Chapter 17
17
I nara
There’s another gift waiting for me in my hotel room. Another box like the one the dress came in. This one holds a black wool coat in my size. A proper winter coat that’s better suited to New Rome temperatures than my leather jacket. He must have seen me shivering at the gravesite and sent me this.
Enjoy the good parts. Is Rex Roy good? Ivan thinks so.
The wool smells like jasmine. . . and him. I lift it, and a feather flutters to the ground. It was tucked into the lapel.
Little bird.
My phone rings, and I’m not surprised to see it’s him. Sir calling. . . I accept, ignoring the thrill I get at seeing his name. “What do you want?”
“You were at Club Empire. You could’ve waited for me.”
“I was on the case. Looking for evidence.”
“Did you find anything?”
I press my lips together before I cuss at him. “I could arrest Ivan, you know. Hold him for questioning.”
“You could. . . if you had a shred of evidence that he had anything to do with these murders. And even then, I have teams of lawyers standing by, ready to spring anyone you bring in.”
I take a moment to imagine him in custody. At my mercy. “Is that why you called? To tell me you’ve lawyered up?”
“Do I need a reason to call you?”
I glance at the coat on the bed.
“You requested a call from the owner of Club Empire,” he says.
I close my eyes. “You’re the owner.” Every move I make, he puts me in checkmate. It would be amusing if it were a game and not my actual life.
“I’m one of them. My partners might not be so forgiving of you barging in to harass our employee without a warrant.”
Oh, I’ll get my warrant. “What are they going to do. . . punish me?”
“They will do nothing to you.” Do I imagine a hint of steel in his voice? It disappears when he purrs, “I, however, am always available to punish you.”
I shake my head. Need surges between my legs until I’m panting, but I don’t trust myself to say anything.
“Scene with me tonight, Inara.”
Images fill my mind. Me naked, tied and struggling as he strokes his hands over my bare skin.
I grit my teeth until they ache. Desire is a weight in my belly, my sex. I want more than anything to say yes. “In your dreams,” I make myself say.
“Always.”
* * *
Rex
She won’t let me get close to her.
I stand at the window in my childhood bedroom, staring down at the neat boxwood hedges that lattice the lawns of my ancestral home. Beyond the manicured grounds are acres of meadow. I keep the gardens neat out of respect for my mother’s memory. She loved the rare roses and lilac trees.
I prefer wild spaces. Growing up in the Roy mansion, life was neat and orderly. Wealth is a brilliant buffer against the chaos of life. At least, until death comes.
And in my family’s experience, death comes all too soon. All the riches in the world can’t keep it at bay.
Not that each generation of Roys didn’t try. One of my forefathers believed so strongly in fresh country air he built the manor miles away from the city on one hundred acres of private land.
My ancestral home spans forty-two thousand square feet. There are rooms I haven’t entered in years.
Hamish keeps this room clean, perhaps out of sentiment to the boy I used to be. Someone’s recently dusted the toys and gadgets I played with and polished the top of a heavy antique dresser. There’s a whole replica of New Rome and a tiny masked figure in a cape.
I hold the toy in the palm of my hand.
My father told me stories of a hero who watched over the city. They were stories his father told him, and he passed the stories and this toy on to me.
The stories were lies. There was no one watching over the city. Certainly, no one was there to save my parents when a madman gunned them down.
If I had been stronger, I could’ve saved them. But I was a child, and I was weak.
All the wealth in the world can’t save you from a feral madman. Violence only respects violence.
I’ve spent my life since then making up for that weakness. Making myself strong so that I can protect the innocent from the evil that would prey on them.
I open the top drawer and check the contents. The first evidence of my obsession. The newspapers are old and yellowed, but the print screams the headline as loudly as ever. Death Comes to Small Town.
My little bird doesn’t know it, but I was lost for years after my parents died. I had nothing to live for. And then I found her.
She is scared and prone to flee, but one day, I will tame her to my hand. And I will tell her everything.
There’s a creak in the hall outside the door. Hamish can move quietly when he wants to. He’s letting me hear him.
“In here, Hamish,” I call.
“Sir.” He appears. Even though I’m half a foot taller than him, he manages to look down his nose disapprovingly at me. “Senator Nero has sent an invitation to a masked ball next week.”
“Tell him I’m busy.”
“Is that wise?” He knows the efforts I’ve taken to court the temperamental senator. Nero is powerful and prone to flying into rages.
“Tell him I have a new toy. And I’m in the mood to play with her.”
Hamish pauses long enough to let the silence voice his displeasure. “Is that all?”
“That’s all. He’ll understand.”
“The Times also sent over a few pictures that they’ll run with your permission.”
“How kind of them.” It’s easy enough to cultivate a relationship with the press and ensure any news they run upholds my reputation. All you have to do is own the country’s most respected newspaper and a television channel or two.
He hands me a stack of photos, and I flip through them. They’re all of me—laughing, talking with other donors, shaking Chief Jordan’s hands. Same old, same old. I toss each of them on the dresser until I come to one that makes me grit my teeth.
“Not this one.” I hold up the photo. It’s black and white and shows me dancing with Inara in my arms. Her face is turned down, her profile unclear, but rage surges through me.
No one intrudes on a private moment between me and my little bird.
I wave the offending photo. “I want all the prints of this and any photograph like it. Including the negatives. Find the photographer and buy their equipment, too.”
Hamish raises a bushy eyebrow, but he doesn’t argue. He’s used to these sorts of requests. “And if they won’t sell?”
“Offer to upgrade their equipment. And make it clear that we’ll be confiscating said equipment whether they comply or not.” I’m not above being a thug if I have to.
“Consider it done. There’s one more thing.” He produces another photo. This one is blurred, caught on a street cam. It shows a helmeted, armored figure leaping from one rooftop to another. “The stealth suit isn’t as invisible as you’d hoped.”
“I’ll tell the team.”
Hamish clears his throat in a way that tells me he’s prepared a lecture. “If you intend to remove certain targets from the city, it would be wise to allow me to complete the mission prep.”
“It was a spur of the moment.” The camera caught me on the night Inara had been assaulted. “I lost my temper. It won’t happen again.”
“Gallivanting about the city on unauthorized missions leads to exposure. Remember that.”
He takes his leave, and I go back to studying the photograph of me and Inara. I remember my little bird’s fragile expression, the anger and longing warring in her eyes as we moved in sync across the ballroom floor. The photographer had caught the tension between our bodies and the way she curls toward me when she’s let down her guard.
Behind us, the camera also caught an onlooker staring at us. Sebastian St. James, who’s been both a business partner and a worthy adversary.
When it comes to my little bird, I won’t take any chances. St. James has a way of rooting out a person’s weakness and leaning on them for sport. I won’t allow him near her.
But he’s the least of my problems. Inara is frightened. Not of me but herself.
Allowing her department to find the body of her second assaulter took the heat off her. She’s no longer the main suspect.
I meant it to be a gift to her, but it was obviously too much, too soon. She’s backed off, and I can’t have that.
I need to make her come to me.