I keep pacing, watching, waiting until the elevator finally dings, and the doors slide open.
Inside, it’s only him. But, at the same time, he’s not the calm, collected man I’ve come to know. Something about the way he looks is unhinged. Hands braced behind him on the bars of the elevator, his white shirt is stained to the elbows in blood. It’s also splattered all over his front. The jacket he’d left in is gone, and his usually perfectly styled hair is mussed and crusted with blood like he’s been running his wet fingers through it.
God, I should be terrified of this dark god. He looks like something out of a horror film, yet I’m frozen, unable to look away.
He lifts his chin and locks eyes with me. When we first met, his eyes drew me in, a combination of soft and chilled. Right now, there’s no softness in his gaze. No humanity, no give, nothing like the man I’ve come to understand over the months we’ve known each other.
I swallow hard, frozen in the center of the foyer.
He shoves away from the bar and steps into the penthouse. The doors whoosh closed behind him, trapping us together.
A part of me wants to run. A part of me is dying to know what happened. And a part of me wants to fall to my knees and give him anything he asks for.
When he reaches me, he stares down at me hard. The scent of blood wafts off him, sharp and metallic. “Have you been keeping secrets from me, Angel?”
My gulp is loud between us, and I can’t take it back. I shake my head, unable to speak the words.
“Not good enough,” he growls. “Try again. Have you been keeping secrets from me?”
“No,” I squeak out. “I’ve told you everything. Not even things I shared with Rose.”
He cocks his head, studying me. I hate him seeing my hesitation, seeing my fear. A long time ago, I accepted this is my life now. Facing this side of him is part of the job, and now that he’s finally showing it to me, I can’t flinch.
Or he’ll never forgive me.
“I promise. I don’t have any secrets from you,” I say, my tone more confident despite my stomach tying itself in knots.
His fingers curve around my neck, not clutching, merely holding. “Should I believe you?”
“Why wouldn’t you? Did Sal say something about me keeping a secret? How would he even know? I only spoke to him when I absolutely had to.”
He walks me slowly toward the nearest wall, each step careful so I don’t trip.
I don’t understand his question or where this is going. Nor can I see past the almost feral look in his eyes as he stares me down.
“I promise,” I repeat, hoping he’ll believe me this time. “I promise. I don’t want to keep secrets from you. I don’t need to.”
His fingers tighten a tiny bit, but I don’t even flinch. There’s no need. In my gut, I know he won’t hurt me. And if this moment of…of…instability is what he needs, I can give him that.
I steel my spine and lift my chin. “Tell me what you want me to say. What you want to know. I’ll tell you anything.”
He hunches down to line our faces up. “He said you knew something about my mother’s disappearance, about her death.”
My voice trembles as I answer. “And you believe him?”
He snorts, his hand loosening now as he stands to his full height again. “He told me with his dying breath.”
Fucking Sal. Of course he would use his last breath on Earth to continue to fuck up my life. He’d use it to turn the one person I care about against me.
His blood is slicked across my skin now, thanks to Adrian’s hold and his proximity. I’m smeared with it, and right now, I don’t fucking care. I want to revel in it. Rub it into my skin and laugh because he’s gone, and I’m still standing, despite how hard he’s worked to the contrary.
“I’m going to ask you once, and only once. Do you know anything about my mother or her death?”
I shake my head, but it’s not much with his grip still on me. “No, of course not. The only thing I know about her is what you’ve shared with me. I don’t know why Sal would say something like that except as his final ‘fuck you’ to me.”
He slams me back into the wall, and my shoulders bounce against it. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to rattle my bones. It’s not even rough by my pain standards. “If I find out you’re lying to me, that you know something, and you’ve lied to me this whole time…”
When he trails off, I arch my neck forward to catch his eyes again. “You’ll what? Treat me the same way they did? Hit me? Hurt me?”