by Angel Payne
“Out with it.” I watch her eyes as I issue the order from tight teeth. The feat isn’t easy, but if there’s any bullshit about her game, I’ll see it at the edges of those emerald depths first.
Fortunately, the woman’s smart enough to know that too. She’s so clear about it, she doesn’t blink while ticking her head to the left. “Front pocket,” she tells me. “Photograph.”
Foley obliges with the honors of fishing out the picture. It’s cropped into an oval and the edges are frayed, as if the image has been pulled out of a frame. In the picture, there’s an Angelique I barely recognize. She’s makeup-free, her hair thrown up into a carefree ponytail. She looks about sixteen—and I almost believe it’s a picture from her adolescence—but that’s before taking in the rest of the image and the man she’s got in a tight clench. Her head is tucked against his broad, burnished chest. One of her hands is molded to the top of his shoulder, tangled in strands of his long black hair. The guy’s eyes are dark and unreadable, but his full, roguish mouth holds the entire truth of the picture. It’s so indisputable, my gut accepts it before Angelique even speaks it.
“I loved him. And then they killed him.”
During the last of it, her voice cracks. And her eyes finally close.
But if she’s lying about this, I’m the Duke of Wales.
Which also leaves me—all of us—in one hell of a mire. Foley’s the first one able to translate that bewilderment into words, returning the photo to her with a flick of his stiff fingers. “When did this all go down?”
Angelique still doesn’t open her eyes. “I met him two-and-a-half months ago. After the Consortium called me back to Spain.”
“After you failed to recapture Reece that night at the power plant.” Emma doesn’t mask her protective fury, giving me hope that this situation isn’t the train wreck of my instincts. If she’s still angry, she’s still feeling something. I can work with something.
Angelique looks back at Emma like Hester Prynne proudly brandishing her A in the village square. “I was ordered back to the Source to receive punishment. Yes.”
“And the Source is…what?” Foley asks.
“Their central hub of operations.” Angelique’s gaze flicks to me. “Where everyone begins their empowerment.”
Against my will, my own gaze slams shut. As if someone’s shaken loose a hive of memory, voices and images pelt my mind from all sides.
Do not fight it, Reece.
You, above so many others, have been chosen for this.
You will be better for this. Launched beyond your wildest dreams. Flown beyond your highest peaks.
You will be a force among men. A beacon among mortals.
Freed. Enlightened. Empowered.
And I thought her appearance would be the worst of the nightmare-coming-to-life thing today.
Somehow, by clenching every muscle and ordering myself to keep breathing, I fight the images back to a dull roar—long enough to wheel back around and utter at her, “And they gave you a taste of ‘empowerment’…didn’t they?” Her hitch of breath is all I need for corroboration. “They hooked you up with just enough juice to get you addicted—and ensure that if you had to fight me, you wouldn’t lose. Maybe they even thought I’d be intrigued, getting to spar with someone who was like me. Maybe they thought I actually harbored feelings for you, and they told you to use that allure to get me back.”
As I lay it all out, Emma circles forward—and peers at the affirmation across every tormented inch of Angelique’s face. “Oh, my God,” she murmurs. “They thought all of that?”
Angelique meets her scrutiny without flinching. A new look crosses her face, seeming oddly like admiration, before she replies, “They simply did not anticipate…you.” Her lips tremble. “Frankly, neither did I.”
“And they punished you for the oversight.” The conclusion is supplied by Neeta, infusing it with the sadness none of the rest of us can muster. I’m not sorry about that, but nor am I proud of it.
“Dario was the one assigned to discipline me.” As the whisper leaves Angelique, she strokes a finger over the picture still cupped in her palm. “Instead, we fell in love.”
Foley huffs. “And things were hunky-dory until someone discovered that he wasn’t really punishing you.”
