Page 24 of The Monster and the Masochist

“I don’t think luck has anything to do with it, Theodora. Are you following me?”

She knew just how to get under my skin.

The thing about Theo was that she never did anything overtly rude or awful to me. It was always death by a thousand papercuts with her.

It was like she knew exactly where my buttons were, and she took great pleasure in lighting them up like Buddy the freaking Elf when he rode an elevator for the first time.

Calling me princess was one of them. Always implying that I was some helpless damsel in distress when I had spent my entire life destroying the things that tried to hurt me.

It was insulting.

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, and her lip twitched.

“What should I call you then?” she purred, taking a sip of her drink, her dark eyes shone in the warm glow of the ambient lighting. “Beautiful? Gorgeous? I’m also partial to baby girl.”

I wrinkled my nose at her.

“That’s infantilizing, and you know it.”

She frowned slightly, and for once, she wasn’t looking at me like she thought I was some stupid prissy girl who couldn’t take care of herself. She was looking at me like she cared that she’d upset me.

“Is that what you think I’m doing, Cassandra?” she asked softly, and I shivered as her raspy voice seemed to dance and play across my skin like a living thing. “You think I’m infantilizing you?”

Gritting my teeth against the confusing swirl of emotion she always seemed to draw out of me, I tried to hold my ground.

“I don’t know what you’re doing. Why are you here? How did you even get in here? This is a private event.”

Theo’s gaze darted across the bar to the woman she’d been flirting with all night.

The bartender was watching us with a small frown on her face, her eyes darting back and forth between us like she was trying to figure out what we meant to each other.

“Friends in high places,” Theo said, winking at the bartender who blushed like a little schoolgirl.

I wanted to scream.

Slowly, I turned my attention to the bartender, and her face immediately blanched at the look on my face.

Don’t look at my masochist like that, you little fuck.

The violent storm of anger that had maintained permanent residence in my chest since the first time my mother had told me she hated me kicked up to Chernobyl levels.

I knew it was bleeding out of the cage I normally kept it in, but this random chick was staring at Theo like she was hers, and she just fucking wasn’t.

Turning my back on the bartender and focusing my attention on the woman who seemed determined to make me kill a bitch tonight, I growled.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t invite you. How did you even know about this?”

She cocked her head to the side, and if I didn’t know any better, I would say her expression softened.

“Your brother told me you would be here, but I’ve been following your big case. I wanted to congratulate you in person, since you can’t be bothered to answer any of my texts.”

This surprised me. I knew the case had gone viral online, but as far as I knew, Theo didn’t even have an Instagram account. Maybe she’d seen it on the news? Either way, it didn’t matter.

“You came all the way downtown, got dressed up, and broke into a private event, just to congratulate me?” I scoffed in disbelief, and she shrugged, finishing off her drink and dropping the empty glass on the bar.

“Among other things. Haven’t heard from you in a while. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

I blinked, faltering slightly in my rampage at just how sweet that was.