Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rue
It’s important to note that I’m not excited when I hear Marcus Navarro’s back door creak open.
Nope, it’s not excitement making my heart rattle in my chest as my whole body strains to listen from his bedroom. Navarro himself won’t be home from his weekly poker game for another three hours, and the house stays dark as soft footsteps travel through the kitchen to the dining room.
A smile spreads across my face. It has to be Gomez. Anyone breaking in to rob the place would be looking for a safe instead of hanging out in front of the glass-front cabinet full of liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia.
There’s a chuff of amusement, and I wonder which of the objects caught his eye.
I was particularly taken by the blown-glass bong that looks an awful lot like a big purple dildo.
Unintentional, I have no doubt; Navarro would rather be caught dead than wrapping his lips around anything resembling a dick.
I snap back to attention when the footsteps move toward my end of the sprawling ranch.
Since I can’t be entirely sure of my visitor’s identity, I glance around for a hiding place.
Instead of running for the closet—a move reserved for amateurs and scaredy-cats—I parkour up the side of Navarro’s massive stand-alone armoire and flatten myself across the top.
It’s dusty as fuck up here, which just goes to show you that even the rich skimp on housekeeping.
The scuff of the footsteps is just outside the bedroom now, and I’m fairly sure I’ve made myself small enough to be invisible in the dark. Besides, who thinks to look up when they’re sweeping a room?
I press my cheek against the grimy top as a broad-shouldered figure holding a red-light flashlight fills the doorway. He’s masked and dressed head to toe in dark colors, like I am, and fine, there’s no denying the pulse of excitement that fills me.
It’s Gomez. And that means it’s time to play.
When he heads to the bureau and slides open the top drawer, I shift in anticipation, kicking up more dust. It infiltrates my mask and goes right up my nose, which starts twitching like a rabbit’s. Fuck.
I pinch my nostrils together, trying to fight the tickle, but it’s unstoppable.
I clamp down hard on the sneeze, but it still emerges as a tiny squeak.
Gomez whips around and plays the flashlight over the room.
The red light bulb doesn’t disturb night vision or attract attention from a distance, but it’s sure as hell enough to pick me out when it lands on me.
His masked head cocks. “Well hello, Morticia. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Gomez,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster as he swaggers over to stand directly in front of the armoire where I’m treed like a raccoon.
His casual little one-finger salute makes something low in my stomach clench, and he’s so tall he barely needs to crane his neck to look at me. “Did you want to come down or…?”
I pretend to consider it, as if I haven’t spent the past two weeks replaying our encounter in the privacy of my own bed, usually with a vibrator in hand.
“Nah, I’m good up here. Saves me from your dirty tricks.”
“Dirty, yes. Tricks?” He chuckles, low and promising. “Come on. I gave you exactly what you wanted.”
My dismissive scoff comes out more like a whimper.
“Can I confess something about that night?” he asks, as if he didn’t just hear my needy little whine. “Best sex of my life.”
I blink. “But you didn’t come.”
“Best sex of my life,” he repeats.
The growled words scramble my brain so much that I almost forget to use my lower-register voice when I speak. “It’s my turn this time.”
He props his shoulder against the armoire, keeping me in his line of sight. “To come your brains out in a stranger’s house? It’s actually my turn, but I’m not sure we should do that again.”
“No! I mean, yes.” Good thing I’m in a mask or he’d see the red flush staining my cheeks. “I mean, I agree we shouldn’t do that again. But it’s my turn to do the… thing.”
“The thing?” His eyes, the only part of him visible in his vigilante gear, widen in amusement. “Use your big-girl words, Morticia.”
I sigh. “It’s my turn to kill the person we’re both here to kill, Gomez.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” I roll myself up into a cross-legged position. “Before you wandered in here to see what I was up to, I checked out Navarro’s computer. And what I saw…”
I swallow hard. If I want to convince Gomez that this is my rightful kill, I’m going to have to actually engage with it.
I close my eyes and force it out.
“He considers women subhuman,” I say tightly. “And from what I saw, a lot of men in this city agree with him. He’s…”
I suck in a deep breath to steady myself. I thought I was immune to the worst things humans could do to each other, but nothing could’ve prepared me for how much these men hate me. How much they hate all of us.
“Navarro’s big into the Ancient Greeks. He even runs a fucked-up forum called the Philosopher Kings.”
“Like from Plato’s Republic?”
