Page 25 of Dangerous

Marcus’ flat turned out to be as spectacular as Blaine’s and my house, but for entirely different reasons. I stopped my chattering when he ushered me in the door to stare at the breathtaking view of London’s skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the entire outer wall of the large, open-spaced living room-slash-dining room-slash kitchen we stepped into.

“This is amazing,” I finally managed. I stepped all the way over to the windows and looked out. It felt like the entire city lay beneath my feet.

When I turned around, Marcus had placed a high-stemmed glass on the table and proceeded to fill it with a ruby-red wine. I raised my eyebrows in mild surprise when he held it out to me.

The large man leaned against the kitchen island next to where he’d placed the glass. An invitation to sit on the adjoining bar stool, I assumed. I gave him another hopefully not-too-nervous smile and walked back across the parquet flooring to sit where he’d indicated.

“Thank you.” I took a sip from the glass, because it would have been rude not to. It felt expensive and smooth on my tongue, like thick silk. My next sip was bigger, and not from politeness.

He was watching me again, his expression as unreadable as ever.

I sighed and put the glass down. “You know, it’s really unnerving when you do that.”

His eyebrows rose a millimeter. I took it as a question.

“The silent staring. Or just the silence, to be honest. I think I’d prefer yelling, if this is your way of showing your disapproval.”

“I offered to keep check on your phone because if my father sent someone to fetch you, you’d likely get a few bruises. I don’tdisapproveof you trying to escape. Blaine’s a bastard.”

“Oh.” I looked up into his flint-colored eyes with some uncertainty. “Then… why didn’t you just let me get in the cab?”

“Can’t.” Marcus looked down at the counter where he was tapping his fingers against the smooth marble. “He likes you too much.”

“Uhh…” I blinked, and felt my eyebrows creep up as high on my forehead as they could go. “Who? Blaine? He said that?”

“No. Doesn’t have to. We can tell.”

“‘We’?” I inquired. “Andhow? Just, you know, out of morbid curiosity. ‘Cause I gotta tell ya, I’m not really getting the same vibes. In fact, I’m pretty sure he hates me as much as I hate him. A prime example would be tonight, when he chased me through the house and threw me on the floor because I pissed him off.”

Marcus stilled completely, and for the first time that night, I saw clear emotion crossing his features. Dark anger filtered across his handsome face, but when he turned to face me, only his eyes kept that dark spark—the rest of his expression was as blank as before. “What?”

Uh-oh.If I thought he’d had a scary presence before, it was nothing against the nearly physical tendrils ofdangerthat seemed to creep across the floor and envelop the entire room with his anger.

“We had a fight,” I squeaked, clutching at the wine glass hard to stop my hand from trembling. As angry as I was with Blaine, I was willing to backpedal if it meant his brother would get slightly less terrifying. “It wasn’t unprovoked—I threw wine in his face.”

“Hehurtyou?”

I thought back to the fight, and realized that no… he hadn’t. I’d been scared, and he had been rough, but at no point had I been physically injured. “No, not really. He just... scared me. And then he left. That’s why I snuck out—I wasn’t planning on running away or anything. I just wanted to—to show him he can’t treat me like that and expect I’ll just be an obedient little woman who stays put.”

I hadn’t mean to confess that—not to anyone, least of all to Blaine’s scary brother, but it just seemed to spill out as I stared at his blank face and storm gray eyes.

Marcus looked at me for what felt like the longest time, and I felt like he was trying to X-ray my brain with the intensity of his stare to ensure I was telling the truth. Finally, he nodded and pulled back from the kitchen counter, and it was as if the pressure in the air around us changed, making it suddenly easier to breathe.

“Finish your wine. I’m calling Blaine, and then he and I will talk before you go home. He won’t ever scare you like that again.”

The way he said “talk,” I couldn’t help but wince internally. Seemed like I’d gotten an unexpected ally.

Thirteen

Blaine

“Seriously, what’s gotten into you?” Liam shoved a drink across the table to me as he sat down on the crimson leather sofa on my left side. He didn’t have to shout over the music, even though we were inRed,one of our more exclusive nightclubs. The VIP section wasn’t nearly as loud as the rest of the club, set up to allow for sensitive business deals to be made in the private booths.

“Who actuallyvolunteersfor a liquidation job?” Louis chimed in from my right. “Even Marcus’s never done that.”

I looked down at my bloody knuckles with disgust. We killed people fairly frequently, and I knew even the lighthearted twins had had to put a few arseholes down over the years. Men who stole from us, enemies who crossed the line, snitches… there was always a method to it, a nearly clinical procedure that left the least amount of evidence behind. Tie the man to a chair, spread plastic wrapping underneath him, one bullet to the brain. Easy clean up.

That wasn’t what I’d done tonight.

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