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The darkness I’d been floating in slowly faded and I tried to will it back. Once it was gone, I’d have no choice but to wake up and deal with what was happening. I didn’t want to. Things were simpler in the dark, where I couldn’t feel anything. It was easier to lie to myself in that place where I was sheltered, at peace, floating in the abyss with Hunter. When I opened my eyes, he wouldn’t be there, protecting me. I’d be alone, again, left to face the horrors of the world.
Sadly, staying in the darkness was no longer an option. Now I was left with the fuzzy grit of reality. Fuck that noise. Literally. My head pounded like a tiny little man was rocking out on a drum inside my head and my mouth felt like a sea of cotton balls had been shoved into it. Please have clothes on, I silently prayed before making myself pry my eyes open.
When I looked down, I still had on the same anchor print navy shorts and button up white shirt that I’d worn to the club. No buttons on my shirt were askew or missing, and my shorts were still buttoned and zipped. Thank you, Jesus! As strange as it sounded, I was relieved to find myself strapped to a wooden chair. Based on the soreness in my limbs I knew I’d been in this position for a while.
My fingers tingled, and I wiggled them, trying to get the feeling back in my hands as I took in my surroundings. The massive mahogany desk in front of me suggested I was in somebody’s office, yet the rest of the room looked like the library fromBeauty and the Beast. Balls. Where the hell was I?
From behind me, I heard the scuff of a shoe, and I craned my neck, expecting to see the guy who drugged me in front of the club. But the air in my lungs stilled when I got a glimpse of the man walking through the door. He had the same flaxen hair, lean build, and pale blue eyes as Hunter. They could easily pass for each other from a distance, but up close, the differences between the two were unmistakable.
This man tried to hide the danger he posed behind a well-tailored suit and charming smile, but he didn’t fool me. Hunter’s eyes may have lacked his warmth, but this man had a gleam in his that I didn’t trust. It was one I’d seen every day of my life. My father had a cruel streak a mile wide, and I doubted this man was any different.
He walked around the front of the desk and cocked his head to the side, studying me. His stare wasn’t intense like Hunter’s, but the way he angled his head was eerily similar.
“A woman would have to be rather exceptional to hold my psycho brother’s interest for more than a few hours. Yet here you are, plain and wholly unremarkable. How disappointing.”
Great. He was a total douche on top of being cruel. I’d be lying if I said his ten second assessment of me didn’t sting, even if I’d thought the same thing myself. Oh, well, at least he didn’t give off a rape-y vibe. I’d take a grade A sadistic asshole over that any day of the week.
“It’s interesting that you call him a psycho, yet he’s never drugged, kidnapped, or tied me to a chair.”
Balls. I probably shouldn’t have said that.
He chuckled, only it was more disturbing than charming. It reminded me of the evil villains in the cartoons I used to watch as a kid.
“My brother’s gone soft. That doesn’t sound like him at all, not to have at least tied you up. Let me guess, he also lied through his teeth, professing his undying love while holding you close?”
My cheeks heated at the memory of the last time we were together. Now was so not the time to be thinking of mind-blowing orgasms, but where Hunter was concerned, my body seemed to have a mind of its own.
“Not exactly.”
His pale eyes lit with interest as they focused on me, and I instantly regretted my words. Oh, sweet Jesus. In what world did I admit to anything about my sex life? Especially to my lover’s brother, who incidentally, had just abducted me. Though, to be fair, I’d never had a sex life or been kidnapped before, so maybe I was being a little too hard on myself.
“I’m starting to see why my brother finds you so fascinating. It’s been ages since I’ve been able to make one of those insipid country club debutants blush. Yet, even with the rosy cheeks, you don’t seem the slightest bit bothered by my brother’s, how shall I say this delicately.” He put his hand next to his mouth and whispered, “Condition.”
Hunter’s brother had to be the most bizarre human being I’d ever come into contact with. And this was coming from the girl who’d dressed up like the girl fromAvatarlast year for Comicon.
“Pardon me?”
“Poor, dear. Of course, you don’t know. My brother isn’t what you would call normal.”
Insert internal eye roll. Anyone with half a brain already knew this about Hunter. The fake way he said it, though, like we were best girlfriends instead of me being forced to be his captive audience, made me want to punch him in the junk.
“I’m afraid my brother suffers from the same affliction as our father, The Butcher of Chicago.” He shivered, but there was no mistaking that it was all a part of his act. “It’s what made our father able to perform all those atrocities you saw on the news. His inability to feel or process emotion.”
The lack of life behind Hunter’s icy gaze now made perfect sense, but nothing had changed. The fucked-up parts of him would always call to the left over, fucked-up pieces of the girl I’d once been. There would never be anyone else for me, it didn’t matter that Hunter was incapable of loving me back. He was my safety blanket, my person, the one who brought me back from the dead. And I’d always love him for it.
Until now, I hadn’t put a name to it, but it was love. That all-consuming thing took over and made you do dumb shit like fall for a guy who’d never love you back. I’d done the one thing Stella didn’t want me to do. Become her. Only I’d probably never get to tell her we were both in the same canoe, paddling upstream. And that it was totally, unequivocally, worth every second of the pain that would undoubtably follow.
“You’re wrong, you know,” I told him, my voice scratchy with emotion. “They might have had the same condition, but Hunter is nothing like your father.”
“Not that I wouldn’t love to hear you extol my brother’s virtues, the way I had to listen to our father as a boy,” he snarled, his eyes darkening. “But I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut our little chat short. You took longer to wake up than I planned, and I simply can’t take any chances at this late stage of the game.”
Balls. Now I’d gone and pissed this maniac off. As he walked around the other side of the desk and pulled open the top drawer, I contemplated how to recover from my slip up. Get us back to the place where we were before. He would still be a dick, but I stood a better chance of making it out of this alive when he was at least a level-headed dick.
“It’s poetic, really.” My lungs froze in my chest, the air trapped, as I watched the muzzle of a gun emerge from his desk drawer. “That he’ll arrive to find his lady, dead, in the very office he barely escaped from the last time. I apologize for this bit of ugliness between us, and normally I don’t like to get my hands dirty, but good help is so hard to find these days. One minute you think a man is on your side and the next you find out that he’s not.”
“But I digress,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m afraid I really need you bleeding out on the rug when my brother gets here, and from what I understand, he’ll be here shortly.”
He winced. “It’s nothing personal. Just a bit of family business. You understand, don’t you?”
