My head was spinning with everything that had just happened. How was I meant to take all of this in? My entire body had seized up with terror, and it hurt to even draw breath.
Thaddeus was guiding me towards a building right next door to the club, a place that looked to be falling apart at the seams from the outside. But as he led me in, I saw that it was in good shape—new furniture, freshly waxed floors, newly painted walls. Everything reeked of expense. This must be where he stayed when he wasn’t at the club, though that smoky, scummy place seemed to suit him a lot better than here.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he swept his hand around the place grandly, a shit–eating grin on his face, as though he expected me to swoon into the ground at the realization that he didn’t stay in a total shithole. Well, sorry, but my standards were a little higher than that. I crossed my arms across my chest and leaned up against a wall.
“I’m surprised you can even stand up with the shit that he’s got you on,” Thad remarked, speaking as though I wasn’t even in the room. His patronizing tone made me want to scream, but I knew I had to play it cool, at least until I figured out what I was doing here and why Breaker had been happy to swap me in. I pretended to sway a little where I stood, hoping that I could lull him into a false sense of security. I had no intention of letting him lay a single fucking hand on me, but I did want to know what was going on, and he seemed like the only one with a firm grasp on that.
“Come on, let’s get you up to the bedroom,” he approached me again, sliding an arm around my waist. I fought the urge to pull away from him in disgust, but I knew that what he wanted was someone docile and useless, someone who wasn’t going to fight back under any circumstances. He must have known he was playing with fire. He knew I was a cop, after all. He must have known that I had fighting training, that I could defend myself from almost anything. But yet, here he was, his hands snaking all over my body, his hands straying down my ass and giving it a good squeeze. He let out a small groan of approval as we reached the top of the stairs, and he bundled me into the bedroom. I stumbled convincingly, hoping he was buying my whole drugged–up thing.
Looking around, I noted that we were the only two people in this room. No guards, no staff, not even another woman sleeping off the night before in his bed—just the two of us. Perfect. He didn’t know what he was in for.
He pushed me down on to the bed, and I sat before him quietly, watching as he began to undo the buttons on his pants. A cold shiver brushed over me as he leered at my body, pressing me down so that he could take me all in.
“If I was Breaker, I’d never let another man put a fucking hand on you,” he murmured. “And I’d make sure you were so out of your head you couldn’t so much as get out of my bed…”
He yanked his pants down, and glanced down at the ground so he could step out of them without tripping up. That was all the invitation I needed to strike, and I leapt to my feet at once. He glanced up, just in time to see my fist sailing towards his mouth. He tried to jerk back and away from my hand, but I wasn’t having any of it. I landed the punch squarely on his nose, and he fell to the ground at once, squealing like a stuck pig.
“You fucking bitch!” he snarled, his voice dripping with rage. I bounced a few steps back from him, holding my hands up in front of me to defend myself but he had already clambered a good ten feet away from me. His nose was pouring blood, and if I had to describe what he was doing at that moment in time, I would have gone with “cowering.”
I strode over to him, and caught him by the lapels. He was heavy, so I couldn’t exactly lift him on to his feet, but I dragged his face closer to mine. His nose was clearly broken, and it was letting out a small whistling noise every time he breathed in. It would have been almost comical if it hadn’t been so pathetic. I lifted my fist to land another punch on him, determined to get the information I needed, but he held his hands up protectively over his head and let out a small whimper. I had never seen anything like it in my life: a grown–ass man, the head of some criminal empire, no less, sitting on the floor, gushing blood and trying to scramble away from a woman half his size. I wished I had a camera to capture this moment. Seems like Thaddeus didn’t like his pussy to scratch.
“Please, don’t,” he begged me, as I pulled my fist back to land another shot on him. I left it hanging in the air, the threat of it still very much present.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t,” I snarled. I hovered my fist threateningly over him, letting him know that at any second I could change my mind and send him sprawling with one more strike. How had he gotten this far in business with so little backbone? Had he always just surrounded himself with people who would protect and look after him no matter what? Surely, he would have had to throw a punch at least once in his life. Though, the way he was clutching at his nose and sidling away from me, I wouldn’t have been completely stunned if you’d told me he never had.
