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He lets out a soft laugh. He’s wearing all black, like he was when he appeared at the end of that alleyway. All in black but for the pallor of his face and hair—a modern plague doctor, more sinister than death itself.
“Let’s talk business,” he says, draping his arm over the back of his couch. His glass sits untouched on the table. I’ve often seen him with alcohol; I’ve never once seen him drink a drop. “I have a proposition for you.”
“Smart women don’t make deals with devils.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not one, then.”
Maybe the insult is intended to distract me. It won’t. Whatever proposition he’s going to make, I can already tell it’s going to be diabolical. I don’t think Luca Fletcher-Lowe is even capable of doing or saying anything that’s not sick and twisted.
But my chances of getting out of here are already slim at best, and they are going to be nonexistent if his guard stays up. Whether or not I want to, I need to play his game if I want to stand a chance of escaping or fake it convincingly at least.
It’s a good thing I’m used to faking it with men. But then again, what woman isn’t?
“Alright.” I reach forward across the table, sending an explosion of pain through my side, and I grab Luca’s untouched glass, draining it in one swig. I put the glass back down next to the coaster, glass crunching on glass, and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Spit it out, then.”
Luca’s proposition is predictablyweird and fucked up.
“You’ve used my club to find men to target for your blackmail racket—for this, I will seek no retribution.” His voice is a low, slow drawl, syllables dragged out. “You might have kept on going to your heart’s content if you’d been a little wiser. Coming for me was a slip-up—your first. You weren’t even on my radar before that night. Drugging me and wounding me was your second slip-up, but your third and final mistake was leaving me alive when I specifically advised you to kill me.”
He speaks with blood-chilling calmness, but the insight he’s giving me into how his broken brain works is worth making a note of.
“I could have forgiven you for the injury—I can’t forgive you for the insult. You underestimated me, Lynch, and I’ll admit, you struck a mortal blow to my ego.Thatis what you’ll be paying for. Everything else, I’m ready to let go of.”
I don’t prompt him to carry on. He’ll spit it out when he’s ready. And at least he’s self-aware enough to realise I hurt his pride more than anything else.
The question is: how much is a rich pervert’s pride worth?
“The deal I’m offering you is simple. You’ll be living here with me for the time being. To the public and the media, you will appear to be my girlfriend. You’ll come and go as you please, of course. I won’t even interfere with your”—he gives a scornful smile—“work. My home will be your home, and you’ll benefit from all the luxuries of my life. Luxuries someone like you could never even dream of.”
“That’smy punishment?” I ask him with a scoff. “Pretend to be your girlfriend? Don’t bullshit me. What are you really getting out of this? You’re not going to force me to fuck you since you can’t fuck.”
Far from wounded by my words, he smirks.
There’s something particularly despicable about Luca Fletcher-Lowe in victory. It’s not arrogance or pride. It’s something else, a sort of execrable self-satisfaction, like a bully who’s successfully tricked the teacher into thinking he’s a little angel. It’s obnoxious as fuck, and I would love nothing more than to smash his face into the corner of his ugly glass table.
“Once a month, every month, at a time of my choosing, I’m going to hunt you.”
There it is. I blink slowly, absorbing it.
“Huntme?”
“This property sits in approximately seven hundred acres of land. You’ll have the house, the grounds, the woods—anywhere on the property. You can run or hide wherever you like. And I’m going to hunt you.”
“Like an animal.”
His smirk widens.
“Give yourself credit. You’re far more entertaining to hunt than an animal.” He gestures with a pristine hand. He has long, slender fingers, and fine blue veins form delicate seams across the skin of his hands. “I’ll even give you an incentive. Five thousand pounds, in cash, if you get away.”
My lips are dry. The alcohol still burns through me, but it’s not enough to push back the distracting waves of pain. My leg, under its bandage, is undoubtedly beyond fucked. Working on it is going to be atrocious, and regardless of whether or not I take Luca’s deal, I’m going to be well and truly fucked for a good long time.
And that’s not even considering the potential of being chased down by Luca like a human fox hunt.
“And if you catch me?” I ask.
“Then I get to do whatever I want to you.”
I let out a mirthless laugh. “Whatever you want, huh?”
