Page 11 of Taint My Soul

“Yes.” I answer and swallow hard, but the knot in my stomach doesn’t unravel. If anything, it tightens.

“I’m Cash.” He extends his hand to me, and I take it. “You’ll be fine…” He pushes for my name.

“Mason.”

“You’ll be fine, Mason.” He repeats and sighs. “If there’s anything you need, I’m here and so is she.” He gestures toward the woman getting ready at the makeup table.

“Thanks.” I nod before he walks away.

Shoulders sagging, chest rising for a breath, my fingers tighten and loosen around the mask until I finally lift it to my face. I tie it behind my head and rise to my feet.

I’m not doing this because I want to. But because I have to.

Because I don’t have any other choice.

It’s this, or it’s my brain on the floor of that abandoned warehouse.

As I leave for the private suite on the next floor, I push back every part of me that’d fight this. Because fighting isn’t an option. Not if I’d end up dead. I just have to comply as long as I can until I get what Vincent wants and free myself.

CHAPTER FOUR

SAINT

The outside world of the city I stalk is plain, quiet, but underneath all the normal modern life hassles are secrets. Tons of them. Secrets that have kept the King family together for over a hundred years. Secrets that have become a part of who I am and what I fight for.

What matters most to me is loyalty. Not just surface-level loyalty, but the kind forged in generations of blood.

Kingston City is the place where my family had built a name. We became so powerful that we named the city after ourselves.

As a child, my grandfather taught me one simple rule. Intimacy is weakness, and vulnerability is failure. I am abiding by his doctrine, wielding desire in my thumb, forcing it to surrender to me.

Except time had taught me that he’s right. Because even desire slithers like a venomous snake. It bites. It stings. It penetrates, and it becomes something you can no longer live without.

I have carved this truth into my skin.

Inevitably, desire breeds emotion, which breeds destruction, and destruction will sculpt the downfall of my family’s empire.

An empire built on the strength and blood of my predecessors.

An empire I have given my life for.

An empire that cannot fall under my command.

To keep the power my father passed on to me, I have to bind myself to a vow I will break whilst keeping my sickness locked away in the darkest part of my heart.

No one can know the truth about me.

The forbidden desire that lurks in the shadows with me. That whispers a hiss like a snake that wriggles in the dark part of my soul. That I have hidden from my entire family.

I’m standing outside the most popular club in the city.

The Red Horn Club.

A neon, long, thin red tail with arrow-shaped tip curled around two red horns rests on the top of the building. Inside the club is midnight decadence. The air smells of expensive cologne, smoke, and the faint sweetness of top-shelf liquor. Deep music floats through the space, making the crowded, damp bodies on the dance floor sway to the unmistakable bass beat. Warm, low lighting glows beneath black marble floors, giving the illusion of elegance.

What lies beneath the murk of sin is even more dangerous.

It is where the real deal happens.