My hearts swoop violently. “Yes, he did.”
Why does this conversation feel like it's tightening around me? Something is off, but I can’t sense why. I didn’t have much of an appetite before, but I was still eating a little. Now the emptiness in my stomach is replaced with concern.
“Hmm.Maybe I just misplaced it.” The way he says that makes me think he never misplaces anything.
The air shifts in the room.
The floor below my feet turns soft and muddy as if I’m going to start sinking into it. Alarm is a painful spark skittering in my veins, raising the hairs on my arms. When I meet Arden’s gaze, I swear his irises somehow shift to black. His jaw is set. Those eyes, framed by dark salt and pepper brows, pulsate into mine with a fervor that has me trying not to tremble.
Static fizzles in my head.
I blow out a shaky breath. “It was a long day at the clinic. I think I should head to bed.” Placing both palms flat on the table, I push to stand.
Abruptly, the man in the chair beside mine thrashes a hand out in front of me. A bang reverberates through the dining room,stopping my heart entirely to a point I don’t think it will ever restart.
Dropping my gaze in horror, my eyes zone in on the butter knife, speared into the wooden table between my outstretched fingers. A hair over and he would’ve severed my pointer finger.
But Arden’s too controlled for that. And he knows it.
I bite my lip, my eyes welling with tears.
Slowly, I drag them back to his, void of emotion, as an entirely new definition of fear materializes. “If you lie to me again, the last sound you’ll ever make will be gurgling through this knife lodged in your vocal cords before I remove them from your neck.”
THIRTY | PRESTON
Unhinged, anticipation curves through my organs. There’s a twisted, gruesome need inside me that desires watching these two new security guards get their hands dirty. Let their inner beasts out to play. Tear apart these two traitors, whose internal clocks are ticking down, as if I can see them hovering above their heads on the screen, where they stand in the center of the park near the fountain.
If they don’t kill them, I will.
And I’d much rather have a show tonight because I’m not feeling very murderous. I want to relish in observing this chase, the carnage, and then return to the girl waiting for me.
A part of me feels bad, knowing I slipped out of bed earlier before the sun peaked the horizon, the only goodbye being a kiss to her forehead, which she didn’t even wake for. I’ve been gone all day—had that meeting with my father to gather the new arrival of narcotics that came in, and then was working out the details of tonight’sfestivitieswith Vincent and Nolan.
The shipment this morning was perfectly intact and untouched. Everything was there. My father and I stood in shock after reconvening and triple-checking because we didn’t want tobelieve it. My mind has been reeling in bewilderment ever since, with the added distraction of Kate and the state I left her in.
I exhausted her. Fucked her thoroughly all evening till our last round, when my fingers strummed her clit while she bounced up and down on my dick until she came so hard she passed out and slouched to my chest. Fuck, she was a sight to behold. But I was already being hauled into the unfathomable depths of my own darkness and couldn’t stop. I wrapped my arms around her fragile frame, thrusting up a few more times. It was lights out for her, so she didn’t get to feel me come inside her again around two in the morning after telling me to break with her.
I did.
We broke together in that moment.
And it was the best fucking feeling in the world that I’ve been high on all day. But tonight, I’m on edge, waiting like an addict losing their mind for another hit. Those images of her naked and bending beneath and on top of me have been replaying in my mind all day.
Today has been one big clusterfuck of things I’m spreading my attention between, and all I want to do is get home.
Bracing my elbows on my knees, I temple my hands and rest my chin on them as the two idiots on the screen dart their eyes every which way. The park, lit only by a few rides, is shrouded in a soft, rainbow glow.
Rowan and Cathal’s directions were clear. At midnight, they can start running and try to reach the edge of the park. If they make it, they live. If they start running before the horn blows, or they get caught by Lex or Brett, they die unless they kill the two newcomers first.
Those morons probably believe it, even though they know the only way out of the mob is in pieces. But it makes for an entertaining show, especially with no weapons involved.
The only way Rowan and Cathal will be exiting this park is with their body parts and organs in buckets that will be dumped the next day off the lobster boat, tens of miles out at sea.
It's one minute till midnight, which means their adrenaline and fight-or-flight instincts are kicking in. God, if I focus hard enough, I can sense their blood pulsing in their veins.
Lex and Brett are being held in one of the restaurants across from the fountain. Vincent and Nolan informed them that this was a high-stakes, realistic training exercise, and they could useanymeans necessary to seize the targets.
How they process that information will vary.
