10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
HARLOW
Amelancholic warmth climbs over my body and up to my face, my brain hazy as if I’m floating on a cloud. I crack my eyes open and blink a few times to adjust to the sunlight streaming in through my bedroom window, illuminating the dust particles floating effortlessly in the air like fine glitter.
I wiggle my fingers and toes, bringing life back into my limbs before stretching out like a cat on my mattress.
But when my phone dings from beside me, memories of last night filter in, and I sit bolt upright and snatch it off the nightstand.
Sage: Trin made it home.
Oh thank god.
I type out a quick response.
Rebel: Is she okay? Is she hurt?
Sage: A little banged up but she’s okay.
Rebel: WHAT HAPPENED?!
Just as the text bubbles are popping up on my screen, someone clears their throat. I release a startled scream as my gaze slams to the doorway.
Leaning casually against the door jam is a masculine figure. He’s tall, broad, and dressed in all black.
Lynx.
Rage and fear and a whole other cocktail of emotions I’m not ready to unpack roll through me.
Instinctively, I sink my hand under my pillow in search of my handgun, releasing a frustrated growl when I come up empty.
“Looking for something?” Lynx asks, his tone laced with a hint of arrogance and a whole lot of humor as he dangles my gun by the trigger guard with one of his fingers.
The fucker is teasing me.
Narrowing my eyes on him, I demand, “What the hell are you doing here, Lynx?”
His eyes dart to my chest. He cocks a brow.
I tug the blanket up over my bare tits as heat creeps into my cheeks.
Focusing on the real issue at hand, I rush out, “How did you get in here?”
He pushes off the doorway and saunters toward the foot of the bed.
“You should get better locks,” he tells me simply, stepping into the sunlight streaming through the window. He stops and stares down at me. That’s when I notice the speckles on his face.
Blood. A whole lot of it. It’s splattered across his forehead, smeared across his cheek, and caked in his hair.
My heart plummets. I press a hand to my throbbing chest.
“Lynx.” It comes out breathier than I intended. “What—Who—“
“Breathe, pretty girl.”
I suck in a gulp of air, imagining myself looking a little like a goldfish.
“You’re safe.”
“Safe,” I squawk. A humorless laugh escapes me. “I’m not sure you understand the meaning of that word.”
“I understand just fine, Harlow.”
“Really? Says the stalker covered in someone else’s blood. Oh my god. You killed someone, didn’t you? You killed an innocent person.”
I visibly shrivel when he presses both palms into the footboard and dips his head to meet my eyes.
His voice is low and severe when he says, “First of all, I don’t kill innocent people, Harlow. You can get that out of your head right now. Second of all, I’m not stalking you. More like … studying you.”
Astonished by that nugget of information, I blink several times.
“If you don’t kill innocent people, then you’ll have no problem telling me whose blood that is.”
He doesn’t bat an eyelash when he tells me, “Rhys Anderson’s.”
Oh god.
He’s not lying. He really did it. He killed Rhys Anderson.
Disappointment and bitterness rip through me as I glare at the man who took the life of one of the monsters I’ve fantasized about murdering someday.
Rhys deserved to die. But his death should’ve been at my hands.
I’m owed that.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Breathe.
“You seem angry,” he says casually.
“That’s because I am.”
We sit there for a long while, breathing at each other in tense silence before he reaches for the blanket covering my body.
My grip on the comforter tightens as I jerk it away from him.
“I don’t fucking think so, buddy.”
But when I look up to meet his eyes, my breath hitches. The desire swirling behind his navy irises is startling.
He must sense my fear because he pauses and searches my face for something. Of what, I’m not certain. Either way, his hesitation is unnerving. If he wanted, he could rip the blanket away and there’s not a damn thing I could do about it.
“You’re in control when it comes to this, Harlow. Tell me no, and I’ll back away without question.”
Narrowing my eyes on him, I snip out, “A killer who practices consent. What a revelation.”
I’m not sure why I do it. I guess it’s that faulty wire in my brain acting up again. But I slowly loosen my grip on the comforter. He scans my face once more before his eyes dart south to my exposed breasts.
At an agonizingly slow speed, he coils his fingers in the soft fabric and pulls the blanket down the length of my body. The tantalizing friction of it on my heated skin causes my nipples to pucker in response. A dull ache forms low in my belly. My stupid clit throbs.
Jesus. I need therapy or something.
