Red Dreams (The Reaper Duet #2)

3. Layla

3

LAYLA

Cassie's fingers are like spider legs across my bruised cheek, her touch a mockery of tenderness.

She steps back, orbiting around me while I’m seated in the middle of my luxurious prison, my bare legs curled under me and my wrists freshly zip-tied. It’s freezing, and my nipples are peaked under my tangle of hair, but I lost my modesty a while ago.

Cassie leans down until I’m staring into the inky-blue pools of her eyes. “Did Daddy also share how he likes to break pretty things? How he savors the sound of bones snapping beneath his hands?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to stay present, not to get lost in Cassie’s dark truth. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

She pulls back, studying me with a tilt of her head. “I want you to understand. To feel what I felt. To know the exquisite agony of being unmade and reforged in the image of a monster.”

I search her face, trying to find a glimmer of the broken girl beneath this hellish creature. The cool air of the room feels heavy in my lungs.

“Cassie, I know what it feels like to feel betrayed by someone you trusted. But this—what you’re doing—it won’t change the past. It won’t heal your pain.”

Cassie’s lip curls. “Healing is for the weak. I’ve embraced my scars and turned them into armor.”

She turns away from me and paces the small room, her heels snapping like jaws against the floor. I watch her fluid movements closely, aware that at any moment, she could pivot and slap me senseless. Cassie is always impeccably dressed in long black gowns, short black cocktail dresses, or tight black bodysuits when she visits me. Her hair, the same color, is always down, cascading in waves nearly to her waist. The only color to her is her eyes—and the slash of red lipstick, brighter and cheerier than blood, yet somehow more sinister.

“What did he promise you?” she asks suddenly, turning to face me again. “How did he convince you that you were special?”

Cassie’s words strike deep, unearthing memories I've fought to bury. Kaden lying beside me, his presence a comforting shield against the terrible world I’d found myself in. His touch was both commanding and gentle. He cared; I know he did. When he cooked me breakfast as the sun rose, the room filling with the aroma of sizzling bacon and freshly brewed coffee, I pictured it lasting forever.

I frown.

Is that what I thought? That on the other side of this, we’d make a home together, chat over coffee in the kitchen, and cuddle in front of the fire at night? Some of his last words to me were: This isn’t some sort of romantic adventure. I’m a killer, same as the men who broke in tonight to kill you. I was initially hired to murder you.

“Kaden promised nothing,” I finally reply. “I never needed him to.”

Cassie’s smile falls.

“You’re a good liar,” she acknowledges quietly. “But not good enough. I know exactly the kind of promises men like my father make. The kind that drips with honey and leaves you tasting your own blood at the end.”

She reaches out, tracing a sharp nail along the curve of my jaw. I recoil but force myself to maintain eye contact.

“Did he whisper sweet nothings in your ear as he took you apart piece by piece? Did he make you feel cherished, adored, like the center of his twisted universe?” Cassie's voice is low and taunting. “I bet he did. Just like he did with my mother. Just like he did with every other woman foolish enough to fall for his charms.”

Cassie's words should bite deeper than they do, but something in her tone makes me pause. There's an undertone of... curiosity? No. This is hungrier. Like she's probing for confirmation of a theory she's crafted about her father, not the truth of him.

“Tell me about these other women,” I say carefully.

Her perfectly shaped brows lift. “Trying to be better than your competition?”

“No. Trying to understand.”

“Understand what? How my father seduced and destroyed every woman he touched?” Her lip curls. “Or are you special? Different because of your spooky eyes? The one who'll save him?”

I don’t respond. Any sort of reaction feels like stepping into a trap.

Cassie's hand returns to my face, this time gripping my jaw. “You want to understand? Fine. Let's start with my mother. Dear, sweet Angie Shaw, the war correspondent who thought she could tame the dangerous man. Sound familiar?”

She forces my chin up, her nails digging into my cheeks and reopening the scratches there. “He drew her in with that tortured look of his, didn't he? Made her feel safe even while setting off every warning bell. Protected her, cherished her, until she was drunk on his darkness.”

“But Angie walked away,” I say through gritted teeth. “She made her choice.”

“Oh, you think that's what happened?” Cassie's laugh is sharp enough to draw more blood from my cheek. “You think she just left ? Moved on to her war stories and forgot all about us?”

She releases my jaw, roughly pushing my head to the side, and straightens, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her skintight outfit. “Would you like to hear her voice?”

