by Rina Kent
She and Dax would notice I was gone in a minute or two. Hopefully by the time I got back we could leave. I was more than ready to get home now. When I finally spotted what I assumed was the area for girls to use the bathroom I promptly changed my mind about needing to go.
The line was nearly all the way down the hall. I spun on my heel to go back the way I had come and smacked into a chest as solid as a wall, causing my head to spin even more.
“Sorry,” I grunted, taking a step back.
I lifted my chin and was instantly struck by two silver bullets.
Damn, those eyes.
They were disarming, haunting in their intensity. Enough so that I was rooted to the floor and had a temporary lapse in sanity as I realized I was looking at the guy from the balcony.
“You don’t have to throw yourself at me to gain my attention. You’ve had it since you walked through the front door.” His voice was deep, husky and melodic. It was also tinged with a certain level of disinterest that contradicted what he just said.
“I didn’t want your attention.”
“Don’t you?”
I took a slight step back to put some more space between us. “Pretty sure I just said no.”
An amused smile revealed a set of gleaming white teeth that made him appear closer to a boy my age, and more charming and charismatic than cold. Being so close, even with my lids ready to fold over, his outer beauty was ten times more apparent. He could have been a GQ model. The jasmine and spice cologne he had on was a definite bonus. I, however, still wanted nothing more than to go home.
“Rhia,” Dax’s sharp voice came from the end of the hall as if the universe had heard my silent plea.
The guy before me turned just enough that I was able to squeeze past, my front nearly grazing his.
“You ready to go?” Dax asked, reaching for my hand when I was within proximity.
“Yeah. Where’s Audrey?”
“Meeting us outside.” He shot a hard stare over my shoulder. I instantly knew who it was directed at. And for him to be so bothered by who I was speaking with meant the guy behind me was a Barron, Rook, or Knight.
Call me stupid or intrigued, but I couldn’t help but be curious. I pushed the feeling down and focused on Dax and his firm hold on my hand, letting him lead me through the house and towards the front door. Things weren’t as fuzzy with a guide.
“You’re doing exactly what I told you not to do.” The same voice came from behind me, close enough that I practically felt his breath on my neck.
His tone was slightly different from before, disapproving and hard. I glanced back, meeting his steel-colored eyes for a brief second before looking forward again so I didn’t trip and fall.
“No. I’m doing what I need to,” Dax replied calmly as we reached the front door.
“Take her to the car and then meet Owen upstairs.”
“I’m not doing this tonight.” He gripped the large golden handle of the front door and started to ease it open. A hard form pressed against me, reaching over my shoulder to slam it back shut.
“Did that sound like a question, Daxton?”
The clear-cut warning in his tone almost had me replying. I broke free from Dax’s hold and spun around, thanking god when I remained on my feet.
“What the hell is your problem?” I put both hands on his chest and tried to shove him back. I had the same success rate I would’ve had if I were attempting to lift a building.
One perfect, dark brow lifted.
He stared down at me with thinly veiled amusement in his eyes. His perfect pink lips settled into a cocky smirk.
“Careful, principessa. Don’t unnecessarily toe a line you’re not ready to cross.”
What the fuck did that mean? And did he just call me princess? That was almost as bad as bae.
“Come on, Rhia,” Dax urged, wrapping his fingers around my elbow. I let him tug me out the door, leaving behind the intense gaze of a silver eyed stranger and all the party goers who had stopped what they were doing to watch our little scene unravel.
“Dax,” I began, now facing the correct direction.
He cut me off before I could begin a round of twenty-one questions. “Not now, okay? Can you wait in Audrey’s car for me? I’ll follow ya’ll back to her spot.”
I blinked rapidly. Was he going back inside? He couldn’t be serious. “Are you for real? That guy tells you what to do and you just…do it?”
He stopped so abruptly I nearly slammed into his back. Whirling with a look on his face I’d never seen before, I braced instinctively.
“Can you please stop? Get in the car and wait for me. You’re doing my head in with all these questions!” His voice echoed through the air and increased the pounding in my head.
I stared at him with my brows raised. He thought this was me asking questions? “Lower your voice. You yell at me like that again and we’re gonna have a problem.”
A deep sigh left him then, and his whole body seemed to sag. I almost felt bad for being sort-of a bitch, but even if I was being annoying—in my opinion I wasn’t—he had no right to yell at me as if I were a child.
He was clearly going through something, though. So, I chose not to prod the bear, so to speak. I’d grill him later. After he had a chance to calm down. I looked over at Audrey’s car, noting it was empty.
“I thought you said she was meeting us outside?”
He cursed softly under his breath. “She must have got drawn into a conversation. I’ll send her right out.”
“You better.” I went to move around him, and he took hold of me for the millionth time that night, wrapping his arms around me.
“I’m sorry, bae. Really sorry.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.” I placed a light kiss on his cheek. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what exactly he was apologizing for, but I wanted to go home more than I wanted to have a heart to heart in a rich asshole’s driveway.
The car was moving.
