Chapter Seven
Iris
“Where are we going?”
My eyes move from the passing scenery and to the large man seated beside me in the driver’s seat.
I was convinced he was going to give me an envelope with my new identity like they did last time then send me off to the airport but this isn’t the road to the airport.
In fact, it looks like we’re headed in the opposite direction.
“Just stay calm.”
I glance back at the city we’re leaving behind and get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It’s the same feeling I had when I showed up at the address Henry left me, but I just chalked it up to heartbreak.
Told myself that the uneasy feeling I was experiencing was from the thought that I’d never see Ghost again but now, I can’t help but think there’s more to it than just that.
I’ve never had a reason to distrust Henry; I haven’t spoken to him since I left Austin but heck, he’s a government official. Aren’t they supposed to have the best interests of a person at heart?
Still, I can’t shake that heavy feeling that settles in my chest, nor the fear as the bright lights of the city give way to desert grounds.
We’ve been driving for a little over an hour and maybe if I wasn’t so sucked into my own thoughts and what I was leaving behind, I would have noticed it earlier.
“This doesn’t look like the way to the airport,” I tell Henry, gripping my seatbelt as I turn to face the man. “You said I was leaving Vegas. That I would get a new identity.”
“And you will.”
“Then why won’t you tell me where we’re going?”
“Like, I said, trust me. I know what’s best for you. You can lie down and catch some sleep. I’ll let you know when we get there.”
“But why won’t you—”
“Shut the fuck up for one goddamned second, will you?” he rages, slamming his fist against the steering wheel and making me jump. “Jesus fucking Christ. I don’t know how any man stands all this yapping. Sit back and shut the fuck up!”
I shrink into my seat, my heart racing as I consider, not for the first time, that maybe leaving Elysium wasn’t a great idea. Henry wasn’t this mean when he helped me last time. In fact, he was open about my new life and identity, and answered all my questions with the patience of a saint.
What changed?
I have questions, but by the firm set of his jaw, I’m not completely certain his fist will be directed at the steering wheel the next time I anger him.
So I sink deeper into my seat and stare out into the night, trying not to let my mind wander but of course it does.
It goes back to the apartment on the tenth floor of Elysium and into that room I’ve spent all my nights in the last week.
Waking up to hands roaming over my body, lips kissing my forehead and cheek, a mouth seeking mine, desperate for connection.
The sleepy sighs as we make love in the early morning.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” Ghost would whisper into my hair as my body came down from the high of an orgasm. “Go back to sleep, baby.”
And I would fall asleep with a smile on my face, spend the day thinking of the man. I worked my shift daydreaming until the moment I would be back in his arms again. Making love like our lives depended on it. My name on his lips.
Iris, not Elizabeth.
I drop my forehead against the cool window and quietly sniff back tears.
They fall anyway, wetting my cheeks but doing little to ease the ache in my chest. I’ll never have that again.
I’ll get a different name and be forced into being a completely different woman.
One who does not belong to Ghost. I’ll have a whole other life.
At least that’s what I think is going to happen but with the way Henry is acting, I’m not so sure anymore.
“We’re here!” Henry says, and the excitement in his voice has my head shooting up. I blink off the tears as I try to focus on what he’s looking at. My eyes squint at the headlights in the distance, confused as to why “here” is a bunch of cars parked in the distance.
I cry out when he veers off the main road and starts driving over sand and gravel. I grab onto my seatbelt as the man steps on the gas and sends the car flying forward. “Henry,” I whisper, panicked, my heart in my throat. “What are you doing. Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see,” he says with a manic smile that extinguishes any hope I had of safety. It’s clear now that I made a mistake leaving that casino and trusting a man I believed had my best interest at heart.
“I want to go back,” I say, more to myself than to him but the words seem to amuse him as he chuckles.
“Go back where? To whoring yourself for Ghost and those fucking Sinners?”
Ghost.
It’s almost as if the blinders fall off my eyes and my head whips to him. “Ghost, how do you know him?” I ask, panicked. Wait, he called Ghost by name before when he called me. I didn’t think to ask. Stupid. Careless. How else would this man know of Ghost unless he was keeping an eye on me?
The same way the Víboras Gemelas have been.
