Outside was a shack.
Inside…inside was insane.
Music thrummed low. The walls were dark and glittered like diamonds. The ceiling dripped crystals. I tilted my head back. There must have been thousands of crystals, because you couldn’t see anything but them.
“You sure about that, Snitch?” Gray’s low voice heated my ear, his hand ghosting my lower back. Before my goose bumps had even left my skin, he was standing tall and walking across the room, already talking to some guy.
This was somewhere I couldn’t blend in.
I stuck out like a sore fucking thumb.
All eyes were on me. Each step I took was a scratch on the record. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their lips moved with their eyes. Everywhere I looked, I found a new set of glowing orbs.
I had no clue where I was. I knew by the outside it was small, only fitting maybe fifteen people, but because it was dark inside, it seemed big. Vast.
Alarm rushed and pounded with the blood in my ears when I realized I was the only servant here.
They didn’t even have a bartender.
“Surprised to see you here, Sis,” Gray said.
In the center of the room, Gemma Crowne and a few others were seated around a softly glowing circular table. She pulled cards and chips from a metal box, but the chips were unmarked.
What were they playing for?
“Ha ha,” Gemma said sarcastically, glaring at Gray. “I thought you weren’t coming tonight?”
Gray shrugged. “Plans changed.”
Grayson took a seat at the table just as I spotted someone. She had changed out of her glittery white tulle dress into jeans and a sweater more expensive than anything I owned.
Charlotte.
Everyone had changed. Only Grayson was still in his suit pants and dress shirt. Because unlike them, he’d traded a valet for me.
Charlotte was laughing with her friends, totally oblivious to me. I knew I should either stay put or follow Gray…but I crossed the short distance to her. Sweat beaded my neck, like tiny pinpricks.
Aundi and Pipa stopped talking once I reached them, glares furrowed on me. Charlotte stopped talking a second after them, slowly turning around at their glares, confusion marring her smile.
It must have been my imagination. The room didn’t go quiet. The music didn’t get lower.
They waited for me to talk first. I wasn’t someone who could just come up to someone like them.
But I could fix it, right here. Grayson was being so fucking stupid. I just had to tell her everything. Every little piece of what happened. Then she could take him back, and pull me out of this hell I couldn’t stop myself from diving deeper into, the place that was starting to whisper more. The place that wanted to take instead of give back what I’d stolen.
“It was my fault,” I said. “I told him the lemon cakes were your favorite. He was trying to do something nice for you. I had no idea you were allergic.”
A moment passed.
Lottie’s pretty, perfectly plucked brows caved. “Who are you?”
“Snitch,” Grayson called out behind me. “Come.”
Still, I stared into Lottie’s wide brown eyes. Tell her what happened last night. I’m the one who stole your moment.
“Snitch.”
Venom threaded his impassive tone, so subtle it barely stung.