he knows he’s got me wrapped around his little finger…and it’s right where I want to be. I’m sick. I’m deluded. I’m lost. I’m his.

“Zeth…” The words are like an omen, a bell tolling, sealing my fate. “I want you. Just you. Please…make me yours.”

She begs me. She begs, and I see the moment she gives herself over to me. It’s a goddamn beautiful moment. Her tits are heaving, her eyes wide, her lips bruised and pouting, just waiting to be kissed. I surprise myself by almost breaking my rule and leaning down to do it—I haven’t kissed a woman on the mouth in…well, ever. So long that I can’t remember the face of whoever it was that last had the pleasure. It’s just too intimate. I already came so fucking close back in the hospital that I scared the shit out of myself. I know I’m reckless around this girl; I just have no idea why.

As soon as Sloane says the words, I’m shoving Blondie off her and unfastening her ankles. The guy continues to pound away on the woman, both lost in the moment, but Sloane is very much aware of what’s happening. I pick her up and carry her naked body out of the room, and when her arms lace around my neck, clinging onto me, my heart starts thumping in my chest. It’s like it’s been lying dormant in my chest, gathering dust the past thirty-three years and this is the very first time it’s properly beating. The sensation is worrying. I don’t know what to do with it, other than hide from it. The corridor is all lights and groups of people rubbing up against each other. Sloane sees and buries her face into my chest, like she’s worried I’m taking her out here to offer her around. Sure, I’ve done that before, but that’s not happening with this girl. She’s mine. I carry her to a door opposite, one that always, always, always remains locked—this is the first time I’ve ever allowed anyone else inside. I punch in the code for the security pad—handy when you don’t have pockets for keys—and the door swings open, and then we’re inside. This is the room I sleep in when there aren’t countless people fucking on every surface and countertop.

Once I have her inside, things move a little quicker than I might have hoped. If Sloane were some other plaything I was toying with, I’d spend hours drawing this out and teasing them, but I just…I can’t.

Scaring the living shit out of her? I’m scaring the living shit out of myself with the way I’m behaving. For starters I don’t even tie her up, and that’s like a prerequisite for me, but there’s something about having her arms wrapped around my neck that drives me insane. I throw her down onto my bed in the dark, and I do what I’ve been dying to do since she walked through the door in that little black dress with her medical bag in her hand. I spin her naked body over and draw her hips up to me, grabbing her hands and securing them behind her back. I sink my dick into her so deep she fights for breath.

“Fuck, Zeth!” She screams my name, head turned to one side, pressed into the mattress as I slam myself into her body. I swear to all that is good in this world it’s like music to my fucking ears.

There’s no holding back after that. I do it. I do her. I fuck her so hard that my ears start ringing. I didn’t even know that was a thing. The scent rolling off her is pure sex, pure want, so heady and intoxicating that I have to dig my fingers into her body to stop from coming too soon. I feel like howling when I do let go, allowing us both to climax. Instead I roar, a charge of sound that rips its way out of my chest like a bullet from a gun. Except I’m not the gun. I’m the victim. It feels like I’ve been shot all over again as I lay panting over her body. The whole moment is like an out-of-body experience and she’s the only thing keeping me from floating to the ceiling. I let her up and fall back onto the bed, staring up into the darkness in shock.

She rolls onto her side, exhaling in that sated way that tells me I really hit the nail on the head.

And I’m so angry I could choke.

What the fuck?

I wake up in a bed and it’s not mine. I curl my toes and flex my fingers, reaching my arms up over my head in the most satisfying stretch ever. My whole body hums, like I went really hard at the gym yesterday, but I know I didn’t. I was at the hospital all day and then I—

Oh.

No.

I freeze in the bed, suddenly remembering where the hell I am. His place. His bed. His sweat all over my body. And…and ohmygod. Some random woman’s sweat, too. What the…what the hell was I thinking? I sit bolt upright, ready to lay into the man who’s put me in this position—along with many others last night—but he’s not there. I’m alone in a bed in a strangely sterile, empty room, weak sunlight pouring through the windows, and Zeth is nowhere to be seen.

“Motherfucker.”

I hurdle out of bed, already half inside my dress before I realize he must have gone and fetched it from the other room. My stockings and garter belt are folded carefully on the chest of drawers at the end of the bed, and my medical bag rests on the floor by the door. I stuff the stockings and belt inside the bag, wondering where the hell my bra and panties are, gone forever, probably, and then I hurry out of the room in a fit of rage.

The apartment is a bombsite. Empty, lipstick-smeared glassware decorates every available surface, and abandoned clothing litters the floor down the corridor. I kick at something sparkly and golden on my way to the open plan lounge space, muttering under my breath.

