Heartless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 1)

“What subject?” I asked. “You haven’t even said anything.”

“You know exactly why the fuck I’m calling.”

I laughed. “And you know it’s none of your fucking business,” I said, and he scoffed at me.

“Sure. Call me when you want some sense pushed into that skull of yours.” He hung up.

I doubted I’d be calling him anytime soon.

Elaine didn’t move through Saturday. I kept my eye on her tracker location, but this time it was from my apartment couch, fighting back my own sweep of paranoia that she’d headed out without her clutch. I forced myself to stay away from her, checking up on the business shit I should have already signed off as done, with that tracker still bleeping alongside me. I should’ve been out with my family that night, letting my father know just how things were going in the empire he’d taken a decade to step away from. There’s no way I should have risked the backlash from bailing out on his questions like I’d been doing with everyone else that week.

Yet still, I canceled our evening together. One simple text.

Catch up some other time. Commitments need attending to.

I didn’t bother checking the replies. I wasn’t interested in what they had to say.

There was only one thing I was interested in. Elaine Constantine’s diary. I knew what was brewing for her that night. Tristan.

I knew where the venue was. Spirit Club – another downtown dive and another shitty Blue Hawk gig with her pussy boy bestie chasing dick, no doubt.

I didn’t use my chauffeur for the journey this time.

My cab pulled up at Spirit Club when the gig was barely started. I’d known what was coming. This time I needed no guest list pass to get past the doormen, but I did need to go through a damn security sweep for signs of firearms or weapons. It felt damn fucking strange to be patted down by loser doormen, their hands so damn close to my flesh.

I already knew my plan for being there and found myself a position deep in the shadows at the sidelines, safely out of view of my pretty blonde mouse when she arrived.

It was a good thirty minutes later when I first saw her on the opposite side of the dancefloor, hanging off pussy boy’s arm with a smile on her face. The big, bright smile of hers was superficial enough to make me smirk. She was flinching every time someone brushed up close, spinning to face them with wide open eyes.

She was scared. Really fucking scared.

My stare was firmly on her as the gig started up and her gaze shot up to the stage. It was that jerk up there again, the brute with a roar of a voice that sounded like shit, only it wasn’t his voice that I hated that night. It was him.

It was the way my sweet little mouse was staring up at him.

Nothing could deny it, even though she was getting drunk on beer, and gin, and whatever the fuck else pussy boy was delivering to her. There was no way to avoid seeing the obvious.

The guy was huge, a trunk of a man with muscles rippling under his metal-loving tee. His hair was dark and slick, and his eyes were as deep as mine were. Almost.

It was enough. Enough for my dirty little bitch to want a piece of him. She wanted the cunt on that stage.

I wanted to kill him for it.

It made no sense, not a bit. It should mean fuck all to me whose dick one of the Constantine bitches were chasing after. I should be convinced this was the right location to finish her off, wipe her out and be done with it, never to think about the needy bitch again, but I knew it wouldn’t happen.

Jesus Christ, I needed to get a fucking grip.

I shouldn’t be in that damn fucking club, with her damn fucking tracker beeping through to my cell. I shouldn’t be anywhere near her. Shouldn’t be thinking about her. Shouldn’t be wanting anything to fucking do with her other than her demise. But still, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop myself.

All through his set she was cheering for the dick on stage, and all through his set I was gritting my teeth at the sight of it. I was wound up all the more when I caught sight of worse, a whole load fucking worse – the way he looked back across the room at her when he lifted his hands in the air and said his see you later to the crowd. He was gazing after her as hard as she was gazing after him. I could have slit his throat if I hadn’t been barren of blades to slice him up with.

Elaine was her usual drunken self as the night wound its way on, downing her drinks one after the other. The Blue Hawk prick was up next, and she was trashed enough to bop around on the dancefloor, past giving a shit for who the fuck was hunting her down.