Sanctum’s layout was confusing on purpose, in case anyone found us, they’d never be able to infiltrate. It was also impossible to know if the medical floor was above or below the apartments since the elevator didn’t provide floor numbers. You just told it where you wanted to go—after scanning your card, which someone had slipped into my pocket while I was probably unconsciously stripped searched before entering—it wasn’t the first time it had happened, and I’d consented to it the moment I agreed to Mercy’s terms and conditions.
My apartment was home—unofficially, I wasn’t getting any mail here but I also definitely wasn’t going to be attacked in the middle of the night. It was somewhere I could lay my head on a pillow and pass out—not from medical intervention.
***
Aches woke me in the middle of the night, alongside the urge to piss, and I hadn’t pissed the bed since I was a teen—yeah, I had nightmares a lot growing up, and now, I was the nightmare. it’s funny how life worked out sometimes.
It was the middle of the night at least from the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was one of my gripes with being down here—I never knew what was really going on outside until I was out there.
Stripping right by the toilet bowl, I walked into the shower and let it blast me with those first initial spurts of cold water before the scalding hit heat. I was completely sober now, painfully so, I didn’t know what was next for me until I looked at Mercy’s kill list—if she even allowed me to see it again.
My mind going through all the stuff she might let me do—like deliveries or protection detail. I hated both of those—alternatively, I could go back out there and find work like I usually did. Walking into the fanciest looking bar or nightclub and finding the toughest looking guy—they always had work, and my name had a reputation—one I was trying to keep, so protection detail for deliveries was out of the question.
A thud knocked at the door as I was getting into flow state with the shower heat and thealmostpeeling my skin effect that it had. I knew better than to answer after one knock. The knock came again, this time, followed by Jinky’s voice—soft in comparison to the weight he threw into those knocks.
“I’m coming,” I shouted as I wrapped a towel around my waist and trailed water from the ensuite to the door—a short trip.
The hallway outside was intwilightwith moody blue lighting—that was a signal it was the evening outside. Jinxy was smiling like a fool. “Oh good, you’re alive,” he said with a snort of laughter. “I was sent to check on you. You’ve slept for like—twelve hours.”
“Thanks, Jinksy, and imagine if I was still asleep, how annoyed I’d be at you right now,” I said, clinging to the towel around my waist. “Is there anything else you wanted? Or did you want to wake the dead while you’re at it?”
He continued to smile, no insult could take it away. “I’m following orders,” he said. “And now I can say you’re awake. It was better than sending a nurse, you would’ve chewed one of them out.”
“You know me well,” I said in defeat. “So, what else did you need from me?”
“Mercy wants to speak with you in the morning.”
“Did she give you a time to tell me?”
He shook his head. “Nope, just the morning.”
The door creaked open across the hallway. “Now look, we’re waking the neighbors.”
Jinksy turned, blocking my view. “I’m sorry, sir, it won’t happen again,” he said. “You can go back to bed.”
“Donovan?”
That voice. I knew it out of a crowd. “Oh fuck.” I wanted to close my door and avoid it, but all those aches I’d been pounding out of my muscles with the hot water had frozen me to the spot.
Artemis Gray rounded Jinksy in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, hanging on for dear life around his waist. His slim physique and gorgeous face were a little more scratched up and bruised than I remembered when I was tracing my tongue over it. “Don’t look at me like that,” he spat. “You fucking left me!” Like a Banshee, he did he best to swing for me.
Jinksy grabbed him, his whole body in a backwards bear hug. “No way, Jose,” he said. “No acts of violence against other guests.”
Artemis continued swinging his arms and fists in my direction.
“It’s fine,” I said. I knew I’d have to face him eventually. “Let him go. I’ll take it.”
He stopped thrusting in Jinksy’s arms. “Fight me.”
“No.”
Let go, the sound of doors opening were not a good sign. If Artemis did want to fight, he’d end up on his ass out of here. I’d never report him, but others would. “Come in and talk,” I said.
“Sir, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Jinksy asked. “Miss Mercy was very clear that she wanted you in her office tomorrow, I don’t think she’d want me to lethimin your room.”
“I can handle him,” I said.
Artemis’s eyes narrowed into a heated glare that I’d somehow missed. I was right, I could still handle him. It had been months, but he was all bark and no bite.