“Stupid…so fucking dumb. Hate him so much…”

The apartment is complete empty, apart from one single man standing at the huge bay of windows overlooking the city—Zeth. His back is to me, but I know he’s heard my approach. I pick up the first thing that comes to hand and I launch it at him. The champagne flute narrowly misses him, shattering against the support beam besides his head. He recoils like a bomb just went off.

There’s a dark fire in his eyes when he slowly turns around, hands balled up by his sides. “What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. You?”

I pick up another glass and I chuck it, taking care to aim more carefully. Zeth ducks just in time to avoid some serious facial injuries. “Last night! That’s what’s wrong with me!” I turn…I need another glass. I find a discarded black, patent pump instead. The heel on it looks lethal. I hurl it, grunting with the effort, and the thing hits him square in the chest. Zeth’s face is a dark thundercloud, seething and growing angrier by the second.

“What about last night?” he hisses.

“The bed? The restraints? The…” I shut my eyes, shaking my head. I can’t believe that happened. “The girl.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, like my freak-out is entertaining to him. He still looks like he’s going to brutally murder me, though. He begins to stalk forward, lethal, a dangerous predator, and I snatch up another glass—a rocks glass this time. Heavier in the base, more sharp corners. I throw it at him as hard as I can, but he simply ducks out of the way, still coming for me.

“Were you drunk?”

“What?”

“Last night. Were you drunk?”

“No.”

“Were you high?”

“No!”

“Then stop throwing shit at me. And stop pretending like you didn’t enjoy every second of it!”

“I—” My cheeks flood with heat. He’s right. He’s so right I want to cry, but I can’t let him see that. I need to get the hell out of here. “Where’s my underwear, Zeth?”

He’s three feet away now, slowly closing the distance between us. In a complete about turn from last night, he’s wearing some low-slung jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Somehow I just assumed he would always wear black no matter what—black in keeping with the color of his soul.

“I’ll be keeping those,” he informs me.

“Uhhh…I don’t think so. They were Provocateur.” I shift to the left as he inches closer, putting a narrow ornament stand in between us. A cold smile unfurls across his face—a calculating, assessing one.

“Are you denying that you wore them for me?”

He has me there. I shrug my shoulders, trying to remember how nonchalant people act. “So?”

“So when a girl wears something for me, it becomes mine, Sloane.”

“Wow. You must have wardrobes full of hooker’s underwear, then.”

“Multiple wardrobes,” he says, “Many. Full to bursting.”

I feel sick. “Forget it, you know what? Keep them. I’m too tired, and sore, and freaked out to be doing this with you right now. I need to go home.” I suddenly remember I’m on the nightshift tonight and my spirits plummet even further. I’m going to have to spend twelve hours walking around the hospital, reliving every second of last night while Zeth brags to…whomever about bagging me again. I’m such an idiot.

“Fucking typical,” Zeth breathes.

“What is?”

“You. You’re deflecting your shit onto me. All I did last night was show you who you really are. You can’t be mad at me for that.”

I can be, and I am mad at him. “I think you’re seeing what you want to see. I’m not looking for some sexual awakening. I’m just looking for my sister. I’m done wasting my breath asking you what you know, and I’m done playing these little games with you. Maybe one day, if you suddenly develop a conscience, you’ll come and tell me because it’s the right thing to do.”

I take a deep breath and walk toward the apartment door, betting that he won’t follow. He doesn’t, but he does manage to get the last word in. “A conscience will get you killed in my line of work, Sloane. And doing the right thing often has the same effect.”

Twenty minutes. I last twenty fucking minutes before I'm ready to smash up the apartment. It's already fucked from last night though, and Ganya’s been shooting me the shittiest looks since he arrived to start the clean up. Looks like my guests had a blast, not that I would know. I’d hidden in that dark room for hours waiting for her, not even faintly interested in joining in with them. Ever since Sloane appeared back on the scene, everything's been completely fucked up.

It's all her fucking fault.

And the woman had the gall to be throwing shit at me? I should have tossed her ass out first thing when I'd kicked everyone else out. Nah, scratch that… I shouldn't have let her stay in the first place.

"Is anything you need me to do this morning, boss?" Michael, stealthy assassin that he is, has let himself into the apartment without making a sound. I bury my hands into my hair, scowling out the window over the city. Why do I do this to myself? I've been just fine. More than that, I’ve been completely fucking happy. I ran as fast as I could two years ago after I slept with Sloane because I knew. I fucking knew this would happen, and now look at where we are.

"Yeah," I sigh. "Send out an email to the group. Let them know all future gatherings have been cancelled until further notice."

