Chapter Nineteen #2
He raised both hands in a defensive gesture. “That’s not my thing. That’s Zane and Zeke’s thing. A little side hustle they have going.”
He crossed to the chest of drawers and pulled a USB drive from the top one, holding it up between thumb and forefinger. “I have the only copy, though. I made sure of it.”
I wasn’t entirely certain whether that was supposed to make me feel better or worse. “The casino…” Dahlia’s words echoed through my head. “You have an admirer.”
“Also me.” Nico tilted his head. “So, as you can see, your string of men was really just one man. And last night was me too, in case you needed clarification on that.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.” He said it as though it should have been obvious. “I liked you enough to warn you not to come here. When you ignored that warning, I decided I’d keep you safe.”
“Keep me safe?” The words exploded out of me. “How is fucking me under false pretenses keeping me safe?”
“Calm. Down.”
“No, I won’t fucking calm down. I knew this place was twisted, but it’s even worse than I thought. And you’re just as bad as the rest of them.”
A spark of anger flickered to life in Nico’s eyes. Before I could react, he backed me against the wall. His hand closed around my throat, holding me there. I clawed at his wrist, but accomplished nothing. “Are you going to listen?” he asked.
“I’ve been listening.”
“No, you haven’t.” Keeping me pinned with one hand, he tapped my temple with the fingers of his free hand. “You’ve been letting your emotions take control.”
I laughed. His grip wasn’t tight enough to cut off my air.
Not yet, anyway.
“Did you expect me to rejoice at what you told me?” I demanded. “Did you think playing cat and mouse with me would somehow make me feel special?”
“I thought you were intelligent enough to realize how much worse things could have been.”
“How?”
“If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else.” His expression hardened. “Everyone in Wonderland has their kinks. It’s one reason they like it here, where anything goes. My kinks are milder than most.”
I tipped my head back to hold his gaze, refusing to let him see that being pinned against the wall bothered me. “I’m assuming this is one of them?”
“If you’re asking whether I enjoy being the one in charge, then yes.”
“What else?”
“Mirrors.”
“Well, duh.”
“Handcuffs. Blindfolds.”
“Hunting your prey in the dark,” I suggested.
His lips twitched. “Guilty.”
“Did you drug me?”
“No.”
I searched his face for signs of deception. Either he was an exceptional liar, or he was telling the truth. Seeing my scrutiny—and presumably working out the reason for it—he sighed. “How would I do that? Did I force the tea down your throat?”
“No.” It sounded stupid when he put it like that. He released my neck, though the look he gave me suggested he’d grab it again if I tried to walk away. I stayed where I was, rubbing at the lingering soreness beneath my jaw.
“I did the best I could,” he said. “That’s what the tattoo was about.”
I frowned. “The tattoo?”
“I marked you as mine. It was supposed to be a hands-off message.” His expression darkened. “But I’ll be having words with Percy and Lola the next time I see them.”
“What did they do?”
“They were supposed to put the tattoo on your neck, where people could see it easily, not hide it away. And they weren’t supposed to dress you the way they did or change your eye color.”
“Were they supposed to give me an enema?”
“Yes.”
He’d dumped an astonishing amount of information on me in a brief space of time, my head spinning. Determined not to dwell on the enema, I latched onto the tattoo instead. “Someone told me it was supposed to be a flamingo.”
“I assume by someone you mean Dodo?”
I nodded.
“He shouldn’t have been telling you anything.” Nico let out a short laugh, though there was very little humor in it. “Then again, neither should I. And yes, it was supposed to be a flamingo.”
“So why a crow?”
Nico’s frown suggested that was a spectacularly stupid question. “What’s my surname?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I met you once before coming here. How am I supposed to remember that?”
“Ravenscar.”
“When is a crow not a crow?” Harlan’s riddle suddenly made perfect sense. When it was a goddamn raven.
I thought back over every reaction I’d gotten to the tattoo: the surprise, the comments about how unusual it was, Donovan’s fear when he’d seen it. “How many other people have you marked?”
Nico took a long time to answer. Long enough that I suspected he was considering a lie. “None.”
“Right.”
“Now do you feel special?”
I didn’t know how I felt beyond thoroughly confused. This conversation was a lot to process. “None of this changes anything,” I said slowly. “I have a boyfriend. One I care an awful lot about. He’s my only priority.”
Nico stared at me for several seconds. Then he threw his head back and laughed.
I immediately bristled. “It’s not funny.”
“Oh, I agree.” He shook his head. “It’s a long way from funny. You’ve really got it bad for him, haven’t you?” His tone held something I couldn’t quite identify. “I’m impressed.”
The comment made no sense. “Impressed by what?”
“By―”
The ringing of his phone cut him off. Even though there wasn’t anyone in particular I wanted to call, I suddenly missed having a phone.
I had family, but none I spoke to regularly.
I doubted anyone had even realized I was missing yet.
The thought was oddly unsettling. Should I have told someone I was coming here?
Given the events of the past few days, that probably would have been a good idea.
Nico glanced at the screen and grimaced. “I have to take this.”
He moved away to answer, keeping his voice low. Only the occasional word drifted back to me. It left me mulling over everything he’d told me.
When he finally ended the call, he began pulling on the rest of his clothes. “Work,” he said without looking at me. “Unfortunately, it’s unavoidable. There’s a situation that needs dealing with.”
“Can’t someone else handle it?”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Kellan, maybe.”
The smile that crossed Nico’s face as he pulled on his jacket suggested he found the idea deeply amusing. “Kellan creates messes,” he said. “He doesn’t fix them.”
“And you do?”
The smile faded slightly. “That’s my job. Keeping things running smoothly. Making sure no one steps out of line.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
Nico gave me a hard look, as though searching for mockery in my voice.
“It is. And I took the last however many hours off.”
“What about me?” I asked. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Stay here. Make yourself at home.” He gestured vaguely toward the kitchen. “I stocked up a couple of days ago, so there’s food in the fridge. The living room has a TV. I can’t promise there will be anything worth watching on the channels we get here, but you can always try.”
He picked up his keys. “I’ll be back in a few hours, and then we can talk properly.”
“I thought we had talked.”
Nico shook his head. “We’ve barely scratched the surface. There’s a lot more you need to know.”
“Like what?”
His phone vibrated with a message. He glanced at the screen and muttered a curse under his breath, already moving toward the door. “I mean it when I say stay here. You’ve already gotten yourself into enough trouble.”
“If what you say is true,” I said, “most of that trouble was you.”
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “If?” His eyebrows rose. “You don’t believe me?”
I shrugged. What exactly did he expect?
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the USB drive, and tossed it toward me. “Watch this.”
I snatched it out of the air and examined it. “Sure. I’ll just plug it straight into my brain.”
The corner of Nico’s mouth twitched.
So he liked a bit of sass. That was interesting.
“There’s a laptop in the living room,” he said. “No password required. You do, however, need a password for the internet.”
“Which you’re not going to give me?”
“Correct.”
For a moment, he simply stood there looking at me. There was an intensity in those blue eyes that I didn’t want to examine too closely. “I’ll see you soon.”
He was gone before I could decide whether I wanted to answer, or what I might have said if I had.