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His tongue darts out to moisten his lips. I imagine they must be as dry and numb as mine. That’s on him, truly. All he had to do was kiss me on the mouth—he’s the one that went ahead and decided to bite my lip off and suck in all that soproxin. I would offer him a quick swipe of my lip balm if I didn’t find him more repulsive than a skinless snake.
He speaks just as I turn to leave.
“It would be unwise for you to leave me here alive.”
I pause for a moment, frozen in half-step.
Bringing Luca Fletcher-Lowe back to my hotel was a risk, but the reward would have been worth it. His family are rich beyond belief, well-connected, darlings of high society. Luca himself,being the dubious king of the den of iniquity that is CHOKE, probably sits on a dragon’s hoard of information.
Blackmailing Luca could’ve been a clean operation: I don’t want anything from him but information. I wouldn’t have asked for a penny out of him. All I would’ve done is leverage the secret of his broken dick in exchange for the one thing I truly want: finding Richard Thornton.
But this? Throwingdeathon the agenda, just like that?
I turn back around.
“Say that again.”
His smirk widens. “I said: it would be unwise to leave me here alive.”
“You think I shouldkillyou?”
“Iknowyou should kill me.”
I move quickly. Pulling the penknife out of my purse, I flick it open, climb back onto Luca’s lap and dig the point of my knife under his jaw, hard enough to force his head back against the headboard, hard enough to draw a red pearl of blood.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I ask him, my voice low with scorn. “You sick fuck.”
“I really would.” He licks his lips again, a sickly glint in his dead grey eyes. “Go on. Try. It might get my dick hard at last.”
I laugh, more in disgust than anything else. Credit where credit is due: broken dick or not, he must have some balls on him to sit here completely naked and crack jokes with my knife tip cutting into his pulse.
Whether this is a veiled threat or a genuine plea, I don’t care. I’m not going to do his dirty work for him.
Because that’s exactly what killing him would be.
Dirty work.
I climb off him, pulling my knife away from his neck and wiping the bloodied tip against his shoulder. “Get someone else to put you out of your misery.”
“I’m not asking you for a favour,Sasha,” he says, spitting out my name like it’s rotten meat between his teeth. “I’m giving you valuable advice. It’s inyourinterest to not leave me alive.”
I tilt my head. “Is it really?”
“Yes. If you do, I’m going to spend the rest of my life hunting you down like an animal.”
“Oh!” I laugh out loud. It’s nice to see that I’ve not put out the fire in him. The toothless snake rears its head even though it’s incapable of harming its foe, and that’s something you have to admire. “And what’ll you do once you catch me?”
“Make you regret not killing me when you had the chance.”
“You might, Luca, but you’d have to catch me first, and I wish you the best of luck with that. Trust me when I tell you I’ve survived worse predators than you before.”
His expression remains pleasantly devoid of emotion, the hint of a smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth. His lips are surprisingly pink, surprisingly full—beautiful lips that should make him a far better kisser than he actually is.
“No,” he tells me in a thoughtful voice. “You haven’t.”
“Well, I suppose we’ll find out. I’m not going to kill you, Luca. I’m going to walk out and keep living my life. You can try to hunt me down if you like, and in case you forget, here. Why don’t I give you something to remember me by?”
I slash him across the chest. It’s pure impulse—I wasn’t planning to. He doesn’t even flinch; no noise escapes his lips. He looks down at his chest, where a red line blooms open, seeping red droplets like tiny rubies across his marble-white chest.
