“Where are you?” His question holds more compassion than irritation, which only twists the dagger of my current depravity dilemma. I loathe disappointing him and making him worry.
I’m the reliable one. Always reliable.
Except for the time I wasn’t.
Times.
“The club.” No sense in lying. He’d find me anyway. Damn tracker in my neck. Not that I’d force him to resort to using it.
See? Reliable.
And usually upbeat.
Unless I’m spiraling.
Which I sure as hell am.
He sighs. It isn’t disapproval. He’d never begrudge me a little action. He’d probably encourage it since he’s aware it’s been ages. It’s failure. I can envision his face, the heavy features, the worry divot.
It compounds everything.
“Why don’t you come to the penthouse? We need to work through this. If you want to go back afterward, one of us will go with you.” There’s a long pause, but it’s one of those loaded respites. The kind I hear between sniper shots. Deafening silence awaiting a kill. “You shouldn’t be alone when you’re like this.”
Like a bullet.Crack.
“I’m fine.”Lie.
His grinding teeth grate on my eardrum. “Ty, you’re not fine. And I’m not fucking dancing around this anymore. You’re spinning out. I’m coming to you.”
The sound of a door slamming crashes through the phone. He’s all revved up now.
“Take a breath, Chief.” I swig my drink, certain to let the ice clank nice and loud. I feel guilty. Yes. And I never enjoy being the cause of his stress. But I’m also enraged—another vile fence. “I’m not spinning out. It’s not like I’m about to stab some asshole over and over until I’m catatonic. I’m just retreating into my shit.”
At the same time a bouncer wrinkles his forehead and points to the exit sign—an act of mercy because I’d probably be hauled down to counting room two for that comment if they didn’t know me—Wells grunts.
“Your flippant use of that example is all I needed to hear to know where your head is at. Don’t talk to anyone. Meet me by the elevators.”
“Yes, sir,” I spout after ending the call. It’s the thought that counts. Right?
One too many Kraken and Cokes courses through my veins. Three too many.
Whatever.
I slip out into the hallway, dropping my empty glass on the tray of a cocktail server scurrying by, and saunter through a back route to the stairwell, jazz music still crooning in my head. The elevator Wells is meeting me at is two floors up because Magie Noire only has elevator access near their main entrance, providing the illusion of being an underground club in the other areas.
It straddles spaces too.
That thought has me chuckling to myself as I enter the designated floor, fully prepared to report to my post.
But an unmistakable blur of pink and gold swallows it,devouring everything—my breaths, that jazz melody, the tinny dings from the casino.
Another familiar war, fence, stone wall.
A fucking fortress.
She makes everything fuzzy, casting a haze between what is and what never can be.
Rena Noire—the one I’m not allowed to touch.
