“Events.”
“I’m too stupid to understand?”
“You’re too smart to understand.” He shook his head. “Understanding isn’t the problem. Complex pieces are in motion.”
“And you don’t want to change my projected trajectory with undo meddling. I see. I’ll just continue blithely along without upsetting your villainous game.”
“When are you going to date me? I’ll tell you something while we eat sushi.”
“I don’t like sushi.”
“Everyone likes sushi. Come to my house and we can play knives and truth.”
“Truth and Dare.”
“Truth and Dagger.”
I rolled my eyes and stepped away from him. “I have rehearsals to get to. I just wanted to bring you a burger.”
“And get your money.”
“I hate that you saw me play. That wasn’t for you.”
“No, just for the rest of the world.” His eyes darkened, burning into me. “I’m very glad that I was there for your very first public performance, like I’ll be there for your second. Do you want me to record that too? You’ll make good money; I’ll see to it.”
“You will whether I ask you to or not. You have your scheme.”
“And you have yours.”
I shook my head. “I have therapy. This concert is for me because it’s what I want. Don’t ruin it for me.”
He raised a dark brow. “Or…”
I put my hand on his arm. He was so strong, so warm, so safe. “Or I’ll break you.”
“I would say that I want to be broken, but I have no intention of interrupting your performance. You can break me anyway, but not for that. Are you satisfied or do you want collateral?”
I smiled and backed away. “With you, I am never satisfied.” I turned and walked off, slipping his keys into my pocket. His house was our collateral. I’d keep the musicians there until we were as smooth as a well-oiled gun. It was time for me to become more familiar with my nemesis. Because that’s what I wanted.
25
HERO
Horse wouldn’t tell me about the therapy session, just that she was playing at his party on Wednesday. She was keeping her distance, at least until Tuesday morning when she stole my keys so she could break into my house. I needed a better house for her to break into, not the monstrosity with seventies aspirations and a bathroom pond, as in the tub was sunken in four feet of water, while the whole room was only functional on the stepping stones. I couldn’t count how many times I’d gone in there and fallen in for a spontaneous bath. Whoever had designed it must have been drunk, on ego or something else.
I’d won the house in a poker game, but like Jezebel said, sometimes it was hard to know if you were winning or losing. That’s how I felt about Daniela every time I saw her, uncertain whether I was winning her or if she was slipping further away. I’d been almost positive that she was going to kiss me as she leaned in close. That kiss almost killed me. It made me want to give her everything she wanted- my heart, my lungs, my tech, my family, particularly my mother for her to torture at her leisure. But somehow I resisted.
To make matters worse, it wasn’t easy to leave her notes. I’d barely managed to slip one into her pocket while she was stealing my keys. All my other efforts to send her notes through Jezebel went up in smoke, literally, because Jezebel burned them and left the ashes on my desk. She didn’t want to be involved in our game, which I could respect, except that she was the one who got Daniela shot, so no, actually I couldn’t respect her. What was she doing putting a cellist in the middle of a gunfight? Not that Daniela wasn’t more than a cellist, but going through the snow performance footage, turning the video into something almost worthy of its subject left very little doubt as to Daniela’s true calling.
I never got tired of it, her face, her hands, the instrument in her arms, all so utterly compelling and irresistible, but then she came into my space with her poisoned burgers and raging eyes, and it was infinitely better than any recording.
She’d seen it, and she knew that I’d released it. Which reminded me I needed to monetize it so I could pay her. Or I could just pay her out of my own pocket. No, I needed to be as honest as possible with her, so that when she realized that I wasn’t a villain, she wouldn’t be confused by any of my vices. She liked me as a villain almost as much as she hated it. She wanted me to be accessible to her, which meant that I had to be like her. If she saw herself as a villain, then she couldn’t be comfortable with me unless I was wearing the same mask. But that’s not what she was any more than it was who I was. No, even less. I couldn’t play music with a soul that pure and perfect.
I wanted to know more about her, who she really was, almost as much as I wanted her to get to know herself beneath the layer of villain that she wore as a defense.
“Dirk, there’s a guy at the gate to see you,” Ron said in the intercom. He could have just texted me, but he liked being official.
I flipped the black switch and asked, “Does he have a name?”