It takes a minute to process what she just said. “What?”

Cassie glides to an elegant side table and picks up her phone. Her black fingernail hovers over the screen. “Daddy kept all her messages. The ones she left after she realized what kind of man he truly was. After she started seeing danger in every corner of our house.”

“I don't?—”

A woman's voice fills the room, tinny and frightened: “Kaden, they're following me. Ever since that story I filed about the cartel... God, I think they know about Cassie. Please, I need ? —”

Cassie cuts off the recording. “She thought running would save her. Just like you thought staying would save you.”

The weight of implication suffocates me in the same way the pillowcase over my head did. “What happened to her?”

“What do you think?” Cassie's smile is all teeth. “The same thing that happens to everyone who gets too close to him. They snap. Or they disappear.” She taps her phone. “Would you like to hear how she sounded at the end?”

I choke back a sob. “Why are you making me listen to this?”

“Because you need to understand what he is. What loving him does to people.” She crouches in front of me, her blue eyes steady on mine.

Normally, people don’t know how to stay focused on me, their gaze darting between my blue and brown eye. Not her.

“And,” Cassie continues, “because I want you to help me show him what he really is.”

My heart clenches at the unrestrained ache in her words, the unhealed wounds festering beneath her icy exterior, yet she gives me no time to reason with her.

Cassie’s breath is cool against my face, smelling of mint and expensive wine. “Did you know he used to record me, too? Reading bedtime stories, singing little songs. He was obsessed with preserving every moment.”

She tilts her head, studying me like a mortician assessing the next corpse they must embalm. “The mighty Scythe, brought low by sentiment. All those recordings, gathering dust while I screamed in the dark. While Morelli made me record different kinds of messages.”

I try again. “He searched for you. Kaden never stopped?—”

“Looking?” Cassie’s voice drops to a whisper. “Or replacing me?”

Before I can process her meaning, she stands and strides to the room's corner. A red light blinks in the shadows—a camera I hadn't noticed before. She plucks something from beside it and returns, holding up a small recorder.

“Let's play a game,” she says, her lips curving. “A little father-daughter project. Since you're so good at taking my place.”

“I was never your replacement.”

“You live in the lighthouse he used to run past every morning, where I was buried alive while everyone walked overhead, searching the horizon for me instead of below ground.” Each word is a precise cut. “Did he cook you breakfast there? Stand at that countertop and pretend he was still whole? Tell me, when he touched you, did you taste the guilt on his tongue?”

I lift my chin. “I won't help you hurt him.”

Cassie's smile is a ragged wound. “No? Then perhaps we should send him something else. The sounds of his new love being unmade, just like his first.” She leans in close, her eyes glittering. “Trust me, those screams will haunt him far longer than any sentiment could.”

“I won't scream for you either.” The words come out stronger than I feel. “You can hurt me, torture me, but I won't give you what you want.”

“Such loyalty.” Cassie traces her fingers down my throat, a ghost of pressure that promises violence. “I had that once. The desperate need to protect him, to keep his love.” Her touch turns cruel, nails piercing through my skin. “But protecting him is what ruined me. And now it's going to break you.”

She releases me and moves to a sleek laptop on a nearby table. “Do you really think I need your cooperation?”

With a few keystrokes, my voice fills the room in fragments of conversations with Kaden; intimate moments pieced together into something twisted and wrong.

“You think you mean something to me? … Not even close.

“I’d rather drown than let you save me. I don’t want you.

“Weak… just like the rest.

“I feel nothing for you—nothing.

“You bring blood, you bring death … and for what? Nothing I want.

“Everything you touch … just turns to darkness.

“Why would I want … someone like you?

“You don’t even know me.

“I’m not yours, and I never will be.”

My blood runs cold as I hear myself say things I never did, the words parsed together to form cruel sentences, then warped into terrible meanings. To get through it, I grasp onto the one thread of silver weaving through my horror: Cassie wouldn’t be doing all this if Kaden were dead.

“Kaden will never believe it,” I rasp through the thick emotion in my throat.

“Technology is remarkable,” Cassie muses, too caught up in her games to notice the gears turning in my head. “But you’re right. These amateur edits are nothing compared to what I could create with some fresh material.”

She turns the laptop so I can see the screen. Multiple windows show different angles of the Siren's Call—the elegant lounge upstairs, the private rooms. In one feed, masked men drag something heavy wrapped in plastic.

