by Tate James
My stomach flipped like I was going to vomit. "Nothing you've ever done in this life would earn you good karma, Chase," I told him with disgust. "Why didn't you burn in the fire?"
He sat forward again, totally ignoring my gun and drumming his fingertips on the desk. "The fire that killed my whole family, you mean?"
I narrowed my eyes. "If it helps, your parents were already dead. Too quickly, now that I think back on it."
"My little sisters weren't," he commented, holding my gaze.
I steeled my spine, freezing my expression to hide my lingering guilt and regret over the younger Lockharts entirely accidental deaths. I should have done things differently, should have somehow gotten them out, gotten them safe, before going after Chase. But in the heat of the moment...
"I should just finish the job now," I commented, looking down the barrel of my gun at my ex-fiancé. At my worst nightmare and my first love.
He shrugged. "You could. Of course, the FBI agents that have been tailing you all day will probably arrest you before you leave the building. I was organized enough to let them know you'd be stopping by here today and that we have history. That combined with my company underwriting the insurance claims that were just denied..." He let out a low whistle. "That'd be a slam dunk guilty verdict, don't you think? And now correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the infamous Hades has managed to strong arm the entire state's justice system."
I gave a cold smile in reply. "Yet."
His answering smile was a hell of a lot more amused than mine. "Yet. Well, in the meantime I think I'll keep taking advantage of the situation."
Fury coursed through my veins like lava, but the cold chill of fear had pooled in my stomach and stiffened my joints. I would probably miss if I tried to shoot him; I was that tense. So with a brittle smile, I tucked my gun away in its holster where it was safely away from Chase's reach. No way in hell was I giving it back to him. He could pry it from my cold, dead hands.
"What the fuck do you want, Chase?" I asked in a bored tone. I'd be damned if I let him see how terrified I was of him... of everything he reminded me of. I wasn't her anymore. I was Hades, and no ghost would shake me. Not visibly, anyway.
He pushed back from his desk, stood, and sauntered around to close the distance between us. I drew a silent breath, letting the air fill my lungs and ground me as he got closer with every step. Chase and Zed were the same height, six foot three, and I needed to tip my head back to maintain eye contact, even with the advantage of my high-heeled boots.
"You're a smart girl, Darling," he told me, condescension dripping from every word. "What do you think I want?"
He lifted a hand to stroke a finger over my cheekbone, trailed it down my neck, over my collarbone, then followed the straps of my bra-style top all the way down to my exposed midriff. A deep shudder ran through me at his touch, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to bleed so I could maintain my calm, indifferent facial expression.
"Who knows with you, Chase," I replied in a hollow voice. "I take it those medical records were all a work of fiction, along with that CCTV image of Wenton."
He gave a low chuckle. I used to love that laugh. It used to light me up inside and make me crave more. Now, though, it just turned my stomach.
"Wenton," he murmured. "Poor, stupid Wenton. I'm shocked you even fell for that red herring, Darling. You saw me shoot him." His smile was pure evil. How in the hell I'd ever loved this man when the very devil himself resided within his skin, I'd never know. "But you didn't know what to believe, did you? Someone suggested Wenton was still alive, and suddenly you were second-guessing everything you knew." The glee in his voice was sickening.
"What do you want, Chase?" I asked again. "These silly games, blowing up my property, leaving cryptic notes... those are just an amusement for you. So excuse the turn of phrase, but cut to the chase. What do you want? Revenge? Believe me when I tell you I'm a hell of a lot harder to kill now than I was then. I won't forget to finish you off this time around."
He crowded my space, leaning in like he wanted to kiss me, and I stubbornly refused to step back from him. My days of being intimidated by Chase Lockhart were long gone, never to be repeated.
Goddamn, I wished that were true.
"You think I want revenge, Darling?" he asked, his voice thoughtful and slightly hurt. "You think I want to do what you did to me? Kill everyone you love, then come after you?"
I clicked my tongue, sending a malicious smile right back at him. "I didn't kill everyone you loved, Chase. Suicide was never in the plan for me."