Lids fluttering as I woke, it took my gaze a few seconds to clear and focus. A sharp breath hitched in my lungs when I saw who was driving.
I tried to lift my head and instantly regretted it. Pretty sure my brain flipped over and rolled.
“What’s wrong…with?” Dragging my tongue across my lower lip, I swallowed and squeezed my eyes closed for a minute. I had barely drunk anything. This wasn’t right.
“Audrey?”
“Here,” she grunted from the backseat.
It took some major willpower, but the moment I had control over my extremities, I tried to move so that I could see her. Easier said than done when the car and the neighborhood were both coated in nothing but darkness.
“Don’t move too much.” A familiar voice came from the driver’s seat, and I was pressed gently backward.
It felt as if we’d been in the car for hours when it finally stopped. The passenger door was pulled open and cool summer air drifted over my person as I was lifted out.
“Audrey,” I repeated, panic stirring in my gut. I didn’t know what the hell was happening.
“Shh,” the voice soothed, holding me a little tighter. “Gavin’s got her.” My cheek was pressed against their solid chest, and I noted how good they smelled. Like jasmine and spice.
A door swung open and I was carried into more darkness, the air going from cool to chilled. Up a flight of stairs and then taken into a room with creamy wallpaper I knew all too well, I was laid down in a bed.
Hands touched me, strong and sure against my body, but not sexually. They simply removed my clothing.
“I’ll be seeing you soon,” the husky voice murmured once I was beneath the fluffy duvet.
“I know who you are,” I rasped as fog began enveloping my brain again, forcing me back under.
“Not yet you don’t, but you will. That I can promise.”
Chapter Four
Judas
Gorgeous face and incredible shape.
She had an exotic look about her. Long dark hair
I could wrap twice around my fist and flawless olive skin to feel beneath my teeth. She was shaped exactly like the vintage pin-up girls on nonno’s wall calendar.
A curvy goddess.
Plenty of ass to bounce as she rode my dick. Thighs to grip when she sat on my face.
Her eyes were brown. Like the color of mud after it rained. But those beautiful orbs were exactly what drew me in.
Rhiannon Clermont was a goddamn siren. Too damn beautiful for my world of depravity and sin. Yet, at the same time, so fucking right for it.
All I wanted to do was consume her entirely, drag her into it and make sure she’d never find a way out.
It was well and truly fucked up since I’d hated her from the moment, I found out she existed and where she’d come from. Hated her with an intensity strong enough that I could picture her death by my hand as clear as a movie reel playing inside my head.
But I wanted her even more. That was the fucked-up part. I wanted her beside me, beneath me, on her fucking knees in front of me. I didn’t care to sit down and analyze all the logistics of that either. I knew what I was after, and I would get it.
Luckily for me, patience was a virtue and I’d been blessed with an abundance of it. Me and my famiglia had waited this long. I wouldn’t rush anything unless absolutely necessary.
Not even to get my dick wet.
I could have easily parted Rhiannon’s legs and sunk inside her, but she needed to be all the way lucid when I fucked her, and I had very extensive type of foreplay. I needed her to want it as badly as she needed to breathe. So, I left her in that bed alone instead of climbing in beside her.
After locking Audrey’s front door, Gavin and I headed back to the house, him driving my AMG that he’d followed me in. The ride was silent for the most part. Right up until the end.
“You bothered by having their shit laced?”
I thumbed my chin, pretending to think about it. “No. It was necessary for tonight. I won’t do that again, though.”
He nodded once.
I wasn’t sure if that meant he agreed with me in general or he agreed it wouldn’t happen again. He’d never say either way. That wasn’t Gavin’s style.
If he had a problem though, you could bet your ass you’d know it.
Had Dax not interfered, the night would have gone very different. Audrey and Rhiannon wouldn’t have needed to be drugged. It was his fault.
He couldn’t seem to let go of what was never truly his in the first place. The dumb fuck only expediated what would be his unfortunate end.
When we got back to the house, the driveway was empty aside from Owen’s Porsche and Gavin’s Vette. Everyone else told to get the fuck out.
“Tony get here then?” I gestured to where Dax’s car had been parked.
“Yep. Car will be exactly where it needs to be by morning.”
“Good. Let’s go get this over with then.” I swung out of the car and headed for the side of the house. Gavin fell in step beside me, already pulling on his leather gloves.
I knocked twice on the side of the garage, so Owen knew it was me, and then opened the door.
Plastic had already been rolled out to cover the floor and the back wall. The windows were tinted so that not even x-ray vision could grant someone sight strong enough to see what happened in here.
Dax stared at me with one good eye, the other swollen and black. Some type of insult I’m sure came from behind the gag shoved in his mouth as he rocked his body in the chair he’d been bound to.
“That’s the first noise he’s made since I tied his ass up,” Owen remarked from where he was leaning against the tool bench, arms crossed over his chest.
“Lucky you.” I snagged a pair of gloves from beside him and slipped them on. Going to stand directly in front of Dax, I bent my knees, so we were eye level. “You having a bad day, mio amico?”
