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“Can I at least find my roommate and say goodbye?” she asks quietly. She’s thinner than the last time I saw her, and underneath the thin layer of makeup, I can see dark circles under her eyes.
“You’re not taking care of yourself,” I point out, closing the distance between us. She steps back until she’s pressed against the wall, but there’s nowhere else for her to go.
“What are you talking about?” she asks, eyes wide.
I look her up and down. “You seem so…”
Breakable. Fragile. A delicate flower trapped in a wolves’ den.
“I’ve lost some weight.”
I nod. “I can see that. And you look exhausted. There’s plenty of food on the jet and a bed for you to sleep on.”
“My roommate,” she says, ignoring what I’ve just said. “Can I see her?”
“No. We’ve already handled your little friends,” Jay answers for me. Her eyes dart to him in alarm. It’s the first time she’s heard his voice. I want to laugh at her reaction.
Jay’s got the deepest fucking voice I’ve ever heard. That was what first made me want to work with him. With his voice, his height, and his menacing demeanor, he scares the shit out of everyone.
But that’s not fear I see in Maya’s face now.
Lust?
There it is. I know that look. She used to look at me that way, but now she’s looking at my friend like she wants him to bang her three ways from Sunday.
No. Fucking. Way.
The only thing that keeps me from pummeling him to the ground is knowing how much he despises her.
He says she makes me too weak, too vulnerable.
I disagree.
I angrily grab her wrist. “Let’s go,” I demand, pulling her along. I grab my mask off the desk and put it back over my face.
The four of us leave the office in silence. Out in the club, the night rages on.Turn Down For Whatby DJ Snake and Lil’ John blasts through the sound system. People dance and drink the night away, indulging in sin—which is precisely why we named the club SIN.
I had no idea Maya lived so close when I first purchased this property. It was just another business venture, another stream of income to keep my billions flowing, but then Jay found her by chance one afternoon, and it all worked out too perfectly.
I look back at her. She’s scanning the dance floor for her friends, but she’ll never find them.
They’re not dead, but we told them they would be if they reported her missing or went snooping around to find her themselves. I had to cough up a lot of money to keep those idiots quiet, especially that girl. She wouldn’t stop crying for two fucking seconds; I wanted to knock her out. But I really wanted to do some damage to that scrawny thing Maya was dancing with. It took everything in me not to smash the security cameras when I saw her with him.
We make our way back through the club to the front doors. Jermaine, the bouncer, holds the door open for us as we exit. Maya is so light as I drag her along behind me.
“As soon as we get on the plane, you’re eating,” I tell her. She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me with an empty expression. My heart tugs. I don’t want her to look at me that way. I want her to want me, to need me, to ache for me like I’ve ached for her for the past year. I want her to remember what we had.
“I’m not hungry,” she finally says, her voice small and quiet as she looks down at her feet. She doesn’t want me to see her cry.
I run my hand along her shoulder, moving her hair out of the way as I trace the edge of her collarbone. “You don’t have a choice, Maya. You’re not allowed to die.”
She sniffles. I pretend not to hear her when she whispers, “I’m already dead.”
Our car finally shows up—my brand-new Escalade that I bought while I was here and will have shipped tomorrow morning—and the driver opens the door for us.
“Get in,” I tell her, pushing her forward.
She climbs into the SUV, my hands on her waist so she doesn’t fall.
