I find the nearest bodega, grab the first bottle of water I see and tear off the lid. I slap a twenty on the counter and rush back out. In the nearby alley, I rinse my mouth and spit it out. Rinse and repeat until the bottle is empty. I still taste bile and disgust.

Whiskey. I need whiskey.

Or Lucky.

My mind spins at the second thought. I slow it the fuck down and swipe my hand across my mouth.

No, not Lucky. Whiskey.

The more expensive the better. And I know just where to get it.

I slide back behind the wheel, slam the door shut and stomp my foot on the gas. I arrive at XYNYC half an hour later. The crowd is healthy, especially for a Thursday night. Axel runs the place on a tiered membership system. Platinum members get in on Fridays and Saturdays. Sundays are for gold members. The remaining days are free for all, but with a keen eye on who he lets in the door.

The paparazzi are camped outside as usual. I flick them the finger, guaranteeing them a front tabloid exclusive and make my way inside. I wade through fourth-generation trustfundistas to the bar, ignoring the sly camera phones pointed my way.

The bartender catches my eye and immediately heads my way. “Macallan. Triple. Neat.”

He brings me the drink and I swallow it in one go. I indicate with the glass for another. When he fills it, I take a smaller mouthful, breathe through the burn, and will it to deaden my insides. Only a hint of the numbness returns. I finish the drink and am contemplating a new one, when Axel joins me at the bar.

“You know there’s a better blend reserved for you in your VIP room, right?” he says.

I slam the glass on the counter. “Too far,” I rasp.

Axel is the same height and build as me, so his speculative grey eyes meet mine full on. The shit we’ve both endured means there’s also no fear or hesitation in his eyes as he stars into my soulless ones. After a minute, he looks away. A few women dance close, try to catch his eye. He ignores them and after a minute looks back at me. “That bad, huh?”

I grit my teeth and breathe deep. “Worse.”

“Need any help?”

I shake my head. “It’s done. I have what I need.”

He nods again, but I sense his distraction. When his gaze tracks across the room, I follow it to the woman standing alone at the place reserved for Axel’s guests. She’s leaning against the railing, glass of champagne in one hand. At first sight, she seems to be just one of the many beautiful women enjoying XYNYC’s exclusive atmosphere. But at second glance, I sense her tension, even from across the room. I look past her to the two club bodyguards on either side of the lounge, blocking her exit. “If you need anything else, let me know,” Axel says, without taking his eyes off her.

I glance at him. “Looks like you have your hands full with your own situation that needs taking care off.”

“Yeah,” he growls. “Fucking tell me about it.”

I look back at the woman. She looks familiar, but my brain is too wired to accommodate anything other than the need to dig myself deeper into my abyss, wipe the last two hours from my immediate memory.

“Thanks for the taking care of the other situation,” I say.

He shrugs. “My guy at the DOH says they’ve had a hard-on for that chain of motels for a while. Greasing the right palm just…encouraged them to bump it to the top of their list. All it needed was a phone call and a few of my bodyguards to get the place evacuated.” He flicks a glance at me before the woman commands his attention once more. “Did the right person end up where they needed to be?”

I nod. “Yes.” The thought of Lucky suddenly makes my skin itch in a better way, but the underlying disgust remains from my encounter with Delilah. “Is the apartment occupied right now?”

Axel drags his gaze from the woman. “No, it’s empty.”

“Can I hit your shower?” I ask, aware that my voice is bleeding pure black void.

His eyes narrow. “Sure. Take as much time as you need. Change of clothes in the closet too. I’ll get one of the girls to bring up a bottle.”

I jerk out a nod and head for the side of the bar. I slam my hand against the AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY door and stride to the small elevator tucked in the back. The apartment belongs to the club, so technically it’s half mine, but since Axel spends most of his time in XYNYC, he uses it more than I do.

My clothes come off long before I make it to the shower. I turn the temperature to scalding, scrub myself three times in quick succession. It barely makes a dent. Bile rises again and I throw up. With a hint of unfamiliar desperation, I wrench the knob to freezing cold. The ice settles me and I welcome the shivers that race over my skin.

I’m not sure how long I stand with my hands braced on the shower wall. The knock on the door forces me to switch off the water. Snapping a towel around my waist, I wrench the door open.

The female bartender, dressed in a tight sleeveless black dress stares back at me with wide blue eyes. Both her arms are covered in elaborate ink, and her blue-black hair is cut in drastically sharp angles. She’s pretty, in a pixie sort of way.

