TEN CLUB (KING SERIES Book 5)

by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

  He quickly snapped to. “Who is it?”

  She nervously glanced at me and then back at him. “Your brother.”

  “What does that fucker want?” he growled.

  “He wouldn’t say, sir. Only that it was important.”

  King hesitated for a moment. “Tell him I will be there in a minute.” He glanced down at me and was about to say something, but stopped and just stared.

  “Yes?”

  He placed his hand on my cheek, and though I knew he wasn’t made of flesh and blood, the warmth still felt real. “I think I once loved a woman like you.”

  My heart jolted inside my rib cage. He was remembering.

  “What happened to her?”

  “I think she misunderstood me.” He turned and left the room, leaving me standing there with his guests giving me side glances.

  What the hell did that mean? Yes, he had to be remembering, but what had I—the woman he loved once—misunderstood? Because I’d fucking love to know before I helped kill him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Despite the pain in my arm, I decided to stick around and do a little mingling instead of leaving the party. Two reasons: One, I wanted to find out what had just happened in that basement. It could affect how we dealt with ending 10 Club. And two, I wanted King to see me walk out that front door. I knew that defying him was a dangerous move, but now I knew he needed me—or at least my blood—and I wanted to keep the ball in my court, not his. King liked a challenge, and the bigger the hurdle, the more enticing. If he saw me as unattainable, it would only strengthen his resolve to own me. He would pursue, waiting for the right moment to strike. What he didn’t know was that I was playing his game, waiting for my own moment, which meant getting close enough to gain access to that warehouse. Lot ninety-four.

  Damn. How did my life end up being such a backstabbing mess? I was like the poster child for drama.

  For example, when King and I first met, it had been a time in my life when everything was in ruins. My brother, Justin, an archeologist who’d been working in Southern Mexico, had gone missing, and I was doing everything I could to find him. Not only for me, but for my poor heartbroken parents, who still lived not far from here. However, every door I knocked on seeking help had been slammed in my face. No one cared if Justin had been taken. Not the embassy, not the local authorities, no one. Then a random woman told me about King—the man who could find anything or anyone for a price, so I went to see him. He had no issues offering help—aka taking advantage of my desperation—and steamrolling over my life.

  This time had to be different.

  There were people I cared about and needed to protect from this dangerous world. Thankfully, our son, Archon, was safe at home in a modern-day fortress King had built for us in Crete. King had personally warded the entire estate to keep anything “bad” away. He told me that not even his past could cross the property lines. I’d laughed at the time but now wondered if maybe King knew something was going to happen. After all, when it came to King, he was like a master chess player, able to see the outcome long before everyone else. Either way, I missed Arch, who was safer at home with the nanny, but I had to finish this. King had to die and stay dead. I just had to keep reminding myself that this evil man was not my husband.

  I walked up to the bar and ordered a glass of wine from Jeff—his name according to the badge on his red vest. As Jeff poured, a man came up and ordered a scotch, neat. I recognized him from the basement.

  “Hi, nice party,” I said, hoping I could find out something.

  The man glanced at me and nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “So friendly,” I muttered under my breath. Perhaps this man, “the human spoke,” didn’t like talking to strangers.

  I turned my attention back to Jeff, who placed my wine in front of me over a cocktail napkin and then proceeded to pour vodka into a martini shaker for the man. Not good. He’d asked for a scotch.

  Figuring that the bartender was King’s property, and not wanting him to rub a 10 Club member the wrong way—generally a lethal move—I intervened.

  “You can do the martini after you serve the gentleman his scotch. Neat,” I added, jerking my eyes at the man, hoping Jeff would get the hint.

  Jeff gave me a quick look but caught on. “As you like, ma’am.” Jeff served the correct drink, thanks to me, and the gentleman went back to mingling without giving either of us another glance.

  Jeff leaned in. “Thank you. I had no idea what he ordered. I just took a stab.”

  That’s odd. “You didn’t hear him say scotch?”