This is such bullshit. She's ruined the whole thing. Because now, when I think about screwing someone that isn't Sloane, it just feels flat. Pointless. I'm not in love with the girl. I'm not. There’s just something about her that I need.

I forget about the skyline and focus my foul temper on Michael. He's not big on words; I like that about him. Today he doesn't need to say anything, though. His thoughts are right there on his face, plain as day. Bastard thinks this is hilarious.

"And you can wipe the smirk off your face too,” I snap.

"I'm not smirking, Zee. Just merely observing something I never thought I'd witness."

"What are you running your mouth about?" I could happily go for a fight right now—smashing my fist into something would go down just great, but Michael is just being Michael. Besides, we’re two evenly matched for a quick brawl; it would take a lot to ground him. He grins at me like he knows exactly what I'm thinking.

"Just this girl. And you. And cancelling your monthly parties. Says a lot, is all."

"It doesn't say anything. Just quit…just quit smirking. Have you heard from Rufus?"

Michael buries his smile and becomes all business. "Yes, actually. He said a report came back from Julio. A girl matching the description you sent out works out of one of his compounds."

"Works?" I know what that means. Julio is one of the biggest pimps in California. His compounds are known all over the country, hell, all over the world for the depraved shit that goes down there.

Michael nods. "Works."

Shit. I should just unhear this information. Julio’s not a guy to be fucked with, and if Sloan's sister has been based there for the past two years, then she’s definitely not the same girl Sloane remembers. She’ll be someone quite different by now.

"Benji sent me a shot he managed to snap off when he was there yesterday. Wanna check it out?" Michael asks. Benji used to be one of Charlie's boys, young, stupid, before he got sent away in disgrace after royally fucking up an armed robbery he was committing his in own time. Three blocks from where he lived. Charlie thought that was stupid. No shitting where you eat and all that.

"He took a picture? Crazy son of a bitch. Julio’ll kill him if he finds out he has a cell inside his walls."

Michael shrugs. "Kid’s been working for the Mexicans here and there. They trust him marginally more than the other runts they've got running for them." Michael talks as he flicks through his phone. He finds what he's looking for and shows me. On the screen is a blurry shot of a young girl with a mass of chocolate colored hair. She's wearing a loose t-shirt that swamps her small frame and her face is only half turned toward the camera, but I can see that she's Sloane’s sister as soon as I lay eyes on her. I blow out a sharp breath.

"Is it her?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it sure is."

"How'd you want to proceed?"

"Fucking carefully." Charlie and Julio were rivals once upon a time. About three years ago Charlie disappeared for a week, told me to stay home which was weird enough, and when he came back things were roses with the Mexicans. I'd been suspicious as fuck at the time—an accord like that is usually only birthed by business, and Charlie's drugs and guns move south instead of north. I'm not some stupid kid, though. I've learned to keep my trap shut instead of asking dangerous questions. "We go up there, Charlie’s gonna know about it."

Michael considers this. The guy’s more than just muscle—his brain is damn lethal, too. I might not appreciate or like it sometimes but he's always got advice on hand, especially when it comes to stuff like this.

"Tell the old man you’re stopping through. And tell Charlie you’re going up there visiting family. You leave it another three weeks and he'll know you need to get a taste of pussy as if you're missing your monthly treat. It’d make sense that you go see Julio."

I grunt. Charlie knows the only family I have in the world, let alone in California, is the deadbeat wife of the uncle who used to beat my ass raw. But it might work, maybe. If I can spin it the right way.

"You wanna take a team up there with you?"

"Fuck no. If I rock up with a pack of boys, we won't even get through the front door. No, I need to keep this small."

"Could take a girl?"

I arch an eyebrow at him, pressing my knuckles into my lips. "What do you mean, take a girl?"

"He'd be expecting that. Sounds like Charlie sends girls to him all the time. He picks up virgins mostly, but occasionally he collects a girl with a little experience. He sends them over to Julio to pass on for profit up in LA. The clientele have a less discerning taste there. Don’t split hairs over how many dicks have already ridden a chick."

I could say Charlie sent me up there with a girl? I think about that and my stomach twists. The first person that comes to mind is Lacey, but I could never, ever, ever ask her to do that. Ever. She's already fucked up enough as it is. No, the only other option would be Sloane, and that’s just as unacceptable. Even if it's only an act and no one is supposed to touch her, it's too risky. What if it goes wrong? What if Julio wants a taste? That's just something I wouldn't tolerate. We would both fucking die. "Won't work, Michael. We’ll need to find another way."

