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“Noir. I can call a friend and get us on the list. Are we going?”
I was nodding like an idiot to the phone as I hit the FaceTime button and she answered it. Her pink-streaked hair popped into view as I watched her walking out of the morgue.
“Help me figure out what to wear that would piss off an overprotective stalker.”
She flashed me a little smirk.
“I’d ask who, but not important right now. Show me what I’m working with.”
I showed the camera all of my clothing. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that much, but I did have some short skirts and dresses from college, which was all of a lifetime and a few months ago. I’d never truly lived it up.
The scholarships I had required I keep my grades up, and they were the only reason I was able to even get a degree. I needed to break from my mom’s legacy. She and my aunt both had been dancers, and I didn’t mean the ballet kind. Sure, they seemed to keep enough money to keep the lights on, but I wanted more. I wanted to never feel helpless. Hell, I never wanted to feel objectified, and here I was, feeling like my trust for the one person I’d thought was some kind of angel had been spying on me. All my emotional walls felt cracked.
“This one?” I asked as I yanked out a sparkly thing that still had the tags on it. It had the tiniest straps, and I wasn’t sure a bra would even fit in it, but I didn’t care.
“Yes. That’s hot. I’ll be by in an hour to grab you. We can walk from your apartment.”
She hung up, and I was on my own to make myself look hot. Stupid asshole had taken my sanctuary away. This had been my first really nice place ever. It was mine and no one could take it from me. It was in one spot, a home, and no was chasing me. I wanted to make it a forever home. Now? I was going to have to go apartment shopping or something. The idea pissed me off.
I wasn’t going to think about any of that though. I was going to go get drunk and pretend like things were fine like they were this morning, But I needed to get out of here. This is why I wanted dead people in my damn life. They couldn’t creep you out. They were dead.
Cas would be if he didn’t explain himself soon enough.
The dress slipped over my head easily, and I caught my reflection in the mirror. This wasn’t me, and that was exactly what I wanted. I hadn’t been crazy all these years. That’s what was occurring to me. Someone really had been watching me. And maybe it was Cas or maybe it wasn’t, but now knowing I was right actually didn’t make me feel better. I liked my out of touch false reality so much better.
Tonight I would live in a reality I’d never dared to touch. I looked at the mirror and smirked.
“Eat shit, Cas.”
TWELVE
cas
What the fuckhad I been thinking? I hadn’t. Let’s admit to the obvious. Those cameras were meant to stay a secret. They allowed me to live my little fantasy by watching her. Not my finest moment, but aside from my obsession, there was something to protect her from. I just couldn’t catch what.
I still hadn’t figured out what the history had been on her mom, but there was a very real reason she had been hiding, and Rylee’s father wasn’t the only one looking. At least he hadn’t been a problem for Rylee, not that she didn’t seem to attract assholes.
I took a swig of the beer in my hand as I sat at the bar of one of our clubs. We’d taken over many of the clubs and overhauled them for the Spectors over the years. We’d brought the Spectors up from the slums to respectable and hard to fucking ignore. I suppose respectable was subjective, really.
The Ravens and Vipers were in the game still, but even they had some respect for us. Of course, if anyone ever crossed us in a dark alley, I doubted that respect would stop the other from killing. We were all enemies at heart. I just had found a way to make money fast, and I had just enough crazy to have no problem taking what I wanted from there.
Gran had been proud the day X, Zeid, and I had finally gotten rid of the rot in the ranks. Looking around this place, I should be just as proud now, but at the end of the day, I’d failed at the one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about. Rylee had come back, and she was the one fucking weakness I’d never seen coming. Fuck. I’d thought the little crush I’d felt for her all these years had been all it was. She’d been a scared little teen, and me? I’d been caught between having to grow up or become a statistic.
But something had always been there, and I’d always wanted to protect her, but that had grown over the years of watching her. I’d become obsessed, and the only thing controlling a need for someone I knew I couldn’t or shouldn’t have was keeping the threats at bay. My hands itched to touch her, but instead, I’d nearly murdered someone at the gym. He’d deserved it, but I had always been the one to conceal the rage. The art. It had always been the way to give me a space that was just mine.
I took another pull of the beer. It gave me some odd pride that she’d kept the ring. I’d never seen it, not after the blood had soaked her hands and she’d been in shock that night all those years ago. But now I knew. She’d kept it hidden on her. And thankfully, because of some dumbass thing I’d made, she’d been able to escape my kind.
Until she came back. And fuck if I didn’t like it. It was much easier to control her on my turf. I controlled who she met. I controlled where she lived. I smiled to myself. I was pretty sure I controlled her orgasms too. Fuck if she didn’t look delicious even in the tiny little image of the camera. Fuck it, that wasn’t why I was here.
X’s huge hand landed on my shoulder.
“Hey there, grumpy sunshine.”
I grunted at him. He didn’t deserve a response to that shit.
“Yeah. Case in point. Anyway. The details are final, and the fights scheduled for tomorrow night,” X said as I fought to checkmy phone one more fucking time. She was still in the damn bathroom last I checked. Fuck, it had just been too impossible to ignore her earlier. I wanted to be the one between her legs making her scream, and instead, I had to run out of the damn gym to call her. It had saved the dumb-shit I’d been using as my practice punching bag.
“Did Zeid get a deal with the suppliers?”
