I could imagine his accent, and it gave me shivers and chills. That’s when it hit me—just where the fixation was coming from.
It was coming from Lucian Morelli. He reminded me of Lucian Morelli.
His darkness. His strength. His fierce eyes.
The rawness of Stephen’s voice reminded me of the malice in Lucian’s, just enough to make my tummy flutter, and the thought of his Australian accent was enough to make me tremble.
Yeah. This was about Lucian Morelli.
Tristan nudged me again. “You could talk to hot-guy-Stephen after the gig, maybe? I mean, you can’t touch him, but you can have a good time imagining it.”
I flashed him a scowl. “Yeah, don’t need to keep rubbing it in. I can’t touch him. Fuck life, and fuck my fucking family.”
He looked around us, and I saw the fear in his eyes. “Just as well there’s none of your crowd in here to hear you say that shit.”
I shrugged. “Sometimes I wouldn’t care if they were. I could give them the middle finger before they made me pay for my sins.”
Stephen started up another track, and I felt a wave of tears pricking. I choked them down, because I hated them. I hated ever having to cry.
If only people knew…if only people knew just how much I was suffering like a bad girl, just by trying to be good.
But nobody knew that. Nobody but my mother. My mother and the Power brothers, who were chasing me down for my black market debts—most of them not even mine.
Luckily, clubs and alcohol were friends enough to blank the whole sorry mess from my mind. Speaking of. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I told Tristan and gestured toward the signs overhead.
He rolled his eyes, and there was disapproval in them again as I handed him my beer. He thought I wasn’t headed there for a pee.
And maybe he was right.
I was already in my clutch before I reached the women’s, fingers sifting through my cosmetics to the bottom. There it was. Just what I needed, buried deep inside the satin lining.
My head was already spinning. I wanted to snort back a fresh line. Hell, I needed it.
The Power brothers were nasty, and they were coming for me. Anytime now, they were coming for me. My debts were getting too damn big for them to accept my smiles and promises.
It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if they were coming after my own debts, but they weren’t. They were coming for everyone else’s along with them. A whole sea of gambling and addict debts owed by people I’d met along my own desperate road.
I couldn’t let them die for it. I couldn’t let the Power brothers destroy people I’d come to care about along the way, even if just in passing. Again, just as well I didn’t really care about my own fate. Not about how much I owed and not about how much I’d suffer for it. The Power brothers could take what they liked; I’d be almost glad to say my final goodbyes.
There was another line to wait in before I got into the bathroom stall. The place was filling up, bustling with laughter and chatter and people having a good time. Good for them.
I was desperate for release as I dropped myself down at the side of the toilet, pulling out my bank card and bills along with my stash. I held up the little tin. I opened the lid. White powder stared back at me, promising oblivion.
I wanted a hit, but I didn’t take one.
Somewhere I found the willpower.
With trembling hands I put the lid back on and shoved it into my purse.
Chapter Eight
Lucian
“Lucian Morelli,” I said to the girl at the entrance desk.
“ID, please.”
I handed over my license. My hair was styled in its usual swept-back wave. I felt strange in jeans and boots with a button-up shirt, but I’d stand out like a sore thumb if I’d worn a suit. She gestured me through with a smile, and I nodded my response.
Cyrus Bar was lively for a downtown dive. People stepped aside to let me climb the main stairwell, and I was up and amongst it, into the main bar area. The music was loud, screaming into my ears. I scanned the room, weaving my way through the crowd toward getting served a drink in this hovel, but my pretty blonde prey was nowhere to be seen.
I ordered a mineral water and made my way back to the side of the dancefloor to look around. People were jumping up at the stage, trashed, or tapping their foot to the beat all around the edges, letting out screams. Still, there was no sign of her.
Did I read the calendar entry wrong? Did she change her mind? If she was in the building, I’d have surely seen her from a distance, recognizing the shimmer of blonde curls from a mile away, but no. She was nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t understand why the thought of failure frustrated me so badly. It was a rotten twist in my gut, my heart beating fast as I continued my scanning and mingling. It shouldn’t matter. It would be only a single attempt to track her down, not even worth breaking a sweat over. I had no idea why it felt like so much more.
I’d find her.
Some way, sometime soon, I’d hunt her down and find her. I just hoped damn fucking hard that it would be tonight. I was slavering over the thought of it.
I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to make her beg and shiver and cry.
I’d sipped my way through most of my mineral water when I saw a flash of perfect blonde on the other side of the dancefloor. My stomach did a twist, and the rage burned behind my eyes.
Yes.
Fuck, yes.
I knew it was her, even without a clear view. I knew it by instinct—by the hatred rushing through my veins. Or was that lust? It was getting harder to tell.
I made my way closer, keeping in the shadows.
She was standing next to a tall guy who looked like a hipster. Elaine was close to him, pressed up tight, but I knew he hadn’t laid a single dirty hand on her, not in any way that counted. It was another flash of instinct in my gut.
She was staring up at the stage, gazing at the guy bellowing into the mic up there. Yes, it was Elaine Constantine, but she looked…different. She’d almost have passed for a normal person, for anyone other than a Constantine. Almost.
Her dress was tight, and clearly expensive, but her makeup was…cat-like.
Hot.
Fuck, she was a hot little piece. Even hotter than she’d been at the masked ball.
She was swigging beer from a bottle, chugging it back nice and hard. It reinforced what I already knew—her alcoholic cravings must have been pretty damn desperate for her to be drinking the cheap shit. And there was more.
I only needed to watch her sway to the music to know she was lonely.
I couldn’t get any closer, not without catching her eye. I hovered just out of view, soaking her up as I bristled and boiled, imagining all the things I wanted to do with her.
I wanted to do so much to her that my mouth was watering.
Lust. Hate. Contempt. All of it simmering deep.
Her family had been fighting mine for decades. They’d torn us down once, but never again. We’d all bleed to death before we gave them a single inch of our wealth, or our pride.
I wondered how pretty Elaine Constantine would look with red marks on her perfect skin. I wondered how her eyes would glisten with tears as she stared up into the malice in mine. I wondered how much I could make her pussy stretch for me before she screamed.
It was funny, looking around me at all the people in the room, just how evil a monster I was amongst them. They had no idea such a sadist was in their midst.