Chapter 13
13
I nara
I argue with myself all the way to the club.
What am I doing? This is crazy. A sane person wouldn’t be en route to a kink club to confront a murderer.
But I have no choice.
And. . . I want to see him. The moment our hands touched, I was lost. Lost to sensation and need. Lost to him.
I can’t lose my grip like this. I have to pull myself together and prepare for battle.
In the back of the taxi, I pull up Rex Roy on my phone. There he is, on the cover of Fortune magazine, looking as handsome as ever with his hair cut more severely. Less playboy more businessman with an eye-boggling net worth. No wonder Jordan turned on the smarm.
I won’t be able to snare him without a rock-solid case, and even then, it’ll be a fight to see justice done. He’ll have top-notch lawyers at his beck and call.
I scroll through the headlines and articles about his Fortune 500 businesses. This is all superficial, the image he presents to the world. I need to go deeper to find the man who’s capable of killing. Of ruthlessly hunting his chosen prey and then slaughtering them.
But it’s almost midnight, and the cab is almost to the club. I don’t have any more time for research.
I’ve been fiddling with the lion head on the chain of my gown but make myself stop and pull up the app to text Mina. We have a code we use to be each other’s safety backups whenever we’re headed into a kink appointment. I send her the address and the times I’ll be in the scene, as well as an appointed time afterward when I intend to check in so she knows I got through the night safely. She texts me back, “Acknowledged.”
What I don’t tell her is who I’m meeting with. I should be asking her to look into Rex Roy. She could dive deeper under the surface of his well-cultivated public persona and learn more than any journalist.
But a part of me wants to keep him all to myself. And what does that say about me?
I drop my phone in my purse, feeling guilty. With any other suspect, especially one as juicy as New Rome’s preeminent billionaire, I’d ask Mina to help me with the research. Why am I so reluctant now? I’m sure he’s the killer. It’s only my own desire for what he can give me that keeps me wishing it wasn’t true.
Just like it’s my own instincts saying he’s not luring me to the club, alone, to do away with me.
Did Rex Roy commit murder?
My instincts say yes. But they also told me it was safe to scene with him. To dance with him.
To be held by him.
I give up fighting and drop my head into my hands, pressing my palms into my eyes.
I know I’m fucked up. But am I so broken that I could be intimate with a murderer and never sense the evil lurking in him?
I’ve felt safe with him from the beginning. And I haven’t felt truly safe since before a serial killer crept into my family home in the middle of the night.
I pride myself on my good instincts, but I let a man like Rex Roy get close to me. I welcomed his touch. Enjoyed it.
And I want to feel it again.
In the end, that makes me the fucked up one, doesn’t it?
The cab rolls to a stop. I suck in a sob, settle up with the driver, and head into the club. There’s been a light rain, and the pavement is slick. I take each step carefully and deliberately.
I’m Inara Ramos, detective and unofficial FBI consultant with a high solve rate. In both my personal and professional life, I’ve faced evil and survived. I can do this.
I need to be strong. Rex Roy has already destroyed my trust in myself. I can’t let him worm his way into my head any further than he already has.
Club Empire is on a quieter street in New Rome’s art district. The building is one of several old, converted warehouses. The metal and glass doors are tall and narrow, and the inside is modern, with smooth, polished floors of obsidian tile. It looks like the darkened lobby of a high-end bank, except the front desk attendant is resplendent in a bright yellow and black PVC bodysuit.
“Ms. Ramos, we’ve been expecting you.” They rise and sashay off in shiny, thigh-high boots that match the floor. “This way.”
I clop along behind them, holding up the hem of my dress. I changed from my high heels into my worn boots. Something more comfortable in case I have to run. Or kick Rex Roy in the nuts.
Why is he toying with me?
Serial killers often return to the scene of crime to relive the high. Or inject themselves into the manhunt or police search. I read the notes my mentor kept on the Bondage Killer case and know the police would never have caught up with him if he hadn’t started sending letters to the press. Each letter arrived hours after a murder. Sweat-stained paper filled with awful riddles, taunts, and descriptions of his genius. He wanted credit for what he’d done.
It makes me sick just to think about it.
But is that what Rex Roy is doing? Revealing himself to a cop, taking credit? He’s arrogant enough. A man of his wealth and status would feel untouchable. He could be the type who needs to flaunt it.
I want to profile him, and for that, I need more time.
You have questions. I have answers.
Little bird.
The attendant leaves me in the same room where I met my mystery dom the past two times.
I enter and toss my bag on the couch. I go to strip off my coat and shove my hands in the pockets instead.
This isn’t a scene. This is a meeting between a criminal and a cop on his trail.
Then why does it feel like he’s the hunter who’s trapped me as his prey?
* * *
Rex
She waits in the private room, surrounded by implements of torture, her arms folded across her chest. Her face is set, hard, and as alert as a soldier in enemy territory. Nothing like the sweet submissive she was a few nights ago, the one who curled up in my arms and clung to me.
I don’t know which I enjoy more, the detective or the submissive. Every facet of her is endlessly fascinating.
I could have my pick of women, but no one has intrigued me as much as Inara Ramos. I’ve been drawn to her since I first saw her all those years ago.
She looks ready for a long battle. This is what I like best about her: the war she wages until her walls crumble and her true essence remains.
I’m the only one who can breach those walls. I will be her safe place, her dark knight, willing to destroy anything and anyone who will hurt her.
We are made for each other.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
But she will.
I’ll teach her.
Until then, she’ll fight me and find me a worthy adversary.
And I intend to savor every moment of the struggle.