His brows narrowed in a glare, a snarl bringing the vein on his neck to the surface.
“I can’t relate.” I shrugged. “Things on my end are pretty damn fantastic. There’s just a few small issues its time to revolve.” I held my index and thumb up a small distance apart to emphasize my point.
“Where should I start?” I asked Owen and Gavin.
“I’d start with him fucking your girl,” Owen suggested. “He knew better.”
“Sure, as shit did,” Gavin agreed.
Mm. Yes. There was that.
“What do you think?” I tugged the gag down so he could respond.
“She’s not yours!”
“Daxton. She’s always been mine. I knew who she was long before you did. Why do you think I specifically told you to befriend her and not to fuck her?”
He threw his head back and laughed, his teeth showing stains from the blood he’d had in his mouth a bit ago.
“She know she’s yours, Judas? I don’t think she does.”
I grinned down at him. “She’s about to know me very well.”
That shut his ass up.
“She’ll never be like the submissive bitches you’re used to. And if she ever finds out what you’ve done to me, she--.”
I lifted the gag to cut him off. He was grabbing at straws and it was fucking pathetic. It wasn’t up to Rhia. She didn’t need to know she was mine. I knew. That’s all that mattered. We’d be on the same page soon enough. As for her giving a shit about what was going to happen to him…
Now it was my turn to laugh.
“I think I know more about your relationship than you do Dax.”
“Not to mention…she has no idea who the fuck you really are. I can’t wait for that truth to come to light.” I made a motion with my hand in the direction of the tool-bench.
“But you’re not so dumb as to think that’s the only reason you’re in this position, are you? I’m pissed you put your hands on her, no doubt. But this is much deeper than that.”
He couldn’t answer me with words, but his eyes said enough. From where I sat, he was lucky. I wanted to make a mess of him. String him from the rafters and gut him as my nonno did the pigs, listen to him squeal like the bitch he was.
This was him getting off easy.
I leaned down and removed my Gambit from my boot, hitting the button on the side to activate the blade.
Interrogation wasn’t necessary this evening. He’d further implicated himself less than an hour ago with his own mouth.
Flipping my knife around, I gripped his shirt and cut it straight down the center. His entire body tensed, but that didn’t deter me. I made quick work of the tattoo on the right side of his chest, slicing into the smooth flesh to ensure every single fucking part of it came off. He’d never deserved the insignia to begin with.
His muffled screams only made the process easier. Blood ran down his torso, staining the tips of my gloves and serrated edge of my blade.
“Hard to imagine that in a few weeks we’ll be in shitty ass electives,” Owen commented with heavy sarcasm.
“Trading one life for another,” Gavin said.
I tossed Dax’s thin piece of skin down, leaving it to hit the plastic floor with a soft pop. He was moving so much I was surprised he hadn’t tipped yet.
“It’s our last year until college. We got this,” I spoke up.
School, of course. A six-letter word that had an entirely different meaning to us than it did the average mundane. We attended because the diplomas and degrees were needed to blend in with everyday society and cover-up the darker parts of our world.
It was bullshit, but not anything we couldn’t handle. We were Academy-award winning actors when it came to playing normal. No one had ever come close to the truth, not since the cheerleader incident my Sophomore year. I think that’s when the reality of who I was really settled in for me.
I was so much more than a wildly attractive prep-school asshole. Don’t get me wrong, I was that too, but good well-mannered boys didn’t use a blowtorch to cauterize a wound in the middle of the night.
I could have left him to blee
d, but we were just getting started.
When I was finished the only thing that would be left of Daxton were the boxes holding pieces of his body.
Chapter Five
Rhiannon
I knew where I was, but not why.
I’d been staring up at the ceiling for a good thirty minutes. Unless I was relaxing at home I was always out of bed as soon as I opened my eyes. My delay was an indication of how irritable I was.
Not for the first time I asked myself, what the hell happened last night? From Dax’s strange and sporadic revelation, to the gorgeous man that damn near followed us from the Barron house, carrying me into this one. I didn’t know what to make of any of it.
Pushing myself up onto one elbow, I shoved the duvet down and did a quick scan of my person. Everything was normal aside from the missing clothes. And I mean normal as in my body looked as it always did, and nothing felt off.
There wasn’t anything at all normal-like about what had happened last night. Whatever that was exactly.
Finally dragging myself from the mattress, I redressed quickly and then slipped out into the hall. I headed straight for Audrey’s room since she’d yet to make an appearance this morning. I felt guilty as hell for not rushing to her sooner. I wasn’t sure she was even okay.
I assumed since I was, she would be too. At the very least I hoped that if there was an altercation it would’ve broken through the fog my brain had been wrapped in. No way would she go down without a fight, even as out of her mind as I was. The girl looked like Barbie but could get down like Annabelle.
Flinging her door open with so much enthusiasm that it bounced off the wall, Audrey jumped twenty feet in the air.
Her golden mane was all over her head and there was a line imprinted on her face from how’d she been laying.
“What’s wrong?” she panicked, untwisting her magenta comforter so she could get up.
