by Tara Leigh
And now, in the cozy quiet of Damon’s bedroom, the truth is making its way into my consciousness just as determinedly as the sunlight peeking around the edges of the blinds.
I now know why Davina didn’t look at all surprised when I told her I would have to temporarily suspend my involvement with The Network—Damon must have already told her. She’d probably already taken my number out of circulation and was just humoring me.
And that’s just the very tip of the iceberg that will either crash into me or stay well beneath the surface of this strange sea I’m navigating.
In Damon’s arms, I allowed myself to be vulnerable. But I am finally realizing the very real danger he poses to my heart. Because I am falling for him. Hard.
And maybe … is it too much to hope that Damon is falling for me, too? He had shown me a part of himself that wasn’t hard and dark, cruel and calculating. He’d been honest and real and yes, even vulnerable.
I might be alone in this room, in this bed, but I am not lonely. For the first time in a long while, hope is my companion. Hope that Damon might be more than just my self-appointed knight in darkly gleaming armor. That maybe he woke up with a smile on his face, too—because of me.
A subtle vibration drumming against my thigh distracts me. Had I been in my own apartment, I would have assumed that I’d left my vibrator in bed and somehow rolled over it.
But I wasn’t in my own bed, and Damon hadn’t used a single toy with me last night.
My cheeks heated at the thought. I certainly wouldn’t be opposed.
Reaching a hand behind me, my fingers close around a phone.
A groan slips from my lips as I glance at it. LYTTON is flashing across the screen in all caps.
He’s the last person I want to talk to right now, but I can’t keep avoiding his calls. Except that when I swipe my thumb over the phone—nothing happens.
What the hell?
I do it again and the vibration stops; the call dropping to voicemail.
And that’s when I realize that I’m not holding my phone.
Damon must have accidentally left his phone in bed. It was how he’d controlled the lighting and the sound system.
A buzz draws my attention to the screen again.
Lytton: Let’s meet.
Lytton: Re: Cruz kid
Lytton: He is a threat that must be eliminated.
Lytton: As per our agreement, additional compensation will apply.
Lytton: Please confirm receipt of this message.
The texts come in fast succession. If they hadn’t, and Chad had written just one, I wouldn’t have been privy to anything beyond the first couple of lines.
I read the sequence of messages, unable to catch my breath as my eyes fly over each word. Cruz kid. Eliminated. Compensation.
Is Chad hiring Damon to kill Sebastián? I read the texts again. And again.
What kind of man did I just spend the night with?
This goes beyond corruption. This is a contract killing.
A man that can take the life of an innocent is a true monster.
I’ve been so preoccupied with concepts of light and dark, truth and lies that I’ve ignored more fundamental ones. Good versus evil. Right versus wrong.
I wrestle free of the covers and lurch to my feet. Damon’s bed is no sanctuary. It is the cruelest of cages. There are no bars, but I’m hemmed in on all sides by deception and greed, and a sinister, calculated wickedness.
I haven’t been protected. I’ve been conned.
Except … that’s not exactly true. Damon did warn me, and his words ring in my ears now, taunting and ominous.
I assure you, my blackened soul will only stain your squeaky-clean hands. My dark will suffocate your light.
I chose not to heed Damon’s warning. I chose to be naïve and foolishly optimistic.
Exactly like the dated Harlequin heroine I dismissed out of mind my first night in Damon’s apartment. What a fool I was—looking at our reflection and thinking that I had all the power, that I was in control.
I was just lying to myself.
And now, I have no one to blame but my own damn self.
The realization is a shove that flings me off a steep cliff. I am not soaring, safe in Damon’s arms. I am falling, frantically clutching at empty air.
Darkness washes over me, thick and stifling.
Damon King isn’t my savior.
And I’m certainly not his.
44
Damon
“How’s Aislinn doing?” I ask the question as soon as our workout is over.
Burke quirks an eyebrow at me. “You need directions to go find her?”
A former Navy SEAL who was dishonorably discharged for nearly killing a fellow soldier—a fellow soldier he caught raping a woman who’d been hiding in the bombed-out building they were searching for Al Qaeda militants—Burke rarely engages in idle chitchat.
“Fuck off. I’m just wondering if she’s opened up to you at all during your sessions.”
“There something wrong with your jaw that you can’t ask her yourself?”
I swipe a towel over my face and glare at him. Had it been anyone else but Burke, I would have punched him before he could finish the question. But we’d punched each other enough for one morning. “I’m asking you.”
He uncaps a water bottle and pours half of it down his throat. “I’m no therapist, boss. When I work with your girl, I work her hard. If she can breathe well enough to shoot the shit, I’m doing a half-ass job. She’s tough though. Tougher than she looks.”
Burke doesn’t have to state the obvious. He doesn’t half-ass anything. It’s why I hired him, and why I’ve entrusted Aislinn’s safely to him.
I nod and chuck my towel into the bamboo laundry bin. “She definitely is.”
I’m almost out the door when Burke speaks up again. “You’ve met your match with that one.”
