Page 24 of Brutal Ice

His teeth ground together. “I wasn’t fucking entertaining.” Not like he was playing around with Violet.

Avalon inched closer. “We all need to talk.” She looked down at the crowd. Then back at Royal. “Privately.”

Shit. Beau and Avalon were the only two people in the world who knew about his unique extracurricular activity. Mostly because, until recently, Beau had been helping him with said activity.

Everyone needed a hobby, right? So maybe Royal’s particular hobby involved killers. Hunting them.

Stopping them.

By any means necessary.

And maybe he’d allowed Avalon and Beau to think he’d given up that particular activity.

Because maybe I lied…

Her knees weren’t shaking any longer. And she’d put the remains of her torn underwear in her bag. Violet had smoothed her dress back in place. She’d finger combed her hair. Even applied a fresh coat of lipstick. She wore her heels again. Her heart rate had stopped galloping. At this point, she hoped that she appeared at least moderately normal.

Normal enough to get through the crowd and get back home.

Except Royal had asked her to stay.

She turned back to his desk. The desk they had wrecked. She’d never had sex on a desk before. And, technically, she still hadn’t.

He went down on me. Right here. He’d been fully dressed, and I came against his mouth.

She should, ah, fix his desk. He’d shoved files to the side. Almost knocked his laptop to the floor. Her nervous hands fluttered as she grabbed a few manila files. She stacked them up, but…

Something fell out of one.

Her picture.

She stared at it as it rested on the floor. Then she bent and scooped it up. The picture trembled in her hand.

No, no, that’s not me. Because the woman in the picture was dead. Her body covered in blood. Stab wounds were all over her chest. Her arms. Her neck.

A choked sob spilled from Violet’s throat. She grabbed the file. Saw a stamp on the outside. Something about the police.

She yanked open the file. More pictures. More horror.

“It took me a bit of time to put things together,” Beau snapped. “Because I was…distracted.” His gaze darted to Avalon.

She rolled one shoulder. “We also were under the impression that you’d stopped. You know because you said you were going to stop.”

“You two need to leave.” And he needed to get back to Violet. “And you should stop worrying about me and my extracurriculars.”

Beau leaned closer. “The woman will identify you.”

Royal’s chin lifted.

“You were hunting the killer, weren’t you?” Beau’s voice carried only to him. “But you found her instead. The dancer, Violet Murphy. You found her, and you saved her.” He shook his head. “She saw your face. Dammit, do you know how much trouble this will bring raining down on your head?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Royal fired back, his voice just as low. “Leave her in the fucking trunk? She’s scared of the dark.”

Beau blinked. “Uh, what?”

Avalon pushed her hand against Beau’s chest, an effort to get her fiancé to back up. He did. Just a bit. Avalon cleared her throat. “Beau just said that the woman saw your face. We’ve been arguing about this. I told him that you probably wore a mask.”

No, he hadn’t.

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