Page 38 of Carry Your Debt

“You wanna hear how Daddy Grayson had her riding my face, right there on the kitchen counter, do you?” he teases his fellow Enforcer, acting out the scene with hands and tongue in true showman fashion.

“How feral he was at the sight of her dripping down my chin? How he just fucking snapped and fucked our babygirl’s brains out—clean through the back of her skull?” He’s biting his lip as he mimes a head explosion.

“Lord have mercy,” Knox whispers, and everything below my waistline clenches like the steel cage of my bodice at the memory.

Lord have mercy, indeed.

“Or maybe you wanna hear how he put me back on my knees and had me clean the two of them off his very long…very thick…and very veiny…cock,” Dio drawls, really just rolling that last word around on his tongue for added effect.

Our deputy Enforcer dramatically crosses himself. “I just knew he’d be a Dom. Too much Daddy energy,” he says, shaking his head. He leans back in. “Tell me, is he cut?”

“Cut,” D purrs with a lazy nod while stretching an equally languid forearm across the back of my chair.

“Jesus, fuck,” Zeus grunts from my other side, and I almost snort aloud at the sound of his exasperation. “I also wax, Morales. Since we’re apparently dissecting my every inch right now.”

Dio chuckles. “Of which I can confirm he has a good eigh—” His playful words cut off as he spots the four men now bearing down on our table. His arm immediately drops away, all humor gone.

Knox doesn’t bother turning to see where we’re looking—the stiff postures along our side of the table tell him everything he needs to know. In an instant, he too switches gears from Tea Drinker back to Underworld Enforcer.

Tendrils of dread begin to writhe low in my gut as we silently track their approach.

Game faces, ladies.

The poor hostess escorting the Gray Man and his Councillors to their seats looks like she’s on the verge of passing out. Since our seating plan puts the Seniors furthest from the door, their path leads them directly past our table. Of course, Sebastian views that as the perfect opportunity to stop and spike the heart rates of his favorite Junior Officers-in-exile.

Even after this many weeks apart, his domineering presence still feels both as familiar and as suffocating as ever. The dark blue eyes that bore into each of us are like ice spears, reminding me of those parts of the ocean so deep no light from the surface can reach them.

Sub-zero and unforgiving.

Next to him, his Second-in-Command Dominic Licata, 49, and the rest of their Council are about as intimidating as the Concordia agents lined up along the edges of the dining hall.

Which is to say: not at all.

Nobody dares breathe as we wait for one of them to break the taut silence between us. It’s Sebastian who finally does, but only after we spend an eon pinned beneath that cold, calculating gaze.

“Jackson. Sabine.” His tone is perfectly neutral, and in true Gray Man fashion, he completely ignores the rest of his Juniors. The Concordia employee takes that as her cue to escape.

I know there’s no way he’d compromise his prized asset by addressing me as the Librarian so publicly—but to my ears our given names still sound like war drums.

The beginning of the end.

A death knell.

Suddenly my throat’s developed a very real craving for a glass of ice water.

“Father,” Zeus acknowledges him, just as evenly, somehow also managing a respectful tip of the chin.

“Sir,” I croak.

He passes a considering look across the men seated around our table before zeroing back in on me. “Join me for dinner, won’t you.”

It’s not an invitation.

Invitations come with the right of refusal.

RSVP: Dearest Gray Man, I must respectfully decline on account of a sudden case of watery bowels.

It’s also only tossed in my direction. Fuck.