He doesn't argue the point. We stand in laden silence for a moment before he tucks his hand into his pockets. "Okay then, boss. Anything else for now?"

"Yeah. There is." Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck. This is possibly the worst idea I've ever had, but… Nope. I don't even have an excuse. I'm just an idiot. "I need you to go and see someone for me."

"The girl from last night?"

"Yeah. Her. I need you to give something to her." I put together what I want Michael to deliver and he leaves; the moment the door closes behind him I feel like chasing after him and punching the guy in the mouth for not pointing out how moronic I’m being. He is usually good at that, but this time he's just accepted what I've told him and gone. What the hell does that even mean? Instead of chasing after him, I pull out my phone and call him. I watch him down below on the streets as he feels his cell ring. He stops, looks back up at the window, pulling it out of his pocket and answering.

"Change your mind?"

I bite down on my jaw, closing my eyes. This changes everything. "No. Just…just don't leave her side until she does what I have asked, okay? Do not let her out of your sight."

"Dr Romera? Sloane? Hey, Sloane."

I shake my head, kicking my brain back into gear. Mikey, the intern, stands in front of me, wringing his hands. The abject terror all interns experience is a powerful and paralysing thing, and it still appears to have Mikey firmly in its grip. He blinks at me and I realize he's asked me something.

"What's up, Mikey? Have you killed one of my patients?" I probably shouldn't joke about that—it's a possibility after all. Mike is a weird green color, too, which doesn't exactly assuage my suddenly suspicious mind.

"I—there's a guy at the front desk to see you. He's been waiting for thirty minutes. The nurses said they wouldn't page you if it wasn't an emergency, and he wasn't family. And then Gracie wouldn't page you because he lied to her and said he was your brother."

I snort when I imagine Zeth trying to pass himself off as my brother. "How did she know he was lying?"

Mikey dithers, turning back down the corridor. He wants to get out of here bad. "Mostly because he was black and you aren't."

Black? I put my coffee cup down beside me, my attention suddenly one hundred percent fixed on the nervous kid in front of me. He fidgets, putting me on edge.

"He said if I didn't come back with you in ten minutes, he was going to torch my Jetta, Sloane. D’ya think… Is there any way we could…?” He points a thumb over his shoulder, wincing.

This guy may not actually be Zeth, but if he's threatening to firebomb someone's car, he undoubtedly has something to do with him. I groan and get to my feet—this is going to be awful. Mikey practically runs back to the reception, pausing to look safely over his shoulder in case I might not really be coming. When we arrive, Grace glares at Mikey with a deep disapproval. By coming to fetch me he has gone against her and that's the last thing you ever want to do around here. Grace is lord and overseer of this world. Mikey probably would have been better off kissing goodbye to his car. Sitting on a red fold-down chair in the waiting area, Michael, the doorman from last night, is waiting patiently, his hands folded in his lap.

His light brown eyes come alive when he sees me. He stands and approaches, dressed in the most beautiful grey suit—no way it isn’t designer—that compliments his mocha colored skin tone perfectly. “Ms. Romera.” He inclines his head politely. “Mr Mayfair told me I would find you here.”

“Mr. Mayfair?”

Michael’s eyes flicker—curiosity flaring and then disappearing just as quickly. “Zeth. He asked me to come and give you this.” He produces a black envelope from his breast pocket, sealed, and addressed with a single sweeping S, written in gold. I take it from Michael, scowling. Most people would have just sent a text message, but no. Not Zeth Mayfair (surely too ordinary a surname for him?). Michael gives me a friendly smile—how the hell he can set me at ease is a miracle. He’s the type of man other men run from, fast, and in the other direction, while begging for their lives.

“Do you know what’s in here, Michael?” I wave the envelope from side to side—something heavy and hard slides from the motion, and I can already feel what it is. That arrogant, manipulative…

“I do,” he informs me.

“Do I want to know?”

“Mr Mayfair insisted I wait here until I have witnessed you follow the instructions inside his letter.” His eyes are shining with mirth when he tells me this, like he’s enjoying the fury that blossoms on my face. I don’t have time for this. I don’t need it. I rip open the ridged, expensive black paper and tug out the note inside, which is just as thick and luxurious. There aren’t many words scrawled on the paper, but they’re powerful enough.

Sloane,

Put this with the rest of your keys.

Give Michael the one to your apartment. He’ll bring it back within the hour.

Z

Forget being pissed off before. Now I’m livid. Now I’m seeing red. He thinks he can just demand the key to my house? He thinks I’ll just hand it over to possibly the most intimidating man, aside from him, that I’ve ever come across? Ha!

