Page 60 of Fatal Attraction

“ANSWER ME,” he commanded.

“She-she was pregnant,” I muttered, my voice trembling. “Blaire was pregnant. 10 weeks. Withyourbaby.”

“Bullshit,” he sneered.

“Have you not been watching the news? Why would I lie about that?”

He stepped back then, assessing my words as he rubbed the barrel against his temple. “Oh well,” he said after a moment, carelessly shrugging. “Like I said, she wasn’t who I wanted anyway.”

“You’re a fucking monster.”

“Am I?” he challenged. “Or am I just simply a man who knows what he wants and would stop at nothing to get it?”

“I am not yours,” I proclaimed, annunciating each word so he heard me clearly. “I belong to Spike and Phoenix.”

He bared his teeth before his fist curled and struck me across my jaw, knocking the wind out of me. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, and I spit it out, groaning.

“Shit,” Perry hissed, kneeling beside me as he dropped the gun, his hands firmly grasping my jaw as he checked me over. “Look what you made me do to you.”

He forced my mouth open and eyed around the inside like he was checking to see if he’d knocked any teeth out. “You’re fine,” he declared in a thankful matter, his sigh of relief making my anger burn hotter beneath my veins. “Why must you make me hurt you, my love? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I. Am. Not. Yours.”

He huffed out an enraged breath and then grabbed the gun before rising to his feet, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.

After spitting out another mouthful of blood, I wept, squeezing my eyes closed and praying Spike and Phoenix would find me before it was too late.

Twenty Four

Spike

This was fucking BULLSHIT.

Nobody, not the two detectives in the lounge; Kendall, who had been posted outside the Red Room checking tickets, and not even Captain and Chief, who’d been guarding the back door, had anything valuable to report.

And to make matters worse, Felix failed to do the one main job we’d given him tonight, which was to have each member who’d purchased a ticket sign their names on a separate sign-in sheet.

“YOU HAD ONE JOB,” I hollered, so enraged my entire body shook from how unstably hard I was tussling to restrain myself from snatching his ass up and ripping his head clean off his shoulders. “One fucking job, Felix!”

“I’m sorry,” he pathetically grumbled as he shriveled down in his office chair, scraping his hands down his face. “This is the busiest the club has been in weeks. I… I got distracted and—”

A poisonous growl tore from my throat. Phoenix cursed and luckily for Felix, successfully tugged me away before my fist could make contact with his ugly as fuck face.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” My chest brutally heaved the longer I glowered at Felix, whose crestfallen gaze was rooted to the floor. “We were counting on you! This was the best andonlyshot we had at finding this fucker!”

I wanted to kill him.

No—scratch that, Iwasgoing to kill him.

But as I broke away from Phoenix, ready to pummel Felix into a bloody puddle, Captain Burgess’ gruff voice demanding me to calm the fuck down, sang through my ears. I bristled, and as I slowly spun on my heels, the threat of suspension or worse, termination was written all along every wrinkled crevasse on his face, so I backed off, ignoring Phoenix when he commanded me to go outside and get some air.

“I really am sorry.” Felix lifted his head, his teary eyes darting between the three of us. “I didn’t mean to ruin the investigation. I just—” He paused and gushed out a broken sigh, his shoulders slumping low in defeat. “Nothing I can say will fix this. I don’t expect nor do I deserve your forgiveness.”

“We’ll need the security feed,” said Phoenix. “Are you willing to comply, or are you going to be a pain in the ass and force us to get a warrant?”

“Take whatever you need,” he hoarsely whispered. “I won’t fight you over it.”

“Good,” said Captain Burgess. “We’ll need everything from the time the sanctum opened and after the show ended.”

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