Such bravado. I chuckle. “All right then, how do you know it works?”
“I just know. Do we have a deal? Yes or no, King.”
That sounds like something I might say, so I appreciate it. “I confess I am intrigued; therefore I will say yes. However, I should warn you that welshers are shown no mercy. If you do not deliver, for any reason, you will belong to me, and I won’t be kind.”
The woman freezes.
Ah, there it is. Fear. My black heart tingles with delight. Now we are getting somewhere.
“I won’t back out,” she says. “And the ring will work.”
“Very good.” I slide a card from the inside pocket of my coat and hand it over. “Be here tomorrow night at eight. I’m throwing a dinner party.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“I’m a busy man. You want me to find your missing husband, then we work when and where I say. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.” Of course, that’s a complete lie. I have no intention of helping her, but she will most certainly be useful to me. In fact, she’s exactly what I’ve been needing. Saves me the trouble of having to kill my brother’s woman. For now.
She nods in compliance.
“Very good. And don’t be late. Ever.” I return to my car, close the door, and restart the engine, realizing that she’s simply standing there staring at me and that I’ve forgotten something.
I lower the window. “What’s your name?”
She suddenly looks like someone has punched her in the stomach—a pained stillness in her face, and shoulders hunched forward like she wants to be sick. I’m guessing it’s all sinking in. Yes, sweetheart, you’ve just made a deal with the devil. Actually, I’m worse. A thousand times over. There is no divine creation in my past. No possibility of regaining my wings. I am the sort of man who makes this world a horrible place to live in.
Not even death dares to fuck with me.
I look at the little woman, wondering what the hell she’s waiting for. “Well?”
“Mia. My name is Mia Turner.”
CHAPTER TWO
MIA
This can’t be happening. I walked away from King, heading down the dark alley, feeling his soulless eyes burning through me until I turned the corner. Those eyes, once a stunning blue filled with vitality, were now a cold pale gray. His heart, once loyal and protective, had turned cruel and greedy. Everything else looked the same, however. Tall, lean muscled frame draped in a power suit. Jet black hair and dark thick lashes. An elegant, handsome man that screamed old-world money.
A monster in sheep’s clothing.
Once out of sight, I doubled over, trying not to throw up. Whatever had happened to King made him darker, more sinister than ever, and it broke my fucking heart.
My breathing barely under control, I forced myself upright and slid my phone from my coat pocket to call the only person in the world I trusted: Mack.
It rang less than a second before I heard that deep familiar voice.
“I found him, and you were right.” My voice came out shaky. “It’s not him anymore. Or it is him, but something’s happened. What’s going on, Mack? Please tell me you know.”
“Breathe, Mia. I can’t understand you. And why the fuck did you go and see him? I told you he’s dangerous.”
Being King’s twin brother, Mack would know. Less than a week ago, King had paid Mack and his fiancée a visit. The message was simple: “Stay the fuck out of my way, or I will kill you.”
Mack wanted to dismantle 10 Club—the most vile, twisted group of people on the planet. Apparently, King didn’t like that idea. Not entirely shocking for many complicated reasons, except for one small fact: King died. I’d been mourning him for days, trying to make sense of the pain.
And now he’s back.
I was here in San Francisco because I had to see it with my own eyes. How had he done it? To the touch he felt warm and solid. It even smelled like him, but I could tell he wasn’t really alive. Not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway.
“What happened, Mack? And why does King remember you but not me?”
“I don’t have a damned clue, Mia.”
“So what are we going to do?” I asked.
“I know you love my brother, but—”
“No, don’t say it. Don’t you dare talk about love, Mack. Not after what he did to me.” I squeezed my lids tight, but the tears came out anyway, mixing with the raindrops on my cheeks.
No. Don’t cry. You’re done with all that, I told myself.
I ran the back of my hand under my eyes, trying to see straight, think straight, breathe straight. King had been the love of my life. Or so I’d thought until he traded my happiness and heart to save Mack.