His one good eye hardened with anger, but he managed it with ease, not letting it out and giving me the satisfaction of seeing him loose his cool. Instead, he splayed out his hand on my bare side, gripping my flesh with a rough hold, and pulled my body against his.
"I don't want revenge, Darling. How utterly pedestrian and clichéd of you to assume I want you dead." His hold on me shifted, as the whole length of him crushed against me, and his excitement at our confrontation was growing all too evident between us. "I don't want to kill you, Hayden. I simply want to take back what was mine all along." He paused for dramatic effect, but I already knew what he was going to say before the word left his painfully perfect lips. "You."
Swallowing the heavy lump of fear and disgust in my throat, I tugged a short blade free from my thigh sheath and stabbed it into his leg right beside his groin. Chase didn't even make a noise, the sick fuck, nor did he take his hands off me.
"Put your hands on me again, Chase, and my knife will be a quarter inch to the left. You've bitten off more than you can chew this time, and I will finish what I started five years ago." My voice was practically glacial, my gaze hard and unflinching. He wouldn't get even a whiff of fear from me. Never again.
His lips curled in a smirk. "Not today, you won't."
He gave a small grunt of pain when I jerked my knife out, releasing him from the threat of slicing through his femoral artery. Unblinking, I wiped my knife on his shirt, then tucked it back into my sheath.
I gave a casual shrug. "I'm patient. Watch your six, babe; I'll be coming for you."
Spinning on my heel, I stalked out of his fake office with my head high and spine stiff. Yet the sound of his maniacal laughter followed me all the way down to the foyer and would probably stick in my brain forever.
For all my bravado, I was a trembling mess inside. I was in way, way over my head.
36
Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I spotted Zed and Lucas hovering beside the car, waiting for me. Several of Chase's men lurked in the lobby, their weapons still in hand, keeping the threat present to stop my guys from storming back into the building to rescue me.
Frowning, I paused there on the sidewalk, turning back around to give each of Chase's guys a closer look through the glass doors. It wouldn't hurt to commit those faces to memory for later. He'd recruited them from somewhere...
One of them, standing just outside the foyer entrance with his shoulder propped casually against the glass, met my gaze and gave a small inclination of his head.
"Have a good evening, Hades," he murmured.
I tilted my head to the side, studying him closer but not recognizing him at all. How curious.
The roar of a motorcycle coming down the street pulled my attention away from the strangely polite personal security, and I looked up to find Cass flying toward us. He pulled up with a screech of rubber, his dark eyes fierce on my face until they locked onto my bloody hand.
I shook my head. "Not mine."
He huffed. "Get on."
Looking past him to Zed and Lucas, I gave them a nod to tell them to follow, then swung my leg over Cass's bike. As he revved the engine, Chase's man gave me a small salute, and I filed his face away for later. There was something odd going on there.
Lucas and Zed slid back into the car as we peeled out of the street, and within a few minutes they’d caught up to us on the highway back to Zed's house. It was a long driv
e, but the roar of the motorcycle meant I could just cling onto Cass's broad, leather-covered back and work through everything in my mind. I could deal with my damage the way I'd always done—alone and silent.
By the time we got home, I was calm and collected, fully back in control.
I climbed off Cass's bike with legs stiff from a three-hour drive, but he didn't give me a chance to stretch it out, just grabbed me by the waist and hauled me against him, his mouth crashing into mine with the sort of desperate, possessive kiss that spoke volumes about how wound up he was.
"You pull a stunt like that again—" he started to threaten, and I cut him off with another deep kiss, letting him fully consume me and turn my whole damn body to jelly in his arms.
I'd sorted my shit out internally. I'd stuffed all the messy, ugly emotions and memories back in their boxes and locked that shit up tight. But my body had yet to get the message until Cass held me like I was the missing piece to his soul, reminding me that I wasn't doing this alone. Not this time.
A sharp realization jolted through me, and I broke away from his kiss, my eyes locking with Zed’s as he climbed out of his Mercedes.
