Red brushes lint off my shoulder, her face pitying. “She’s not coming back for you, you know. You sacrificed your freedom for her, and she left you here to rot.”
“I’m not talking about her with you.” And I wouldn’t blame her if she did. Not after Adam.
She sighs. “Everything I have given you. You have free roam of Wonder. Feared by the staff. Loved by the investors. A space in my bed. You could have everything you ever wanted with me, Hatter. Why do you insist on tormenting me?”
I grab the fingers heading toward my cock, throwing them back at her. “You and I both know that my presence in your bed is a smokescreen and nothing else. Was it you?”
Another question. Red pauses, her head tilting to the side. “Was what me?”
I turn, looking her straight in her lying green eyes. “Did you kill them?”
Myra.
Erin.
The timing.
Thetiming.
Red snorts, but she doesn’t meet my eyes. “So melodramatic.”
“Tell me,” I say quietly. “I deserve to know the truth.”
Something flickers, there and then gone, too fast to see. “I will never tell you. You will spend the rest of your life wondering, Hatter, and you will never know, either way. I far prefer you a little tormented.”
“Do you?” I don’t look away. “Did you kill my daughter to make sure I would be?”
She pales beneath her make-up. “Enough.”
“If you’re not going to answer, thenleave me the fuck alone,” I snarl at her. “Go and sit on your throne and rot, Red. Because if I am rotting away in this fucking god-forsaken place, thenso are you. Smile for your investors, gloat about your power, and know that all of it – every single part of your life – is built on lies. Because none of them would be here if it wasn’t for Wonder. None of them would wantyou.”
She flinches. But the movement is hidden beneath her smile as she straightens. Her voice is a purr. “Look at you, finally finding a voice. How fine you look, when dressed in rage. It only makes me want you more.”
“Fuck off,” I say shortly. I turn away from her, staring out into the crowd. “One day, I will learn the truth. And if you had anything to do with it, no power on this earth will fucking save you.”
I wait.
Her voice is icy. “We have potential new investors in tonight for assessment. Key power players in the city. I expect to see you up there shortly.”
Assessment… corruption and blackmail, most likely. Those who decline to join Red’s investor programme will find themselves involved sooner or later, whether they like it or not.
Then she’s gone.
I’m tired.
I’m sofuckingtired of it all.
I glance at the doors, expecting to see the locks firmly in place. But there’s nothing there.
My brows crease as I glance down into the crowd. One masked figure catches my eye.
He’s not dancing, and that alone would mark him as unusual, if it wasn’t for hiswalk. The man is swaggering through the crowd, his eyes sharp beneath the hooked mask he wears.
It can’t be—
He turns. Glances up at me.
And even from here, I can tell. Even if it wasn’t for the cocky grin stretching across his lower face, I would know that it’s Buck.
