Page 13 of Little Horrors & Deceptions

“Alright.” He exhaled. “You’re back on. Decker’s with you. I’ll send him down.”

“Thank you.” Relief surged, sweet and heady. But there was no time to savor it.

“Don’t make me regret this, Bennett, and keep me posted,” he ordered before the call ended. I dropped the phone onto the table, a smile caught on my lips as I went back to stitching the hair on my doll.

I got my case back.I excitedly hummed to myself.

The dust clung to my clammy skin as I surveyed the ballroom, the remnants of the weekend’s madness scattered everywhere. Liam gave me the job of cleaning this place up today and getting it to look like the scare room it had beeen before the event this past weekend. I loved decorating, and I knew I was the perfect girl for the job.

I decided I’d start from the top and work my way down. The sconces and the chandelier of bones loomed high, with leftover decor dangling from them. Standing on my tiptoes, I stretched for the sconces first, but cursed under my breath when they were too far out of reach.

“Damn it,” I muttered. I would need the ladder, I started making my way upstairs. Derek had stashed it somewhere around here after he’d used it last.

The supply closet was only a few steps away from Liam’s office at the edge of the stairs. As I neared, muffled voices rose in intensity from beyond the office door. My steps slowed, an involuntary reaction to the tension seeping through the walls. A sliver of curiosity urged me closer. Snooping wouldn’t hurt, and maybe I’d learn something.

“Contracts are still valid, regardless of Marco’s… situation,” Liam’s response, tight with controlled anger, seeped through the crack in the door. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Last one to see him alive though, weren’t you?” a harsh voice countered, thick with accusation.

“Means nothing,” Liam shot back. “I think you need to learn your place, Damien. I’ve been working with you guys for a few years now, so some young hotshot coming into my house with thinly veiled threats doesn’t scare me.” My hand hovered over the closet door. I shouldn’t be listening, but I couldn’t move away.

Damien’s shouts blurred into a heated conversation until silence slammed into the space, heavy and sudden. I seized that moment, pulling the ladder from its resting place. Metal scraped against the floor, a sound much too loud in the aftermath of their argument. I scrunched my face, then there was a burst of movement. The office door flung open, and a man—solid and menacing—stormed out. Damien, I presumed. His shoulder connected with mine and I stumbled. The ladder clattered down, taking me with it.

“Shit!” I hit the hardwood hard, tumbling down a few of the steps, the metal cold and unforgiving beneath me.

“Jade!” Liam’s voice cut through the cloying air of rage left by Damien. He was at my side in seconds, his hands gentle as he helped me up. “Are you alright?”

“Who was that?” I asked on a groan, brushing off my jeans, trying to ignore the ache from my fall.

“Just someone that’s bad for business,” he replied, his lethal gaze flicking toward the retreating figure, already slamming the front door, and then back to mine, a storm of emotions swirling there.

“Right.” I nodded, pushing aside questions I knew he wouldn’t give me the answers to yet. He picked up the ladder with ease, before holding out his hand to make sure I was steady.

“Can you get that down to the ballroom?” I asked. He nodded, and together we navigated the stairs. Our footsteps filled the otherwise quiet space. Too quiet after all the arguing they had just done.

I cleared my throat and took the ladder from Liam to get to the sconces first. The decor finally surrendered to my efforts, one after the other. But the chandelier was going to be another story. I placed the ladder below it just as a black cat wrapped around my feet.

“Hey, little guy,” I murmured and reached down to give him a scratch behind the ears and look at the tag on his collar. Bones, his name was Bones. How adorable. “I’ll be done soon. Go on, shoo, wait over there,” I said as I readied and started to climb. I glanced down, and Bones was slipping between the feet of the ladder. Black cats and ladders, this couldn’t end well for me. But I climbed a few steps and reached up anyways, my fingers grasping at the ornate decorations tangling from its boney arms. They clung to it stubbornly, resisting my pull.

“Fuck.” My whisper was a hiss of frustration.

“You need some help with that?” Liam’s voice came from beside me. I didn’t know he was so close. I had thought he’d gone to start on paperwork or something more boss-like.

I almost dropped the garland I was wrestling with. My fingers stretched, grazing the drooping edge again. “It’s okay, just a little farther. I’ve almost got it—” The words had barely left my lips when the ladder wobbled beneath me. Bones darted away, and the treacherous tilt sent my heart into my throat. In an instant, Liam’s hands were there, his grasp firm on the wooden rails.

“Let me help,” he said, voice steady as I stilled under his control.

I exhaled, relief mingling with a sudden, acute awareness of him just below me.Under me. Every sense heightened. The rough texture of the ladder’s sides felt too rough against my clammy palms. For whatever reason, his proximity was a tangible thing that did things to my insides that I didn’t understand.

I forced my gaze upward, tried to ignore the way my heartbeat thrummed erratically against my ribcage. But my resistance faltered and my curiosity drew my eyes down. I glanced between my legs and our gazes locked. His eyes, a deep and fathomless green, held mine in an unyielding embrace. There was a startling intimacy in the proximity of our bodies separated by mere rungs of a ladder. From this angle, his head was perfectly between my legs, and my imagination did the rest.

“Careful, wouldn’t want you to fall,” Liam murmured, the hint of a smirk playing on his lips. The double meaning sliced through the fog in my mind. Heat crept up my neck, staining my cheeks with embarrassment—or was it something else? I mentally cursed. This man, potentially a murderer, had me blushing like a schoolgirl caught in a wet daydream.

I cleared my throat and reached for the last crystal bauble that had been hanging on the bones of the chandelier. I got it, and with the final piece of garish decor removed, I shifted, reaching for the ladder’s side rail, but my foot missed its mark. My balance wavered, a silent curse on the tip of my tongue.

Before fear could properly take root, Liam’s hands clasped around my waist. His touch was sudden, firm, anchoring me back to safety. That fucking spark, the uninvited buzz raced along my nerves like bugs. I sucked in a breath and held it as his closeness enveloped me. Our silence spoke volumes, each second stretching longer than the last, charged with an energy I couldn’t name.

“Thanks...” My voice was a whisper when I finally descended to solid ground. “I didn’t mean to—”

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