His gaze found her immediately. “You’re awake. Excellent. I was afraid I’d given you too much.”
Recognition hit hard enough to steal her breath. This was no stranger, or some faceless monster pulled from her nightmares. She knew him. Maybe not well but enough.
Quiet, controlled, easy to overlook in a way dangerous men sometimes were, Evan Strickland had always blended easily into the club.
Julia held his gaze, refusing to let him see fear if she could help it.
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, as though he appreciated the effort.
“Is this where you bring all your victims?” she asked, no hesitation. No wasted breath.
His expression didn’t change, but his eyes hardened. “You’re starting with hard questions.”
“Answer it.”
He moved farther into the room instead, slow and deliberate. “That implies you already know what happened to them.”
“I know enough.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Perhaps,” he said at length. “About some of them.”
Her stomach twisted hard. Some. God. How many were still out there?
Julia forced herself to keep breathing evenly. “Why are you doing this?”
He tilted his head slightly, studying her like she was a variable he’d never expected. “You really want to understand?”
“Yes.”
“No,” he corrected softly. “You want to humanize me. You think if you can make sense of it, you can manipulate me.”
“You sound like every crime cliché ever written.”
His smile returned. Humorless, this time. “Maybe,” he said. “But clichés usually exist for a reason.”
Julia’s fingers curled against the blanket.
“You had willing submission,” she said. “At the club. Women who wanted what you wanted. That wasn’t enough for you?”
Cold moved across his face. She continued to challenge him anyway.
“You had to take away their choice. That’s not dominance. It’s pathology.”
A long silence followed. Then he laughed softly under his breath. “Now you’re trying very hard to make me angry.”
“Maybe.”
“What’s your goal?” he asked mildly. “To trip me up? To distract me?” He stepped closer. “Or do you think if I lose control, I’ll end this quickly?”
Julia said nothing.
His gaze lingered on her face. “You’re wrong,” he said. No emotion in it. Just certainty. “As you pointed out, this isn’t my first time.”
A chill slid down her spine despite herself.
The smile that followed told her he enjoyed it. Before he could say anything else, a muted tone sounded somewhere deeper in the house.
His attention snapped toward the hallway.