For a long moment, she’s completely silent. And frozen. I brace for the moment her reaction breaks through, manifesting itself in a tremor that claims her whole body and a sob that consumes her whole throat. But just one. As soon as she’s finished, the woman is like a rebooted robot and back to being the same sleek unicorn I chased through Paris and Barcelona nearly two years ago. A lifetime ago. She straightens, smoothing a hand down her Aphrodite hair, gazing as if to suggest we all take a nap before snazzing up to hit the hottest new club in town.
“Those cocksuckers need to be taken down.”
That’s definitely not a call for clubbing.
Neeta, who’s heard far too much now to be shooed away and looks ready to handle the responsibility, eyes her up and down before venturing, “And we assume ‘the cocksuckers’ do not know you feel that way?”
Angelique arches one perfect brow. “Not one fucking particle of it.”
“You sound sure of that,” Foley comments.
“Because I am,” she returns.
“Because you’ve convinced them.” Neeta edges closer as she says it, the perception in her voice matching her tender steps. “As soon as they killed your lover—”
“Dario.” Angelique bites it out. “He has a name, and it’s Dario.”
“As soon as they killed Dario.” Neeta barely misses a beat. “You realized the only way to exact real revenge on them was to remain one of them.”
For the first time since she entered, some of the regal starch leaves Angelique’s posture. “Oui.” She dips her gaze so much I’m able to note those are real tears on her lashes. “To plead at their filthy feet for mercy…and accept the full punishment Dario never had the heart to dispense.”
She finishes by lifting her head once more—though her action doesn’t stop there. She flows a hand up, like a ballerina reaching for the floodlights—
Giving none of us warning about the sight that comes next.
As she digs her fingers into her hairline and pulls violently at the stuff.
As it all comes away in her hand, revealing the burnt moon landscape that is now her actual skull.
As she hurls away the wig, mutely enduring all four of our stunned gasps.
As she reveals, with a re-braced stance and revitalized glare, the extent of her own “rebirth” at the hands of the Consortium.
It’s hell trying to find my voice—but the next words in the room must come from me. Whether I like it or not, I’m the only one here who can halfway comprehend what could have caused her entire scalp to resemble a black, mottled, foreign planet.
“What…did they…”
The woman’s chin shudders. Her hands ball into fists. “This is the next phase of their experiments,” she finally grates.
“Now they’re playing with brain matter.” I push out the words she clearly cannot. The explanation that populates her horrified memories. My reaction is violent and visceral, feeling like I’ve been tossed into a funhouse filled with condemned clowns—only the clowns are us, and the circus is forever.
And with that recognition, I know I’m the last one to save her—or even comfort her.
Like the selfish bastard I am, I’m already mentally running. Turning and walking away, my steps full of lead and my mind full of ugliness, to the salvation I’ve been granted in my own hell.
To my beauty…
Who has disappeared.
And for once, gives me reason to thank fate for the creaks and echoes in the old elevator shaft.
Allowing me to sprint toward the compartment into which she’s just dived and ram open the doors just far enough to jump in with her.
EMMA
“What the hell?” I punch out the words inste
ad of him. But not in fury. I’m not mad.
What the hell am I?
Confused. Beyond confused. Frustrated. Way beyond that too. Upside down, and not in a whee-yay carnival kind of way.
My chaos worsens as Reece pushes into the elevator and corners me.
“Seriously? Because you want to repeat this bullshit, too?” I seethe it out before he consumes my personal space, stealing the very air in my lungs with his mix of smoky cologne and musky man. And sex. Sweet hell, I still smell our lovemaking on him too.
“Emma.” He breathes it into my forehead.
“Get away, damn it.”
“Emmalina.”
“Get. Away.”
He acquiesces when I resort to pummeling it into him—but as he backs off, one palm raised, he sneaks out his other hand, stabbing the button for the roof before I realize I never punched in a destination of my own.
Because if I had, it wouldn’t have been the roof.
Where he’ll have me captive, at least for a few minutes.
Damn it.