“Yes?” I hiss.

Her sharp inhale doesn’t stop her gaze flicking over my body. “Uh, Axel sent me up with a bottle. I knocked on the door a few times, but you didn’t answer…”

I walk past her into the bedroom. The Macallan M is sitting on the silver tray next to an ice bucket and a glass. I pick it up, pull out the cork with my teeth and take a long swig. I turn around. She’s still standing in the bathroom doorway, her eyes telegraphing a look I’m all too familiar with.

Striding to the bedroom door, I kick it hard enough to slam it into the wall. “Thanks for the delivery, sweetheart. Be sure to tell Axel to give you a nice tip from me. But sadly, there’s nothing else on offer tonight.”

She rearranges her features from disappointment to nonchalance, and walks out with her chin in the air. I take another swig, slam the bottle down and head for the closet. I’m tugging a black tee over the borrowed jeans when I hear the ping of a text.

I leave the bedroom and hunt for my discarded clothes. I find the phone on the floor next to the coffee table in the living room and swipe it awake.

The text message produces a reaction that makes me question whether the heart I thought was dead is actually still alive, somewhere in the seething mass of emptiness inside me.

I take a step back and sink into the sofa. Then I read the message again.

You’re in my head, too.

I shouldn’t do it.

The session with Delilah tonight has thrown a bracing perspective on my intended goals. Or rather my goal posts. They need shifting. Fast. Or I risk every plan I’ve put into place over the last ten years unraveling.

Maxwell unofficially announced his intention to run for a second term this morning, partly necessitating my return from South Carolina on Tuesday. I stood next to him and Delilah, dutiful son and stepson, and applauded after his speech at the governor’s mansion in Albany.

The time and place I have etched on my mind is months away. All I need to do is bide my time.

So I shouldn’t do this. Shouldn’t draw Lucky further into this soulless circus. My cracks are wide open, unassailable crevasses. She has no idea what she’s risking if she allows me to see her again.

But… I’m Quinn Blackwood. Selflessness is an alien concept.

I want her. I…need her. She’s mine. Thinking about her makes my body itch for a completely different reason. Besides, contractually, for another seven fucks, she belongs to me.

I own her.

So I dial the number.

The ringing echoes six times, then clicks.

I hear her breathing, but she doesn’t say anything. Not for several seconds. “Uh…hello?” The acute trepidation in her voice reminds me that I’m not the only one with secrets in this game. Whatever demons she’s battling consume her just as mine do.

Common ground feels…good.

“Elly.” Saying her name soothes another layer of the hell circle.

She exhales softly in surprise. “Quinn? I wasn’t expecting you to call.”

“You prefer me to remain in your head?”

“I…no. I mean, all your texts were sent in the middle of the night. I thought I wouldn’t hear from you till later. Not that I expected to hear from you, of course. I mean…” She stumbles to a halt.

I’m lying back on the sofa without realizing I’ve moved. My hand is resting on my, thankfully, no longer roiling stomach. The blackness is still churning, but I no longer want to crawl out of my skin. “Midnight is twenty minutes away. We can continue this conversation then. Will I still be in your head?”

“Umm, maybe,” she answers. I catch a ghost of a smile in her voice. Or it could be in my razed imagination.

“Maybe is not good for me. Keep talking. I prefer not take the chance that I might not be come midnight.”

“Do you like me in your head, Quinn?” she asked softly.

My teeth grit for a second. “More than is good for you.”

A short inhalation. “Why isn’t it good for me?”

I simply laugh.

“Do I amuse you?” Her sexy voice is stiff with growing affront.

“You do a lot of things to me, Elly, and you know it. Isn’t that why you responded to my text? Isn’t that why you’re at the end of the phone right now, when your instincts scream at you to run?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replies. “Why am I in your head?” she blurts.

Because I spent far too many nights when I wasn’t fucking you, watching you sleep. Wanting to drag you into my cracks.

“Because you see me. You know you should be afraid, but you don’t run.”

“Quinn…are you okay?”

Same question, different version of the woman whose last name I don’t even know.

“Tell me your name.”

This time the inhalation is sharper. “What?”

“What’s Elly short for?”

She stays silent for a long time. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she eventually says.

“For you to tell me your name? You don’t think you can trust me?”

She laughs. “The guy who tells me to run? What do you think?”

“I think you shouldn’t trust me. But I want to know anyway. Eleanor.”

“No.”

“Eloise. Ella. Arabella. Petronella. Mariella.”