A chuckle vibrates through my chest as I head for the stairs. “She’s quite the spitfire.”
As I head back to my bedroom, Burke’s words echo in my ears.
My match.
The concept is troublesome. A match would imply … What?
That without her, I am useless. Like a single sock. Or one glove.
Then again, maybe the theory isn’t quite so farfetched.
Maybe it doesn’t go far enough.
When I return to my bedroom Aislinn is standing beside the window, fully dressed, looking out.
Her posture is perfectly straight, her shoulders thrust back, her chin tipped at a regal angle. A princess confined in a high castle, surveying a domain she cannot inhabit.
My queen.
She spins to face me, eyes blazing, cheeks flushed, a frown carved between her eyebrows. My phone is in her hand. “You missed a call from your bestie. Don’t worry though, he followed up with a few texts. Apparently, you have a new job to do.”
I manage to catch the device just before it sails over my head. I glance at the texts. Fucking Lytton. Typical pansy-ass overreacting. “Spying on me now?”
The irony is striking.
I’ve been spying on Aislinn for years. Unlike me, she’s chosen to come right out and admit it.
Her expression tightens as if there is some small part of her that hoped I’d have an explanation for the damning text. A defense.
But I don’t.
“You really are a monster.”
I hold back a wince. “I never said I wasn’t.”
“I’m leaving.”
“The fuck you are.”
Aislinn walks right up to me, her outrage a palpable force pressing against my chest. “King, you said I wasn’t a prisoner here. Either I am, or I’m not.”
Goddamn it. “Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere but here,” she shoots back.
The sheen of unspilled tears glittering in Aislinn’s eyes gives me no choice. I back up a few steps and open the door, barking at the two men in the hall. “Escort Miss Granville to her pa
rent’s home, and don’t take your eyes off her unless you want them gouged from your skull.”
The honeyed scent of Aislinn’s skin taunts me as she stalks past, her head held high.
I could have denied her request but doing so would have chipped away at that beautiful spirit of hers, dimmed her light.
Even so, it takes everything I have not to lunge for my door and grab her. Bring her back here, where she belongs. With me.
Maybe today is exactly the right time to tell Aislinn everything.
Ace Byrne is her biological father.
Finley is her half-sister.
I’ve been watching over her from afar, for years.
The only reason I’m letting her go at all is that I’ve killed three of Cruz’s men in as many days. I ambushed James Granville last night, threatening him directly about not antagonizing Los Muertos rather than going through Lytton as middleman. And I have a team shadowing Seb’s every move.
My men will keep Aislinn safe. I’ll let her cool off for a few hours. And then I’ll head over to her parent’s brownstone myself. Explain Lytton’s texts. Say whatever I need to say.
My hands are stained with the blood of many, many men. But I don’t kill on Lytton’s orders. And I’m not about to kill Cruz’s son.
Not unless he hurts Aislinn, that is.
I yank at my clothes and step into the shower, turning the temperature to cold. My blood is boiling, the last thing I need is hot water.
Letting her go was the right move.
I know this, and yet I still don’t feel good about it. That second sense I gained in prison is going off, the ringing in my ears so loud I can hardly think.
But what choice did I have?
Aislinn’s need for freedom is as great as mine. Greater.
I’ve made it my life’s work to aid women escaping the men who terrorize them. And in that moment, what Aislinn needed from me was her independence.
Even if I will only hunt her down again.
Even if what I gave her was not freedom at all but the mere illusion of it.
I am a monster. The devil to her angel, the panther to her prey. But not even I am willing to snuff the flame of my spitfire.
45
Aislinn
I didn’t expect Damon to back down so easily.
My arm tingles as I flee his bedroom, expecting to feel the grip of his hand as he drags me back inside.
But I make it to the elevator, his two goons following me inside. My anger, thick and bitter, chokes me as I clamp my mouth shut and watch the digital display mark our descent.
It hasn’t receded at all by the time we reach the lobby. In some ways, I am thankful for the heat of my emotion. Clearly, I’ve become complacent. And way too trusting of a man who unashamedly admitted to the darkness within his soul.
I should have believed him.
Damon King might be good in bed—okay, insanely amazing—but I can’t afford to think with my vagina.
Fuck him, fuck his magical cock, and fuck this entire corrupt city. When I get to my parent’s, I’m booking a trip. Somewhere far away from here. Maybe one of those yoga and meditation retreats in Bali or India. I could go hiking in Patagonia. Or take a culinary tour of Italy or France.
I need a break. From Damon. From Chad. From my father.
From men in general.
When I step out of the elevator, Damon’s men are half a step behind. I whirl around with my arms outstretched; I have to bend my elbows not to hit them. “Christ. You two are practically on top of me. Give me some space.”
They do, a few feet. It’s not much, not nearly enough. But at least when I turn around I can’t feel their breath on the back of my neck.
As always, Damon’s car is waiting at the curb. But today, I hesitate in the middle of the sidewalk. I don’t want to sit in a car and crawl through Manhattan traffic. I want to walk.