As gears and pulleys groan around us, he emphasizes the T of his torso with both hands on his waist. It’s a stance he usually shuns, hating how it spotlights the superhero stereotype, but right now, I don’t think he’s concerned about optics or public image or projecting any other message but one.
“We have to talk.”
That one.
I grit my teeth and raise my chin. “You know how bad an idea that is right now?”
He folds his arms, making me wish for the T again. The lightning-level determination in his gaze aside, the dual slabs of his forearms are a force of nature in all the most alluring ways. Shit. Why does he do this to me, even with his damn forearms? It’s not fair.
Nothing about tonight has been fair.
And the situation only looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
“Fine, then. We need to talk.”
“About what?” It spews more brutally than I intended. Maybe I am more pissed than I think—or maybe it has something to do with being taken hostage against my will. Frankly, I’m too fed up to analyze the situation. The facts appear pretty fucking clear already. “Should we talk about the fact that you rushed the foundation’s ramp-up just to get me out of the way so you could play spy games with Sawyer Foley? Or about how those machinations now involve Angelique La Salle, who’s pretty impossible to hate anymore thanks to the self-sacrifice-despite-a-broken-heart thing?”
“Which I learned about just when you did.” He drops his arms and looms in tight again. “She made her grand entrance exactly thirty seconds before you and Neeta arrived.” His softer tone is rough with sincerity, which only tightens every knot in my stomach. “Velvet. I was just as stunned to see her as you were.”
I jab both hands at his chest. “You still don’t get to go there with the ‘Velvet.’”
He nods and then pushes right back in. “But you believe me.”
“That still doesn’t make any of this all right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Neither does that.”
“You want Angelique out of all this?” The elevator’s opening doors help punctuate his offer. “You just say the word”—he brushes back, letting me barrel past him out the open doors—“and she’s gone. I’ll tell Foley to send her back to wherever he found her. Or wherever she found him. It doesn’t matter.”
“No.” I tug a strand of hair off my face as the hot night wind hits me. Here, twenty floors up, the Santa Anas claim free rein, though their stunning effect on the scene before me can’t be denied. The rooftop, in the midst of being converted into a garden, is a vast wonderland of shadows and light as trendy LED bulbs sway on suspended lines overhead. “It does matter.” I stomp over to an oval-shaped chaise lounge with a wicker overhang that’s keeping the large throw pillows from being blown into the modern fountain about fifteen feet away. Cushions from some of the other couches haven’t been so fortunate and are now soggy sentinels in the fountain’s glowing ripples. I give the lumps a glance of commiseration while plunking down on the thick foam cushion. “It matters a lot, and we both know it.”
Reece lowers next to me and fits one of his large, firm hands around one of mine. “Nothing matters more than you.” He squeezes his long fingers in as the gruff words spill out. “Or more than the heart you’ve given to me.” He turns, dragging me close. “Christ, Emmalina. Nothing.”
I burrow against him, treasuring the haven of his form as the wind whips around us. “Well, my heart is going to be irreparable if those monsters get their hands back on you and start playing electric Parcheesi with your brain.”
“Parcheesi?” His shoulders shake from a chuckle. “Do I want to know where that came from?”
I join him in the mirth, adding a fast shrug. “Family board game night. Used to be a thing, when Lydia and I were kids. ’Dia was damn good at that one too. She’s scary-smart at strategic skills. But that was all before—”
“Before what?” He hasn’t shirked on his attention—and sees the change in me before I even realize it. “Before what, Emmalina?”
A new shrug. Not as carefree this time. “Before everything changed. You know. Dad’s hot job offer. The grand new house. The fancy social life at the country club.”
Which had entailed both Mom and Dad getting really social…
Baggage that’s already been dragged too far out of my closet tonight.
Which also doesn’t escape Reece. Which he also already knows and doesn’t like one damn bit. Which he tells me, in no uncertain terms, by whipping his hold from my hand to my wrist the second I try lurching back to my feet.