"I need to talk with Zed," I told Cass in a husky voice. "Then I want to get stupid stoned and pretend everything is okay."
Cass dropped a kiss against my collarbone, his rough beard tickling my skin. "Done." He climbed off his bike and gave a shrill whistle to Lucas. "C'mon, Wilder. I'll teach you how to roll a joint."
Lucas scowled at Cass's back as Cass sauntered up Zed's front steps to let himself into the house. "I'm not a fucking puppy, asshole," he snapped when Grumpy Cat was out of earshot, then paused to give me a troubled look. "Are you okay, Hayden? Did he—"
"I'm fine," I assured him in a soft voice. The fact that he was concerned for me after facing the man who'd tortured and nearly killed him? That spoke volumes about his selflessness.
Lucas gave a small nod, but his frown didn't ease. He just headed inside, and I knew I would need to talk things out with him soon. I kept forgetting how innocent he was. He didn't grow up with danger and violence like the rest of us.
Zed came over to stand in front of me, his eyes heavy with pain and guilt, but he said nothing. For all my determination to speak with him honestly, the words all just evaporated off my tongue. Instead, I reached out and wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him tight and tucking my face against his chest.
He only hesitated a fraction of a second before hugging me back. His strong arms banded around me, and his face rested against my hair like he was inhaling the scent of my shampoo.
"What happened after I left?" he asked eventually, his voice rough with emotion.
I swallowed heavily and lifted my face away from his chest to meet his eyes. "Fuck all. Just... Chase playing out his lifelong fantasy of becoming a Bond villain. How dramatic was that whole reveal?" I rolled my eyes, trying to lighten the mood.
Zed gave a watery smile, then pulled my arms away from his waist and held my bloody right hand up between us. "His?"
"Of course," I murmured, curling my fingers around his. "He wasn't walking away from that unscathed. Not a goddamn chance."
This time Zed's smile held more warmth. "Good."
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed the side of it gently. His eyes were locked on mine, heated and intense, and it was on the tip of my tongue to confess my reciprocal feelings. But something held me back, as always. Maybe it was just that I didn't want Chase overshadowing that pivotal moment for us. Maybe I was just a coward, scared that I'd end up losing my best friend when it inevitably went sour.
"Zed," I whispered. "Thank you." I meant that thanks more than any I'd ever given in my life. There was so much loaded into those two words, as well, way more than I could even start to unpack, but he understood. He always did.
A small head nod, and he tugged me inside the house. We were good again. The tension between us could wait for another day because it sure as fuck wasn't going anywhere. But goddamn, it felt good to know that our friendship remained solid underneath it all. So far, anyway.
"This seems like a really bad idea," Lucas was saying to Cass as we made our way through to the courtyard where they'd lit the fire pit. "Shouldn't we be laying booby traps or, like, cleaning our guns or making a plan or something? Getting fucked up feels like a stupid move. What if that psychopath attacks while we're all stoned out of our minds?"
Cass shot him a look with a tiny smile on his lips, then ran his tongue along the edge of the joint he was rolling to stick the paper down. "Damn, Gumdrop. You watch too many movies."
Lucas gave an exasperated sound, threw his hands up, and looked to me to talk some sense into everyone.
I just grinned and swiped one of the bottles of beer from the table to take a sip. "Cass has a point," I said with a shrug. "Besides, Chase isn't going to attack us tonight. Not here. He's made his point, and now he'll lull us into a false sense of complacency before he strikes again. It's... it's his pattern. Just trust us."
Zed eyed the cold beers that Cass and Lucas had brought out, then murmured something about needing stronger booze. His hand brushed the bare skin of my lower back as he moved past me, and I couldn't help the delicious shiver of arousal that rippled through my body.
He was right. The damage was already done. Our friendship was never going to go back to what it was, and I was strangely okay with that.
"Nope," Cass said, plucking the beer bottle out of Lucas's fingers before it reached his lips. Lucas looked ready to argue, but Cass handed him the freshly rolled joint instead. "Smoke first, then drink, or you'll end up cross-faded as fuck."
