Embarrassment heated my cheeks as I fled the dance floor. But when a few dancers made way, I met eyes with Christian, who moved in my direction with a purposeful stride.
“Is there a problem?” he asked, not a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Apparently someone didn’t like my moves. Why do immortals make such a big stink about physical features? There are people walking around with blue hair and nose rings, and nobody gives them a second glance. But I get shit all the time for something so innocuous.”
“Because they’re dolts,” he replied, taking my hand in his.
Before I knew it, we were dancing. Only, Christian didn’t move anything like the other man. His grip and moves were smooth and demanding, and I could sense his direction before he even turned. Christian knew how to lead, and there was something erotic in the way he locked eyes with me as our bodies drew closer together.
“What did you and my father talk about?”
“Oh, manly things.”
“If there’s one thing Crush doesn’t lack, it’s candor. I’m sure whatever he said was brutally honest. Just try not to hold it against him.” I fell silent, the room spinning as Christian led me around the dance floor.
“I saw one of your pictures on the wall,” he said. “You were a little badass.”
“Was that the one of me in the short leather skirt? I went through a phase.”
“You’ll have to let me know when the phase ends.”
Just when we found our stride, the music ended, and light applause fluttered through the room. When I looked to the right, I glimpsed a familiar bleach-blond haircut. My friend from Club Nine held eye contact with me for just a second in the doorway before disappearing. I needed to thank him for leading us to Cristo.
“There’s nothing wrong with your moves,” Christian said, giving me a wolfish grin. “Sometimes you just need the right partner.”
I straightened his tie. “Thanks for the dance, Mr. Poe. I think it’s time for us to mingle.”
He inclined his head and swaggered across the room toward a bevy of women who were preening in hopes of receiving his exclusive attention. I smiled and watched him work his magic.
Christian was a wild mustang, and whether or not he could be tamed was irrelevant. He didn’t want to be. I’d known men like that my whole life, including my father.
Maybe they had more in common than I’d first thought.
* * *
Shepherd wasn’t feelingup to a party, but he continued with the charade at Viktor’s request. What he really craved was a bottle of hard liquor. He was hanging back, looking for an excuse to leave, when he suddenly caught sight of a woman with wavy blond hair. She might have been a ghost from his past, but when she turned around, a stranger’s face stared back at him. His heart clenched, and that sealed the deal. He needed to escape the crowd and be alone.
Killing Cristo had brought him an immense amount of pleasure and pain all at once. Shepherd had always imagined it in his head, but Cristo’s death hadn’t brought him the closure he’d expected would follow. In those final moments, Shepherd became the monster that lived in the dark corners of his soul. He wanted Cristo to beg for mercy and apologize, but all he got were screams as he stabbed the man who had tortured so many women, including Shepherd’s only love. Cristo laughed when the alarms went off, as if the cavalry had come to save him. Enraged, Shepherd sliced him across the belly. Murdering Cristo was a fruitless task that brought him no joy. It didn’t bring back Maggie. Instead, it pushed him even further away from the man he once was. Perhaps what really died in that room was the last piece of his soul.
Shepherd found a quiet spot upstairs and sat down in an ornate chair. Patrick had one hell of a mansion. Officials like him always lived lavish lifestyles.
Wyatt sent him another dumbass picture over the phone. This time, he had a mouthful of grapes and a wide smile. Shepherd deleted the picture and began scrolling through the others that his twisted partner had been sending him all night. It was Wyatt’s way of cheering him up, but Shepherd just wasn’t in the mood.
He swiped his finger across the screen and frowned at a blurry shot of a carpet. After deleting it, he noticed the next image was a small shoe. Then one of Raven reaching for the camera, but she wasn’t wearing a black dress. These were from Patrick’s dinner party. Shepherd continued deleting pictures of vases, the ceiling, hands, someone’s tongue sticking out, and then… finally stopped.
Patrick’s little boy had stolen his phone and taken all these photos, either intentionally or by accident. Probably the latter. Shepherd wasn’t sure how much little kids knew about operating a phone.
It was the first time he’d seen the boy without his black mask, and the first thing he noticed were how blue his eyes were. They were rimmed in black and not a flat color at all. The inside of the irises had a paler shade that streaked outward like electricity. Shepherd couldn’t stop staring. Something else caught his attention, and he zoomed in.
His heart rocketed in his chest when he noticed a scar across the boy’s face. It started near the corner of his left eye and curved across his cheek to the center of his nose.
Cristo’s words echoed in his mind.“Thought I killed him, though. Cut his face when my knife went in, and I only got paid half for damaging the goods.”
Shepherd quickly scrolled through the remaining pics, but only one other showed the boy, and the mask obscured his face. He went back to the clear shot and drank it all in.
It couldn’t be.
It had to be a coincidence. But to look at him, he was roughly the same age as when it happened. He had Maggie’s eyes, only his hair was black. Shepherd had dark brown hair, but his mother had black hair. The look he gave the camera was serious and stony—an expression far too mature for a five-year-old.
