Chapter 11
CIPHER
I tapped my fingers against the lab table, watching as the holographic screens flickered with a relentless stream of media. Gossip sites. News feeds. All of them vomiting up footage from the Season Opener.
“Could they possibly move any slower?” I muttered, refreshing one of the feeds.
“You know, Number Eight could be doing this for you,” Menace pointed out, slouching against my workbench with a grin that belonged three hours later and two coffees deep.
“I’m capable of checking websites myself.”
“Yeah, but you don’t. Usually you’re elbow-deep in something that’ll end civilization by lunchtime.” His eyes flicked to the screens. “This isn’t research. This is vanity.”
“It’s not vanity.”
Menace’s eyebrow rose. “No? Then what would you call this?”
“Market research.”
“Bullshit.”
I ignored him. A notification pinged and I immediately swiped to expand the screen. VillainVogue had updated their Opener coverage. My eyes scanned the article, stopping on a photo.
There.
Annie was pressed against my side, my hand possessively gripping her waist as we left the Opener. I looked like I was daring the world to try and take her.
Her expression, on the other hand, was complicated.
To anyone else, she looked like the perfect Villain’s plaything, beautiful and submissive.
Adoring even. Only I would see the tension locking her shoulders.
I saw the careful blankness glazing her eyes.
That look hadn’t been there all night. It appeared only after I shut down.
After I’d been cruel.
“Well, they’re certainly buying the whole ‘plaything’ angle,” Menace said, peering over my shoulder. “Mission accomplished, right?”
“Right,” I agreed automatically, swiping to another site that featured an even more provocative shot, Annie perched on my lap, my hand sliding up her thigh. The caption read: “Cipher’s New Toy.”
Toy.
The word annoyed me. It was reductive and insulting to her intelligence, but it made a dark satisfaction coil in my veins regardless.
The memory of last night clawed its way to the surface. Baron Ash’s smirk. The violence vibrating in my bones. Then Annie’s hand on mine.
That small, fragile weight had derailed my rage. It shouldn’t have been possible. My anger was a force of nature. Yet her touch had sliced through the red haze.
And the realization that her touch calmed me had fucking terrified me. So, I’d turned the fear into ice and froze her out. I walked away and left her bleeding emotionally because the alternative was admitting to myself she somehow had power over me. It meant admitting she was a weakness.
Weakness got you killed.
I needed to work so I could forget the look in her eyes when I walked away.
My finger hovered over the console, ready to kill the feed, when a League notification popped up.
Menace leaned closer, squinting at the new data scrolling across the screen. “Well. Look at that.”
I didn’t need to look closely. The format was unmistakable. Official challenge requests. Dozens of them. Accepting only a fraction of them would book my entire afternoon and evening solid with street clashes.
“It seems the Opener was a resounding success,” I murmured, a cold smile curving my mouth.
The bottom-feeders had seen the headlines and now their tiny, ambitious brains had decided that taking down the man of the hour was their ticket up the Season rankings.
Fine. I needed an outlet anyway. A few shattered ribs and the wet crunch of bone would clear my head perfectly.
Number Thirty-one burst into the lab, looking like he’d sprinted the entire way from the communications center.
“Sir! VEN is running a segment on you right now!”
“Which channel?”
“Main broadcast, sir.”
The largest screen flipped to VEN’s signature black and red graphics. Viper’s unmistakable voice filled the lab, but I barely registered her words. My attention was locked on the footage playing behind her.
Annie in that fucking dress, moving through the Opener like she belonged there.
The camera loved her. It lingered on the curve of her throat as she tilted her head back. On her lips when they parted and I leaned in.
My pulse kicked against my ribs as the feed cut to footage of Annie perched on my lap. Her body was curved against mine as my hand slid along her thigh. The camera caught the exact moment she inhaled sharply.
That little fucking sigh.
A growl vibrated in my chest, low and involuntary.
That breath wasn’t for the cameras. It wasn’t for the audience or the ratings or the League.
That breath belonged to me.
I hated that the world had seen it. I wanted to reach into the screen and drag her out so I could hide her away and keep her where only I could witness the way she came undone. I needed to gouge the memory of her flushed skin out of every mind that had witnessed it.
I forced my hands to unclench.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“I know, right?” Number Thirty-one said. “They got some great angles. The ratings will be through the roof.”
