Chapter 16
NOVA
Seeing no one else on the car, I quickly and furiously began sniffing the air.
“Are you smelling me?” Wes asked.
“We got on the dookie car!” I explained, gesturing in grand fashion to the empty train car.
Wes’s eyes widened. He sniffed the air too. Every New Yorker had made the mistake of entering a car with human feces in it at least once. The stench had haunted me for weeks the first time it happened to me.
“I don’t smell anything,” he said.
I dropped my hands back down to my sides. “That’s strange. Me either…”
So why the fuck was the car empty?
The train screeched into Union Square. When the doors opened, we faced a group of men in suits and golden animal masks—bulls, rabbits, stags, bears. Most spanned the entire face, but a few left their mouths uncovered. They filed into our car with menacing grace.
Wes pulled me to the corner of the car and stood in front of me immediately. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head as I craned my neck to see around his body.
It was as if the dream world had collided with reality, and everything had turned upside down. There were a dozen well-dressed masked men crowding us. They didn’t speak. A few smiled. One of them lit a fucking cigar.
When the man closest to us stepped forward, Wes tensed. I could only imagine that deadly glare of his.
“Welcome to The Circle,” the man said in a rich, even voice. He reached out his hand, two envelopes in his palm.
Wes snatched the envelopes without a word.
It was the tensest ride to Third Avenue of my life—and I’d seen some shit on the L train.
I peeked out from behind Wes again. “How did—”
“Magic.” The golden rabbit smoking a cigar led the rest of the men out the moment the doors opened.
Regular New Yorkers filed onto the car as if nothing had happened. A few of them stared at or commented on the men who’d left the train, but most ignored the entire spectacle.
“Cigar smoke is nasty,” a disgruntled woman in fishnets loudly declared.
Her androgynous friend in a pantsuit wrinkled their face in solidarity. “Eat the fucking rich.”
After clocking how many pairs of Doc Martins had entered the car, I relaxed. We were safe. Though, Wes was slow to move from his protective position and face me.
“How the hell could they have known where we were? Or that we were even together?” I whispered harshly.
He shook his head, hazel eyes churning darkness. “I’m afraid to know the answer to that question.” He glanced at my crossbody purse.
“You don’t think…” I pulled out my phone. “No. That’s not possible. They don’t have that kind of access just because they have money.”
Wes frowned and looked away, one of his hands balled into a fist. “I wish—” He cut himself off, shaking his head.
“What?” I asked. “What do you wish?”
His eyes burned into mine. “A lot of things, Nova. I want a lot of fucking things.”
The train doors opened. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until Wes spoke again.
“That’s always been my biggest problem,” he laughed bitterly. “But we can’t have everything we want, can we?”
I held and matched the intensity of his gaze. Even as my throat burned, the train lurched, and my legs suddenly felt shaky, I didn’t look away.
“I don’t want you to go to the party,” he said.
I scoffed. “Well I guess that’s going to have to be one of the things you can’t have.”
We passed under the East River in a tense standoff, drawing a few glances from other passengers.
The thing about New Yorkers that the rest of the country didn’t understand was that yes, we ignored most situations most of the time, but the moment someone needed help, the defensive ice shattered and everyone stepped up.
Wes and I didn’t need intervention. I slowly reached for the invitation—my invitation—he was holding. He didn’t stop me when I took it from his grip.
With my fierce look, I traced the tension in his sharp jaw, the hardened planes of his face. When my eyes met his again, his gaze softened. Something in him had deflated with cool resignation.
Our words lingered in the air between us. I wanted to ask for more. I wanted to ask him about his past, his fears, his feelings.
But when we reached Lorimer, I hadn’t said a thing.
We walked together—him toward the G platform and me toward the exit.
When we reached the point where we’d have to separate, he pulled me away from the foot traffic with a broad hand on my waist. “Text me when you get home safely,” he ordered softly.
“Fine,” I said, an edge to my tone.
Wes’s smile at my bratty acquiescence was dark. It drew the interest of my body, the one that couldn’t help but angle toward his. My nerves were sensitive, mapping everywhere he’d touched tonight.
He opened his mouth to say something—something I suspected I was desperate to hear, the climax to weeks of orchestral edging.
A muscle in his tattooed neck pulsed, but the tension never broke. The words he withheld dried up and blew out of reach. That dark smile didn’t fully fade, not even when he took a few steps back, shook his head, and walked away.
