19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
“Come by the club tonight. I have a surprise for you,” he said when he called two days later.
He’d been gone by the time I woke to my phone ringing and Gray wondering where the fuck I was at noon.
Naked in my bed, sheets twisted and still warm.
Rook had slipped out in the daylight and left me to bask in the best sleep I’d had in years.
“What kind of surprise?” I asked.
“The kind that makes your life easier. Fights end around one, if you want to come after.”
“Yes.” Agreement came easier now.
I think you need someone to touch you too.
It was like a song stuck in my head, a single line playing on repeat.
While his words haunted me, my usual ghosts had the decency to stay out of my bedroom that night, which meant they bothered me more than usual later, hungry for details.
He looks different.
Did you see him smile at Gray this morning?
Tell us what Rook said.
He’s talking to him now! You can tell by his face.
“Piss off, you nosy wankers,” I shushed, covering the phone with my hand so Rook wouldn’t hear.
“See you tonight,” he said. “Oh, and wear something you don’t mind messing up.”
That ruled out ninety-nine percent of my wardrobe.
***
The day and night crept by at a turtle’s pace until I stood in front of my full-length mirror checking the look of my t-shirt and sweatpants. I couldn’t imagine what was so messy that he’d warn me ahead of time.
For hours, the dead pried into my plans.
“I told you I don’t know what he wants,” I said when they asked me for the hundredth time.
Can we come along?
“If I told you no, I doubt you’d listen.”
I bet he takes one look at you and rips all your clothes off.
Oh, I love gray sweatpants season.
“Did you all not get shagged enough when you were alive? Why are you so fucking horny all the time?” I rolled my eyes and grabbed my things. I’d go without a driver tonight. No need to involve any of my people in whatever this was.
When I arrived at the club, a man in a uniform and sunglasses stopped me at the door.
“Fights are over for the night,” he said, pressing a hand flat against my chest. “Come back on the weekend.”
“I have a meeting with Rook,” I said.
“Rook’s busy.” He moved to take up even more of the space in the doorway.
“I have a fucking invitation,” I said. “Move!”
I couldn’t remember the last time someone other than Rook had the audacity to talk back to me. A curse—a little dark thing—hummed at my fingertips. Nothing fatal, just enough to teach him a lesson.
“Let him in,” Rook said behind him. The guard stepped aside and Rook’s eyes went wide at the sight of me. He grasped the man’s forearm and jerked him to face him.
“If he shows up here, he comes in. You don’t stop him. You don’t question him. Do you understand?” When he released the man’s arm, there were angry red marks on his skin where Rook’s fingers had been.
“Of course. Sorry, sir. I didn’t know.”
“Night’s over. Go home. Ward the door behind you,” he commanded. He motioned for me to follow him deeper into the club, past the bar and cage, to a darkened hallway and a steel door.
He opened the door, but it was so dark inside I couldn’t see what lay within. We stepped inside and he waved his hand.
“What did you just cast?” I asked, noting the thickening of the air in the room.
“Silencing spell. There might be screaming.” He flipped the light switch to reveal a man tied to a chair in the middle of a concrete room. There was a drain in the floor like the one in my basement, which meant people who came into this room didn’t always leave.
There was no screaming now because the man had a gag in his mouth, but his eyes bulged when they saw me. It took me a moment to place his face, round with a large nose, and currently an unpleasant shade of white.
Teddy Abner.
I turned to Rook with a closed-lipped smile. My stomach fluttered in an unusual way.
“Happy birthday,” he said, a grin breaking through. Teddy murmured something behind the gag at the sight of our shared glee.
“It’s not my birthday.”
“Eh, it will be eventually. Consider this an early present. You look fantastic, by the way.”
I glanced down at my casual clothes and frowned. “I look like a slob.”
“You look like you need fucked. Tease.” He laughed, and I realized that this conversation, one that bared our secret, meant Teddy would absolutely not leave this room.
Rook pulled me flush against his body and kissed me, his tongue conquering my mouth for ten seconds until he pulled away and left me gasping.
