Page 20 of Vicious Reign

10

MADDIE

The elevator seemsto crawl to our floor, two below the penthouse level. I’ve already stifled three yawns since we got to the hotel twenty minutes ago, and I feel dead on my feet.

I never did fall asleep on the plane. After Matteo dropped his little truth bomb, he didn’t go on to explain much. The rest of the conversation stalled, and I know they all expected me to sleep, but I couldn’t rest.

My thoughts swirled around and around like tiny sugar crystals on a cotton candy machine. Twirling and twirling until I tunneled so far down the what-if rabbit hole, that I started side-eyeing Matteo. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but the longer he kept his explanation to himself, the more outlandish reasons my mind conjured up.

Now that I’m on land again, my mind has slowed and I can see things clearer—just through a thin veil of exhaustion. I push it all to the back of my mind, at least until I’ve had some sleep. And until we get Leo back, then I promise myself I’m going to corner Matteo and get my answers.

I don’t even know if it really matters that much anymore. But something else has been nagging at me since that night he just ended things. My intuition has kept me alive this long, so when it keeps nudging me, I pay attention. My dad used to say that intuition was fate’s way of pushing you in the right direction. And right now, it’s screaming that they’re hiding something.

I’m not an idiot. I know they all know way more than they’re letting on, but if I want to be seen as an equal and not some damsel in distress all the time, then I need to help them see me in a different light. And going to Carnival is the perfect way to start.

I respect their need to protect me, their desire to shield me from the darker sides of their lives. And in the bedroom, I’m into the dominance and possessiveness and protectiveness. Hell, who am I kidding? I’m into it outside of the bedroom too if the mood is right. My mind immediately conjures up the way it felt to have Dante pressed against me at the airport. My lips part when I remember the way he felt.

The elevator doors open, snapping me out of my daydream. With Matteo’s hand skimming my lower back, I walk next to him down the long hallway, Dante and Aries at my back.

Prickles of awareness skitter down my body, skipping like stones on a pond and lighting up all my trigger-happy places. Our energies mingle and our auras brush up against one another as we move as a unit to the last door at the end of the hallway. Not for the first time, I wish I could see auras. I bet they’d be brilliant and vibrant. Something truly breathtaking when they bonded.

There would be thick threads between Matteo and Dante, best friends since they were babies. And despite their differences and lifestyles, Aries and Matteo would have a wide band wrapping around them both. That strong familial connection is nearly unbreakable. And then there’s me. I imagine multicolored strings winding around and around, from me to them and back again.

For me, thoughts of auras and fate and stars have always been soothing. It’s enchanting and enticing. It’s always so difficult to see the forest for the trees when you’re in the forest. But once you’re outside of it, it’s easy to look back on it and see what happened and why.

At least that’s what I tell myself every time I start to question the meaning of anything. Why did my dad have to die? Or why was Leo the one who got taken?

Those kinds of questions and thoughts plague me too easily if I let them. Instead, I choose to think about it in terms of fate or destiny. Like that cliché platitude: Everything happens for a reason. If my dad was still alive, would I have shared a dorm with Lainey and Mary when I did? Would I have a different relationship with my mom?

Like a record scratching, my mind skids to a stop when I think of Mom. Shit. I need to call her—and Lainey and Mary. They should know where I am or that I left the state, at the very least.

I clear my throat as Matteo stops in front of the door. “If we're supposed to be incognito, then why are we staying at a hotel on the strip?”

“We used a fake name.” Matteo enters the pin on the keypad next to the door. A little light flashes green before we hear a click. He pushes the door open and before I can step inside, he places his hand up, palm facing me. “Let us do a sweep first.”

I cock my head and step to the side, a shot of adrenaline temporarily burning out some of the exhaustion. “If you used an alias, shouldn’t it be safe?”

“You can never be too careful, Cherry.” Matteo stares at me, his whole demeanor exuding calm.

Dante moves around me, his knuckles brushing against my arm in a simple gesture that could’ve been accidental if I didn’t see the little smirk lifting up the corner of his lips. I feel the small touch all the way to my toes. There’s a hyperawareness between us now.

There was always something between us, but something shifted since that kiss in the airport. I can’t stop thinking about it—about him and all the things I want to do with him and to him.

“Clear.” Dante’s voice rings out from inside the room a second before he comes into view.

The three of us walk into the hotel suite, and my eyebrows raise at the lavishness before me. If this is what the third tier down looks like, I can't imagine the penthouse suite.

A mini foyer with a crystal chandelier opens up into an open-concept hotel suite. A sixty-inch flat screen TV on the wall above a 360-degree fireplace in the spacious living room. Low-profile sky-blue chairs and a coordinating couch curve around the fireplace and TV in a semicircle. A glass coffee table sits on an abstract blue rug.

Metallic art pieces decorate the space on the walls and the end tables, giving the suite an industrial edge to the light blue furniture and gray wood-grain flooring.

The fireplace opens up on the other side, right next to a sleek black dining room table with another crystal chandelier hanging above the table. A small kitchen with a two-seater island and sleek black appliances.

A bar takes up space in the corner. Unopened bottles of at least ten different types of alcohol sit on the smooth black piece of marble. Traveling around the world with my mom whenever she had a whim had me fairly acquainted with hotel life, but this room is something else. I think you could comfortably live in this suite, though I’m sure it'll cost you a four-year degree’s tuition.

Three bedrooms with luxury en-suite bathrooms, another sitting room area with four bucket chairs in light gray leather, a game room with a pool table and another minibar, this one in light gray marble.

Everything in this suite is stunning, but the showstopper is the floor-to-ceiling windows with French doors in the middle. Aries crosses the room and presses a button next to the window. A soft whirring noise fills the room for a second before the French doors slowly retract. They open wider than I expected, turning twenty feet of windows into open air.

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