"Agreed," I replied.
"Someone find Hale. I want him to explain to me why he wasn’t at his station," Malice called over his shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed the guards dragging Graves’s body away and the cleanup crew already bleaching the floor.
I smirked. "Hale is probably off trying to meet with Cora," I replied.
Malice’s frown deepened. "Are you sharing evidence or making an assumption based on your own prejudice?"
"I don’t trust him, Malice. He’s never here. Do you even know Hale? Do you know where he goes during his shift here or what he’s doing when you’re not around? This is not the first time he’s been conveniently missing from his post. Not that I’m complaining. I want that man as far away from me as possible." I shook away my nerves and kept speaking. "Something isn’t right about him. You keep waiting for me to tell you about a rat, but I think there’s one right under your nose."
"Unless you have some proper evidence, then—"
"He knew I was going to the bus that day, Malice."
Malice looked around. "We can discuss this later. I know you’re shaken up about what happened here, but let's not throw out blame without proof, okay? Hale is a loyal employee."
I rolled my eyes. Why did no one see what I saw? "Fine."
Malice pressed his lips into a thin line. "I think you owe me something," he said.
I crossed my arms over my chest. The line of people wanting access to the club was growing again, but Malice had me rooted to the spot. "I owe you something?"
"I protected you today. Made sure you were safe."
Of course he’d want a pat on the back for saving me. "I could have handled it," I snapped back. "Even without my shady bodyguard, I would have been fine."
"Right. So no thank-you?" he asked.
"I don’t think your ego needs the stroke," I replied, my voice a sensual rasp. Malice blew out a puff of air and fixed his tie.
"Killing people in the lobby, Nick?" William asked. I hadn’t even heard him approach. In a swift move, my silent stranger wrapped his arms around me and looked me in the eye. "You okay?" William tenderly stroked my cheek.
I wasn’t really sure how I felt. My secret hidden box of shit I was avoiding was getting filled to the brim. "Yeah. I’m good. Guess you don’t need to find Anthony a body after all."
William chuckled. "And I was so looking forward to performing some vigilante justice today."
"Don’t you have some fucking work to do?" Malice shouted, his anger reverberating across the room. William kept his arms wrapped around me. It felt like defiance.
"Don’t you?" William countered.
Malice smiled at an onlooker closing the distance between the three of us. "Me doing my job has never been the problem, brother. Last I checked, it was you who wanted out. Get to fucking work and stop testing my patience, or Anthony will have two bodies to melt tonight."
18
"Close your eyes," Malice whispered, his face shadowed in the dark. "If you see my evil, I’ll have to kill you."
I laughed and laughed. "What a way to die," I replied.
So much blood. Gore. I stepped on a bridge made of skulls to get to him. One step. Two steps. Crunching bones played an anthem of death as I walked.
"Don’t go!" William begged me. I couldn’t see him. My silent stranger watched. He always watched.
"Close your eyes, Juliet."
"Close your eyes…"
I woke up with a gasp. Sweat dripped down my face as I tried to calm my breathing. It was dark in my bedroom. The entire setting felt like an eerie continuation of the nightmare I’d just had. The wind outside my window was howling. If I listened closely, I could hear guards talking to themselves down the hall.
I was supposed to feel safe here, but I didn’t. I wanted to go home.
I ended up riding back with Malice after my shift at work. I wondered if he was trying to keep me from going to the police after what I’d seen or if he had other reasons for wanting me close.
Even though he terrified me, I still felt like watching him murder Graves evened the playing field some. We both had something on each other. Not that I’d ever be able to act on it.
Hale never did show up the rest of my shift. Instead, Malice walked by the hostess stand multiple times throughout the night. He kept watching me with his dark eyes. I thought I was supposed to fly under the radar at Eden's Place, but now I felt like the center of attention. Even Kelsey was treating me differently. She was normally chatty but had kept silent the rest of our shift. I didn’t know if I should address what had happened or not.
I’d slept all day. I was used to working late nights at the diner, but adjusting to Eden's Place and staying at the Civella Mansion was exhausting. It was hard for me to feel safe and sleep soundly while here. I kept expecting Hale to show up or for Malice to decide that he didn’t need his little spy anymore. I tossed and turned most nights, but I guess the exhaustion finally caught up to me.
A knock on the door stopped my thoughts, and I pulled my blankets up to my chin, as if some soft cotton could protect me from the evil living in this home. "Juliet?" Anthony’s muffled voice cut through the thick door.
"Come in," I called out.
He waltzed in wearing a suit that made him look handsome but didn’t quite fit his personality. I much preferred him in jeans, a faded shirt, and beanie. The expression on his face was a mixture of uncertainty and excitement. He kept biting his lip while averting his gaze.
"You sleep well?" he asked.
I yawned. "I had a pretty intense nightmare," I admitted. "I kind of want to go home. I don’t sleep well here."
He stopped staring at the ceiling to look at me and furrowed his brow. "Why haven’t you been sleeping well?"
I smiled politely. "I don’t really feel safe here, Anthony," I admitted. "At any moment, your brother could decide to kill me. Doesn’t exactly make for restful sleep." I didn’t actually believe that Malice wanted to hurt me anymore. If anything, he was going out of his way to prove that I was safe with him. But still Malice seemed to have one of those personalities that flipped on a dime, and I never wanted to end up on his bad side.
Anthony sat down on the mattress at my feet and looked solemnly at me. "He won’t hurt you, Juliet," he said softly. "I promise."
I wasn’t exactly sure if that was a promise he could keep, but I nodded regardless. Anthony might have held his guilt over his brother’s head, but it would only go so far. I wasn’t convinced that Malice cared enough about his family to let Anthony control him like that.
"I heard about what happened at Eden's Place. You want to talk about it?" he then asked.
"Not really. I’m actually pretending it didn’t happen. But it looks like you got your body," I joked. Humor and avoidance tactics were how I was going to survive this crazy world of crime that I was dropped into.
"Nope. That body is all Nick. You kill it, you clean it up."
I gaped at him. "Even the boss has to clean up his own bodies?"