“No.”

“Hmm, I’m running out of options. Elephant.”

Her husky laugh washes over me. “Wow. Elephant. Really?”

“Tell me. Is Elly even your name?”

Her laughter stops. “Yes,” she says.

“And it’s short for?”

“Why do you want to know, Quinn?” Her voice is just above a murmur.

“I want to see you.”

“No, you don’t. You want me to run.”

I let my eyes drift shut. “I want both.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That word doesn’t exist for me.” Never has, never will.

“It does for me.”

“Then you shouldn’t have called.”

“I can hang up now.”

“You called. That door is shut. There’s no going back from that.”

“And the only way is forward?”

An alien need pounds through me. “Let me see you. Are you done with your thing?”

She hesitates a beat. “No. Not yet.” Her voice has changed. There’s reluctance in there. And excitement.

My cock stirs. “You owe me, Elly.”

She breathes out again. “I know, but this thing I’m doing…it’s complicated.”

“Complicated is if you’re shackled to a wall in a dungeon in an underground castle somewhere in the South China Sea. Are you?”

“No, not exactly.”

“You’re shackled to a wall in a dungeon in New York?”

“I’m not shackled anywhere. But I’m locked into something.”

“Something that prevents you from having dinner with me?”

She gasps. “You want to take me out?”

“I want. You sound surprised.”

“Well, I’ve never been…” She stops. Seconds tick by. “I can’t go to dinner with you, Quinn.”

“On account of those shackles?”

“Something like that.”

My hand travels down to lie on the bulge in my pants. Just hearing her voice makes me hard. “I want to see you.”

She sighs. “Maybe…I can come to your office. Have lunch…?”

“No.”

“Right. Okay.” She sounds hurt.

“No, because I’m not there. And lunch is too short. I want dinner with you.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t say no to me, Elly.” I harden my voice, give her a glimpse of my obsidian heart. “I don’t like it.”

Her breath catches. Silence thrums. “Can you give me half a day? I can’t promise anything, Quinn, but maybe I can work something out?”

Despite the cruel game I’m playing, I’m intrigued. “I can do that.”

“Okay.”

We don’t speak for a minute, but the silence is easier. “Tell me,” I encourage.

“No. You sound better.”

My laughter takes me by surprise. “Better?”

“Yes. Less…anguished.”

Laughter ceases. I open my eyes, stare blankly at the white ceiling. “That’s a shame.”

A huff of surprise. “You’re sorry you’re feeling better?”

“I’m sorry you believe me to be anything but what I am.”

“I…don’t know what that means.”

“Sure, you do,” I respond. “You see me, Elly. Don’t you?”

“I see that you’re in pain,” she whispers. “That for some reason you’re locked into the suffering and choose to stay in it.”

My breath doesn’t catch. My dead heart doesn’t skip a beat. Truth is truth. Truth from Elly is…something else. But I’m not going to examine it right now. “Yes,” I respond simply.

“Why?”

“Ask me why I need breath to exist.”

“Quinn…” Her voice drifts away together with, I suspect, her attempt to understand. “I’m so sorry,” she eventually says.

Then my breath catches. Because in that moment, right then, I’m ablaze with the need to wrap myself in that sympathy, devour it until there’s nothing left.

“Call me tomorrow. Early. And, Elly?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll need a yes.”

I hang up and quickly redial.

“Fionnella, is the apartment ready?”

A deep sigh. “No, you said you wanted it done by morning. Twelve twenty-eight am is not morning.”

“Technically—”

“No. It’s not.” I hear muffled sounds, probably her sitting up in bed. “What’s gotten into you, Quinn?”

Ghosts dance on the ceiling. I squeeze my eyes shut once more. “We need to bring the schedule forward.”

She doesn’t pause a beat. “By how much?”

“Weeks, not months.”

“I can make it happen. But are you sure?” There’s cautious optimism in her voice. But also palpable relief. The end is in sight.

“I’m sure. It’s time.”

“Does this have anything to do with Lucky?”

“Will it matter?”

“Not to me. But will you let it matter to you? Or is that question already redundant?”

“You see too much.”

“Isn’t that why we’re in this thing together? We saw too much, felt too much. And we paid the price. Is that what’s happening with Lucky? Is she—?”

“About the apartment—”

“No. Morning is morning. I’m going back to bed. And Quinn.”

I remain silent.

“You better not do anything stupid.”

I hang up and stand. I root around for my car keys and wallet, then shove the discarded clothes in the trash.

