A cold gust of air hits the backs of my thighs when we step outside. Hugo comes around the corner rubbing the knuckles of one hand, and I get the feeling he sees everything even when he doesn’t seem to be looking at anything particular at all.
We reach Kill’s car and he opens the door. He lowers me down to stand. “You can’t just take me.”
“Really? Why not? Who’s going to stop me?” he asks before shoving me into the backseat and sliding in beside me. Hugo closes the door and Kill turns to me. “I can do whatever I want, Cilla.” He watches me intently.
Hugo starts to drive.
“You’re self-destructing,” he says.
“What do you care? You walked away.”
“That bar is filthy. Fucking a limp-dick stranger in a bathroom stall? That’s not you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know everything about you. I know your deepest, darkest secrets. And I know you need a hero. A dark one.”
I stop at that, press the heels of my hands into my eyes. When I pull them away, I find him watching me. This is so fucked up. I’m so fucked up.
“What do you want from me?”
He leans in close, his gaze sweeps over my face, pausing at my mouth for a long minute before returning to my eyes.
“I already told you. I want everything. Every fucking thing.”
27
Cilla
I’m sitting beside him but I almost can’t believe this is real. It’s slowly sinking in, the danger I put myself in. I drop my gaze, wipe my eyes.
I don’t know what I’m doing. Everything is so mixed up and I feel more out of control than ever.
“You want to punish yourself. Destroy yourself. I’m not going to let that happen,” Kill says.
I thought I was past this. Better off than Jones. I thought I had control over this. But seeing Kill, seeing that look in his eyes, the one that says he knows, he truly knows, it’s killing me. I want to hide, but at the same time, I need it. I need him. I need someone to know. To see me.
But the instinct to flee, it’s just as powerful.
I know it’s stupid, but I reach for the door handle, try it. It’s locked but he grabs my wrists anyway. Forces my hands on my lap.
“Just let me go.”
“You don’t want me to.”
“I do! This is kidnapping!”
He grins and it’s the Kill I first knew. The wicked one. Although really, he’s only ever been wicked, hasn’t he? Even when he’s tender?
“You don’t. In fact, I’m going to give you exactly what you need, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. Whenever he calls me sweetheart, it’s like my insides turn to jelly. The way he says it, it’s not tender. He has no intention to use it that way. No, with him, it’s ownership. I’m his. Again.
I register the rest of his words then, take in the dark, intense burning of his eyes.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You’re not looking for a hero to save you, Cilla. You’re looking for someone dark. You’re so fucking lost in there, you can’t even see the light to get out. I’m going to come in there and get you. That’s what that means.”
I shudder at his words, have no response. I sit quietly as we drive.
Contrary to where I think we’re going to go, we go to the penthouse. But when we arrive, Kill tells Hugo to take me upstairs. To put me in the special room while he takes care of something.
“What’s the special room?” I ask, my heart racing, too afraid of what he has planned, knowing full well he means what he says. That he’s coming into the dark to get me. Thing is, that means I’ll have to face it. Look at it head on. I’m not sure I can do that.
“You’ll see soon,” he says.
“No. I don’t want to go.”
But he’s already got me out of the car.
“I don’t suppose you do, but you are. But I’m going in there with you, Cilla.”
Panic has me searching the parking garage for an exit, but I know there isn’t one. Hugo is behind me and Kill in front. He steps closer, touches my face. “I’ll be there with you.”
The “special” room is the last one down the hall, three doors past my guest room from the other night. For as luxuriously as the rest of the penthouse is decorated, this room is purposefully bare and cold. Furnishings consist of a double bed without sheets or a pillow, although there’s a threadbare blanket lying on the bed. No nightstands, no lamps apart from the overhead. There’s an old and damaged side table and rickety chair along the wall that looks like it should have been thrown out several years ago, and above it, a mirror that’s cracked in one corner and tarnished. The single window has cheap, broken blinds rather than the lavish curtains of the other rooms. Even the paint on the walls is old. In fact, the only thing that’s new in this room is the camera in the corner. He doesn’t even try to hide this one. The lens has been trained on me since the moment I set foot in here.