She stayed silent and tried to pull away.
His grip on her wrists tightened. “Your emotions will get you killed here.”
He said that as though she was afraid of dying. If someone pointed a gun at her head, she would probably welcome the bullet.
And the devil that he was, he knew her thoughts. “How will you find your answers if you don’t live, hmmm?”
Fucking bastard.
He was holding answers hostage over her head, forcing her to continue to live. He had been doing it for years. Every time she’d asked him about that night, he told her she would get the answer one day if she continued to live. The last time she’d asked him had been a year ago, and absolutely done with his bullshit, she had taken the one thing from him she knew he enjoyed in their limited encounters—her voice.
But he knew she wouldn’t let go without knowing, and he used it mercilessly, forcing her to shake off dark thoughts, forcing her to see another night, forcing her to live another day. She hated him for it.
His breath fell over her neck, slowly on her pulse, before he pulled back, locking their gazes together.
“The world isn’t ready to see who I would become if this—” his thumb pressed on her pounding pulse “—ever stops.”
Lyla stared at him, and once again, marveled at how she would never understand him.
She wasn’t important, and he was mistaken. If her heartbeat ever stopped, it wouldn’t change a thing.
***
The next week, he was there again, the closest she'd come to seeing him in the span of a few days. He was there, and this time, a blonde half-naked girl was sitting on his lap.
Lyla froze in her step, the tray in her hand she was using as a server jostling with the sudden movement.
Something ugly, nasty swirled in her chest at the sight.
No.
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in before opening them again. The blonde was still there and the ugliness in her chest deepened. She knew it didn’t make sense, that she had no rights and worse, no claims on this man. But he was hers. Whatever games he played, he played with her. It was she who was the object of his obsessions. She didn’t want there to be another he was fixating on, another he was holding and worse, looking for with those eyes of his.
But she had no rights over him.
None.
Her hand holding the tray shook and she steadied it, reminding herself any spilled drinks would result in punishment.
The same men from last time sat around the lounge, and she kept her chin down, her fingers white at the vitriol inside her. The blonde flipped her hair over one shoulder, exposing her naked breasts to him, tugging on her nipples.
Lyla grit her teeth, placing the drinks on the table, purposely keeping her eyes down and neck turned away from him.
A man from the side, a younger, dark-haired guy smiled at her. “Why don’t you come sit here, darling?”
Oh no.
Even though she didn’t want to, she couldn’t reject. That was one of the things servers were told to do—if a customer asked for something extra, you gave it to them. Thankfully, since the men who touched her had begun to die, the word on the street usually kept them away from her or making demands of her.
Gaze briefly flickering to the devil responsible for each death, she saw his face completely neutral, his eyes on the dancers onstage. With no cue from him on how to behave or what to do, she did the only thing she could without inviting punishment. She moved and tentatively sat down on the guy’s lap, keeping her eyes fixed on a light away as he palmed her breasts. She didn’t make a sound.
“Moan for me, darling.”
She wouldn’t. That was something she could control. She stayed silent, wondering if the devil would kill this one at all, since they were sitting together.
“Tough bitch,” the man chuckled, clapping his hands to get the attention of the table. “A wager. Whoever gets her to moan gets a hundred thousand.”
A few men whooped and her stomach dropped. She instinctively sought his gaze, only to find the mismatched eyes set on the man holding her.
“This one’s trouble, boy,” the older man who’d been there last week warned. “Better let her go before her guardian angel finds you.”
The guy under her chuckled. “There are no angels in this place, old man.”
No, but there were devils, the biggest of them looking at her.
“I’ll make her moan.”
Her heart stuttered at the sound of his voice as he tapped the blonde to get off him. She huffed and got up, finding another lap immediately.
The old man warned again. “She’s not worth it, Blackthorne.”