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A plague.
If this were a movie, there’d be lightning crackling around him and thunder booming with his every step. Movie or not, actually, I’m almost surprised Deimos hasn’t subverted every single law of physics and chemistry in order to make that happen anyway.
His dark eyes spark with viciousness. But it’s the glee mixed with it that truly sets my nerves jangling. I shrink under his gaze. And yet, at the same time…
God help me, I’m sizzling under it, too.
Some things never change.
“What is this?” I manage to croak, after what feels like an eternity of silence.
The corners of his perfect, devilish lips curl cruelly. “Thisis you getting in on the ground floor of afantasticnew business opportunity, Dahlia.”
My throat bobs up and down as I try to swallow the thick lump caught in it. My tongue drags across the back of my teeth as my brain tries to form words, even as I’m weighing if it’s even wise to speak.
“Do you like our offices?” he murmurs with all the sincerity of a punchline. “I thought midtown might be a bit overdone. But, well, appearances are everything in this world, aren’t they.”
“Whatisthis,” I mutter again.
A prank? A sick joke? Fucking with me for the sake of fucking with me? Or something much worse? Maybe it’s part of something much crueler this psychotic monster has in store for me.
Because heispsychotic. I know that now.
Before, when we were at Knightsblood, I—and, I assume, everyone else—chalked Deimos’ unnerving, scary, and at times downright cruel disposition up to him being a narcissistic mafia prince with anger issues. Like, well,mostrich and powerful mafia princes, which is to say most of the student body at Knightsblood.
But over the years, as I’ve thought about it—so much more than I ever should have—and rehashed those encounters and considered his mannerisms over and over, I realized there was much more to it than just a rich kid with a chip on his shoulder and a penchant for deviousness.
Deimos isn’t just twisted. He’sunhinged.
He always came off as smart. But then there’d be these little glimpses that you got, where you realized he wasn’t just smart, he wasreally, reallyfucking smart. And even smarter, knowing to hide it a little. Calculating like a machine, and ruthless to a fault. Vengeful, too. It was only years after I’d left Knightsblood that I realized Deimos’ penchant for—if not obsession with—revenge wasn’t just a mafia tough guy act.
It was a compulsion. A hunger he needed to feed.
Ordinary bullies and tyrants use brute force and cruelty as a shield to hide their insecurities and fears.
Deimos? He has no insecurities. There’s no fear inside of him. He behaved the way he did because heenjoyed it.
And apparently, he still does.
“Deimos—”
“Judging from your dramatic entrance, I assume you’ve spoken to Bethany Pietro by now?”
I can’t even speak. I can only glare at him and hope that my gaze will ignite him into a column of fire.
“Dahlia, we’ve established already that you’re not, in fact, a mute. Is it more head trauma?”
“You bastard—”
“I prefer the termboss.”
I swallow, flinching as the word rasps from his lips.
“As Bethany I’m sure explained, I now own Roy Holdings Limited, in its entirety.” He winks at me. “But don’t change that channel, viewers, it gets better.”
My veins turn to ice.
“What have you done?”
