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My heart drops when I shut down all the thoughts of him, denying my mind the chance to play through the scene.
“It was just the club,” I say. “He didn’t know what he was saying.”
“I resent that,” Sutton says, and I shrink a little in my seat at her tone. “Everyone in my club is in the lifestyle, or is being mentored by an experienced member of the community. Emotions may be heightened, especially with the atmosphere I strive to create, but very little happens in my club that isn’t intentional. I have a zero-tolerance policy for mistakes, my members know that, Leo better than most.” She looks me in the eye. “So he wouldn’t open his mouth if he didn’t mean every word.”
She focuses on the road again, a mischievous grin twisting her lips. “The only intentional lying that happens in my den is role play, and I prefer to call that acting.”
I turn her words over in my mind that night, irritated that Leo didn’t show. Again.
I want to trust her, believe she’s right and that he’s distancing himself because this means more to him and he’s worried he’ll scare me away. But what if she’s wrong. What if he doesn’t want me?
He definitely didn’t want that kiss.
So why did he kiss me first?
“Are you sure about this, Ky?” Sutton asks as she studies the letter in her hand.
I don’t hesitate. “Yes,” I say, nodding to one of her messengers. “Do it.”
She hands the envelope to him and he dips his head in respect, hurrying off before I can change my mind.
I wait for the telltale thunk of the front door and meet Sutton’s sharp stare. “He would never agree otherwise.”
“So, you’re using me to manipulate an assassin?” She raises a skeptical brow but her smirk betrays her amusement.
“Enforcer,” I correct.
“He still kills people. He just does it for family now, not money.”
I cock my head as I picture Leo’s face, his hypnotic eyes and wicked mouth filling my mind. Her words should scare me, but they barely register, my thoughts stuck on what Sutton wrote.
I bite my lip and a smile slips free at the idea my plan may work. “I’m not manipulating him,” I say simply. “I’m forcing him to see me as more…more than the lost little girl he found outside a church.” I steel my spine. “I need to know I’m not imagining it—whatever this is between us. And by the end of tonight, I will.”
A fire lights in her eyes. “Then we toast,” she says, fetching a bottle of champagne and two glasses from the bar.
“To what?” I ask, giggling as she pops the cork and pours us both some champagne, not caring that she’s given the rug a drink too.
She shoots me a devilish grin and lifts her glass. “To your first.” She clinks her flute to mine. “You never forget your first.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
DARKSIDE – SAM TINNESZ
Leo
“This came for you, sir,” Diego says, handing the envelope back to me as I slide in the car.
I pop open the wax seal, shaking my head at Sutton’s paranoid communication methods. All the air leaves my lungs when I read the words. The textured paper of Sutton’s stationery crinkles in my grip.
Your girl is doing her first scene tonight.
Center stage at 11.
Thought you might like to watch.
—V
My whole body tenses and it takes me a full minute before my heart rate climbs down enough for the fog of otherworldly rage to clear. I glance at my watch—thirty-five minutes past ten. I clench my fists and breathe deep. “Take me to the club. Subito, Diego.”
