Chapter 33 #2
He shifts, coming in close enough for his lips to graze the outer edge of my ear as he whispers, “I’m more curious about what’s hiding under your little dress.” He slips a finger under the strap, letting it snap back into place, as he says it.
My body freezes. I hold his gaze, but my mind is racing. His balance is off, his words are slow… he’s different from what he was even a few minutes ago. I give him a weak smile. His eyelids grow heavier, and the way he keeps looking at me sets my nerves on edge. What the hell did he drink?
And then it comes crashing in on me. Oh, God, he isn’t just tipsy. He drugged himself. That explains the sluggish grin, the heavy eyelids, the slurring.
A wicked thrill runs through me, and I bite back yet another bout of laughter fighting its way up my throat, barely keeping it contained. A victorious smile spreads across my face instead as I stare into his glassy eyes.
He notices instantly. “Oh, you like that?”
“Oh, Luke,” I whisper as he leans into me, the bars of the cage cold against my back. “I don’t think you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
He licks his lips, pure hunger flickering in his eyes as he trails a finger from the strap of my dress down to my cleavage. “Oh, I think you’re right. How about you show me?” he slurs, swaying forward.
His weight presses me further into the cage, the bars digging into my spine. My breath catches. He’s too close, too heavy. Every inch of him reeks of arrogance and that musky cologne. Maybe this isn’t my winning move after all.
I brace my hands against his chest, pushing him back slightly, running a finger down the buttons on his shirt. Pretending it’s a game, but in reality, I’m steadying him. Keeping him just far enough away that I still have some control.
“I knew you’d come around, darling,” he slurs, his eyelids heavy, but his gaze is still glued to mine.
I steal a glance at the clock on the wall, counting down the seconds until whatever he put in that drink finally knocks him out.
But it’s not happening. Five seconds pass.
Ten. Panic floods my chest as his weight continues to press in on me.
His breath hot on my neck and his hands inching lower down my sides.
I look past his shoulder, hoping to see Sienna concerned, but she’s standing there watching the struggle with a faint look of amusement.
“Don’t hold your breath for him to take a nap,” she mutters, swirling her glass. “Luke has a tolerance that would kill a normal man. Whatever was in that... it’s only going to make him mean.”
My heart drops. She knows. She’s been watching the whole time, enjoying the slow-motion train wreck.
I clear my throat, trying to regain my footing. “Let’s—” I manage, but before I can get another word out, Luke’s mouth is on my neck, and his grip tightens violently on my hips. His fingertips dig into my skin hard enough to make me gasp.
He glances up, grinning, teeth bared. “Are you sure you knew what you were getting yourself into?
Once again, my body feels frozen. All of his weight presses me harder against the metal, and my spine is screaming for relief.
No... not again. The whisper in the back of my mind is small, terrified, and dangerously close to breaking me. I’m staring at Luke, but for a split second, I’m seeing a ghost from a memory I thought was long gone.
“Luke, stop. This hurts,” I whisper, the panic finally clawing at the back of my throat.
I look at Sienna one last time, pleading silently for a shred of womanly solidarity, but she just tilts her head and takes a slow, mocking sip of her drink. She isn’t going to help. She’s waiting for the real show to start.
Luke places one finger over my lips, signaling me to stop talking. His eyes are nearly black as his mouth continues its trail past my collarbone.
I’m working to bring my knee up when the suite door doesn’t just open, it’s nearly thrown off its hinges.
Locke is there, and he looks nothing like the polished man he usually presents himself as. He looks like a storm wearing a dark suit and made of pure, unadulterated rage. Behind him, Tiernan slips into the room, holding a tablet and looking entirely too calm to be here.
Locke is across the room in one blurry heartbeat. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t warn. He just reaches out, grabs the back of Luke’s collar and his belt, and rips him off me with such violent force that Luke’s feet actually leave the ground.
Locke flings him toward the center of the room, not even looking to see where he lands. At that moment, time seems to stand still.
I watch as Luke stumbles backward, his sluggish balance finally failing him as he crashes over the back of the leather couch. He grasps for a floor lamp on the way down, and it shatters against the tile in a million tiny pieces.
A sick, wet cracking sound reverberates through the suite as his head meets the edge of the coffee table. Then, there’s only silence.
I stand by the cage, eyes wide and chest heaving, my eyes pressed on Locke’s back. His shoulders are rising and falling with heavy, jagged breaths. He doesn’t look at me, not yet. He walks straight to where Luke is lying on the floor, motionless among the glass shards, and stares down at him.
Sienna finally breaks. The glass slips from her hand, shattering on the marble bar. “Oh my God,” she gasps, her face turning a ghostly shade of white as she looks at Luke’s crumpled form. “You... you killed him. You fucking killed him!”
Locke turns slowly to look at her. His expression revealing nothing but a lethal indifference that makes her scream die in her throat. He doesn’t look like a man who just committed a crime; he looks like a man who just finished a chore.
“And you’re a witness,” he says, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that vibrates through the suite.
Sienna stumbles back, her hands and voice shaking. “I’ll tell the police. I’ll tell everyone! I have the platform, I have —”
“You have nothing, Sienna,” Tiernan interrupts, tapping his screen and turning the tablet toward her.
“I’ve spent the last ten minutes downloading the ‘Inventory’ folder from Luke’s cloud.
You know, the one with the photos of the girls you helped him lure and traffic?
The wire transfers you signed to pay off their families?
If the police come in here, they’re going to find a dead predator and a mountain of evidence pointing to you as his primary accomplice. ”
I watch as Locke looms over her, and I take a moment to study the face of the woman who found my struggle so amusing just moments ago.
There’s no mockery left in her expression.
In its place is a raw fear that makes her look smaller.
The mask has shattered, leaving nothing behind but a terrified girl who realized too late that she’s been playing the wrong game.
Locke continues. “We’ve already drafted the narrative, Sienna. We have the messages, we have the photos, and we have the motive. If you say a single word, we won’t just ruin your career. We’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life in a cell, since Luke can’t.”
Sienna looks at Luke’s body, then back at Locke’s cold, unwavering gaze. The animosity is gone, replaced by the frantic, pathetic survival instinct of a cornered animal. She looks like she might even faint. “I just did what he told me!”
“Get out,” Locke orders. He doesn’t shout, and the smooth, calm tone of his voice is even more unnerving. “Get out of this city. Get out of this country. If I ever see your face on a screen or hear your name mentioned in Hollywood again, he will hit send on that file. Do you understand?”
Sienna doesn’t wait to be told twice. She grabs her clutch off a nearby chair and bolts, her heels clicking frantically against the tile until the door slams shut behind her.
Locke finally turns to me. The hardness in his eyes softens, just a fraction. He reaches out, his thumb brushing my cheek.
“You’re okay,” he says, and for the first time tonight, I actually believe it.