  Jeff shook his head. “Not in English.”

  I was about to speak when my brain made an inaudible click. My eyes gravitated to a tattoo on my left wrist. I’d had it for over a year now and barely thought about it anymore, but it was truly an incredible tattoo. Not for the artwork—really just an infinity shape—but because it had been given to me by another Seer, Hagne. She was long dead and had been a truly evil person, but the power in the ink was not. It allowed me to understand and speak any language.

  “Was he speaking English earlier?” I asked.

  Jeff bobbed his head. “Yeah, he ordered a vodka martini.”

  “In English.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  What the hell was going on?

  “Thanks.” I took my glass and made my way out through the French doors onto the torchlit terrace. Wow. I took in the strings of lights hung around the edge of the yard, the candlelit tables with white linens, and an ice sculpture with a big “10C.” I had to admit, King had gone all out to make this look like a real 10 Club event rather than a satanic ritual.

  I slid my phone from my red satin evening bag and called Mack. It went straight to his voicemail.

  Shit. That’s right. He’s talking to King.

  “Mack,” I said after the tone, “it’s Mia. I saw King performing some ritual in his basement. There were five people lying on the floor and a chalice he filled with blood. My blood. Now they’re all chitchatting and sipping drinks like nothing ever happ—”

  “There you are, Ms. Turner.” King’s menacing voice came from behind me.

  I froze. Dang it. “Gotta go.” I ended the call and turned toward King, who still looked like his usual stunning self. “I was just checking in with a friend. And I’m afraid I have to go.”

  King’s hostile expression turned downright lethal—lips tight, jaw clenched, brows frowning. “I think you are mistaken.”

  I chuckled and shook my head at my feet. “Oh, King. I love that you think you own me. But that wasn’t the deal, remember?” I smiled up at him defiantly, using everything I had to mask any fear. He could kill me with the snap of his fingers if he liked. “Or are you a welsher, King? Because I seem to recall our arrangement being my ring in exchange for you finding my husband, which you haven’t done yet.”

  He stared with those stunning, predatory eyes. “Right you are, Ms. Turner. And since I am a man of my word,” he stepped aside, “you are free to leave.”

  I grinned like a smug bitch, but still dipped my head in gratitude. “Have a good night, King. Call me when you’re ready to get serious about completing our transaction.” I walked by him and grazed his arm. A familiar warmth shot through my entire body, sparking a deeper heat down to my core. It was as if my body craved him, needed him. I didn’t want to feel like that. Not for him. But I did, and I had just done a piss-poor job of hiding my emotions.

  Crap. Big mistake.

  King grabbed my arm and whipped me back. My body slammed right into him, eliciting a gasp.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he growled, holding me firmly by the shoulders.

  He felt it, too. Oh God. That meant some part of him had to remember me.

  I blinked up at him, trying not to notice the heat of his strong male body forged from pure will—his iron, unbendable will.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” I said all too innocently.

  His eyes twitching wit
h equal parts irritation and anger, he said, “Don’t fuck with me, Ms. Turner, because I will kill you.”

  “I’m not interested in fucking with you, King. I just want to find my husband.” I cracked open the door inside my head and allowed my emotions to trickle out. I wanted him to feel the honesty in my words.

  “No,” he snapped, his deep voice filled with menace. “You’re up to something. I can sense it.”

  Just then I felt ice-cold razorblades slicing through my veins and King pouring himself into my mind. I grunted in agony, trying to fight him, but I knew it was no use. This was one ability he had that I had no skills to fight.

  Suddenly, I saw him and me standing hand in hand on the beach, the warm white sand beneath our bare feet and the turquoise blues of the Mediterranean stretching as far as the eye could see. King’s long black hair flitted with a gust of wind and his bare chest swelled with sleek muscles beneath deep olive skin. His lively eyes, a shocking shade of vivid blue, were like the waters of Crete he so much loved.