I snorted a laugh, stepping over Cass's legs to drop my butt down on the lounge between them. "He's got a point, Wild. You're not used to it, and you don't want to end up sick."
Lucas pouted but lit the joint anyway. He inhaled, holding my gaze with hooded eyes, then blew it out in a long exhale. "Is this what it'd be like dating a girl with older brothers?"
I grinned at the analogy, and Cass draped his arm around my shoulders, kissing my neck.
"Sure, if we're talking non-blood-related step-brothers who get to fuck your girl whenever they want. It’d be just like that." His fingers trailed down my bare arm, making my skin tingle and my thighs tighten.
I gave a small sound of disagreement, though. "Whenever you want? Think again, Saint." I shoved his hand off my shoulders just to keep the power balance in check and leaned over to kiss Lucas right after he'd taken another deep drag on the joint.
Inhaling the smoke directly from his lips, I gave a small groan and leaned in to kiss him harder. Yeah, that was exactly what the doctor had ordered after staring down my worst nightmare back from the grave. Drinks, weed... and sex. Hopefully. I hadn't forgotten Zed's threat if he heard me riding dick again in his house, but I could be so quiet if I needed to be.
"Fucking hell," Cass muttered, reminding me that Lucas and I weren't actually alone. "Never thought I'd be down for this poly shit."
I sat back against the cushions where his long arm was still draped, giving him a curious side-eye. "And now?"
He held my gaze as he took a long swallow from his beer, then licked his lips. "Jury is still fucking out," he rumbled.
I snorted a laugh, taking the joint from Lucas's fingers as Zed returned carrying a bottle of Scotch and a couple of glasses with ice cubes. He sat down across the fire from us and poured triple shots into each of the glasses before handing one over to me. I swapped him for the joint, and he took a drag before passing it across to Cass.
"So what happens now?" Lucas asked, slouching into the corner of the outdoor lounge.
I took a huge mouthful of my liquor and let it warm a fiery path down to my belly before I answered him. "I have no idea," I admitted softly. "This isn't something I could have prepared for. He's ten steps ahead, and I... I have no clue what to do."
Cass curled his arm around me again, pulling me into his side and dropping a kiss to the top of my head
. "We'll kill him." He said it as casually as if he were talking about washing his car.
Zed scoffed. "Obviously." He shifted his gaze to me. "We're not solving anything tonight, though. So let's stick a pin in it until tomorrow and just chill."
I took another gulp of my Scotch and winced at the burn. "Fine by me," I agreed, snagging the joint from Cass's lips.
"Gumdrop, why don't you tell me more about that video game your uncle gave you," Zed suggested, refilling his drink, then standing up to fill mine as well.
Lucas scowled. "Are you guys going to stop calling me that anytime soon?"
Cass huffed a husky laugh. "Unlikely."
He and Zed shared a smirk, and I shook my head at them both. "Fucking save me if you two become friends," I muttered with a groan. "But I am interested if you have anything more to tell us, Lucas."
He shrugged, taking the joint when I offered it. Zed jerked his head to Cass, and Cass tossed him the little leather pouch he kept his weed and rolling papers in.
"It was just a pretty normal first-person shooter," Lucas told us, "like Call of Duty, but with hyper-realistic graphics. The only real difference was that cool game controller that legit simulated a real gun, but I think that was some prototype thing that Uncle Jack’s best friend was developing. He worked for some big tech company, if I remember right."
My brows hitched, but the weed and liquor were hazing my brain already and my reaction was dulled by that. Still... it was lighting up my curiosity something wicked. Knowing now that Lucas's uncle was in the Guild, I had to wonder if that “game” wasn't actually some experimental training simulation.
"You think my uncle was grooming me to become a mercenary?" Lucas asked, reading my mind perfectly.
Zed sat back in his seat, kicking his boots up on the edge of the table. "That's what it sounds like."
"Who got you into gymnastics?" Cass asked, his fingers stroking a teasing pattern over my upper arm.
