I forced myself to stay away from her, checking up on the business shit with that tracker beeping in the same place like a lodestone.
That evening I had a dinner with my parents. It would be the perfect time to parade some heiress in front of them, to show my father that he would lose.
But I canceled our evening together. One simple text.
Working tonight. Dinner another day.
I didn’t bother checking the replies. I wasn’t interested in what they had to say.
There was only one thing I was interested in. Elaine Constantine’s calendar. I knew what was brewing for her tonight. Tristan.
I knew where the venue was. Spirit Club—another downtown dive and another shitty Blue Hawk gig with Tristan chasing dick, no doubt.
I didn’t use my chauffeur for the journey this time.
My cab pulled up at Spirit Club when the gig was barely started. I’d known what was coming. This time I needed no guest list pass to get past the doormen, but I did need to go through a security sweep for signs of firearms or weapons. It felt damn fucking strange to be patted down by loser doormen, their hands so damn close to my flesh.
I already knew my plan for being there and found myself a position deep in the shadows at the sidelines, safely out of view of my pretty blonde mouse when she arrived.
It was a good thirty minutes later when I first saw her on the opposite side of the dancefloor, hanging off Tristan’s arm with a smile on her face. The big, bright smile of hers was superficial enough to make me smile. She was flinching every time someone brushed up close, spinning to face them with wide open eyes.
She was scared. Really fucking scared.
My stare was firmly on her as the gig started up and her gaze shot up to the stage. It was that jerk up there again, the brute with a roar of a voice that sounded like shit, only it wasn’t his voice that I hated tonight. It was him.
It was the way my sweet little mouse was staring up at him.
Nothing could deny it, even though she was getting drunk on beer, and gin, and whatever the fuck else Tristan was delivering to her. There was no way to avoid seeing the obvious.
The guy was huge, a trunk of a man with muscles rippling under his metal-loving tee. His hair was dark and slick, and his eyes were as deep as mine were. Almost.
It was enough. Enough for her to want a piece of him. She wanted the asshole on that stage.
I wanted to kill him for it.
It made no sense, not a bit. It should mean fuck all to me whose dick one of the Constantines were chasing after. I should be convinced this was the right location to finish her off, wipe her out and be done with it, never to think about the needy princess again, but I knew it wouldn’t happen.
Jesus Christ, I needed to get a fucking grip.
I shouldn’t be in this damn club, with her damn tracker beeping on my phone. I shouldn’t be anywhere near her. Shouldn’t be thinking about her. Shouldn’t be wanting anything to fucking do with her other than her demise. But still, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop myself.
All through his set she was cheering for the bastard on stage, and all through his set I was gritting my teeth at the sight of it. I was wound up all the more when I caught sight of worse, a whole load fucking worse—the way he looked back across the room at her when he lifted his hands in the air and said his see you later to the crowd. He was gazing after her as hard as she was gazing after him. I could have slit his throat if I hadn’t been barren of blades to slice him up with.
Elaine had on her party girl persona, holding a beer and shaking to the music. The Blue Hawk prick was up next, and she was trashed enough to bop around on the dancefloor, past giving a shit for who the fuck was hunting her down.
She should only dance for me.
Tristan was dancing next to her, both of them leaping around to dickhead’s punk rock shit as I weaved my way closer. She didn’t even know I was looming. Didn’t care.
That only made me want her even more.
I was planning on leaping out and grabbing her as soon as she was off that dancefloor, just as soon as that Hawk prick said his good night to the crowd, but I didn’t get the chance. No sooner had the stage cleared when Tristan took hold of Elaine’s hand and raced her through the doors backstage, and the two of them were gone. Gone and out of sight.
No fucking way. I’d missed my moment.
I should’ve walked away rather than using my name to clear my route to my prey, but I didn’t. I was straight on after her, slamming into the security bouncers as I pushed my way backstage.
“Get off me,” I said, but they didn’t move, just took my arms in theirs and pinned me back against the brickwork.
They should’ve known who I was. They should have seen it in my fucking eyes, but they didn’t. They were fucking fools who fucking didn’t.
“Backstage is off-limits,” the one fool grunted, and I lashed out at him, kneeing him hard enough in the groin to watch him fall.
“I’m Lucian fucking Morelli,” I snarled, with my foot on his chest as he squirmed. “And you’ll let me through backstage or regret it for the rest of your sorry life.”
I knew my name would spread. There was no way word of my attendance at this dive wouldn’t make its way uptown as well as downtown, and it was the last thing I needed, shit from my father on top of the shit from my dinner cancellation.
The doormen weren’t fools enough to challenge me. The guy on the floor kept on squirming, letting out another groan as I planted my boot in his ribs on my way over him. The other guy swung the door backstage wide open, tipping his head down low as I passed.
I paced through, head turning frantically back and forth to find the temptress I was hunting, but I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t hear shit. No backstage voices, or backstage anything down the corridor ahead of me, there was nothing but a round of empty bottles in the dressing room.
That’s when I heard her laughter—just one small breathy sound through the rear door to the parking lot, and the sound of a car door slamming shut.
I caught one glimpse of her in the cab as it pulled away. She was sitting in the back seat next to her brutish prick from onstage, with Tristan and his rock star piled in along with them.
I pulled up the tracker, and then I called a fucking cab.
My Constantine toy didn’t have long left to play with strangers. I was on my way to hunt her down. It was time to claim her once and for all.
Chapter Nineteen
Elaine
“Remind me, baby girl. What’s your name?” the guy asked me in the back seat.
He was Stephen. Stephen. My head was lolling against his shoulder as we drove through the streets. I knew I was tired and tipsy. I knew I shouldn’t be in a car with a strange man, even if he was hot. Even if he reminded me of Lucian.
Especially because he reminded me of Lucian.
“I’m Lainey. Lainey…Marsh.” The lie was to protect him as much as me.
“Lainey Marsh,” he repeated. “I want a piece of your pussy, Lainey.”
I looked at him, illuminated by the flashing lights of the city through the windows. This was wrong. He wasn’t the right man.
Lucian.
Lucian Morelli could never be the right man. There were a million reasons that we didn’t belong together. My dark secrets and his cruelty. But the most compelling reason of all was our last names. The way our families hated each other. Something like that could never be overcome. My mother would never allow it. His parents wouldn’t either. They might be motivated by money, but they had their pride. I could never want him.