Escape From Me (Barbed Wire Hearts #3)

1. Zeiden

ONE

zeiden

Spector events were dark, mysterious, and oozed the same air of too many rich pricks with sticks up their asses. Gold filigree on champagne glasses? Gold flakes swirling at the bottom? The whole vibe screamed excess. It was the polar opposite of the hard-edged chaos of Enigma—and it wasn’t going well.

“Well, Cali nailed it,” I muttered to X.

The masks were all identical. Some stupid blue and white design that reeked of faux elegance. The kicker? Just to score an invite and one of those masks, you had to cough up an obscene amount of money, all earmarked for auction items. Bidding didn’t even start before the twenty-grand mark. And what were we bidding on? A luxury getaway? Pathetic.

“I don’t think we are going to find what we need here. Not like this,” I said to Cas and X, frustration curling through my voice.

This was getting frustrating. Every damn angle was a dead end. Every time I thought I had some kind of lead, it fizzled or, worse, ended in a dead body. Not that I gave a shit about the bodies. Politics needed to be cleaned out from time to time. The issue was, they were fucking with the infrastructure the Spectors had so carefully bought, lied, and stole to build.

“I need to get some air,” I said and turned away. No one here would have thought some gang lords or whatever they wanted to call us would be here. This was elite shit. I’d grown tired of watching the champagne flow and five-thousand-dollar wine bottles emptied by the caseload. This wasn’t us. We didn’t come from money, and that part was obvious. There was the new money side, the old money, and the bastards like us who had money that no one could quite pinpoint. And for that, we were either being ignored or being slyly interrogated by the wives of the rich, powerful, and unhappily married.

“Don’t go far. The vultures know there’s mysterious new meat, and, Zeid, you look good in a tux,” X said to me and laughed at his own joke.

“Speak for yourself. Not one of these high-class, low-standard wives gives a shit that Cali is on your arm.” I flipped him off. “I just need a second.”

I walked away without another word.

I’d thrown every bit of my energy into our business and into the business of knowing what was happening to our connections. We had deals that would die without the right backers, and unfortunately, those backers were being picked off.

And that fight? It was the damn knife to my side. What could have happened if we weren’t paranoid bastards? Why couldn’t I figure this out? I was the smart one. I figured out the things.

It was my talent. Figuring out what no one else could.

The rules had always been simple. Take care of our own and make money by any means possible. That and don’t get caught.

The doors to the private balcony were already open as I stepped outside. I hated this lifestyle. I couldn’t wait to get home and get out of this tux.

“Ouch,” said a feminine voice as I ran smack into someone. “This is my hiding spot. Find your own.”

It was habit to look for the darkest corner, and almost never did I find someone else already there. Until today.

“There aren’t many hiding spots here, princess.”

She folded her arms over her chest, accentuating the low cut of the strapless gown that probably cost more than my bike.

“Do not call me princess, prince asshole. How do you like it?”

I leaned against the wall and smirked.

“Prince asshole? It’s a first for me, but it’ll work just fine. If you don’t want to be called princess, maybe ditch the thirty-thousand-dollar gown and the tiara.”

She cocked her head to the side and lifted the pretentious mask just a bit.

“Who are you and how did you get in?” she asked.

I shrugged.

“What does it matter, Cinderella? I’m here. I had the cash, and that was the only prerequisite.”

She pulled the mask up to her forehead and let it rest there as she reached for mine. I stepped away.

“Fine, don’t show me your face. It’s probably just as bad as all the other assholes here. Money isn’t everything, you know.”

She pulled her mask down, but I’d already memorized exactly how she looked, from the soft curve of her nose to the way her eyes were set just far enough apart, and that she seemed to have nearly perfect symmetry. Fucking hell if my cock didn’t wake the fuck up and my heart didn’t beat a little faster. Not that I would show her that.

I could lie to myself and pretend all this was in reaction to my brothers being paired up, but none of that was true. There was something about this pretty little princess hiding from the party that had me wanting to get closer, so I did exactly what I shouldn’t have.

I shifted my stance and took a step toward her, caging her in between me and the wall.

“Tell me, my little dove, if you aren’t the princess, then are you the villain in this story?”

That got me the sweetest little smirk.

“Dove? Much better than the stupid little flower my mother named me after.”

Flower. Now I was getting somewhere. I raced through my memories of everything I’d dug up about this elite bullshit party. There wasn’t much until I’d hacked their database. Mid-level security protected their elite little guest list. This had all been child’s play to get our names added without anyone being suspicious. But flower? I didn’t remember any flowers.

“Ha, but would a rose be a rose by any other name?”

I was close, here in our dark little corner. I could sniff the air and pull in every sweet nuance of her scent. She was sweet. If money had a scent though, I didn’t really think it would be this.

“Cute, prince asshole. Cute. I hadn’t had that pickup line yet.”

In the light of a full moon eclipsing the strings of expensive-looking fairy lights all over this rooftop garden, I could make out the way her pupils dilated just ever so slightly the moment my body pressed against hers.

If only I didn’t have on this itchy fucking monkey suit.

“Not a pickup line when I have no intention of picking up anything from this party except information.”

Every breath she took pressed her tightly bound chest against me. I didn’t understand fashion or why she would allow herself to be encased in a tight little dress.

The music inside paused and I shifted my attention to what was going on. Voices by the doors.

“Where is that child?” a female voice said.

I didn’t miss the gasp from the little thing hiding behind my body.

“Check the powder room. She needs to embrace that it’s time to come back to reality and stop playing around with her life,” followed a male voice.

There were plenty of footsteps here and there across marble floors. Clinking of glasses and pretentious laughter. Dainty heels clicking away and the tap, tap of slick bottomed male oxfords or whatever other pretentious fashion was so highly coveted. The rich had sounds if you ever stopped to notice and it was my talent.

“I take it that you might be said child?”

She hadn’t taken a single breath until just now. Her chest frozen as it pressed against that dress. Her face paled from moments ago. I added up every little detail.

“What? Why would you say that?”

I wasn’t the guy who got the girl. Hell, I wasn’t the guy that gave a shit about that kind of thing, but with her?

I lifted my hand, curling all but one finger to trace the outline of her cheek.

“I say that, dove, because you seemed to have forgotten how to breathe when that woman’s voice reached us.”

Her skin was soft under my touch. I shifted and moved my fingers until I cupped her cheek, my thumb free to trace over her soft lips.

“Little dove, who are you?” I asked without meaning to.

Every hot breath she exhaled whispered over my thumb until I let my hand slide lower, over her neck where it wasn’t hard to feel the beat of her thundering pulse against my hand.

“Why does it matter? You aren’t the man I was auctioned off to.” She seemed to pause for a single breath. “I’d never get so lucky.”

Lucky? That had my own lips pulling into a thin little line, curving up at the edge.

“Lucky? Now that is not something anyone would ever call being in my presence.”

Her words played around in my mind. Auctioned off too.

“But something tells me that you would find anything lucky if you had the chance to choose who you married?”

Her head moved, nodding against my hand, which was still loose around her neck.

“Wouldn’t you? I shouldn’t be a pawn in my father’s power grabs. Some might say I have everything, but what no one seems to see is that my life isn’t really my life.”

It was my turn to try to hide my reaction to the strange tightness in my chest at her words.

“Sweet little fallen princess, I don’t think anyone’s life is really theirs. Not until you take it.”