Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Feenix Blaylock

F or the past half hour, I’ve been pulled away from doing what I’ve really wanted to do: Go to Charlie and tell her what she’s doing is a terrible idea. I know exactly what she’s doing. She is trying to convince the Russian woman to let her help her. But every time I make my way toward the door to do just that, I’m pulled away by some matter or another.

I growl under my breath as I take care of another problem, all of which Andre should be doing, but Andre has been MIA for the past twenty minutes. I know exactly what he’s doing too. He does it at every event, takes a woman or a man into some dark place and fucks them whether they want it or not. Like his minions, he takes what he wants.

I finish the task and stride toward the door with purpose, glancing once out the window. And then my heart stops, and I pause in my reach for the knob .

Charlie isn’t standing there.

There’s no curvy, curled-haired woman standing there, and there certainly is no red-headed Russian. There’s only the waves pushing against the dock.

No one is standing there.

I growl under my breath as I grab the knob and yank it open. She’s going to be in deep shit when I find her. Not only did she promise me she’d stay in sight, but she just couldn’t help herself but find a way for Anya to get out; because that’s exactly what she’s doing. I know it down to my bones.

I stride across the dock, past the point where Charlie said she’d be, and out onto land. I stop and survey the people around the fires, but when I find that she isn’t there, a terrible feeling settles in my gut.

Where the fuck is she?

Panic rises in my throat because, if she’s not here, she would have to be inside, and she would have connected with me again. I’d been all over that boathouse, doing Andre’s bullshit, and not once did I run into her.

She would have found me. I know she would have. She would have at least tried to stick to our rules in some fashion or another, even if she did get Anya out undetected.

Undetected.

Fuck. My eyes widen despite trying to keep outwardly calm. What if she got caught sneaking her off to freedom?

I run a hand through my hair. No, that couldn’t be it. It would have been brought to my attention. But someone has her. She isn’t roaming around on her own, schmoozing with the party members. I could see the fear about doing so when we talked about it, when we settled on not talking to anyone unless spoken to.

No, I know down to every last lit nerve in my body that she’s in trouble. And I also know the one man who would know exactly where she is because the bastard has his hand in everything.

I pivot and stride back inside, unable to hide my intentions from my expression. As soon as I’m inside, the party folds back around me, and I push through the groups of clients, making my way to the bedrooms up the stairs.

I shove open the first room and find it to be an immaculate office and completely empty of anyone. The second one has two masked couples who shout at me before I close the door. When I approach the third room, I hear sobbing within, and I know I’ve found the right place.

Heart thundering in my chest, I take a step back, lift my foot, and kick the door open.

And then I take in the scene before me.

Andre has his pants around his ankles and looks at me, wearing a dumbfounded expression. His pupils are blown wide from whatever drug he took tonight. On the bed is a naked, young adult man. He’s lying on his stomach, his hands and feet tied to each bedpost with a few pillows underneath him to prop his ass in the air.

Tears stream down his face, but at this moment, he’s not my immediate concern. I march forward and grab Andre by the throat, backing him up until the back of his head smacks against the window. Our hips bump the small desk beside us, threatening to knock over everything balancing on it.

I don’t even give a shit that his dick dangles between us as I get in his face and demand, “Where the fuck is she?”

He tries to talk, but my grip around his neck is too tight. I squeeze a little harder before I loosen so he can speak. And then a smirk takes over his face, the one I hate, the one I want to satisfyingly wipe from existence.

“You know, Andre?” I say as I lean a little closer, growling dangerously close to his ear. “I don’t think you know what I’d love to do to you. I don’t think you know the pain I so desperately want to cause. Give me a reason, I fucking dare you.”

“Idle threats,” he squeaks past my hand.

My smile is malicious as the beast I keep tucked so tight wakes with a yawn inside me. “There’s no one here to witness any of it, Andre. I can get away with just about anything. Try me. Push me, and see how far I’ll go.”

“Oh yeah?” he says with a strangled chuckle. “What are you going to do, Nixie?”

He definitely knows that I killed that IT girl; there’s no doubt in my mind anymore. With this being the case, he might already know why I had to kill her too.

With my free hand, I reach and grab the letter opener on the desk. I bring it to our faces and examine it carefully. The razor-sharp edges glint in the moonlight filtering in through the window. “Imagine where I could put this. All the places it’d hurt. Watching you beg for the pain to stop . . .” I look back at him. “The thought of hearing you scream for mercy makes me hard. That should tell you something.” His face goes white. “You like men, right? Do you want to feel how rock-hard I am at that thought?”

