The glass is cool beneath my fingertips as I finally look down.
Sixty-four floors up, the world should feel distant.
Safe.
But it doesn’t.
A sick, hollow feeling opens in my chest.
They’re not just gathering.
They’re waiting.
For me.
The hotel is surrounded.
It’s a siege.
“And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.” The words fall from my lips, thin and unsteady, like they don’t quite belong to me anymore.
All eyes turn.
“Isaiah 29:3,” Niko says. “It is a siege, yes. Not to worry, little one.” He stretches, the quiet pop of his joints cutting through the tension. “Your foe is a foolish one. Considering he is wanted for the attempted murder of your other half, he likely seeks to smoke you out—to make you feel trapped, powerless. It is what the weak do.”
I look to my husband. He watches me steadily.
Doubt curls tight in my chest. I worry I’ve shaken his faith in me. Fractured something fragile with everything I’ve done, everything I carry.
But the weight of this…it presses in from all sides.
Because it feels like there is nowhere left to run.
Nowhere Gideon won’t reach.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Trey
With Me – Sum 41
Iam not exactly used to being the center of negative press. To having an organized mob out wishing me ill…sure, there have been a few moments where I’ve been tangled up in a scandal, but this? This is different. These people are holding up images of my face on the news with devil horns.
I mean…don’t fucking tempt me. You can get shit like that done with piercings or body mods. I dated…well, dated is a strong word. I fucked a girl with blacked-out eyes and a forkedtongue, subdermal implants ridging her forehead. She thought it looked cool. I thought her tongue felt cool when she was sucking my cock…
Part of me wishes we’d signed on with pseudonyms and costumes so we could move around without the risk of getting bum-rushed, but nah—fuck it. I can be attention-seeking at times. Same as every other celeb, I guess.
No press is bad press.
Yeah. Because that’s exactly what we need…more press about the shit going on. Wait until they find out who Chace really is…
Fucking Al Capone on drums.
My hands slide around Sera’s waist, one of my favorite spots for casual displays of affection, as I press my front to her back. I wouldn’t mind staying in Vegas a little longer. I made a lot of money and didn’t get lost in booze, clubs, and casinos this time. Huge personal growth. Clearly the evolution of a mature grown-up male. 100% grass-fed beef. But staying in a state where people can casually access motherfucking Vulcan miniguns and other scarier shit, and being in a tower sixty-odd floors up, starts to feel like standing on top of a house of cards.
Nope.
My gut is telling me two things. One: I didn’t take a leak after getting up this morning. Two: get the hell out of Dodge.
