I’m working to bring my knee up when the suite door doesn’t just open, it’s nearly thrown off its hinges.
Locke is there, and he looks nothing like the polished man he usually presents himself as. He looks like a storm wearing a dark suit and made of pure, unadulterated rage. Behind him, Tiernan slips into the room, holding a tablet and looking entirely too calm to be here.
Locke is across the room in one blurry heartbeat. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t warn. He just reaches out, grabs the back of Luke’s collar and his belt, and rips him off me with such violent force that Luke’s feet actually leave the ground.
Locke flings him toward the center of the room, not even looking to see where he lands. At that moment, time seems to stand still.
I watch as Luke stumbles backward, his sluggish balance finally failing him as he crashes over the back of the leather couch. He grasps for a floor lamp on the way down, and it shatters against the tile in a million tiny pieces.
A sick, wet cracking sound reverberates through the suite as his head meets the edge of the coffee table. Then, there’s only silence.
I stand by the cage, eyes wide and chest heaving, my eyes pressed on Locke’s back. His shoulders are rising and falling with heavy, jagged breaths. He doesn’t look at me, not yet. He walks straight to where Luke is lying on the floor, motionless among the glass shards, and stares down at him.
Sienna finally breaks. The glass slips from her hand, shattering on the marble bar. “Oh my God,” she gasps, her face turning a ghostlyshade of white as she looks at Luke’s crumpled form. “You... you killed him. You fucking killed him!”
Locke turns slowly to look at her. His expression revealing nothing but a lethal indifference that makes her scream die in her throat. He doesn’t look like a man who just committed a crime; he looks like a man who just finished a chore.
“And you’re a witness,” he says, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that vibrates through the suite.
Sienna stumbles back, her hands and voice shaking. “I’ll tell the police. I’ll tell everyone! I have the platform, I have —”
“You have nothing, Sienna,” Tiernan interrupts, tapping his screen and turning the tablet toward her. “I’ve spent the last ten minutes downloading the ‘Inventory’ folder from Luke’s cloud. You know, the one with the photos of the girls you helped him lure and traffic? The wire transfers you signed to pay off their families? If the police come in here, they’re going to find a dead predator and a mountain of evidence pointing toyouas his primary accomplice.”
I watch as Locke looms over her, and I take a moment to study the face of the woman who found my struggle so amusing just moments ago. There’s no mockery left in her expression. In its place is a raw fear that makes her look smaller. The mask has shattered, leaving nothing behind but a terrified girl who realized too late that she’s been playing the wrong game.
Locke continues. “We’ve already drafted the narrative, Sienna. We have the messages, we have the photos, and we have the motive. If you say a single word, we won’t just ruin your career. We’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life in a cell, since Luke can’t.”
Sienna looks at Luke’s body, then back at Locke’s cold, unwavering gaze. The animosity is gone, replaced by the frantic, pathetic survival instinct of a cornered animal. She looks like she might even faint. “I just did what he told me!”
“Get out,” Locke orders. He doesn’t shout, and the smooth, calm tone of his voice is even more unnerving. “Get out of this city. Get out of this country. If I ever see your face on a screen or hear your name mentioned in Hollywood again, he will hit send on that file. Do you understand?”
Sienna doesn’t wait to be told twice. She grabs her clutch off a nearby chair and bolts, her heels clicking frantically against the tile until the door slams shut behind her.
Locke finally turns to me. The hardness in his eyes softens, just a fraction. He reaches out, his thumb brushing my cheek.
“You’re okay,” he says, and for the first time tonight, I actually believe it.
Chapter 34
LOCKE
The second I heard her voice through the mic, panicked and pleading with him to stop, the world turned red. I didn’t care about the plan. I didn’t care about Jaxon. I only cared about the fact that Luke Holloway’s hands were on my woman.
I know she probably hates me for this. For barging in, for not trusting her to handle it. But what else could I do? The part of me that has been waiting to get my hands on Luke all night is extremely satisfied. The other part is a frantic mess, blinded by the need to check for bruises and make sure that none of the blood on the floor belongs to her.
The door slams shut behind Sienna, and finally, the suite is quiet. I don’t look at the body on the floor again. I don’t care about the mess. My eyes go straight to Arden.
She’s still standing by that ridiculous cage, her back pressed against the bars, chest heaving. She looks like a statue, beautiful and terrifyingly still.
“Arden,” I rasp. My voice sounds foreign to my own ears, thick with the remnants of a rage I haven’t fully extinguished. I’m across the room in a heartbeat. Cupping her face in my hands, my thumbs brushing over her cheekbones. I need to feel her warmth, to prove to myself she’s still here and in one piece.
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Tell me where he touched you.”
Her eyes finally find mine. A sudden, fierce spark of reality replaces the vacant look in her eyes. She’s not crumbling. She hasn’t cried. She just reaches out, her fingers digging into my forearms as if to steady herself… or me.
“I’m fine,” she whispers, though her voice trembles. “You... you killed him. Locke, you actually did that.”
“I told you I would take care of it,” I mutter, leaning my forehead against hers. I close my eyes for a second, letting the adrenaline start its slow retreat. “No one will ever touch you like that and get away with it. Not when I’m around.”