How the hell had The Circle found us? Through my phone? Through law enforcement technology they shouldn’t have access to? There was no way they had that kind of power.
However I could conceive of the feat, it was a terrifying display of influence that extended far beyond the corruption of wealth itself.
Unless, of course, Wes had simply told them where we’d be ahead of time.
That was actually the simplest answer—Occam’s razor in action. But that would mean Wes was not only a terrifyingly skilled liar and actor, but also a part of the inner circle he seemed desperate to keep me away from.
And I refused to believe something like that about him. I couldn’t.
I shut my eyes and pulled my knees to my chest in my desk chair, desperately trying to rid my mind of the paranoias from my past. I knew far too well what men in power were capable of. There was a reason I stayed the hell away from what I desired most—dominant men.
But Wes… Wes felt different. He had from the beginning.
I opened my eyes. My sales dashboard was doing nothing to lift my mood.
I’d spent the day doing admin and marketing tasks like creating graphics and videos for my various social media accounts.
I was basically screaming please buy my books into the void with every teaser.
It all made me feel pathetic and desperate.
I was desperate. I’d been living off chicken, rice, beans, and ramen all week just to make up for the sales dip. Luckily, an editing booking was coming my way this week, so I wouldn’t fall behind on this month’s bills.
I shut my laptop and checked my phone.
Maisy
Girl, we need outfits. Like, yesterday. Party’s in less than a week!
Shit. It was Sunday. Midsummer was next Saturday. I’d been blowing off Maisy for over a week now. I’d been too exhausted from writing, keeping my business afloat, and attempting to keep thoughts of Wes, and sex, and sex with Wes, out of my demented fucking mind.
Wes had thanked me for telling him I was home safe last Friday. Neither of us had reached out since.
I shamefully admitted the truth to Maisy.
I was just going to order something off . That’s kind of where I’m at financially.
Maisy
Oh no, no, no. You can’t do that. Meet me at the church at 5. We have a private slot, don’t sweat it.
I read the text a couple times, trying to make sense of it—as if anything had ever made sense about The Circle.
“Whatever,” I muttered to myself as I started my getting ready process. My methods were fine-tuned to fool the world into believing I didn’t spend my days in pajamas at my desk.
I hastily applied lip gloss and mascara at half past four. I couldn’t afford a cab right now, especially not when I’d need one to get to the party mansion Saturday. So, I paired my red dress with corset detailing with sneakers. A New York classic.
After thirty minutes of scorching heat in the underground, the cool, air-conditioned lobby of The Circle felt like deliverance.
There was one young, attractive man at the desk today and an older, impassive man on the opposite end of the room who was clearly security personnel.
“Nova?” he asked cheerfully.
I nodded.
“Follow me.”
As I trailed him, I noticed the church was calm, empty. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass, and the interior was spotless, hiding all traces of kinky goings on.
“Are you a volunteer?” I asked him. I needed to gather as much information as I could to present to Lorelei when it was time to deprogram her, and everyone knew it was Cult 101 to operate on free labor.
“Yes, but I’m paid,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“A living wage?” I probed.
He glanced back at me with an amused grin. “Yep!” He led me to the room where the first soirée had been held. “You’re new right?” After I nodded, he continued. “This community is extremely generous.”
Right. Generous. Generosity as a form of control tended to cast a dark shadow.
He paused when we reached the door. “I know it’s hard to unlearn what the outside world has taught us—that the natural order is dog eat dog, and we should isolate and fend for ourselves in order to survive.
But changing the world starts here, with us, by helping each other, caring for our neighbors, digging deeper than the surface for authentic connection.
We weren’t born to be burnt out, exhausted, impoverished.
We were born to thrive together. We were born for… ”
“Abundance?” I offered, stealing buzz words from my rapidly changing algorithm.
His smile broadened. He looked like he could be cast to play Prince Charming at a Disney park, with his blond hair, blue eyes, and dimples. “Exactly. The world is meant to be lush, sensual, fertile. Not scarce. The Circle does not do scarcity.” On a laugh, he opened the door.
My thoughts snagged on the word fertile, but I quickly grew distracted by the luxurious drawing room I’d been led into. Racks of clothing and tall mirrors were arranged around the space, along with an array of tea house finger food on tiered plates.