Page 36
He stops at a door near the end of the hallway, labeled The Sugar Room. A key card is already in his hand, clearly part of his plan for the night.
With one tap, the lock clicks open, and he pushes the door in before taking a step back. “After you.”
A queasy knot forms in my stomach. I don’t move.
Inside is full of pink and purple, pastels mixed with neon lights. The perfect room for a little girl.
A bed sits in the middle, surrounded by a soft pink canopy, white leather cuffs chained to all four posts. Everything in me screams that nothing good exists past that doorway.
“What does this have to do with the medallion?” I ask.
He tilts his head towards the room. “I’ll show you when we get inside.”
Whatever friendliness he wore at the bar is gone now. His smile thins while his eyes sharpen. Hunger and calculation take the place of charm.
My foot slides back. “Sorry, I’m not—”
“I didn’t ask.”
His hand knots in my hair before I can turn away. Pain rips across my scalp, and a scream tears out of me. The sound vanishes in the empty hallway while he drags me into the room and kicks the door shut behind us. The lock twists with a sharp click.
My hand stays clamped around the purse as he throws me onto the pink bed. This room is too close to my prison back home. The walls, the bedspread. My throat tightens. Stuffed animals crowd one corner. Across from them, an illuminated case displays colorful dildos.
The mattress dips beneath me when he gets on. I try to scramble back, but my hands slide on the satin. My dress rides up my thighs as I twist my legs closed. He’s on top of me before I can get enough air into my lungs to scream, his weight crushing me flat against the bed. One hand traps both my wrists above my head. The other reaches for my purse.
Panic takes over.
Not again.
The same helplessness from the night before crashes over me. The same sick certainty that everything can be taken in one brutal second, that no one is coming. Asher’s blood flashes in my mind. His body crumpled on the gravel. His voice telling me to run.
I twist harder beneath the man, but he only presses me down harder.
“I don’t want to do this, sweet thing,” he says against my cheek, his breath hot and sour, “but I need that coin.”
My fingers clutch the purse above my head with desperate strength. The medallion is inside. Asher’s last gift. I buck under him, thrashing, trying to wrench one wrist free.
He curses and shifts his weight.
The door flies open and strikes the wall.
“What the fu—”
He turns his head towards the sound.
It’s all the chance I need.
I drive my knee up between his legs with every ounce of strength I have left. The strangled groan he utters is almost as satisfying as the look on his face when he folds and rolls off of me, clutching himself. I scramble sideways across the bed, dress shoved high over my hips, hair falling across my face. Pain flares in my chest from my heart pounding so hard.
Then I look up.
Edwin Crotavere fills the doorway, one hand yet again wrapped around a gun held level with terrifying steadiness. He has the blank expression of a statue.
The gun points at the man doubled over on the bed, though the barrel drifts briefly in my direction.
Every muscle in my body locks. A man like him shouldn’t be trusted with a weapon. Especially when his eyes are already somewhere else, in some grief-drenched place I can’t reach.
“Get away from her,” he says.
