Chapter Eight
Brace myself for what?
There wasn’t time to turn the thought into an actual question before the door flew open and a tall, willowy blonde woman swept into the room.
A fitted black sheath dress clung to her curvaceous figure.
The severe elegance of the dress was broken only by the violent splash of scarlet heels so high I was amazed she could walk in them.
White fur draped her shoulders, gold glittered at her throat and wrists, and every inch of her radiated money.
“Queenie Hart,” Omar whispered, apparently deciding my ignorance required commentary. “Stone cold bitch. If she looks at you, look away.”
A man entered behind her.
“Her husband, Henry Hart.”
At first glance, Henry looked much older than Queenie, but on second inspection, I realized Queenie was one of those women who held back time with surgery, skilfully applied makeup, and sheer force of will.
Henry was expensively dressed too, his pin-striped suit less flashy but bearing that subtle sheen that only really good fabric could.
Thick brows and thin lips gave him a rugged sort of attractiveness.
Broad shoulders and a trim waist said he might be nearing his fifties, but that he still took good care of himself.
Either that or the same plastic surgeon that had gone to town on Queenie had offered a two for one deal on liposuction.
Another much younger man trailed in their wake.
“Kellan Hart,” Omar continued, his voice dropping even lower. “Their spoiled son. Used to snapping his fingers and getting whatever he wants.”
Kellan looked like a blend of both parents.
He had Queenie’s blond hair—cropped short instead of styled into curls—but Henry’s broader, more muscular frame.
Compared to his mum and dad, he looked underdressed in his open-necked white shirt, no tie, and black trousers.
He stared around the club with visible boredom, his hands shoved in his pockets.
He looked like your typical rich playboy.
He had cruel lips.
The thought arrived uninvited, and once it was there, I couldn’t shake it.
I’d never described someone that way before, but it fit.
Kellan Hart looked like the type of man who enjoyed hurting things simply because he could.
The boy who’d pulled wings off butterflies.
The teenager who’d laughed too loudly at someone tripping up.
“And that’s”—my lips formed the name at the same time as Omar completed his sentence―“Nico.”
The man from the mainland strolled in behind the Harts.
The one who’d warned me not to come to Wonderland.
The slight distance between him and the family suggested he wasn’t quite one of them, but that he was close.
Much closer than the three men bringing up the rear, who moved with the calm coordination of people who’d done terrible things together often enough that they no longer gave them a second thought.
“Bodyguards,” Omar said unnecessarily. “Three more outside.”
“Six bodyguards,” I whispered. “Isn’t that overkill?”
Omar shrugged. “Two each.”
“Doesn’t Nico get one?” My attention had already drifted back to him. He wore a different suit than before, this one charcoal gray. It was just as perfectly tailored to his lean frame.
Omar laughed quietly. “Nico doesn’t need one. He can handle himself.”
I had absolutely no idea what that meant. “Who is he?”
Omar hesitated long enough for me to notice, frowning in a way that suggested I’d asked something complicated. “Adopted son,” he said finally. “Kind of. Also Henry’s right-hand man.”
“Those sound like two very different things.”
Another shrug. Either he couldn’t explain it, or he didn’t want to.
“Well,” Queenie announced loudly. “Is everyone having fun tonight?”
No one answered.
Most people stared stubbornly at the floor. I’d never seen an entire room cowed so completely by one person before. It was both fascinating and deeply unsettling.
Queenie tossed her head, perfect blonde curls bouncing into place as if even gravity obeyed her. She pouted. “No one’s speaking to me, Henry. Have I wandered into a mime convention?”
“They’re probably struck dumb by your beauty, my angel,” Henry replied smoothly.
Not rolling my eyes took an immense amount of effort. As if sensing it, Omar chuckled.
“You should ask them again,” Henry suggested.
Queenie smiled brightly, not a single crease appearing on her face. All hail Botox. “Are we having an enjoyable night?”
This time, she got a chorus of replies and enthusiastic nods.
She drifted through the crowd until she stopped beside a young woman who couldn’t have been any older than twenty.
The woman didn’t step back, but her eyes said she desperately wanted to.
Queenie tapped one scarlet nail against the woman’s handbag.
“I like this,” she said. “Give it to me.”
The woman hesitated.
Henry stepped forward instantly. “You heard her.”
There was no mistaking the threat beneath the calmness of his tone.
The woman swallowed hard and handed over the bag.
Queenie passed it back to the bodyguard.
Apparently, carrying her own possessions was beneath her.
I doubted she even wanted the handbag. This felt like a performance.
A reminder that anything Queenie Hart desired automatically belonged to her.
And Omar had claimed Kellan was the spoiled one.
The apple clearly hadn’t fallen far from the tree.
Figuring I was far enough away to avoid attention, I lifted my drink and took another sip.
Nico’s head turned immediately.
The movement froze me mid-drink. Was drinking in Queenie’s presence a crime? Given how this had played out so far, it wouldn’t surprise me.
His gaze locked onto mine with unmistakable recognition. I saw irritation at first—annoyance that I’d ignored his warning and come here, anyway. It vanished quickly as his eyes traveled downward.
Slowly.
Taking in the tight leather.
