Page 117 of Their Ruthless Sadist

“Zeke?” he asked, the whites of his eyes glowing through the mask. “Zeke Lautner? I’d heard a rumor he was a member here, but I didn’t believe it.”

Okay, this was going too far. I nudged Case away before Matt could launch another question at us. I knew Zeke wasn’t trying to get our attention, but the least we could do was seek him out. It seemed a logical way to get away from the guy who had latched himself to our sides.

Zeke must’ve seen something that bothered him, because as soon as we approached, his mouth turned down in a grimace. “Something wrong?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Just thought we’d check in. See if you needed anything.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Son of a bitch. I spun around to see that Matt had followed us. “Look, man, I—”

“Long time no see, Zeke,” Matt said, his voice deeper than before, his tone holding a condescending edge to it.

Zeke didn’t say a word, and I turned back to see him staring. In an instant, his mask was off, and he was glaring at Matt.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Matt?”

Holy shit.

That wasn’t a hi, how are ya? greeting. In fact, I was pretty sure there was steam coming out of Zeke’s ears. Apparently, they knew each other, and if that was the case, I didn’t think it had ended well. And I suspected this wasn’t one of those one-and-done scenarios where Zeke had beat on him, then dismissed him for someone else to take care of.

“Of all the kink clubs in all the world…” Matt stared at Zeke, leaving the sentence hanging.

I couldn’t breathe for the amount of animosity pouring off Zeke. His back was rigid, his hands fisted at his sides.

Matt glanced over at Case. “For a masochist, you sure don’t have high standards, do you?”

Case spun to face Matt, his chest puffing up as he took a step closer to Matt. “Excuse me?”

I put my hand on Case’s arm to hold him back. The last thing we needed was to throw down in the middle of Dichotomy. That was the fastest way to get booted out of the club. Forever.

Matt glared back at Case, going toe to toe with him. “With a reputation as a hard-core masochist, I’m surprised. That’s all.”

Case’s mask came off, and he inched closer to Matt. “Choose your words carefully,” Case warned. “Because offending my—Zeke—is not somethin’ I’ll tolerate.”

“Your Zeke?” Matt laughed. “Sounds about right. You seem more of the alpha in this relationship. Makes sense considering your Zeke loses that hard outer layer when he falls in love. Has he done that yet? Told you he loves you? Asked you to sleep in his bed? Because that’s where I ended up. All I wanted was a Dom who could stay the course and be true to himself. Turns out, Zeke wasn’t capable of that.” Matt laughed and it had a sickening tone to it. “He ended up wanting more. Love and shit. I mean, come on. What real Sadist says I love you? That shit’s for pussies.”

Holy shit. This dude was delusional. What the fuck was he even talking about?

I turned to ask Zeke that very question, only he wasn’t there. I glanced around the crowded room, but I didn’t see him.

Suddenly, Trent appeared, and Case backed up.

“What’s going on here?” the famous Dom asked. “Why aren’t you wearing a mask?”

Case didn’t respond, simply continued shooting daggers at Matt with his eyes.

“We’re sorry, Master Ramsey,” I said politely. “Case and I were just … going to the locker room.”

Without waiting for Case to argue, I shoved him forward away from Matt.

“Don’t you dare turn around,” I hissed. “Keep moving.”

“Who the fuck does he think he is?” Case snapped. “And who the hell let him in here?”

Those were good questions. Questions I didn’t have answers for.

“Where’s Zeke?” Case asked when we were heading up the stairs.