As much as I would rather be anywhere but here right now, there is an energy to New York that is like nowhere else in the world. It is truly an urban jungle, a place where risk is rewarded and strength comes from struggle.
And I’m struggling right now. I feel betrayed by Damon, duped by Chad, and completely forsaken by my own father.
I feel like an idiot. An unwanted, abandoned, idiot.
Who is falling in love with a killer.
At the last minute, I turn left.
And practically slam into the dog walker and his German shepherds. “Oh, shoot. I’m so sorry.” I bend down to pet one of the dogs. God, they are gorgeous.
That’s it. After I come back from my trip, I’m moving into a new apartment and getting a dog.
Damon and his bodyguards can suck it.
But at least they are standing a respectful distance away. Or maybe they just don’t like dogs. Even more of a reason to get one. Or two.
I lift my head, a question at the tip of my tongue. Dog owners in New York favor small toy breeds. To see three enormous German shepherds together is extremely unusual. They look like the kind of animals used for police work or bred for protection.
I feel a prick in my side just as the man drops the leashes. The dogs take off, numbness stealing through my body. They don’t move as a pack. Each one sprints in a different direction.
Each one attacking a different man. My two guards and the driver standing by the car door.
All of it—the dropped leashes, the lunging dogs, the sting in my side—happens in a blink.
My tongue is thick and uncoordinated in my mouth, completely incapable of the scream that gathers in the back of my throat, unable to escape. I am lifted off my feet and tossed through the open door of the vehicle idling just in front of Damon’s car.
A white van.
I know I’ve been drugged, although it’s the raw, undiluted terror coursing through my veins that makes me lose consciousness.
But not before I have one last thought.
I dared to dance with the devil, to sin with a savage.
And it was worth every excruciating, enthralling moment.
The End
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Throne of Lies!
I
Throne of Lies Excerpt
1
November 2007
Jolie
“I can't believe you and Daddy are making me do this.”
“Jolie, I don't understand your attitude. This is a privilege, not a punishment.” There was a flush on Nina's cheeks that I'd only seen after I came home from school, usually while she was sipping a glass of Rosé. But it wasn't even noon yet, and the patches on her cheeks were from annoyance rather than alcohol. “Do you even know what an honor it is to be chosen? This tradition dates back years.”
I stifled a yawn as Nina launched into yet another history lesson on the origins of the International Debutante Ball. By now I could repeat it, verbatim, in my sleep. Normally, I liked my stepmother, I really did. My own mother died before I was in kindergarten, and Nina was a vast improvement over the revolving door of paid employees that had raised me until a few years ago, when Nina moved in and never left. She was only fifteen years older than me and felt more like an older sister than a stepmother. While that may have bothered others, I enjoyed having someone young and fun to hang around with.
Finally, I interrupted. “You could have at least let me choose my own date. I haven't seen Remington Montgomery in years—I barely even remember him.” I knew I was blaming Nina unfairly, but this entire affair had rubbed me the wrong way. First of all, it was absolutely galling that debutantes didn't have dates, they had ‘escorts’—like we needed someone with a penis to shepherd us through this overhyped snob-fest. And then for my father to insist my escort be the son of his bus
iness partner . . . it made me want to scream.
Not that I had anything against Remington. How could I? We'd only met a handful of times, despite living just a few blocks from each other on Manhattan's Upper East Side our entire lives. But he was a couple of years older than me, maybe three, and we’d always gone to different schools.
“He seems like a lovely boy,” Nina said, her tone measured and clearly intending to soothe, but maddening all the same.
“Well, I hope you recognize him, because I don't know that I will.”
Nina plucked a nonexistent piece of lint from her dress, lips twitching from holding back a bemused smile. “I’m sure everything will work out just fine. Today is only a brunch, Jolie. Maybe I'll sneak you a Mimosa to get you to relax.”
I sent my eyes skyward, a gesture that seemed the most appropriate response to just about anything Nina or my father said these days. “Is that a promise?”
When Nina didn't answer, I sighed and looked out the window. The actual Debutante Ball was still a month away, but today was one of the pre-ball activities. It wasn't called a season for nothing. Besides the Bachelor Brunch, there was the Mother-Daughter Luncheon, Father-Daughter Luncheon, Pre-Ball Cocktail Party, and Post-Ball Reception.
Yes, it really was called the Bachelor Brunch. And no, we weren't contestants in a reality show. Although by this point, it wouldn't have surprised me to come out of this experience with a dowry and a betrothal—or at least a red rose.
Remington Montgomery. The last time I saw him was at some award ceremony a few years ago, honoring our fathers. He'd been tall, that I remembered, mostly because I had a habit of scouring every room for people my height or taller. At seventeen, most boys my age were finally catching up with me, although I said a prayer every night that I would stop growing. I was five-eight and a half, and wanted to keep it that way . . . except my favorite pair of jeans hinted that I'd recently climbed closer to five-nine.
Anyway, that was all I could remember about Remington. He was tall. Or at least, he'd appeared tall back then. Brown hair or blond, surfer-boy cute or gamer-geeky—I hadn't a clue.