Yes. He chose his brother’s life over his own and over being with me.
No, I wasn’t being petty. No one could ever accuse me of that after everything I’d been through for King.
Having lost my own brother over a year ago, part of me understood King’s choice. The other part never would because the fact remained that this wasn’t the first time King had died. Nope. He’d died long ago, trying to save his people. He’d then spent the next three thousand as a cursed, dark, disembodied soul trying to come back. All the while, he learned how to fool the living into thinking he was alive. The man had powers that defied every rule of the universe.
And when the opportunity presented itself to me—to bring back a life—I had to choose. My brother or King.
I chose King.
I gave him that life! Me. I traded a piece of my soul for it, goddammit. For as long as I lived, my parents and I would mourn my brother, Justin. And for what?
After I heard that King had traded his life away and that the nature of his death would prevent him from ever returning, I’d been beyond consoling. I couldn’t believe that someone so strong would ever die or that he would leave me without answers. Then his mark faded—a K he’d tattooed on my wrist that connected us physically and mentally.
He was gone. Really gone. And I was broken.
Mack lowered his voice. “I understand what you went through when he died, but whoever he is now, he’s beyond our reach, Mia. And this is bigger than you, him, or me. He has to go. Otherwise my plan to dismantle 10 Club falls apart. I’m sorry, but there’s no other choice.”
I cleared my throat. “I think you misunderstood. You can send that fucker back to hell or wherever he came from, but not until I get what I want.”
A prolonged silence marked Mack’s surprise. “What do you want?”
“I want him to remember me so when I help you end him, he knows he was betrayed by the brother he sacrificed everything for and by the woman he lied to.”
“You can’t make this about revenge,” he said. “You and I and anyone connected to us will never be safe as long as 10 Club is around.”
I wasn’t afraid of them, but Mack’s perspective came from a different place. He’d been one of those slaves. He still had nightmares of the things his “owner” did to him.
“Mack,” I said firmly, “I agree. They need to go away. But what about me? What about my justice?”
He grumbled a curse. “I won’t allow you to risk your life because you’re hurt or angry and not thinking straight. King has to die as quickly as possible.”
Hurt and angry? No. I was fucking livid. I was dementedly pissed off. And yes, I was definitely not thinking straight. I was out of my goddamned fuming mind.
I ran my hand over my rain-drenched hair, shivering with a gust of icy, wet wind. I needed to get to my car—an airport rental—but with my head filled with so much chaos, I couldn’t quite remember where the hell I’d left it or what the damned car looked like. Everything from the point where I’d received the phone call at home, about King being back, to the point when I saw him just now, all felt like a bad acid trip. Not that I would know, but I imagined.
My bad trip is still going… “Okay. And then what? What happens when you kill King?” I asked.
&n
bsp; “I pretend to be him, take his place, and kill off the members. All I need are names, which King might have hidden somewhere since he manages the club’s money.”
I wondered how Mack could be so strategic yet casual about killing his brother. The two were connected in ways I couldn’t begin to understand. My best guess was that Mack didn’t truly believe it would ever be over for King. He’d come back twice now. Perhaps he’d come back again after Mack had taken care of 10 Club.
“All I’m asking is to give me a week. Just one week,” I said.
“To do what?”
“I want to make him remember. I want to know why…” I couldn’t finish my sentence without feeling like a broken, pathetic woman scorned even if my emotions were justified.
“For fuck’s sake, Mia,” he growled, “he will kill you if you so much as bat an eyelash the wrong way or displease him. That man is not King. He is not my brother. He is the fucking devil.”
“You don’t know what he is, and you have no right to tell me what to do.”
Mack drew a steady breath and let it out with a loud groan. “Is there anything I can say to keep you away from him?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll give you a week, but there’s one condition.”
“What?”
“I need you to get into his warehouse and find lot ninety-four.”