“Do you want to question him?” he asked.
I walked slowly to the chair and untied the gag that kept Teddy silent.
“Austin—”
“Shut up.”
Two words made Teddy’s mouth clamp shut. I registered Rook against the closed door, watching me with barred arms and a curious expression.
“Where have you been, Teddy?” I asked, circling the chair.
“Out—out of town,” he said hoarsely. “Just for a little bit. I wasn’t running, I swear!”
“But we had a deadline. You were to retrieve my money, deliver it, and go back to your miserable life without owing me anything further. Do you know how much interest I charge people who take what’s mine?”
He gulped and made a series of stuttering sounds.
“I don’t actually care where you were.” I rested a hand on his shoulder. “I only care about where the money is.”
Flames licked down his arm from where I touched his shoulder, skin blistering and blackening. His screams echoed off the walls.
“Listen—”
“I’m listening.”
His chest heaved, tears rolled down his face, and his words came out in gasps. “It’s gone! Fuck Austin…I—I’m sorry! I can get it back. I promise I can get it back.”
“Interesting.” I laid my hand over his and all his fingers broke at once. He shrieked until my ears stung. I didn’t look back at Rook, but I sensed him in the same place as before. “What was so important that you needed the money?”
“My wife…”
“You don’t have a wife.”
“My—my—”
I sighed loud enough for him to hear it. “Teddy, we’re beyond lies, don’t you think? What did you spend the money on?”
“It was a car,” Rook said. I whipped my head to him. “Convertible. Fancy shit.”
I smirked and turned back to Teddy. “What color?”
“Red,” he choked.
“Lovely. I prefer black or silver myself, but there is something to be said for a flashy vehicle.”
“I’ll sell it. I’ll get the money back.” It sounded like his vocal cords had been raked against rocks.
I knelt down in front of him so we were face-to-face. “I don’t care about the money,” I said. “I care very much that you are a thief and a liar. I can’t have those kinds of people in my city. I’m sure you understand.”
Rook circled around him, sensing what came next. He stopped at the back of the chair and watched me.
“Goodbye, Teddy,” I said, watching his mouth beg silently. And then, as if we were some synchronized unit, Rook seized the man’s head and snapped his neck. Teddy slumped against the ropes.
I rose to my full height and gazed at Rook across the body.
“No blood,” I said. Rook nodded. “Thank you.”
“You won’t get your money now,” he said.
“The right people will know he disappeared. That’s more valuable. I also have room in my garage for a new car. Fancy a drive sometime?”
He laughed and shook his head, his eyes glinting brightly. “You’re kind of incredible.”
I didn’t know what to make of a compliment that seemed so sincere. People pandered to me all the time, but their eyes never sparkled like that when they did it. I was used to their hollow laughter and greedy ambitions, not the way he told me I was incredible and kissed me like he meant it.
“Come back to my place,” he said with our hands on each other’s hips.
Mine fell away.
I should have been curious about where Rook lived and whether his home would reveal something enlightening about him, but all I felt was the cold of being in a space I couldn’t control.
Entering someone else’s personal domain was putting oneself at risk.
I could wear a mask in my office or the penthouse or in this dingy room with a dead body, but I didn’t know the geography of a place that was entirely him or what it might do to me.
“I can’t tonight.”
“Why not?” That bright blue staring back at me dimmed, and I hated that it was my fault.
You’re an idiot.
So the voices had followed me, and one of them knew there was nothing I could do against their insult with Rook in the room.
“Some of us don’t work nights, and I have places to be in the morning.” I tried to think of a way to salvage the glow we’d just felt. “You’re welcome to crash at the penthouse. Stay as long as you need to in the morning.”
He frowned, but leaned forward to kiss me. “Another time. I’ll text you tomorrow. And get some fucking sleep, okay? The sun won’t be up for a few hours.”
I didn’t tell him that the night he stayed in my bed was the only time in recent history I remembered sleeping well.