“Pump the brakes there, buddy,” I tell Michael. He’s grinning now, flashing me brilliant white teeth, laughing under his breath. “Why the hell does he think this is gonna fly with me?”

“Because I heard from a contact of his this morning—Rufus. And Zee thinks you might be grateful for the information he kindly shared with us. Something about a woman you might be looking for?”

I close my fist around the key still inside the envelope. Is he…is he for real? “Not five hours ago he told me he wasn’t going to help me,” I mumble.

“He says a lot of things. Trick is figure out when he’s telling the truth is all. He’s been looking for a while now. Not since the hotel, but—”

Oh my God, I think I’m going to throw up. “You know about that?"

“Mr Mayfair informed me of only what he deemed utmost important. I needed to know who I was keeping an eye on for him. You can’t tell him I told you, though. I’d be in six pieces and at the bottom of the docks before I could blink.”

This is all suddenly very overwhelming. I walk over to the waiting room chairs and sit down, covering my face with my hands. My heart pumps with a vengeance—finally, finally, finally, finally…

Finally.

Michael sits next to me, letting me digest. I tilt my head sideways, closing my eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Call him,” I whisper. “I need to speak to him.”

Those extraordinarily white teeth are flashed at me again. “You can call him yourself, Ms. Romera. He put his contact information into your phone before he gave it back”

I pull my phone out of my scrubs pocket and immediately check to see if it’s true. S, T, U, V, W, X, Y…my finger stills over the touch screen.

Z.

There it is. One single letter, followed by eleven digits.

My heart. God, my heart doesn’t know what to make of that. I hit the call button, eyeing Michael warily. The sound of the dial tone is enough to make my palms break out into a sweat. It rings once, twice…

A pause…

“Did you do it?”

That voice is even deeper on the end of a phone—a growl, a low reverberation that makes me want to press my legs together to stop the need from building. “Do what?” I whisper.

“Don’t play with me, Sloane.”

I’m pushing my luck with him already and we’ve barely said two words to each other. “Fine,” I admit. “No, I haven’t. I can’t really say that I want or need the key to your kinky sex den.”

“It’s not the key to my kinky sex den,” he says, and I’m stunned by the sound of laughter in his voice. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever heard. “It’s the key to my home. And if you have mine then it’s only right that I have a key to yours.”

“And what if I don’t want that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what that reality looks like.”

Yeah. I’ll bet. I bet he never even considered I would reject this demand of his.

“Ask yourself the question, though, Sloane. Ask yourself if you want to walk away. If you want me out of your life. Forget Alexis and Eli and the way you and I met. Think about what happened last night instead. You knew who I was, then, exactly who I was. You knew what I liked. And you chose to be with me like that.”

He waits silently, his breathing slow and measured, sending chills down my spine as I do what he told me to. I consider it. This path can only lead to trouble. A dangerous guy like Zeth, mixed up in God knows what and with whom… He was shot three weeks ago for fuck’s sake. That’s not something from his past. That is very much current.

“Plus the kid who was seeing to Lacey’s injuries has disappeared,” he says softly. “She needs her dressings changed. You don’t want me doing that, do you? I have very dirty hands.”

“Yes, I know all about your dirty hands,” I shoot back, blushing slightly when I remember Michael sitting beside me. “What would happen if I said no?”

“Then we would have problems. You gave yourself to me. You’re mine. That’s not something you can undo.”

“I’m sure lots of girls have given themselves to you. You can go back to fucking them.”

“I’m not fucking anyone but you from here on out, sweetheart.”

“Until you get bored, you mean?”

“Until I get shot and it sticks. Until you pack up all your shit and run from me. But let me just say this, Sloane...Don’t bother running. I’ll only have to come find you. Stay here and be with me. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Why, just when it might sound like he’s trying to be sweet, does he then follow it up with a threat? And why does that danger thrill me so much? I feel like I might need a few sessions with Pippa myself. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

I blow out a deep breath, and then extract the key from the envelope—it’s small, brass, the kind of key made for a padlock. I close my fingers around it, feeling the sharp ridges bite into my palm. I am a stupid, stupid woman. “Okay, Zeth. Fine. I’ve claimed ownership of your stupid fucking key.” And you have claimed ownership of me. I still have no idea why he wants me so badly but I don’t doubt him. Zeth doesn’t waste his time. I know that much about him already. If he weren’t interested, he wouldn’t be going to these lengths. I’d be well on my way to being a long forgotten conquest by now.

“And you’re giving yours to Michael?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m going to give it to him, I swear.”