“I’ll tell you what Breaker knows,” he shot back quickly, instantly in negotiating mode. Now, here was something he was actually good at. I let my first drop for a moment, but didn’t release my grip on his lapels.
“Keep talking.”
“I told him…about how your father died,” he eyed me carefully, and I felt that dizzy, sick feeling one again, that sensation that seemed to send the floor shifting out from underneath me. But I kept my head in the game, and refocused my eyes on the man in front of me. Now was a chance to get the information I needed from him.
“And?” I pressed him.
“He traded you in for a name,” he went on, his voice slightly indistinct where I’d bashed his nose so hard that it wasn’t sitting straight anymore. “He would have done anything for it, I swear.”
“Including giving me to you?” I muttered, mostly to myself. Thaddeus didn’t answer, looking humiliated.
“If you don’t tell anyone about this, I’ll give you the name too,” he raised his eyebrows at me. Okay, now he had my attention. I leaned back on my heels, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Why should I believe you?” I demanded.
“I don’t give a shit who killed your father,” he snapped back in return, and I raised my fist again. He withdrew, and lowered his voice back to a tone that could at least be mistaken for respectful.
“Look, I’ve got no reason to lie to you,” he reasoned with me. “I just want to get out of here. And besides, it’s not like Breaker isn’t going to tell you, anyway.”
“Just…just fucking tell me who it is,” I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth. I was enjoying having this much power over this piece of shit, but at the same time, I really, really hated that I had to hear this from him. I wanted to be the person who brought down the guy who killed my father. I wanted to pin him to a wall, to make him admit it, and take him in to the station to spend the rest of his disgusting little life locked up in a cell somewhere. Preferably with the entrance cemented over. I hated the fact that I had to get the help of a man like Thaddeus Bane, but needs must when the devil dances on your doorstep.
He took a deep breath before he spoke, examining my expression one more time, obviously trying to figure out if this was the only way out of his predicament. Upon seeing that it was, he finally spoke. For the first time in my life, I heard the name of the person who had killed my father.
“Raven Merlot.”
“What the fuck?” I wrinkled up my nose, confused. “What kind of stripper name is that?”
Thaddeus raised his eyebrows, and I could tell he was reveling in the fact that he had regained at least a little of his power.
“You wouldn’t dare say that to her face,” he shot back at me harshly. “She’s an assassin. And a good one, at that. You’ve probably seen her hanging out around the club. I think she’s jealous of Breaker and you, actually.”
“What the…” I thought back to the woman who had been watching us from the shadows that day as we had made our way out of the club and back to his apartment. Breaker had brushed me off when I had pointed out that she was staring at us, but I had known at once that there was something amiss. That had to be her. I could still remember the way her eyes bored into mine, the way she seemed to get a read on me as soon as she set eyes on me. I wondered how long she’d been watching us from the darkness like that. I wondered how much she knew.
“They used to fuck, Breaker and Raven,” he went on, and I could tell he was taking some kind of twisted pleasure in the fact that he got to be the one to break this news to me. “Oh yeah, they were a pretty hot couple back in the day. If I was him, I’d never have let that piece of ass go…”
I shoved him back down to the ground in one, harsh motion. I didn’t need to hear anymore. I didn’t want to. He collapsed in a heap at my feet, shutting up at once. Every time I felt as though I had a grasp on the situation, someone delivered me a new pile of information and it felt as though everything was spinning out of control again.
I went for the door, and yanked it open. Thad called out to me, his voice small and pathetic from where he was crumpled on the floor.
“Breaker promised me the whole night with you,” he snarled, but there was a weakness to his voice now. I always knew that these kinds of guys were cowards at heart, but I hadn’t expected Thaddeus to reveal himself quite so quickly or quite so pathetically.
“Breaker’s got a lot of explaining to do,” I snapped back, and slammed the door shut behind me. I was sick of the men around me using me like currency, lying to me, back–tracking and trying to make themselves out to be the good guy. And I needed someone to take it out on.