“My father's methods were crude. Effective, but crude.” Cassie's voice takes on an instructor's tone. “Morelli, though, he taught me that true torture is art. It requires creativity. Vision.” She gestures to the feeds. “And the right stage.”

The door to my prison opens, and two men drag in a body wrapped in plastic. They dump it in front of me with a wet thud.

“No...”

The denial escapes me before I can stop it, covered in guttural dread.

Kaden.

“Don't worry, this one's already dead.” Cassie nudges the plastic bundle with her toe. “But the next one ... well, that depends on you.”

She crouches and unzips the plastic. The smell hits me first—decay and metal. Then I see the eerily familiar face, frozen in a silent scream.

“Remember Debbie Weber?” Cassie asks conversationally. “From your coding team at Pulse?”

The room spins. Debbie. Sweet, quiet Debbie who helped me debug my first major project. Who always remembered my coffee order when she went to fetch some for the group.

“She disappeared two weeks ago,” Cassie says. “Guess she got too curious about certain projects.”

Cassie zips the bag closed. “Would you like to know what we did to her first? Or should I show you? After all, you'll need to know your lines for the recording we’re going to send to Daddy.”

Debbie’s postmortem features contort in pure agony. I want to scream the way she should be able to, horror and rage building until it’s unbearable, but I swallow it down. I can’t give Cassie the satisfaction.

She’s Kaden’s daughter , my inner voice whispers, reminding me that if there’s still humanity in him, there must be remnants in her. It took me time and a healthy amount of determination to find the fading spark inside Kaden, struggling to hold on while he allowed the poison of vengeance to seep into his veins, blackening his soul. But it was there. I’d been able to grasp it and pull it back to the surface, that small ember of hope, to show him there is still reason to care.

I can do it with Cassie. I must find it in Cassie, or else I’ll see the same fate as Debbie. Worse, so will Kaden.

“You think you’re so terrible,” I say to Cassie. “You’re proud of it. But you’re not.”

Cassie’s eyes flash with temper before she schools it behind her cool facade. “No, darling. I’m what terror creates.”

She stands and gestures to the men. They haul Debbie's body away, leaving a smear of blood on the floor.

“Poor Ethan,” Cassie suddenly says, her back to me as she wipes her hands on a silk handkerchief. “Always pining after you from his little cubicle. Trying so hard to be the hero.” She looks at me over her shoulder. Her lips curve. “Did you know he still comes to work? Sits there pretending everything's normal while searching for you on his breaks? It's almost sweet.”

Ice fills my veins. “Leave him out of this.”

“Why? Because he's innocent?” She laughs. “So was Debbie. So was I.”

Cassie moves to a polished brass bar cart and pours herself a drink of pricey, golden champagne. “Tell me, how do you think he'll sound when we make him scream? Will he call for you like you're going to call for Daddy?”

She lifts the crystal flute to to her lips and smirks over the rim. “Or would you rather spare him that pain?”

Cassie sashays over to me, hooking my jaw and prying my mouth open despite my struggles. She forces my head back until my neck strains, then pours the entire glass of champagne down my throat until I’m choking.

The bubbles burn as I splutter and gasp, champagne dribbling down my chin. Cassie releases me with a disgusted sigh, and I slump forward, coughing violently.

“What do you think Ethan will do when the investigators show how you used his access codes?” Cassie asks while trailing a finger around the rim of the empty flute. “When they find evidence you manipulated his credentials to access the servers after hours?”

Setting the glass down, Cassie returns to her laptop, pulling up logs. “It would destroy him, wouldn't it? Ethan’s dreams of redemption after that college prank, shattered by trusting you. It's your choice, Layla. Either you confess to corporate espionage and pin it on poor Ethan...” She taps a few keys, and another window pops up, lines of damning code next to Ethan's employee ID. “Or you can record a very special message for Daddy dearest.”

My mind races to uncover a solution. I can't let Cassie hurt Ethan. But I also can't give her what she wants—a confession implicating both of us in crimes we didn’t do.

As if reading my thoughts, Cassie taps a few keys and another window pops up, showing lines of code. “See this? With a few alterations, I can make it look like Ethan's been embezzling funds and selling company secrets. His life would be ruined. And it would be all your fault.”

I glare at her, my hands balled into fists despite the zip ties cutting into my skin.

“What’ll it be, Layla?”

I sneer at her, imbuing all my frustration into that single tic in the corner of my mouth. “Neither.”

Unaffected, Cassie shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

She heads toward me with a vicious smile.