Page 104 of Cruel Games

My hands balled into fists. “None of your business.”

Coyote growled behind me. “Jackal.”

I waved his attention off. “Not now, Coyote.” I turned back to Ghost with a shit-eating grin on my lips. “She’s exactly where she wants to be. Sorry you can’t find someone to suck your dick, Ghost. But that’s not our problem, and taking it out on us isn’t winning you anything.”

“Fine, fine,” he muttered, raising his hands in a defensive manner. “But if you’re looking for someone in a cute red dress with a pair of the most gorgeous blue eyes you’ve ever seen and a pair of tits that beg to be manhandled?—”

He paused for a moment as he let his words linger in the air between us. He knew exactly what he was doing, dammit. It was his intention to get a rise out of us.

And he knew if it happened, I’d be the one to give it to him.

I gritted my teeth and tried desperately to swallow the urge to shove my fist down his cocky throat.

“She’s currently hurrying up the back stairs. But you’d better be fast,” he added as we hurried off in the directionof the back commons area. “She didn’t look too good when she crawled out of the air vents.”

I didn’t stop to wonder what he meant by that. All I could think was to make it to her as fast as I could.

Coyote should have known better than to leave her alone in a building full of some of the most volatile criminals in the fucking free world. But I couldn’t fault him for following an order. Hell, if she told the poor guy to jump out the window, he’d probably do it on the spot, no questions asked, just to see her smile for him.

He was a lovesick fool. And most of us were no better. She had effectively started wrapping us around her little finger, and the longer we spent in her company, the weaker we became.

Obviously, I was the only exception. She couldn’t make me bend or break, no matter how much she tried. I wasn’t some lovey-dovey sap who needed to be nice to get in her pants.

No.

She’d come crawling to me because she thought it was the very last thing I wanted. And if I really needed a hole to fuck, there were plenty of women out there willing to overlook my profession and past to suck my dick for a buck.

Although now that I let that thought run free in my mind, it left me with a bitter aftertaste I wasn’t used to and didn’t like.

I didn’t have feelings for that bitch. I didn’t.

Only the feelings a dog has for their owner.

Nothing more.

The back commons were empty, and we made the decision to split up when we reached it. I headed up the back stairs, Coyote doubled back to the front staircase, and Dingo headed for the back doors in the next room, convinced if she were going to make a run for it, now would be the time.

Maybe she’d realized suddenly that she couldn’t bring herself to kill us. Maybe she got a little hot and heavy with Coyote anddecided she couldn’t handle him. Maybe she wanted to play a game with us, one we weren’t aware we were playing.

If it was a game she was after, I’d give it to her. She must’ve forgotten who she was playing with. I was starting to grow tired of the promise Coyote had drawn out of me, out of us, and it was well past time to stop with the game of hide and seek. She’d find out eventually her father wasn’t the man she thought he was, and when she did, there was nothing safe about being on either side of the line.

No matter whether we told her or didn’t, she would still blame us.

I crested the stairs on our floor and spotted something sparkly at the end of the hall, right in front of our door. I strode down the hall with a quickness and knelt in front of it, examining the little bauble, recognizing its shape as something she’d put in her hair tonight to match her pretty dress.

Now, staring up at me from the floor, the shining fake rubies glittered in a mocking manner, as if to sayyou’re too late.

Too late for what, though?

I stepped into our shared quarters and just listened for a moment, not surprised there wasn’t a single light on in the place. If she was trying to be sneaky, announcing her presence with a light was the easiest way to lose that advantage.

A crash from the direction of my room had me sliding across the floor, thanking myself for insisting we put a rug in this damn place, as much as I hated cleaning it on the regular. It muffled my steps and enabled me to be quick.

And once inside my room, I realized notallof the lights were off.

No, she’d turned this one on. Maybe she needed to find something in here. Or maybe she needed to look at herself in the mirror and see something. Regardless, I shoved the door open and found her crouched on the countertop, her hand on thelatch of the window, her eyes wide and panicked as she looked up at me and met my gaze.

She wasn’t even there. Her eyes were dead, soulless. In their depths, though, just as she lifted that fucking window and set one foot outside.

---