Oh, God. Not the warehouse. Bad, bad things lived inside that three-story building, and they would eat you alive if you were not welcome.
“What’s lot ninety-four?” I asked.
“I don’t exactly know.”
A hard, ice-cold shiver rippled through the deepest layers of my skin. He was lying. I could feel it. Why would Mack lie? I trusted Mack, and now he didn’t trust me?
I swallowed back my anger, realizing I was all on my own.
He continued, “It’s something King mentioned once in passing. I’m hoping I can use it to put an end to 10 Club.”
More lies. I could hear it in his voice.
“Sure. I’ll do what I can,” I lied, thinking I might try to get the mystery object du jour but would refrain from handing it over. If Mack wasn’t coming clean with me, it was for a reason—our interests conflicted. And it didn’t matter if Mack loved me. He was stubborn, just like his brother, and he always did what he thought was best. “I might need more than a week, though. King doesn’t know me, so he’s not just going to give me the keys.”
“One week, Mia.”
“It might not be possible.”
“You seduced him once. Do it again.”
Seduce King? I pinched the bridge of my nose. This version was far more evil and cruel than the man I once knew who had been cursed, dead, and searching for salvation. Even then, when he’d lived in pain for so long, there had been good inside him, fighting to stay alive. That was the piece of him I fell in love with, and it was gone now. I couldn’t fathom trying to fake my lust, and even if I could, he’d see right through me. The best I could manage would be to mask my rage and keep my true feelings hidden.
“I’ll figure it out some other way,” I said.
“You always do. Call me in a few days with an update. And be careful, Mia. I can’t be there to save you.”
The call ended, and I refrained from tearing out my hair or yelling at the top of my lungs. Instead, I laughed with bitterness and looked up at the dark sky, letting the rain rinse the salty tears from my freezing face.
How could I pull this off? Because hell would freeze over before I allowed King to touch me again. I’d rather die than look into those hypnotic gray eyes that were once a sparkling blue when he was alive. I would do everything in my power to keep my sentimental emotions—the searing lust I once had, the profound love and trust we’d shared—under lock and key. I would have to play this another way: Beat him at his own game.
And this time, I knew his tricks. After all, I was his wife.
CHAPTER THREE
I had been to this home only once prior to King having it remodeled. Not because King hadn’t invited me, but because he’d owned it for over two hundred years and to say the house had an unsettling vibe was a giant sugarcoated understatement.
Why?
It’s difficult to explain, but before I met King, I was a twenty-five-year-old marketing manager who never quite fit in. Don’t get me wrong, I did well and my peers liked me, but my empathy for others and caring nature were not considered valuable traits in such a cutthroat environment, so I always suppressed them. But when I met King, he opened my eyes and helped me understand that I was a Seer, the product of a long bloodline of women who possessed various abilities. Me, I could see things that the naked eye couldn’t. So King saw me as his personal bloodhound. I would find items he wanted. He would help me find my missing brother, now deceased. Oh, and King would own me.
Desperate times. And the beginning of a very long, complicated relationship, one where I eventually had to give up my gifts—another long, complicated story that involved staying alive. In the end, however, I ended up with King. A man who walked into a room and made you feel equal parts lust and fear. Three-thousand-year-old kings could do that to a person.
Anyway, the first time King brought me to his elegant San Francisco home, sitting high on a hill overlooking the Golden Gate, my skin iced over and my heart turned galloping mad. My entire body violently protested being anywhere near the place, and I’d refused to ever go back.
Until now. Yippy.
I approached the clear glass front door, taking careful steps up the cement walkway in my three-inch red heels and long red satin dress with matching evening bag. King once bought a similar outfit for me, and I hoped it might jar his memory though I had no clue why he’d lost it.
I rang the doorbell and stepped back, craning my neck to gaze up the towering façade of the freshly remodeled home, now a modernist affair of smooth white stucco, stainless steel, and glass. King had trashed his old Victorian for some strange reason, but the vibe remained unchanged.
