10
Every floor number lit against the elevator panel became blurrier than the last the harder I stared into the void of my thoughts. Until I finally leaned into the back metal railing and expelled a long breath, my brain in overdrive after tonight’s events. Santino represented a change at Illusion, one where the details weren’t clearly outlined just yet, but it was a hunch.
And my vibes were usually never wrong.
Unless he was a master deceiver, it was apparent that he and Luca were polar opposites in their approach to interactions with people.
I brushed slow fingers where he’d grabbed me, and maybe it was crazy, but I still felt the pricks of his touch moving beneath my skin. It had been so unexpected that I had to commend myself for keeping it together and refraining from stabbing his throat.
The man was charismatic, brave as he was stupid, and cocky as hell. But none of that mattered. His good looks wouldn’t absolve him from my wrath.
When the elevator came to a stop, I pushed off the railing as the doors slid open, but instead of walking onto my floor, I froze at the small figure standing before me.
A boy, no older than three, clutched a stuffed dog beneath his arm. Big brown eyes watched me as I started toward him cautiously. A child alone at this ungodly hour was either a horror movie coming to life or an ambush. I reached into my bag and pulled my gun, making sure to keep it out of his sight as I cleared the floor on either side of him.
“Hey,” I said, kneeling to his level. “What are you doing out here alone?”
The toddler blinked but said nothing. Not having been around children since I was one myself, I wasn’t even sure if kids his age spoke, let alone understood language.
“Where’s your mom? Where did you come from?”
He shrugged and pointed down the hall, which told me nothing, considering there were four units, none of which had an open door or signs of children.
“This is not happening.”
The boy smiled, staring at me with those big eyes, and began trotting down the hall opposite, where he’d pointed, toward a stairwell whose door was propped open by a maintenance cone.
Fuck.
“Hey, get back here.” The last thing I needed was this kid trying to climb down and eventually tumbling eight stories’ worth of stairs. But as if on purpose, the little shit ran, giggling the moment he heard me striding after him. “Stop!”
Fisting the scruff of his green pajamas just as he reached the threshold, I yanked him back toward me and knelt again, tipping his chin.
“Listen, kid, it’s late. You and I should be in bed, not playing Tag out here. I need you to tell me where your people are.”
His eyes fell on the bands around my wrists, and he reached up and gently tugged one of them.
“Boo-boo,” he said, finally speaking. “Ouch. ”
I nodded slowly, a slight smile cracking through at his compassion. “Yeah, ouch.”
Hyper-focused now, he grabbed my fingers and tugged back down the corridor. I let him, hoping he knew where he was headed.
Unit 804.
The black door opened when he pushed against it, but quickly closed due to its weight and the automatic hinge against his little hands.
“Is this where you live?”
“Ouch,” he repeated, groaning as he attempted the door a second time. “ Ajuda .”
Portuguese.
Something in my chest tightened when he spoke what had been my first language.
“ Você fala português? ”
He smiled brightly but didn’t have a chance to answer before the heavy door tore open, and an older man looked at us with wide, confused eyes.
“What the hell? Thiago?” He scooped the boy in a flash and stepped back, suspicion twisting his expression as he stared me down. “Why do you have my son?”
“I think the better question is, why is your son wandering the halls at three in the morning?”
The man’s gaze flickered to a chair left by the entryway.
He was either still half asleep or stunned into silence. But it was too late to care.
“I would probably secure that door a little better.”
Not bothering to wait for a response, I turned and finally headed for my unit across the hall, two doors down from the escape artist.
Scalding water rushed over my head as I braced my hands against the shower and let tears I hadn’t shed in years slide down my cheeks. Something about Santino’s presence brought forth a host of emotions and memories. I wasn’t sure why he reminded me so much of Kai and Derek and that period of my life that ultimately destroyed everything I was. But there I stood, my soul torn open as I let pain and grief consume me while I mourned their absence. But it was better this way. Safer. For them. For me.
I’d always have a reason to run from my past and look over my shoulder, until the day Ronan lay dead at my feet.
Raking nails across my skin, I released a sob when the echoes of screams thundered in my ears and visions of unforgiving cruelty flashed behind my eyes.
Powerless, vulnerable… nothing .
“Never again,” I whispered, scrubbing harder against my reddened flesh.
I knew no matter how much blood I shed, those deaths meant nothing as long as Ronan Cain was still breathing. I had to sever the head to kill the snake. Like I did with my brothers, I’d kept tabs on him and clocked his location from afar, biding my time until I was ready to take him on. But four years ago, he fell off my radar. It was as if he’d vanished into thin air. No funeral. No mention of his death. Ronan was just gone.
I knew better.
He was still out there, and he was mine. In the meantime, I’d reap the city of men with a taste for depravity and pain. They made it easy. These sick men and the women who supported their vices came flocking the moment they thought they’d found their next victim.
I cut the shower spray and rested my forehead on the hot tiles.
“They made me this way. Broken inside, but never weak.”