“No way, Velvet.” He stresses the endearment, clearly knowing he now can. “You don’t get to stomp off with all your eggs still pretty in the basket after forcing me to break all mine.”
“Forcing you?” Indignation makes it possible to at least gain my feet—though with his grip still locked to me, I have to lean over to spit out the rest. “I haven’t forced a damn thing here, mister. Not tonight, and not in the last three months—which, by the way, is all I’ve asked you the courtesy of being real with me about.”
His lips part. His nostrils flare. “Now I’m just asking the same from you.”
“I have been real.” I finally twist away, pissed to the point it burns my vision, and the bastard sees it with his usual damnable insight. “I’ve given you nothing but my reality!”
He tilts his head. “Oh?”
“My past is not my reality, Reece.”
“Ohhhh, beauty.” A grating chuff. “Who’s the one full of shit now?”
The rage at the edges of my vision, fueled by the fear at its core, becomes a full cloud across my sight. The stuff flows through me like a furious centipede, straight up my arm and into my hand.
Smack.
I slap him so hard, it stings back to my elbow. The pain unlocks my soul’s Pandora’s box, and every emotion I’ve been stuffing there all night—especially since that stupid Parcheesi memory—comes flying out with vengeful glee. I’m hurt. I’m confused. I’m lost.
I’m at the country club mixer, watching Mom flirt with Dr. Evans in one corner and Dad make the moves on Mrs. Whitler in the other.
I’m in the break room at the Brocade, watching Angelique kick the crap out of Reece on a TV monitor.
I’m pushing through a plastic wall within punching distance of that bitch, catching her in the act of making new moony eyes at my man.
And now I’m standing here, whacking the hell out of him myself, letting the tears come because the pain of freeing them is less torturous than the hell of keeping them in. At the same time, I battle to breathe past the weight in my chest, the one that always precedes how I have to cope and deal and resign myself to this whole damn onslaught.
Alone.
Only…I’m not.
Not by a longshot—though the certainty of Reece’s kiss takes a few seconds to blaze past my numb lips and into my whirling mind.
Not that I’m complaining. Not that I don’t slam into him with a soft sob, gripping his neck as I give in to his ruthless pull, letting him kiss me for another ten seconds. Then ten seconds more as he slices his tongue inside my mouth. Then…
Then I don’t care. Seconds, minutes, hours, days. Time is the last damn thing my senses care about as his passion wraps around me, his electricity surges through me, and his embrace finally yanks hard enough at me, demanding my full surrender.
And I tumble.
Figuratively. Literally.
My desire is an upended whirl, my balance a nonexistent mess, as Reece sweeps me back down to the chaise, pushing me all the way against the pile of cushions in the furniture’s protected grotto. There, as devil winds flow over the city around us, my own wicked rogue brings gusts of fire to every enlivened nerve in my body, every racing electron in my brain…every pulsing inch of my pussy.
I writhe and moan, tangling my hands in his hair, watching with amazement as his energy mixes with the wind, making his thick umber strands glow with golden light. The lust in his eyes forms a decadent contrast, his gray pupils turning as silver as a wolf in the moonlight. But the most beautiful color he brings is the deep blue of his fingertips, lapis magic against the stars that seem to dance on the wind above the downtown buildings. With those luminescent points, he grazes down my neck, into the V of my neckline, stealing hot sweeps beneath. Soon, my nipples are tingling and erect for him.
“My beautiful velvet bunny.” He grits it as a promise, kissing me just as deeply and fiercely. When he pulls away to ply the curve of my jaw with his masterful mouth, the fire of his touch permeates my chest, dictating me to give him the rest of the tears in my heart. “Damn. Damn. You drive me so crazy.”
I spurt out a watery laugh. “Yeah. That’s me. The walking, talking, boyfriend-slapping freak show.”
He centers his lips over mine again. “Oh, yeah,” he growls. “But you’re my freak.”