Page 65 of The Masked King

“Are you naked?”

“Yes.” I’m slipping too easily into the role of Nyx.

“Are you close enough for me to touch?”

“Yes.” I’m making myself come for the ghost of a voice that turned me on in a blacked-out room a lifetime ago.

“You’re blonde. Your eyes are green, like a cat. No, not green, they’re hazel with flecks of amber.”

I work my clit harder, faster, the way I did for Brian. My breathing is shallow, my sore throat amplifying the panting sounds reaching my ears.

“Come for me, Demi.”

My orgasm crashes through me, my clit spasming as I roll over and drag my knees to my chest. My last lucid thought is that Brian said my name. Only, in my confusion, it didn’t sound like Brian.

I feel it slipping from my grasp as I lose consciousness with Enzo’s name on my lips.

17

ENZO

I walk into the NYPD building the following morning on legs that feel like rubber.

What would be the chances of Demi walking out as I walk in? It would be some reunion meet-cute straight out of a cheesy romcom, ex-lovers collide in the police department foyer and realize that they’re still in love.

It’s the kind of reaffirming, heart-tugging moment that happens to people like Megan and Gio.

The universe has other ideas when it comes to my life.

Still, it doesn’t stop my pulse from jackhammering when I walk through the door, or my gaze from peering behind the reinforced windows on the front desk on the off chance that she just happens to be back in the city and working as a police officer again.

“I’d like to report a missing person,” I say to the uniformed cop who comes to the window.

“Is the missing person related to you, sir?” He looks around my age, hair already receding, skin pasty from too much time spent staring at a computer.

When I got back to my apartment last night, I ran a search on the name Kate Glasgow in New York and got one result. Kathleen Glasgow, a bestselling author of YA murder mystery novels. Not what I was looking for. I did some digging into the address and hit dead ends in every direction there too.

So here I am. Putting my faith in the NYPD because the police commissioner knows Kate Glasgow and the Bratva brains behind JADED. He’s the common denominator, and little ripples like reporting a missing person often end up as tsunamis that can take down the tallest trees.

“She’s my girlfriend,” I tell the police officer.

“How long has she been missing? We usually advise waiting⁠—”

“Forty-eight hours,” I interrupt him. It’s close enough, and for the purpose of this investigation, it should get some immediate traction.

His gaze holds mine for a long beat. Then, “I’ll need to take a statement from you, sir.”

He uses the mouse to access the relevant form on the computer, his expression impassive. He doesn’t look hardened to situations like this, he looks weary, as if he has already written off the form-filling as a pointless exercise and would rather skip straight to the part where he tells me they don’t hold out much hope of finding her.

“The name of the missing person, sir?” His fingers hover over the keyboard.

“Kate Glasgow.” I’m sticking with Kate as it’s the name on the utility bill; no point confusing matters.

He adds the name to the system, then peers at me, his gaze finally taking in my appearance as if he only now realized he’s dealing with a member of the public.

“Kate Glasgow,” he repeats. “Is that… is that her full name?”

I hand over the envelope from my pocket, carefully resealed after I’d read the contents, a reminder to set up a direct debit to cover the apartment’s energy usage.