When I finally lift my head, my lips brush her ear.
“You’re never leaving again.”
It’s past nine when the mansion comes into view, gleaming under the floodlights. Massive, set back fromthe road, the front swallowed by thick trees and the rear guarded by the black stretch of river.
Felix is already inside. We made sure Caleb and Tamsin would arrive fashionably late.
His security’s heavier tonight, but half of them are ours. Men who owe us and know exactly the type of shit Felix is. We only have to deal with the loyal ones. No cops on site, but they sniffed around earlier. Detectives poking into the disappearances, asking questions nobody wants to answer. Beau handled it with a few burner emails sent to Felix written like his three missing friends were alive and well, just laying low after the heat from “what they’d done”.
I don’t know if Felix buys it, but he’s smart enough to keep the cops from digging too deep into his little circle. He even told them his friends left the country to enjoy some “time off”. It keeps the police away from us, and it keeps Tamsin off their radar.
Beau’s already hacked the mansion’s cameras, and now I’m sitting on the boat with him, geared up and mask in place, while my girl is inside with Caleb.
“It’s time,” Beau says through the comms as they step into the garden. A guard comes inside and sweeps the room but doesn’t notice the hidden compartment where we’re crouched.
I watch the feed, she looks beautiful, she always does.Nothing beats her black hair, but that fake blonde and the tan? I’ll lick every inch of it off her if I have to.
“Breathe, hellcat,” I murmur through the mic, she nods, and I see the faint tension in her shoulders as they near the door.
“Mister Ashford, Miss Karsen,” the guard greets, opening it for them.
“Karsen?” I cover the mic. “You gave her my last name?”
Beau chuckles. “You’ll marry her, so…” He shrugs, like it’s a certainty, and he’s not wrong, but still…
They walk in and the place drips money: polished wood, marble floors, and vases spilling with fresh flowers. The women are in painted-on dresses serving drinks, the men in suits trading dirty secrets between glasses of scotch. Most of these fuckers deserve to be buried alive. Maybe they will—one day.
“Showtime,” Caleb whispers, pulling Tamsin closer. I trust him with my life and hers, but watching him put his hand on her and pretend she’s his makes my jaw lock.
The huge dark-wood door at the far end opens. Four men sit at a table, each with a woman at his side, except for Felix, which tells me he took the bait. He wants her, and when she smiles and says, “Good evening”, I see it, his legs shifting, spreading just slightly.
My vision tightens, turning the edges red.
They take their seats.
The dealer moves with the precision of habit, cards sliding across the felt in an unhurried rhythm. Every chip on that table could feed a family for a year, but none of it matters to me. My focus is locked on Felix; on the way he watches her.
She’s already his in his mind.
Tamsin plays it flawlessly, offering sweet smiles, polite nods, fingers brushing Caleb’s arm when she laughs, but each time Felix flirts, she lets the faintest curl of distaste touch her lips, just enough to tell him she’s not interested. Beau called it perfectly. He’ll want to break that wall. He’ll want to force her to take him.
“You’re a lucky man,” Felix says to Caleb, his voice slick with the kind of arrogance that rots a man from the inside out.
Caleb leans back, smirking. “She’s trouble, but worth it.”
Felix’s gaze slides to Tamsin and lingers there, crawling over her body. “Some trouble’s worth the scars.”
My jaw flexes under the mask, fingers digging into my thigh. If I were in that room, the only scars he’d get would be the ones I carved into him, letter by letter.
The game drags on. Caleb loses a few hands onpurpose, keeping Felix’s interest hooked. The bastard leans forward, his eyes on her more than his cards. Tamsin shifts in her chair, crossing her legs away from him, sipping her drink as if the smell of him turns her stomach.
“How about we make this more interesting?” Felix says, tossing a fat stack of chips into the center. “You win; I’ll double your pile. You lose…” His gaze cuts to Tamsin, slow and vile. “…She spends the night with me.”
The console creaks under my grip, the plastic protesting as I squeeze.
“Careful,” Beau mutters beside me.
I don’t answer, eyes locked on the screen, watching my girl keep her face still. Only the faint tightening of her hand on Caleb’s sleeve betrays her.
