On the other side of the orchestra, the man in the gray suit is still watching us. His attention didn’t waver when the rest of the room looked away. And it’s more than a gossip’s interest. He could be a reporter—or a TV personality. He’s handsome enough and very well-dressed.
Rex catches me staring and turns, seeking his quarry. He finds it, and his muscles harden under the fine wool of his tux.
The man in the gray suit takes the brunt of Rex’s glare with a slight smile. He salutes Rex with his empty whiskey glass, turns and disappears into the crowd.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“No one you should concern yourself with.” Rex faces me again, shifting so his broad shoulders block out the rest of the room. It makes me feel safe—and angry. How dare he try to protect me, this man who kills so easily.
“Don’t—” I burst out, wanting to chew him out for presuming to tell me who I should or shouldn’t be concerned with.
He places a finger on my lips. “Not here.” Before I can bite his finger off, he dips his head closer, and his scent swirls around me, his voice captivating. “Club Empire, midnight. I’ll be waiting.”
I choke on a sudden swell of desire.
He pulls back, straightening his lapels. Slipping back into his role as host.
“You have questions. I have answers. I’ll see you at midnight.” He catches my hand and skims his lips across my knuckles before striding off. Leaving me breathless.
* * *
Him
My fingers tinglewhere I touched her. I laid my hand on her back and held her. And she let me.
Her subtle fragrance clings to me. Jasmine. I bring my sleeve to my face and inhale.
“Rex,” someone’s calling me. Some socialite in a crowd of fake faces. I ignore them all. They’re as shallow as a petri dish, their sins too boring to catalog. They’re not even good for hunting.
Unlike my little bird. She’s real. And she knows the real Rex Roy. Out of all these people clamoring for my attention, she alone senses the danger. She alone is smart enough to run.
Fly fast and fly far, little bird. This time, you won’t escape me.
Years of searching. Months of planning. And finally, she’s going to be mine. . .
13
Inara
I arguewith myself all the way to the club.
What am I doing? This is crazy. A sane person wouldn’t be en route to a kink club to confront a murderer.
But I have no choice.
And. . . I want to see him. The moment our hands touched, I was lost. Lost to sensation and need. Lost to him.
I can’t lose my grip like this. I have to pull myself together and prepare for battle.
In the back of the taxi, I pull up Rex Roy on my phone. There he is, on the cover ofFortunemagazine, looking as handsome as ever with his hair cut more severely. Less playboy more businessman with an eye-boggling net worth. No wonder Jordan turned on the smarm.
I won’t be able to snare him without a rock-solid case, and even then, it’ll be a fight to see justice done. He’ll have top-notch lawyers at his beck and call.
I scroll through the headlines and articles about his Fortune 500 businesses. This is all superficial, the image he presents to the world. I need to go deeper to find the man who’s capable of killing. Of ruthlessly hunting his chosen prey and then slaughtering them.
But it’s almost midnight, and the cab is almost to the club. I don’t have any more time for research.
I’ve been fiddling with the lion head on the chain of my gown but make myself stop and pull up the app to text Mina. We have a code we use to be each other’s safety backups whenever we’re headed into a kink appointment. I send her the address and the times I’ll be in the scene, as well as an appointed time afterward when I intend to check in so she knows I got through the night safely. She texts me back, “Acknowledged.”