Creepy as fuck.
A twiggy woman wearing a skin-tight black pantsuit, her dark hair slicked back into a sleek bun, sashayed to the door. She had elegant bones, deep olive skin, and vacant eyes. Her disposition reminded me of a 10 Club slave, but her physical characteristics reminded me of King’s servants back in Crete, his home where I now lived. No, he hadn’t returned since his most recent death, and I doubted he would. For some reason, anything having to do with me no longer existed in his mind.
Why? I could only make wild guesses.
The woman flashed a flimsy smile with her bright red lips and slowly looked me over. I’d worn my long blonde bob curly, just the way King liked, and I’d put a little bronzer on my pale cheeks. I guess I didn’t look fancy enough by her standards.
Too bad. I wore a dress and that was about as fancy as I got.
“Ms. Turner,” she said with snit, “King is displeased you are late. He says I am to pour you a stiff drink and you are to join him immediately.”
I’d come late on purpose. There was once a time I wouldn’t dare defy this man, but those days were over.
This time, we’re playing by my rules. He was going to hate that.
I swallowed my urge to smirk and entered the foyer. “I don’t really drink, but thank you.”
The woman’s shallow smile flipped upside down. “But King said I was to get you a drink.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there was a sliver of fear buried beneath her insistence. Otherwise, why would her panties be wadding up simply because I’d refused a cocktail? He owns her. He has to. He was probably fucking her.
God, I hate you, King.
I felt my face turn a nice shade of pissy red. “King can go fuck himself,” I said in the sweetest voice possible, “which I will personally let him know if you show me to him.”
She raised her dark brows and gestured toward a long hallway to the left.
I gave her a cordial nod and followed along, trying not to notice t
he perfect lines of her waist and hips.
I quickly shoved my jealousy down a deep dark hole ideal for storing emotions that no longer served me or would only lead to self-pity. I refused to be that woman. I refused to feel lesser or weak because he’d left me. He was the weak one, the flawed one, the man who made promises he didn’t keep. Me? I’d fought like hell to do right by him. I had done right by him.
We passed several closed doors, and the eerie silence crept into my ears like venomous spiders.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
The woman turned the corner and stopped in front of a narrow closet door. “Right this way.” She pushed it open to reveal a dimly lit staircase with another door at the bottom.
Fuck. That’s the basement. I suddenly would’ve given everything to have my Seer abilities back. They might tell me what I was in for. On the other hand, maybe it was for the best. I couldn’t let fear get in my way and there couldn’t be anything happy-shiny down there.
“Thank you.” I stepped past her and gripped the cold iron railing with my clammy hand, taking care not to lose my footing or catch my hem with my heels.
Fuck me. This sucks. I forced my shaky legs to descend the staircase. When I reached the bottom, I paused with my hand on the handle, hearing rhythmic murmuring through the door, like a person praying or chanting. Or holding a séance?
Well, that’s not at all fucking horrifying. I really wished I could’ve taken that stiff drink. And worn pants. Much easier to run away in. Because whatever King was up to, it couldn’t be good. To my knowledge, King didn’t normally sit around trying to converse with the dead. He was the dead. Or he had been and then he wasn’t and now he was once more?
Shit. I have no clue. But the point was that most souls bound to this world, due to strong emotional ties, curses, or whatever, didn’t generally walk around interacting with the living and investing money or flying in private jets. King was special. He’d refused to let a little thing like death get in his way. He’d spent thousands of years seeking out ways to pass himself off as the living. Once he got that down, he realized he needed help to achieve his ultimate goal and started 10 Club. I supposed it was genius. He put his supernatural talents to work, doing favors for club members: killing people’s enemies, hunting down lost or stolen items. In return, 10 Club members begged, borrowed, and stole things he wanted or needed, like a giant evil swap meet for really crazy rich people. His end game, though, was finding a way back into a living breathing body and to end his pain. And he had. But it was with my help. Not 10 Club’s.