When I tilt my head in a “care to share” motion, he holds up his hands. “I know that from grad school, not whatever this forum is.”
I pack that little detail away to study later. Right now, I need to get the rest of this out.
“The guys on the forum are all about Socrates getting canceled by the mob—a.k.a. woke, childless cat ladies—and being martyred for having the intellectual courage to stick by his masculine ideas in the face of social pressures.”
“Yeahhhh, that’s a pretty fundamental misreading of Socrates,” he says. “And Plato. And I’m guessing they’re no better on Aristotle.”
“Ya think?” I snort before sobering again.
“The forum’s all local men, all anonymous.
Super locked down and full of all kinds of helpful advice.
How to drug a woman’s drink without her noticing.
Where to place hidden cameras—and a whole forum section for men to share the videos they take.
Which judges are more likely to toss out domestic violence cases.
And coercion techniques. So many coercion techniques to use on us ‘soft-brained bitches.’” I wave my fingers in furious air quotes.
My eyes burn, and my throat is tight. I survived scrolling through the filth by going somewhere else in my head while I downloaded the files we need, but I’m losing the fight to set aside the casual, jokey references to gaslighting and violence, sexual assault and murders.
“Morticia,” Gomez murmurs, reaching for me. But he freezes when I give a sharp shake of my head. Rage has me coiled tight and trembling, and I need space to get through the rest of it now that I’ve opened the door.
“There’s also a spreadsheet of women’s names, addresses, workplaces, even security codes to their houses.” I squeeze my hands together to stop their shaking. “All local, and lots with ages and physical descriptions.”
Gomez’s eyes snap to mine, glittering in the low light. “Like a sick dating site, but none of the women know they’re on it. And filming them to upload and share? Fucking disgusting.”
I give a jerky nod, pathetically grateful to see him so upset by this. But after what I saw tonight, the bar is on the fucking floor.
“My guess is once we start digging into the list, we’ll find more than one of those women in police reports or in my own—” I slam my mouth shut before I mention the reports I write for my actual job. “Let’s just say I know far too many women who’ve been hurt or killed by men.”
“Motherfuckers.” Gomez’s guttural voice barely sounds human. “How do we access the forum?”
“It’s invite only, hosted on a private server with strict rules about not sharing any content outside of the forum.”
“How lovely. The world’s most evil message board has standards,” he mutters. “And Navarro’s one of the organizers?”
“Organizer, cult leader. Same thing.” I shrug. “The files also mention a few cops, a lawyer, and a city councilman who are ‘useful to the cause.’”
“Of fucking course they’ve got men in power involved.”
“Of fucking course they do,” I agree. “No actual names, so I’ll get that information from Navarro before I kill him. Then I’ll take out his whole goddamn network.”
I’m breathing hard now, my fury about to take me to a Mom place.
“If we don’t change the subject right now,” I say through gritted teeth, “I’m going to rip Navarro apart tonight, and that’s how people like us get killed. Or worse.”
“Worse than killed?” he asks.
“Caught.”
“Ah. Right.” He leans back on his heels. “How can I help?”
I have a dozen ideas, at least. “Distract me, darling Gomez.”
“Darling, am I?” His posture relaxes, and while I’ve always been good at compartmentalizing the uglier parts of my life, I envy how easily he flows from rage to charm. “I like it. What kind of distraction do you need, darling Morticia?”
I say the first thing that pops into my head. “Tell me something about yourself. Something incriminating.”
“Knowing what I did to Howard Marshall last week isn’t enough?” He brushes his fingers over my ankle. “Should I frisk you for a wire first?”
“You can try.” I kick his hand away.
He doesn’t respond.
“What, you think I’m gonna turn you in?” I laugh at the ludicrous idea, but my smile falls away when he doesn’t join me. “Oh, come on. You’re not serious.”
“As a staged arson.” He folds his arms over his chest and waits, not moving back an inch. God, he’s tall. But right now, I’m even taller.
“Paranoid much?” I scoff. “If it makes you happy, I can frisk you, too.”
Thing is, he’s got a point. We’re both risking a stupid amount with a stranger. Then again, I trusted him almost from the jump, and I thought he felt the same way.
“I’m not collecting intel on you, and I’m not harvesting strands of your hair to turn over to the police.” When he still doesn’t relent, I sigh. “Why would I, Gomez? How would that benefit me?”
After another long moment of unsettling stillness, he exhales hard. “Okay.”