He gulps with difficulty as I squeeze his neck just a little tighter. It’s taking everything I have to not kill him right now, but I have the information I need from him, and I know damn well that he has the answers. “Where the fuck is she?” I ask so dangerously that a million painful promises lie within each word.

He closes his eyes, his cheeks turning a shade of red from the blood pooling there. “There’s nothing you can do.”

My nostrils flare. “What the fuck does that mean? ”

He slowly blinks at me. “Exactly what I said. He wants her; he has her. There’s nothing you can do now.”

“Who is he? How do you know?”

His gaze narrows as he grabs my hand and tries to pry my fingers loose. I have no intentions of letting this fucker go. “Who do you think? He told me he’d be here, and he told me to get her away from you. I knew – we all did – that she has a thing for saving people. Did you think we weren’t watching? Following her every move? Did you not think we’d hear about her trying to save poor, sweet Anya?” He chuckles, but it’s more of a gurgle. “It was easy, and keeping you busy was even easier. Always the job first, right?”

My top lip curls, and my grip on the letter opener tightens. “Where did he take her?”

“Like I’d tell you.”

I bring the letter opener to his waist and press it against his balls. “Where?”

“There’s nothing you can –” He screams as I stab him in the groin.

“Do you want me to cut them off?” I ask him over his sobs when I yank it out. Blood spurts against my slacks. “Who would you fuck then? Hmm, Andre? Where would you put your dick if it’s gone?”

He remains silent, sobbing as tears streak down his carefully groomed face. I rear my hand back to stab him again, right next to the other puncture wound, when he lets go of my hand and holds his palms toward me in surrender. “My boathouse, okay?” he shouts. “Mine. He took her to mine!”

“To do what?” I shout back.

“I don’t know!” His voice dies down into a whimper, and he adds, “I don’t know. Just let me go, asshole. Just let me go. ”

I bring the letter opener up to our faces, watching the blood drip down my thumb. Anger seeps from every pore, and my blood runs red hot. He allowed this. He helped orchestrate the entire thing, and I have every intention of making him pay more than he already has.

“You know? I’ve fantasized about this moment. Every time, it was a gun in your mouth. Every time, it was your brains splattered against the wall. The floor. The shower tile. The sidewalk.” I look back at him and find nothing but fear in his gaze for what he sees in mine. “I don’t have a gun, so that fantasy is out the door.”

“Please,” he begs. “Feenix, please!”

I lift the letter opener a little higher and bring it to his eye. His eyes widen as I inch closer, ever so slowly, just so he can be the most afraid. That’s how I want him, I realize. To see every second of what I’m about to do to him.

“But I didn’t realize that this is what I really wanted. For you to watch yourself die. To know it was coming and to endure every second of it.”

I inch it closer, and closer, and as I press the tip to his eyeball, I say over his screaming for help, “You had to know I’d come for you,” before I insert it slowly into his eye.

His legs kick at me, but I barely feel it. I watch as his eyeball divots while the tip pierces the layers. His screams make me smile, and the slower I go, the more strangled they become. His nails scrape against my arm, and his voice becomes hoarse. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

I push it further and further and further until . . . nothing. It’s buried to my fingers, and silence takes over the room as he goes still in my hand that’s around his throat.

Adrenaline courses through my muscles when I drop his dead body to the floor. And then I give him a kick, and another, and many more, until the rage is all I feel.

Crying stops me, and I look toward the sound of it. The young man is still on the bed, his face tipped in my direction and his expression full of fear.

Reality smacks back to me. “I have to get to Charlie,” I tell him, myself, the world. My tone is devoid of emotions, but that’s how it’ll have to be until she’s back by my side.

No emotions. There’s no place for them here.

I head to the man and untie him. For a second, he just lies there and cries, sobbing gratitude in Russian. “Lock the door when I leave,” I tell him in his language as I stride toward the door.

I can hear the mattress squeak as I start to shut the door, and when I turn, the young man is on the floor, yanking the letter opener from Andre’s eye. I stand there for a moment, watching as he straddles the dead fucker’s body and starts stabbing him over and over again.

Blood sprays in every direction, painting the walls in a beautiful artful piece of death and justice.

And then I shut the door.

My first stop? To the office I found. Pieces are starting to come together for me, and there’s only one man I trust at this point.

Noll.