  No. I don’t want to see this. My heart exploded with a soul-crushing ache. This was the memory of a moment when my life changed forever—when King was alive, before curses, deaths, or any of that. I had unknowingly used my Seer abilities to go to him and traveled back over three thousand years. At first I’d thought I’d gone mad or died, but little by little, I had realized that it had been real. I had been wishing with every spark of life in my heart to see him as he once was, and my gifts delivered me. What I’d found wasn’t a sadistic billionaire walking on the edge of sanity, searching for salvation, but a powerful king who deeply loved his people and would do anything for them. He served and protected them, and they worshipped him like a god. His beauty as a person reached beyond words. That was the moment I realized I loved him and always would.

  “What the fuck is this?” King gave me a hard shake, jarring me from my hypnotic state.

  I blinked away my tears and pushed back my tender thoughts. He could scratch around all he liked, but I would never let him inside my heart. Not again.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said through tight lips.

  He shook me again, making my teeth clack. “What witchery is this?”

  “Witchery?” I coughed out a snide chuckle. For once, King sounded his age. “I don’t know what you mean,” I lied. “Maybe what you’re seeing is a result of secret longings from your subconscious mind.”

  He snarled sadistically. “You and I standing on a beach, holding hands? Fucking doubtful, Ms. Turner.”

  “Or maybe you dream of having long flowing hair. But who am I to judge?”

  “Think you’re funny, Ms. Turner? Let’s see how much you laugh when I strip the soul from your body and offer it up to a few of my friends who get off on breaking little girls like you.”

  I wasn’t afraid of 10 Club. I was only afraid of who I had to become in order to fight them. I’d crossed that line once, and it was enough to make me realize that a person could only cross it so many times before they couldn’t come back.

  “Sorry, King. But you scare me about as much as a bad burrito. Might feel uncomfortable for a little while, but I’ve survived worse.”

  “My, how you have a way with words, Ms. Turner. Let’s see what you have to say in my basement.” He yanked on my right arm and the pain shot into my shoulder.

  I swallowed every ounce like a bitter pill, refusing to give him any satisfaction. I would never bow or shrivel. Not to him.

  I snapped away my screaming arm. “I have a way with don’t fuck with me, so back the hell off unless you want your balls kissed by my knee again.”

  He shook his head. “I will never understand the colloquialisms of today. Crassness elevated to the Neanderthal era.”

  I pointed my finger in his face. “The next time you hurt me, cut me, or lie to me, King, my colloquialisms will be the least of your worries. You’ll wish you’d stayed dead.”

  He gave me a look, and I realized my epic error.

  Shit. My blood pressure leaked through my black heels into the cement below. Stupid, stupid, Mia. I wasn’t supposed to know he was dead. It would require one of two things: I either had Seer abilities, which allowed me to see his “true colors,” or I knew more about him than I’d let on.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Nobody knows anything about him besides me and Mack. Okay, and a few of King’s most trusted bodyguards. But in King’s mind, I didn’t exist, so he would think I’d been sent by his brother, and it was paramount that he didn’t suspect Mack of anything. I could misdirect him and blame one of King’s bodyguards, but he’d kill them.

  “I’ve been trying to get my Seer abilities back,” I lied. “The best I can manage is a flicker here and there.” A complete pile of bullcrap. I would never be getting them back. The ancient Seers had taken them from me in exchange for my life after I’d been stabbed by one of King’s psychotic bodyguards who had a thing against me. Like I said, my history with King was a long and complicated one.

  King’s hand lunged for my throat and squeezed, his beautiful face a tangle of frightening snarls. “Now I know you’re lying.”

  “You don’t know shit,” I croaked.

  “What game are you playing?” he growled.

  “No games. I want to know what happened to my husband. I want to know why he left.”

  He tilted his head, studying my face with intensity, and then snapped his hand away.

  I stumbled back, pressing my shaking hand to my neck.

  King winced and ground the heels of his hands against his tightly shut eyes. What was happening to him?