A wicked growl travels down the line and straight into my ear—my eyelids flutter closed. I don’t know what I’ve done. I don’t know what I’ve agreed to, but I feel relieved. So, so relieved. I’ve seen terminal patients go through this before. They fight and fight for so long, refusing valiantly to give up, and then, when they’re told it’s just no use and there’s nothing more to be done other than let go…that’s when they find their peace. That is the sea of surrender I am floating in right now. It’s deep, and it’s only so long before I forget all about floating and let myself sink. Sink forever.

“Sloane?”

“Yeah?”

“I just thought you should know…

And then he says the two words I thought I’d never hear. Two words that splinter my heart.

“She’s alive.”

“Zeth! Zeth Wake up!” Something small and hard jabs me in the ribs. I flinch, instantly recoiling away from the contact. In the space of two seconds, I spin off the bed, grabbing hold of whoever was touching me, and raising my fist, ready to strike. I manage to stop it from coming down just in time—the person who was stupid enough to enter a room I’m sleeping in isn’t actually a person at all. It’s a broom handle. My knees are exploding with pain where I slammed down onto them when I rolled out of the bed, my heart charging like a furious piston.

It’s not him. It’s not him. You’re fine. Breathe.

I blink at the broom handle, trying to shut down the attack commands that are screaming inside my head.

“Zeth.”

The voice is solid. Calm. Firm. I look away from the pale wood now lying on the floor at my feet and find Lacey standing in the doorway, her worn, pink terry towel robe pulled tight around her body. It’s threadbare but the girl just won’t throw it out. Her skin is so pale that she looks like a damn ghost. She knows not to bother me if I’m in my room and the door’s closed—something must be up. The girl is smart. She knew to prod me in the side with something from a distance instead of approaching me on the bed. It’s rather undignified in the same vein, but then I’d rather suffer the indignity instead of hurting her.

I suddenly realize I’m naked. I always sleep naked. Straightening slowly from my defensive stance, I fix a questioning look on Lacey. “What’s up?” I clip out. She doesn’t blink at the fact that I’m as naked as the day I was born. She doesn’t blink at the fact that I attack people in my sleep, either. We know not to probe each other, to go digging in places we’re not welcome. She understands. She has her shit and I most definitely have mine.

“I can’t sleep. I don’t feel all that great,” Lace whispers. “Do we have any painkillers?”

When your housemate decides to kill herself, there are certain precautions you take when she comes home. Got codeine in your medicine cabinet? Paracetamol? Knives in your kitchen? Bleach under your kitchen sink? Yeah, I don’t. Not anymore. Not until I’m sure Lacey’s straight again.

I pad barefoot to my bedside table and grab the pack of Tylenol I keep there to take the edge off my hangovers. They can be fucking brutal depending on how hard I punish myself, or how bad the nightmares are. I pop two pills out of the blister pack and head for Lacey, offering them out in my hand. She rolls her eyes.

“Jeez, Zee, you’re being a retard.”

“You’re the retard.” I glare at her. She knows I haven’t forgiven her for the shit she pulled yet, but she hasn’t said she’s sorry. She never will. I’ll die holding my breath before that ever happens. I expect a part of her is actually waiting for me to say it: sorry, Lace. Sorry I dragged your ungrateful ass to the hospital yet again. Sorry for saving your life.

But you know what? Fuck that. She’s being a selfish bitch right now. I watch as she tosses the pills down her throat and swallows them dry. And then I cross a line.

“Why, Lace?”

She doesn’t bother pretending not to know what I’m asking her. All of those doctors at the hospital, each and every one of them, must have asked her the same question. She tucks her crazy hair behind her ear and tugs on the cuff of her robe. I’ve broken a secret accord between the two of us.

She knows, though. She knows she can’t brush me off. She knows she has to tell me something, be it all the truth or just half. She frowns, anger flickering in her eyes. “You know when you wake up in the middle of the night and your heart’s pounding? When the dream feels so real you can still feel and hear everything ringing in your ears, crawling across your skin? When you can even fucking close your eyes without being terrified?”

I remain still as marble, fiercely studying her. She knows I experience that on a nightly basis but I won’t admit it. Shit, no. I will never admit to being afraid again. Not ever.

Lacey accepts my silence. “Well I don’t feel that anymore, Zeth. I dream…and I wake up and I’m not...not scared anymore. I’ve accepted it. My body’s accepted it. There’s something very wrong with me,” she whispers. There’s a horror in her eyes that I understand all too well. Whatever happened to her, somewhere along the way her body has committed the darkest act of betrayal: it started enjoying it.

“Dying is the only thing I’m afraid of these days,” she breathes, “and I need to be afraid. I need to not feel like…like I do. I’d rather be dead.”

