Chapter 11 Marcus
MARCUS
I take the limo toward the Manhattan Bridge. The driver’s partition is up, and she’s alone in the passenger cabin, but I see everything through the interior camera.
She wriggles against the seat, rubbing the blindfold, turning her head, and dragging the cloth against the leather.
But it won’t give. She sits straighter, then moves again, testing the space the way a cat keeps checking a closed door, certain it’ll magically work the third time.
Then her lips move, mumbling something too muffled to catch until I open the intercom.
“Wolf!” she breathes, her voice drifting through the speakers.
I can’t help smiling.
“I won’t hurt you, Midnight,” I say, letting the words settle low in my throat. “Unless you want me to.”
“Midnight?” she echoes, dazed and trying to orient herself.
My smile deepens. I’m going to enjoy every phase of this woman. Maybe not tonight since she’s too far gone for what I have planned, but soon.
I shut the intercom and take Liam’s call.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“Fifteen minutes from The Paloma. You found an entrance without eyes?”
Before I left The Trap, one of my men located Midnight’s car parked near the bridge between two sycamores.
An unremarkable Ford. Inside, he found what I needed: an ID and a keycard.
Iris Vaughn. I didn’t have to be told her name.
Seeing it printed was just confirmation, and it told me she lived in Brooklyn.
Beyond that, the car held only her phone, a spare jacket, and a lipstick. Typical glove-box clutter.
“Old service door next to the garage,” Liam replies. “I’ll get Ren to unlock it.”
In the rear camera, Midnight rolls onto her side, stretching out along the seat in an unguarded line. Her wrists are still bound behind her, the blindfold holding firm.
By the time I pull up at The Paloma, Ren is already waiting with the service door propped open.
Before I step out, I reach into the console. The limo is stocked the way all my vehicles are, with silk handkerchiefs folded in pairs, meant for spilled drinks, ruined makeup, or guests who forget themselves. I take one. It’s necessary. She’s unpredictable, and the building echoes.
I round to the passenger door and open it.
“Wolf, you—”
The handkerchief slips between her lips before the rest can form.
I brace her against me as she jerks in surprise, her body coming alive again.
But she can’t break free, not from this grip.
I lift her out myself, holding her tight.
Not as tight as when the fire chased us down the rafters, but tight enough to remind her that resistance is only theater.
Old New York buildings love redundancy. They were built in eras when architects thought two elevators were good, three were better, and a fourth that no one remembered to remove was simply tradition.
The Paloma is no exception. The service lift barely sees use anymore, a mere relic tucked behind maintenance doors and delivery alcoves. Perfect for bringing in a bound woman no one should see.
As we move down the dim hallway where the forgotten service wing blends into the residential floor, Midnight draws in a breath like she’s catching a scent she knows.
Of course she is. It’s her own damn apartment.
The lock clicks, and the door swings open under her keycard.
The apartment has too many rooms for someone who lives alone. I take the first door on instinct.
“Jesus, what the hell is that?” I mutter, annoyed that the words even made it out.
A mannequin stares back at me.
What the fuck…
I flinch. What kind of person keeps this in their apartment?
Iris twists in my arms, a sound trapped behind the gag, perhaps reacting to the pause. I reset my grip to stop her from sagging as I back out and try the next door.
Men’s shoes line the floor near the threshold. They’re large. Clearly for a different occupant entirely.
At the third door, there are smaller shoes by the entrance. It’s open, and light spills in through a window facing the street. Inside, cosmetics are scattered across the dresser, and there’s a faint trace of perfume in the air.
This one.
I step inside. A dress lies in the middle of the floor, abandoned in a rush. I almost slip on it before lowering her to the bed.
God forgive me…the way her legs slide against the sheets is fucking irresistible.
I sink to one knee beside her.
“Really, what should I do with you, Miss Vaughn?”
The question is mostly for myself since she’s in no state to answer.
“Should I handle this right here? Where the rules of my manor don’t reach?”
She arches, twisting and mumbling behind her gag.
I could unmask her.
I want to.
I ache to.
But the mask rule is older than the Game, older than whatever she’s dragged into my night. Even knowing her name now doesn’t give me the right.
So I keep my hands away and force my gaze elsewhere.
On the other side of the bed, a canvas is sprawled across the floor. I sweep my phone’s light across the surface. The edges look battered, like it’s been kicked aside.
I move toward it and crouch. It’s covered with polka dots, unruly and uncompelling. But the signature at the bottom corner makes me stop.
Ivy.
I’m not an art-world disciple, but even I know what The Crimson Reverie did. Six figures, headlines, and critics losing their minds over a creation they still call “sex on a canvas.”
But these dots…this wild disorder? It’s nothing like that piece.
I look back at Midnight, who is furious in her own way.
Is she an art thief?
No, that’s wrong.
Iris Vaughn. She didn’t steal the work. She is Ivy.
The woman who tried to infiltrate The Trap and nearly burned on my roof is the same woman who painted desire as if she invented it.
I move toward her, my fingers working the restraints at her wrists. I loosen them just enough to keep her from hurting herself, but not enough for her to slow my exit or jeopardize my anonymity.
She’ll get free soon enough. And when she does, she’d better pray the dark figure that preceded her at The Trap truly was the orchestrator, and she was only collateral.
Because if she isn’t an accessory, if she’s playing a deeper game—
She has no idea what she has stepped into.