The twinkle of the headlights becomes clear as we drive closer and I spot three cars parked side by side.
Leaning against one of them is the man who came to the casino that night.
His eyes lock with mine as Henry pulls to a stop in front of the parked cars, and there is that smirk again.
That evil grin of a man who has no doubt taken innocent lives before—probably revels in it too.
And now, I’m about to become his next victim.
The passenger door is yanked open and hands reach inside, dragging me out by my arm and hair. I fall onto the hard ground, crying out when my hand scrapes a rock but then I am dragged to my feet and forced to walk toward the parked car, then shoved to the ground in front of the grinning man.
“I told you we’d meet again, Elizabeth Grundy,” the man chuckles, pushing away from the hood and approaching me. I whimper, backing away from him as he approaches me and I can read the hate in his eyes. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
Ghost and the Sinners are no saints. I’ve seen darkness in the eyes of the man I slept next to for a week. I saw violence in his gaze when he saw other men flirt with me, but he was never this venomous. It’s like looking into the eyes of a demon, one without any shred of humanity left in him.
“Oh, how I would love to have my fun with you,” he chuckles when I back away from him again. “But there is someone who wants to see you first.”
The sound of a car door opening pulls my attention from this demon and to the ghost of my past. I watch the shadow of the man I helped put away in prison climb out of the car, a slightly pudgy version of him. He’s bald and with eyes just as empty as this man.
“Did you miss me?” he asks, approaching me. I scoot back, my heart racing as I try to get away from him but I bump into someone. Looking up, I realize that I am surrounded by men with nowhere to go. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Oh, don’t worry. I’m not him.”
“W-what?” I whimper.
“The man you put in prison. That was my stupid twin brother, Julio. Careless son of a bitch got himself arrested and put away by a sexy little thing like you…” those eyes rake over my body in a way that sends terror settling in my gut.
“I’m not stupid like my brother. I guess I’ll have to clean up his mess like I always have! ”
Víboras Gemelas.
Spanish for twin vipers. I didn’t think the name meant anything but I see now how wrong I was. Christ, there are two of them!
“I brought her to you, Marco. Can I have my money now?” Henry’s voice breaks into the tense air and I see annoyance cross the monster’s face before he turns to look at my agent.
“Sure, one million dollars, was it?”
“Yes. In crypto. Can’t trust the banks these days.”
“Of course, the government is full of corrupt individuals,” Marco says with some humor.
I watch him reach into his jacket and when I turn to look at Henry with heartbreak and betrayal on my face, I am surprised to see not a shred of guilt.
He looks eagerly at the man, waiting, practically licking at his lips for the large payout he’s about to get for selling me out.
Henry doesn’t see it, but I do—the bright silver glint of a gun—that Marco pulls out of his jacket.
Maybe if he did, then he would run away or try to fight but he doesn’t, not until it’s too late.
The gun barely makes a sound as Marco shoots Henry twice in the chest. And like his evil twin, his hand barely jerks.
His eyes don’t flinch. There is nothing human about him, so I look away.
I close my eyes, flinching when something—someone—hits the ground.
I don’t have to look to know that Henry is dead, and despite our last moments together, my heart aches for the man who was clearly as deceived as I was.
“Hey, don’t cry for him,” Marco says, walking forward and crouching in front of me. He grabs my chin and forces my eyes to meet his. “You can tell him how sorry you feel when you meet the annoying son of a bitch in the afterlife.”
He taps the gun against my cheek so I close my eyes, waiting for it to end.
Maybe this is where I was destined to die.
In a desert, surrounded by demons disguised as men.
This is my fate. Maybe I won’t see Henry in the afterlife but I can hope to see my parents.
They are the only other people who ever wanted me anyway.
And Ghost.
I let the tears fall, brace for the pain that is to come and when I’m certain it’s all over, someone screams.
A shot rings out in the air, another pained scream tears through the air and the hand on my jaw is gone. I open my eyes to find the area flooded with light coming from all directions and shouts for everyone to drop their weapons and get down.
Police? FBI? That’s the first thought in my head as I look around us and at the men closing in from all sides. All the weapons are pointing at the circle. And then into the dark eyes of the man I fell in love with the moment I saw him.
It’s the Sinners!