She looks like a little lost girl with her grungy robe, and her messy hair, and her haunted blue eyes. I look away, nodding. “What do you need?” I ask. I can’t hug her. I can’t hold her. There are some things I can do, and there are some things I cannot. Won’t.

“Nothing,” she tells me. “You’ve done enough.” Her face takes on a vacant stare as she focuses on my chest. “That doctor, she wanted me to go see her friend. Said she would help me.”

“And what did you say?”

“Told her the truth. That there’s no point. There’s no fixing something that’s not even vaguely what it used to be. I barely feel human, Zeth. I’m like one of those statues left behind after Pompeii. The shape of me’s still here. The outline of who I used to be. But the rest of me is gone. I’ll never get it back again. I’m just ash and stone.”

******

I hear the knock on the door even though the radio is turned up to ear-splitting volumes. I have no neighbours, not for a good mile or two, so I never have to worry about noise complaints.

DUM DUM DUM.

The thuds practically shake the glass in the window frames that overlook the city in the distance.

I pause in folding my laundry. It comes again. Bang, bang, bang. Whoever it is, they’re getting pissed off.

I immediately think the worst: it's him. But then I remember—Zeth has a key. He would just let himself in if he were here. Why the hell did I agree to that again? I skid down the hallway in my socks, picking up the baseball bat I always keep propped up again the wall behind the front door. I peer through the spy hole and my stomach drops. I spin the bat over and over in my hand, chewing on my bottom lip.

He may have a key now but for some reason, Zeth is hammering on my door at ten a.m. on my only day off this week. He looks absolutely furious, the spy hole glass distorting his face. He looks a like a giant.

"Sloane. If I let myself in and I find you in there, things will get mighty awkward." His words aren't shouted. They're spoken at a conversational tone, like he knows I’m standing on the other side I'd the door, staring at him. He looks right at the spy hole and arches his eyebrow.

Fuck.

I pull the door open, scowling at him. "What are you doing here? Couldn't you have sent a text or something?" A twitch develops at the corner of his mouth and I realize he's trying not to smile. He's eyeing the baseball bat in my hand.

"I could have. But I didn't."

"Well you should have."

"I wanted to see where you lived." He smiles a secret smile and I know what it means. He already knew where I lived just fine. He looks ridiculously hot in his tight black tee and leather jacket, his jeans hugging him in all the right places. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes...I'm almost surprised to see him out in the daylight.

"If I don't invite you in, are you going to be stuck on the threshold?" I feel particularly smug about that one. Zeth does the eyebrow thing again and steps into the house.

"You think I'm right out of a horror film, don't you?"

"Well this is hardly a fairy tale, is it?"

"It could be. If you let it."

"Oh yeah? And who are you supposed to be? My Prince Charming?"

He snorts at that. "No, silly girl. I'm the big bad wolf." He looks around with a blatant curiosity that does nothing to dampen his predatory vibe. If anything, it looks like he's searching for the exits, documenting all possible escape routes. Not for himself, of course. For me. Wondering which way I will run.

"What are you doing here, Zeth?"

"I told you. I wanted to see where you live."

"No, you didn't."

"Oh? You know me so well already?" He picks up a photo frame, studying the picture of me and Alexis at summer camp. We look like two peas in a pod, smiling, both in braces. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be handling my belongings, doing mundane things like flicking through my unopened mail that sits on my kitchen counter.

"Hey. Do you mind?"

"You live here alone."

"Yes."

"Good." He carried on investigating the place, leaving the kitchen to head through to the living room. The place is pretty empty, just a couple of bookshelves, the beaten leather sofas, a tiny flat screen that I never watch. His gaze lingers on my guitar leaning against the wall in the corner.

"You play?" I ask him.

"No." He turns and finally gives me his attention.

"You done snooping?"

"The only room I'm interested in snooping around in is the bedroom, Sloane. Right now I'm just making sure your house is secure. And it is."

"I know. I spent thousands of dollars making sure it was burglar proofed when I moved in. Now if you don't mind, I have housework I should be doing."

Zeth smirks, like the idea of me doing housework is the funniest shit ever. "This friend of yours, the doctor," he says. "I want to meet her."

"What?"

"I want to meet her."

"Why?"

"So I can gage whether she can help with Lacey."

Help with Lacey? That takes a moment to sink in. Is he asking for help for his friend? Never in a million years did I think he would ask that. Mostly because the girl seemed adamant that she didn’t want help. It doesn’t matter that she promised me back in the hospital—I’ve been lied to by enough people to know when someone is telling me something they think I want to hear.

“My friend’s name is Pippa. And why the hell should I help you?”