  “Tell me,” he grumbled, “where is the last place you saw your husband?”

  King didn’t do or say anything without a reason, so I hoped he asked because he remembered something. I couldn’t lie; I wanted answers before Mack and I twisted the proverbial knife in his back.

  “Crete,” I said.

  He removed his hands from his handsome face, and I noticed dark circles under his eyes. Very unusual for a ghost who literally willed himself into existence. “Is this where you live?”

  “I’m from here—San Francisco—but yes. I live in Crete now.” In a beautiful home you built for us. We were supposed to grow old together there.

  His gray eyes locked onto my face. I’m sure he found it suspicious that I lived on the island where he was born. “Well, then, take me to the last spot you saw him.”

  “Greece is pretty far.” And nowhere near his warehouse here in San Francisco, which I still needed to find a way into. Lot ninety-four.

  “Thank you for pointing that out, Ms.—”

  “If you’ll let me finish; I was about to say that I don’t think he’s there, so the trip would be a waste of time.” You’re here. Right here with me, King.

  “I appreciate your concern for the efficient use of my time; however, I am a big boy. A very ancient one, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” I bobbed my head, wanting to buy a few moments to think. If we went to Greece, he’d be closer to Archon, our little baby. King was volatile and dangerous, and frankly, I had no idea what King might do with our son if they met. Arch had my Seer blood running through him, and though, to the best of my knowledge, the gene only expressed itself in particular women, that didn’t mean our son had no value. Seers were nearly extinct, and our son would be capable of carrying that bloodline forward someday. 10 Club members would love to get their hands on little Arch.

  My stomach tightened with the thought. On the other hand, Greece was where King had been born and where his people died. It was the place he first met me. Going might jar his memory. And King himself had warded the property. No one bad could get anywhere near the home. That included himself, I assumed.

  This was a difficult call. Maybe I should keep pushing him to remember. Here in San Francisco.

  “Ms. Turner, you seem to have gone somewhere interesting inside that head of yours. Shall I join you?” He crossed his arms over his
chest, looking like the domineering, ancient king he once was, despite his elegant tuxedo.

  “No.” I glared up at King. “I think you need to stop wasting my time and do what you promised.”

  He chuckled sadistically. “I am wounded, Ms. Turner. Are you not enjoying your time with me?”

  “No. And time is running out. We have to find him.”

  “Why the urgency?”

  Because Mack plans to kill you one way or the other. And I needed to know the truth before it was too late.

  “In your own words? That’s not your concern.”

  “Let’s get this straight, Ms. Turner. Everything pertaining to you from this point forward concerns me.”

  “Because of my blood?” I raised a brow.

  He stared into my eyes for a moment and then his gaze fell to my lips. I wanted it to mean something more than he simply found me fuckable. I wanted it to mean he knew my lips and dreamed of them like I dreamed of his mouth—the way it once moved over my neck and nipples, the way his lips used to brush against my earlobes when he made love to me. But his lips also reminded me of the happiest times of my life. I used to love the way his lips curled more on the right side when he laughed with joy, like the day I told him I was pregnant. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy. He literally didn’t stop smiling for a week. Merely looking at those lips reminded me of the sweet words he’d said when I was in labor for twenty-two hours, going out of my mind with pain and fear. I couldn’t go on another minute. “Cut him out. Please. I can’t do it.”

  “Mia, you’re almost there,” he’d said, brushing back the sweat-soaked strands of hair from my forehead. “You can do this,” he’d leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known. You brought me back from the dead and gave me life again. This is much easier. This you can do.” He placed a soft kiss with those lips on my cheek and pressed his forehead to mine. “Now push,” he’d said softly and took my hand. Archon came out two minutes later, and King never once let go of my hand. Not until he got to hold the baby. Then he’d been speechless. Literally speechless. Those sweet lips simply curled into that lopsided smile again and made me forget what I’d just gone through. King’s lips were my Achilles’ heel.