Page 54 of Villainous Intent

I wanted to argue that nothing justified this level of brutality.

The other Villains in the room had barely paused their conversations. A few glanced at the corpse with mild interest, but most acted as if nothing had happened. As if brutal murder was just another Friday night entertainment.

“Welcome to the League, Annie,” Cipher said.

CHAPTER 11

CIPHER

I tapped my fingers against the lab table, watching as the holographic screens flickered with a relentless stream of media. Gossip sites. News feeds. All of them vomiting up footage from the Season Opener.

“Could they possibly move any slower?” I muttered, refreshing one of the feeds.

“You know, Number Eight could be doing this for you,” Menace pointed out, slouching against my workbench with a grin that belonged three hours later and two coffees deep.

“I’m capable of checking websites myself.”

“Yeah, but you don’t. Usually you’re elbow-deep in something that’ll end civilization by lunchtime.” His eyes flicked to the screens. “This isn’t research. This is vanity.”

“It’s not vanity.”

Menace’s eyebrow rose. “No? Then what would you call this?”

“Market research.”

“Bullshit.”

I ignored him. A notification pinged and I immediately swiped to expand the screen. VillainVogue had updated their Opener coverage. My eyes scanned the article, stopping on a photo.

There.

Annie was pressed against my side, my hand possessively gripping her waist as we left the Opener. I looked like I was daring the world to try and take her.

Her expression, on the other hand, was complicated. To anyone else, she looked like the perfect Villain’s plaything, beautiful and submissive. Adoring even. Only I would see the tension locking her shoulders. I saw the careful blankness glazing her eyes. That look hadn’t been there all night. It appeared only after I shut down.

After I’d been cruel.

“Well, they’re certainly buying the whole ‘plaything’ angle,” Menace said, peering over my shoulder. “Mission accomplished, right?”

“Right,” I agreed automatically, swiping to another site that featured an even more provocative shot, Annie perched on my lap, my hand sliding up her thigh. The caption read: “Cipher’s New Toy.”

Toy.

The word annoyed me. It was reductive and insulting to her intelligence, but it made a dark satisfaction coil in my veins regardless.

The memory of last night clawed its way to the surface. Baron Ash’s smirk. The violence vibrating in my bones. Then Annie’s hand on mine.

That small, fragile weight had derailed my rage. It shouldn’t have been possible. My anger was a force of nature. Yet her touch had sliced through the red haze.

And the realization that her touch calmed me had fucking terrified me. So, I’d turned the fear into ice and froze her out. I walked away and left her bleeding emotionally because the alternative was admitting to myself she somehow had power over me. It meant admitting she was a weakness.

Weakness got you killed.

I needed to work so I could forget the look in her eyes when I walked away.

My finger hovered over the console, ready to kill the feed, when a League notification popped up.

Menace leaned closer, squinting at the new data scrolling across the screen. “Well. Look at that.”