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I leap up from my chair to make an escape. I don’t get so far as a few steps before I’m slammed back into my seat.
My attacker providing cover. He clenches my shoulders within his grip and brushes his lips to my ear. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, DA? Volchok wants to see you. Try something again and I’m going to brand that ass of yours. Give you something real to cry about.”
Lucius strolls across the room as if I’m not a woman captive in his presence. This is a normal occasion for him. He seats himself in the chair across from me with hands folded on the table and an excited grin on his flabby face.
His gaze is no less cold. No less inhumane.
I’m entertainment for him.
Silence stretches on and on. We stare at each other the entire time. I’m not sure what to expect or think looking into the face of evil. The devil who’s taken Salvatore from me.
Just when I begin wondering if he’ll say anything at all, he speaks.
“You fascinate me,” he says. Then he stares for several more seconds, drinking me in. Mild irritation flickers in and out of his face when I don’t accept the compliment and thank him. “You’re the only one who has ever made him feel anything. You know that?”
I blink, my heart racing. “Where’s Salvatore?”
“He’s like a zombie. Even as a fucking kid. Nothing really phased him like it should. You won’t believe the things I did to him. Sure, he’d scream or grunt in pain, but it wasn’t like a normal person… he never begged for mercy. He never asked to live. He just… he let me do it. Whatever I wanted to do to the sick little bastard.”
“Please… I don’t…” I whisper, turning the other cheek. Pain shoots into my heart hearing him brag about the abuse he subjected Salvatore to as a child. I can’t stand to hear the details. Not from him in his proud voice with his evil smirk.
He leans closer, watching me. “It upsets you, does it? You love him, don’t you? And he loves you. That’s what’s so… interesting. You two should’ve been smarter about this. I expected more from Miss District Fucking Attorney. Miss Ernest Fucking Adams’s Daughter. You’re all fucking pathetic.”
Still with my gaze elsewhere, I grit my teeth. “You’re not Volchok.”
“IamVolchok. For all intents and purposes. This cushy club your big, bad daddy belonged to? Guess who he was under all this time?” Lucius laughs, leaning back in his chair. His grubby fingers dig into the pocket of his suit jacket and withdraw a cigar. “I’ve got to admit, the society club might’ve been the best thing Leandro ever did. He started it up way back when. As covert means to connect the goody-goody rich and powerful in the city with the not-so-goody-goody rich and powerful in the city.”
“You mean people on the right side of the law and people on the wrong side. Both corrupt.”
“Just one side hiding in plain sight,” he finishes for me, lighting up his cigar. In seconds, the room fills immediately with the earthy stench of tobacco. He blows smoke across the table at me like I should be honored to choke on his ringlets. “There’s a reason who runs the club has always been kept hush-hush.”
“And the name Volchok? Where does that come in? A fake alias? A made-up figurehead?”
“I assure you, Delphine sweetheart, Volchok was—is—very real, and always has been. The thing is, I own this fucking city. I mean it when I say it. This Neptune shit is more smoke and mirrors. Everybody fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Your daddy too.”
“He knew,” I growl, anger rushing me, leaving me lightheaded. “He always suspected something was up with this vile club.”
Lucius's fat lips twist into a nastier smile. “Devoted daughter to the end. How’s it feel to know your two big protectors failed? They both swore they’d keep you safe. Yet here you are. As vulnerable as ever. I’ve played each one of you like a fiddle. It’s been fucking fantastic.”
“Why?” I choke out. “You had me raped. You came for me that night. Why?”
He laughs, the sound loud and abrasive. “Delphine baby, you’re still not getting it! It’s gotnothingto do with you andeverythingto do with them! You are, and always have been, collateral damage.”
“You knew it would make Salvatore even more protective of me. He’d insist on being in my life again.”
“That’s right.”
“And you knew it’d draw my father out too. He’d vow to do what he didn’t before—back when he gave up and tried to live a quiet life. You knew he’d come for the Society again.”
He husks out another darkly amused laugh. “Bingo, baby girl. None of you understand what kind of fucking games I play. I go deep. I play levels ahead of anything you’re able to comprehend. Every single move you idiots made, I knew you would. The whole fucking time!”
He slams his large hand down on the table in a riot of evil laughter.
A bone-chilling shiver courses through me at the knowledge the last year and a half of our lives have been carefully orchestrated. Maybe even longer. Just what has Lucius done in the past to subtly control things?
Suddenly, I’m questioning everything. Every minute moment.
“You wanted to let Salvatore believe he had a fighting chance,” I whisper.
