Chapter 22 Reed #2
“Isn’t that all the more reason to let me in on this?
I can’t just let him get away with being this black cloud over my entire existence,” I say.
I imagine this is what Luke Skywalker felt like when he learned Darth Vader was his father.
If Wendell Blitz gave me half my DNA, no wonder there’s darkness curling through my subconscious.
I need to put it to good use before it consumes me.
Turns me into a soulless monster like him.
Dax throws up his hands. “Get away, and if I find the loot and make off with it, I’ll figure out a way to get what I can to you.”
“That’s a mighty big if. And what? I’m supposed to take you at your word when you can’t even trust me?
Make that math add up for me, Dax,” I say.
His name. God, it’s a good one. Tastes like black licorice—a favorite of mine in childhood.
I don’t want this to be the unsatisfying end to our story.
I want to throttle him. Show him that if he lets me in, I’ll go to the ends of the earth with him. We’re in this now.
I’ll dye my hair, change my name, maim my face and have it reconstructed by a plastic surgeon so I’m unrecognizable to any computer software. Whatever we need to do to get away from the hellscape that is our pasts.
Dax says, “Stop making this more difficult than it needs to be. Do as I say.”
“You are such a man, it’s almost cliché,” I say, shaking my head.
“You are no different than my—” I stumble over the word, no longer interested in giving out the title.
“Wendell. Unable to look past your own masculinity to realize that you don’t have to hoard and hide to be tough and powerful.
To be respected. It’s not weak to be cared for. ”
“Fuck you,” Dax says. A landmine explodes behind his eyes. I don’t give a solitary damn. He needs to hear this.
“You have fucked me. And when we fuck, I’m perfectly happy to cede the reins to you, but not here, not right now. Now you’re trying to fuck me over, and I won’t have that,” I say.
“I’m not trying to fuck you over,” he protests.
My confidence builds brick by brick in my stomach. “I’m not leaving. There are three hours until sunrise, and mark my words, I’m going to find that safe.”
“I won’t let you,” Dax says. His fingers curl into fists that should strike fear in me but don’t.
I let out a cruel-sounding laugh. “I’m an adult.
I don’t need your permission. Two heads are better than one.
If we break off into separate wings, we can cover more ground.
We don’t have much time,” I say. “Together, one of us is bound to come up victorious. I’m not going to double-cross you.
I’m not going to sell you out. From the moment we met, I knew there was something karmic and cosmic tying me to you, and everything that’s gone down tonight has proved it to me. ”
“I don’t believe in that stuff,” Dax says. His voice comes out too shaky to be taken seriously.
“Believe it or not, it’s true. Whether through ropes or feelings, I’m bound to you.
” I take two steps toward him, and he backs away, almost cowers.
There’s something beautiful about this big, burly, hairy man’s vulnerability.
Stripped of his mask and his menace, he is just a human being trying to get by. One who needs a home and deserves love.
“Feelings, just like knots, can be undone,” Dax says, his version of a feeble warning.
“Not the ones I feel for you. I just told you what I was capable of,” I say, borrowing some of his earlier confidence to deliver this.
Playing up my own villainous traits. “If you leave me out of this, Wendell Blitz won’t be the only one you have to worry about being on your tail.
I will follow you like a shadow. You won’t be able to shake me.
Mentally, I will be two steps ahead of you, and physically, I will be two steps behind. Always. I can promise you that.”
“Why? Why would you want to waste your life on…that?” he asks. But I hear what he’s really saying, Why would you want to waste your life on me?
“I have no shiny job prospects like you thought. No family left. I have no one,” I say. “But you? You could be my someone. In so many ways, you already are. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Dax’s gaze pierces a hole through me. I can tell my logic is chipping away at his steely resolve, tearing down a wall in front of his bandaged heart. “This could ruin you. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
I laugh again, but it’s an easy, floaty sound this time. Doesn’t he realize? I’m already ruined. Ravaged. Unwound. After everything that happened tonight, there’s no going back for me. And nobody will ever understand my dark-stained soul better than him.
“You said it yourself. Maybe I don’t have my whole life ahead of me.
Maybe he was lying when he said he’d let us walk away from here scot-free.
He might have a whole security team descending from a helicopter in a matter of minutes to kidnap us and torture us for all of eternity for crossing him.
The world’s richest man doesn’t need the police when he can hire his own,” I say, imagining the worst-case scenario, so at least I’m prepared should it come to pass.
“But if that does happen, I want to have found and cracked that safe. Even if there’s nothing in it. Even if I get away with nothing. I want him to know that just because he invented the game doesn’t mean he can’t be beaten at it. I want us to outsmart him.”
“You don’t have any idea what might happen to you if you do this,” Dax says with all the mirthlessness of a man who’s learned his lesson a million times over.
What he doesn’t understand is that I need to learn these lessons for myself. Otherwise, what was the point of any of this?
“You’re right. But I do know what might happen to me if I don’t,” I say.
“I might spend the rest of my life regretting the one chance I had at toppling Wendell Blitz and being with the one person I’ve built a true connection with.
Neither of which I could live down.” I need to finish what I started.
I knew this would either end in a joyful reunion or a devastating explosion.
Dax nods, darkness like spilled ink pooling in his eyes.
I extend a hand to him. “Can you meet me halfway? Can we go in on this together? Can we be…partners?”
He hesitates. He shakes his head. Then the right side of his delicious mouth quirks up. “You meant that? All that stuff you just said?” he asks.
“All that stuff. Every word of it,” I reassure him.
The left side of his mouth joins the right. It’s the tiniest of smiles, but it gives me the biggest boost. “Partners,” he says, taking my hand, pulling me in, and claiming my mouth with a kiss that wipes away all the icky feelings slicked inside my chest.
“We could even up the ante,” I say. “Make our search a little competition.”
Dax raises a brow. “We’re already racing against the clock. What sort of competition are you suggesting?”
“Whoever finds the safe gets to be Dom top next time,” I say, testing my theory that there’s a switch hidden somewhere beneath all his bravado. Giving myself something to look forward to on the other side. Hope for an after, and not just an aftermath.
“I’m not a betting man,” Dax says, but I know what’s behind the statement. He’s one of those Dom Daddies who hasn’t bottomed in a long time. When this is all over, I want to break that streak for him. I want to break him in. God.
“Is it possible that you’re just scared I might find the safe first?” I ask, goading him like he did earlier when the roles were reversed. I go a little lightheaded with the power of the performance. I might enjoy this higher status more than I imagined.
“You wish,” he says, desire gaining traction behind his crystalline eyes.
“If you’re nice, I might even give you a head start,” I mock. I make a big show of slipping into fresh underwear, shorts, and a T-shirt before looting around in my suitcase for socks and sneakers.
“You’re impossible,” he says.
And maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it sounds like he means it as a huge compliment. Like he wants to wrap his hand around my neck and choke the impossibility right out of me. Frankly, I’d let him.
“Guilty as charged. I’m not wasting any more time.” Giving him one last loaded glance, I dart for the door. Over my shoulder, I call, “May the best man win!”