The Mustang isn’t as fast as my DB9, but it still gets me back to my apartment in under half an hour. I go to the second bedroom reserved for Q and pick up the things I need.

The DB9 has me outside the Hell’s Kitchen loft in record time.

I key in the code, disable the alarm and let myself in. A single lamp softly illuminates the living and kitchen area, but upstairs is shrouded in darkness. I adjust the mask, make sure the needle thin wire of the voice distorter is tucked inside my cheek.

On silent feet, I walk up the stairs.

Tomorrow, I’ll have Elly. Tonight, I need Lucky.

Lucky

I’m dreaming that stupid dream again. The one where happiness mocks me with its sheer fucking brilliance. I want to shove it out of the way, skip to the terrifying bits and just be done with it. But no, the death by happiness continues its fucked up play-by-play.

Quinn’s smile.

His voice.

His laughter.

I want you, Elly.

You see me, don’t you?

I begin to reach out. And my wish is granted. His face catches fire. Begins to turn to ash right before my very eyes. I want to recoil, but that means letting him go. I don’t want to let go. I try to cling, but my hand comes away with the blackest soot.

Soot. Everywhere. Climbing up my body, invading my mouth, my ears. My nostrils. I can’t breathe.

I jerk awake with a silent scream.

Then realize the dream isn’t over.

He’s found me. He’s in the room with me.

A louder scream as I launch out of bed. My shin smacks painfully into the bedside table as I scramble backward.

“Don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me, Clay. We…let’s work something out.”

“Lucky—”

“I have money! Four hundred thousand dollars. It’s yours. I can get more. Just give me some time—” Wait. The voice. The smoked cedar aftershave. “Q?” I squeak.

“Lucky.”

The adrenaline high releases me with a gorging whoosh. I stagger from the relief, my hand pressing against my chest to calm my hammering heart. Then the implication of the last minute pounds into me. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I lurch toward the bed again, intent on throwing some light, literally and figuratively on this situation.

“Stay,” he commands with a low, deep voice.

“No, I won’t fucking stay! I’m not your goddamn dog. You can’t creep into my bedroom and scare the living shit out of me, then tell me to stay.”

“My bedroom. My body. My pussy.”

“My sanity. My terror. My fucking cardiac arrest!”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Would you, if I said hell yes?”

“No.”

“Then why bother asking?”

“To make you feel calmer.”

I dig shaking fingers through my hair. “Jesus.”

“Get back into bed, Lucky.”

“Why?”

“So I can make you feel better.”

My breath shudders out as other sensations replace fear and anger. The bombshell I dropped will need addressing. But right now, I see his hulking shape against the wall in the darkness, and I can’t think beyond the fact that he’s here.

He must sense my shifting mood, my building excitement. He detaches himself from the wall. “The bed. Now.”

I haltingly retrace my steps, slide between the still warm sheets. I can’t turn on the lights without permission, so I watch the shadow disrobe. A minute after I get in, he gets into bed with me. One large hand grabs my hips and pulls me into his body.

He’s fully aroused, his cock a solid column between us. I catch the gleam of his beautiful mask as he begins to explore my body.

Fear recedes.

Lust builds.

My sigh contains more than a hint of contentment as he parts my legs and kisses his way down my body. He reaches his destination, throws my legs over his shoulder and precedes to make out with my pussy.

The extreme emotions have me careering toward orgasm in three minutes flat. He licks me clean and prowls up my body. His thick cock finds my core and he rams deep and hard inside me.

“Oh!”

“Feel better?” his electronic voice demands.

“Maybe.”

He rams hard again and strokes in and out a few times. “How about now?”

My hands reach out, tentatively caress his muscular arms. When he doesn’t stop me, I glide my hands up to his broad shoulders. “Y…yes!”

He fucks me till every last shred of fear evaporates. Bending low, I think he’s going to kiss me. Finally. But he leans against my cheek.

“I frightened you. I’m sorry.”

“I…it’s okay.”

“My body. My pussy.”

Laughter startles out of me, despite the climax bearing down on me. “Yeah, champ. I haven’t forgotten.”

He grunts in satisfaction. Fucks me deep. Deeper than ever before. My body is a teeming morass of sensation. But a thought impinges.

“Q?”

“Hmm?”

“No cameras?”

“No. Not tonight. This is for you…for me…for us.”

Well, shit if that doesn’t make my treacherous body sing. Shit if that doesn’t make me come harder than I’ve come in my life.