I didn’t answer. If I spoke, I would fire him. Or throw him through a wall.
Annie had looked perfect. She had played her part flawlessly and I’d repaid her by slicing her open with my indifference because I couldn’t handle the leash she unknowingly held.
“You’ve got it bad,” Menace chuckled.
“I have nothing.”
“Right.”
I shot him a glare, but Menace just grinned.
I ran a hand through my hair and tugged at the roots.
The camera caught a moment I’d almost forgotten. Annie looked up at me through her lashes and I brushed my fingers along her jawline.
Shit. She hadn’t been acting. I knew she wouldn’t be because I’d done my homework. I had seen the late-night searches in her browser history. I knew she didn’t want a gentle lover. She wanted a monster.
So I let the mask slip. I let her see the dominance I usually kept chained in the dark. I gave her the possessiveness that lived in my marrow. I showed her the real me because I knew it was exactly what she secretly craved.
And I’d enjoyed every fucking second of not having to wear the metaphorical mask.
“So,” Menace said, leaning against my workbench with that infuriating grin still plastered across his face. “I’m having a little get-together at the penthouse tonight.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Define ‘little.’”
“Just some friends. And some of Dawn’s friends. Nothing crazy.”
“In my penthouse.”
“The place I live,” he corrected.
I turned back to my workstation, pulling up schematics for a project I’d been neglecting. “Have fun with that.”
“You should join us. Take a break from...” he waved vaguely at my screens, “whatever brooding Villain thing you’re doing.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Come on, man. Even if Dawn doesn’t manage to drag the little Keeper along, she’s got some pretty co-workers.” He nudged my shoulder. “And judging by how handsy you were getting last night, you could use a good—”
“No.”
“Your loss,” he shrugged, pushing away from the workbench. “But the offer stands.”
I watched Menace leave, but his words were still ringing in my brain.
Annie. In my penthouse. Breathing my air. Walking across my floors.
She played at being so untouchable, but I’d made her come in under two minutes. I hadn’t even gotten my fingers inside her properly. That was the detail that clawed at my sanity.
She had soaked right through the lace of her panties in seconds, the slick heat coating my palm. She’d drenched my hand, her thighs trembling as she fought her own body’s submission every agonizing second until she broke.
And fuck, she had tasted good.
I could still taste the exact flavor of her surrender.
When I brought that slick finger to my mouth, I’d expected the standard salt and heat.
Instead, it was a fucking revelation. Sweet, dark, and addicting.
I had sucked her slickness off my skin while she watched, her eyes wide and furious, and all I could think about was dragging my tongue up her thighs and feasting on her.
Her pussy was a fucking drug, and the moment I had tasted it, the chemical dependency was instantaneous. I wanted to pry her legs apart, bury my face between them, and consume every drop of that wetness until she was sobbing my name.
If she stepped foot into my home…
I paced between workstations. Three steps. Turn. Four steps. Turn.
The rhythm failed to soothe the itch under my skin.
“Status update on the Bishop files,” I demanded.
“Estimated completion in two minutes, twelve seconds,” came Number Seven’s voice over comms.
Not fast enough. Nothing was fast enough today.
When the alert sounded on my main screen, I moved quickly.
It had taken longer than I expected for Annie’s sealed records to be cracked. But information was power, and I needed every advantage I could get with her. These records would give me the leverage I needed, the understanding of who she was beneath the mask she showed the world.
The screen filled with dozens of documents, and my excitement crashed into frustration.
“What the hell is this?”
The documents were more black bars than text. Medical records, [REDACTED]. Employment records, [REDACTED].
What the fuck was the Alliance hiding about her? Even high-ranking Heroes didn’t have this level of information security. The black redaction bars mocked me from the screen, like a fucking censored porn video where all the good parts were hidden.
That couldn’t be right. Everyone left digital footprints. School records. Medical history. Utility bills. Fucking library cards. But Annie Bishop might as well have materialized fully formed as Havoc’s Keeper.
This was fucking bullshit.
My chest tightened and the old panic flared. The child in the hospital bed, unable to predict when the next needle was coming. Not knowing when the next test, the next drug was going to be administered. Not knowing when his parents were going to get tired of him and ship him back to the hospital.
I needed to know. I needed to dissect her history until I understood every scar.
I got rid of the holographic interface, watching the files vanish into nothingness. My jaw ached from clenching it too hard.