Heat replaced irritation so completely it stole the breath from my lungs. Nico made no effort whatsoever to hide how much he liked what he saw. Goosebumps prickled across my skin. My grip tightened around the glass as my cock hardened against the leather trousers.
Get it together, Lysander. Think about Warren. He’s the reason you’re here.
Nico’s gaze lingered on my crotch long enough to make me wonder if he could tell I was hard.
Then his eyes lifted back to my face.
Try as I might, I couldn’t look away, the two of us locked in something I didn’t fully understand.
I needed to breathe. I needed to calm down. I needed… something.
For several long seconds, the rest of the room seemed to disappear entirely.
“Do you know him?”
Omar’s voice was the splash of cold water I needed to tear my gaze away.
“No,” I lied. Only, it wasn’t a lie, really. I didn’t know him. We’d met once, had one brief conversation, and shared a breakfast. That didn’t constitute knowing someone.
When I looked back, Nico had already turned away. Relief and disappointment tangled unpleasantly in my chest.
“Well, he definitely seems interested in you.”
“I didn’t notice.” The lies were rolling off my tongue.
“Sure.”
The skepticism in his voice was impossible to miss.
“If you don’t know him,” Omar added, “take my advice and stay away from him.”
“Why?”
We watched Queenie relieve another unfortunate woman of a diamond necklace. It was like watching a highwayman at work. Only in modern times, and they did their robberies in a fur coat.
“Because he’s dangerous,” Omar said quietly. “They all are.”
Across the room, Kellan stopped in front of a young man with his arm around his girlfriend. He tilted his head slightly, studying him with detached curiosity, the same way someone might examine an interesting bug they’d found on a leaf.
The guy stared fixedly at the floor, cheeks growing redder by the second. Kellan glanced back at his parents. “I want this one!”
What the fuck! “He can’t—”
“He can,” Omar said flatly. “He’s Kellan Hart. I already told you he gets whatever he wants.”
“Objects maybe. Not people. People are different.”
Omar looked at me with something akin to pity. “In Wonderland,” he said, “everything is fair game.”
I watched in stunned silence as two bodyguards immediately stepped forward, wrenching the man away from his girlfriend.
She immediately burst into tears.
He said nothing at all. Shock, maybe. Or fear. Possibly both.
I scanned the rest of the faces in the room.
All the people who had said nothing. Done nothing.
Who were still doing nothing even as the bodyguards frog-marched him from the room.
The overwhelming emotion from the crowd wasn’t outrage.
It was relief. Relief that Kellan hadn’t chosen them.
Something about that was infinitely more disturbing than the abduction itself.
“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked quietly, not sure if I wanted an answer.
“He’ll be Kellan’s plaything until he tires of him.”
I didn’t need elaboration on what Omar meant by “plaything.” I’d seen the way Kellan looked at the man. I shoved down the uncomfortable realization that it was the same way Nico had looked at me. “He has a girlfriend,” I said. “What if he doesn’t swing both ways?”
Omar shrugged. “Then I guess he’ll learn fast.”
Ice formed in my gut. “And afterward?”
“After what?”
“Kellan strikes me as the type of guy who gets bored quickly. What happens once he does?”
Another shrug. “You’d have to ask Kellan.”
Something in Omar’s face said he knew more than he was letting on. I pushed for an answer. “Does he get to go home?”
“I expect so.”
“What’s to stop him from going to the police?”
The question hung there while the Hart family procession moved toward the exit.
The girlfriend was still crying, another woman comforting her.
It wasn’t clear if they knew each other.
Nico was the last to exit. My pulse kicked into a higher gear as he reached the doorway.
For one irrational second, I thought he might look back. Might look directly at me.
He didn’t.
Then he disappeared through the door.
Less than five seconds later, the lights cut out again, and the music blared back to life mid-song. People resumed dancing, drinking, and laughing, as if nothing had happened. Like a man hadn’t just been dragged away in front of everyone. Did they think it was some sort of prank? It was possible.
I turned toward Omar, who’d already resumed wiping down the bar.
“Do you think Kellan has Warren?” I asked. “Is that why you told me to stop looking for him?” I knew that thinking I’d seen Warren blew that narrative out of the water, but there was always the possibility that it really hadn’t been him. He wasn’t the only tall platinum blond in the world.
The pity in Omar’s eyes was immediate. “You should never ask too many questions in Wonderland.”
“Why not?”
“The Harts don’t like it.”
I gestured toward where the abducted man had stood only a few minutes ago, his girlfriend no longer anywhere to be seen. “If things like that happen here, why does anyone come?”
Omar laughed. It was the laugh of a man who was finished with the conversation.
“To have a good time.” He gestured at the mass of writhing bodies.
“And clearly they are.” He shrugged. “Besides, like I already said, they hardly ever come here. Last time before tonight must have been over a year ago.”
“But―”
He’d already turned away to serve another customer.
Deciding I needed to keep a clear head, I left the unfinished drink on the bar.
More than anything, I needed air. And distance from a place where someone could kidnap a person in plain sight and nobody cared enough to stop dancing.
If Warren had been here—and that was still a massive if—then he was probably already gone.
I retraced my steps easily, the exit in view.
Then two men stepped directly into my path.