A reckless smile curves Zeth’s mouth upward on one side. “Pippa, huh?” He looks like he’s enjoying some secret joke. He stalks slowly across the living room, his face suddenly all danger and destruction. I feel like I’m being hunted. I back up as he gets closer but the damn wall stops me after three paces. Zeth leans into me and grazes the bridge of his nose across my jawline, breathing in a deep breath. Inhaling me. “You’re going to help me for four reasons.” His hands rise up and find my hips, working slowly over my body, taking their time, until he reaches into my jeans pocket and pulls out my phone. I remain frozen solid the whole time, rooted to the spot. He’s touching me. He’s touching me and it’s broad daylight.

“One,” he says, dropping his eye contact to look down at my phone, “you’re going to call Pippa because I asked you to. That’s the only reason you’re ever going to need from here on in.” He starts keying the buttons, then, scrolls across the touch screen, frowning gently. “Two: you’re going to call Pippa because you’re a doctor and you want to help Lacey.”

He hits the call button on my cell and holds it out to me. I take it from him, slightly dazed by the fact that he’s so close to me and I’m practically drunk off the smell of him, and also because I can’t say no. He’s already too commanding, too powerful, too confident in himself for me to doubt that I’ll do what he’s telling me. The phone starts to ring in my ear.

“Three: you’re going to do what I ask you because I’ve decided I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you find Alexis.” He raises his a finger to my lips to stop my from saying anything before I can get a word out—no thank you, no it’s about fucking time. Nothing. “And fourthly…” He bites down on his bottom lip, tugging it between his teeth, and I know I’m ruined. I’m ruined for every other man on the face of the planet. He leans close again, pressing his lips against the shell of my ear. I’m shaking before his hand even slides down the front of my jeans. “Fourthly, Sloane, I’m about to make you come. And you’re going to be very grateful.” The pressure from his index and middle fingers parting me, working my pussy lips apart to find my clitoris, makes me gasp.

“Are you ready?”

I tense every single muscle in my body. A deviant spark flares in his eyes, daring me to deny him. I don’t. I can’t. He slides his fingers forward, groaning, pushing them inside of me, his gaze firmly fixed on me. I suck in a sharp breath, fighting the urge to let my eyes roll back into my head.

“Sloane? Sloane? Are you there?”

I haven’t even noticed the dial tone stopped ringing in my ear. “Shit.”

“Well, hello to you, too.” Pippa sounds mildly entertained by my greeting. Zeth looks about as evil as a man can as he thrusts his fingers inside me even harder.

“You want me to stop?” he whispers.

I shake my head.

“Then you’d better get talking.”

A penetrating wave of pleasure shudders through my body. I can’t do it anymore—I close my eyes. This is it. He’s going to be the end of me. I can feel it.

“Pippa, hi…I…I need to ask you a favour.”

Whoo! I wrote a book! Thanks for everyone who supported me through this process. There are quite a few people to acknowledge, but first I have to thank my man. Without you, baby, I’d be a gibbering wreck, still trying to figure out how to open photoshop! Thanks for cooking me dinner, making sure I brushed my hair before I left the house, bringing my copious amounts of wine, and generally ensuring that our apartment didn’t go up in flames at any point.

Marion Archer, the best editor ever, your kind words and witty commentary made revisions actually fun! Thanks for all your hard work and putting up with my ridiculously tight deadlines!

The Misfits, you know who you are. You’re fantastic friends and I love ya to death! I wouldn’t have gotten through this without you.

Thanks to the terrific Frankie Rose for breaking her no work ban to format for me—you’re a life saver and you did a fantastic job. Thanks also to my beta readers, Helen, Pamela, Tammie, Dana, Dessuré, and Maria. Your feedback was invaluable. And to my ARC readers! You are vast and you are legion, and I am so grateful to each and every one of you!

I hope you’re joining Zeth and Sloane for the next instalment of their Deviant journey! ;)

Callie

About the Author

Callie Hart is a bagel eating, coffee drinking denizen of the greatest city on this earth. Born in Colorado, she moved to The Big Apple to study and undertake the Bar exam, and in the meantime she wrote this book! She lives on a ridiculously high floor in a way-too expensive building with her fiancé and their pet goldfish, Neptune. Deviant is the first instalment in her Blood and Roses series. The next instalment, as yet untitled, will hopefully be released at the end of April.

Tell Me Your Favorite Bits!

Don’t forget! If you purchased Deviant and loved it, then please do stop over to Amazon or iBooks and let me know which were your favorite parts! Reading reviews is the highlight of any author’s day.

Table of Contents

Contents

title page

Copyright

dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Tell Me Your Favorite Bits!