When the hem of the sheet reaches the top of my panties, I stop him from pulling it further and pray to high hell that he’s a man of his word and won’t force me to show him what lies beneath the covers.
Thankfully, he releases the sheet and rakes his gaze over my chest and stomach, searing every inch of my exposed flesh as a hiss escapes through his clenched teeth.
“You’re irritatingly beautiful, Harlow. It’s proving to be problematic for me.”
A chain cinches around my heart and squeezes. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my entire life. But I’ve also never felt so desired. So beautiful and powerful while also completely defenseless.
It makes no goddamn sense.
“But don’t mistake my hesitation for weakness, pretty girl.” He stands to his full height and takes a step back, his expression morphing into something a little more sinister. “I still have a job to do.”
I recoil. “A job to do? What job?”
Shooting me one final glance, he tosses my handgun onto the mattress and leaves, his footfalls fading into the distance before I hear my apartment door slam shut.
With an awful swirling sensation in my gut, I snatch my gun up, bounce out of bed, and race barefoot down the hall to make sure my apartment door is locked. Pressing my spine to the wooden surface, I count backward from five until my head no longer feels like it’s floating in outer space.
When I peel myself off the door and make my way to the kitchen for a glass of water, my feet come to a skidding stop. On the island is a small scrap of paper with a tall glass of water and two ibuprofen on the counter beside it.
I pluck the note off the counter and read it.
Eat something.
—L
Stamped beside his initial is a bloody fingerprint. Rhys’s blood, presumably. The sight makes my stomach roil. But I shove the urge to vomit down and breathe through the panic seeping into my veins.
And since I’m not stupid, I dump the glass of water down the sink and toss the pills in the garbage.
I have no way of knowing if he put something in the water or if the ibuprofen is some other drug.
Then, grabbing a lighter from a drawer, I bring the dancing flame to a corner of the note and watch it go up in smoke. When the burning edges reach my fingers, I toss what’s left of it into my sink and turn the tap on.
Fuck him.
Fuck all of them.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Breathe.
It’s happening again. The feeling is all too familiar.
The control I thought I had is slipping through my fingers like tiny grains of sand.
And there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it except brace myself for impact and pray to hell I make it out alive the way I somehow managed to do six years ago.
If you can even call what I’m doing living.
Regardless, I show up at The Devil’s Den for my shift, a heady cocktail of fear, frustration, and a disturbing sense of relief that Rhys is dead swirling in my gut.
My hands are trembling and the metallic stench of Rhys’s blood from when Lynx stood at the foot of my bed still lingers in my nose.
But still, I remain calm on the outside to avoid raising suspicions because Rhys was murdered at some point after the gala. A gala that I attended. A gala where I was seen interacting with him right before he disappeared from the face of the planet.
And where was I? What’s my alibi?
Oh, that’s right.
I don’t fucking have one because I don’t have people.
That’s what it always comes down to, isn’t it? People.
You have to have people.
So here I am. Sauntering through the club, making small talk with potential paying customers when all I really want to do is run. To hide. To scream and cry and punch something inanimate just to feel pain so I know this isn’t all just some sick fever dream.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Breathe.
Like I’ve done a thousand times, I put one foot in front of the other. Sway my hips. Force a smile. Flip my hair. Grab the brass pole and shake my ass all the while ignoring the tingling sensation on the back of my head.
Don’t think about it. You’ve endured worse.
I swallow. Lick my lips. Scan the crowd for a target because I need the cash now more than ever. To get the hell out of here. To disappear into the wind and never be seen again.
I’ve heard Cuba is nice. Or Ecuador. Or Venezuela. Somewhere hot and sunny.
Somewhere that refuses the extradition of criminals.
Speaking of criminals … Lynx is here. I can’t see him, but I can feel him. Feel his presence. Feel his eyes on me.
His threat plays over in my mind.
Dance like that for another man, and his body will never be found.
A rock forms in my throat.
After this morning, I now officially know that he’s dangerous. Lethal. Capable of taking a life and not even batting a goddamn eyelash.
But what’s more concerning is that despite all of that, I still don’t fear him the way I should. Hate him, sure. But fear him? Not really.
I’m not sure if it’s because, logically, if he truly wanted to kill me, he’d have done it by now. Or if it’s because of the text Sage sent me after Lynx left my apartment—That guy you were dancing with saved Trinity.
Or if it’s something else.
Regardless, it’s driving me mad that I still don’t know what he wants from me. Why he’s, and I quote, “studying me.”
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Breathe.