Page 12 of Red Dreams

“The basement level that's actually on the books,” he explains, his voice tight but steady, “it's got these thick walls here and here.” He points at sections of my map. “Way thicker than they need to be. Could be old vault spaces from the bank days, or...”

“Or places to hide doors that aren't supposed to exist.” I nod. “Good catch.”

He blinks at the praise, then frowns. “But Cassie will be expecting us to find those. She knows you'd look for hidden entrances.”

“She's not just expecting it. She's counting on it.” I start gathering my minimal gear, wincing when I forget about my shoulder and haul a strap over it. “That's why we're not going to use them.”

“We're not?”

“No.” I check my weapons, making sure everything's secure. “We're going through the front door.”

“The ... what?” Ethan scrambles to his feet. “But that's insane. They'll see us coming.”

“Exactly.” I meet his eyes. “Sometimes the best way to spring a trap is to walk right into it—just not in the way they expect.”

Understanding dawns on his face, followed quickly by horror. “Oh God. What are you planning?”

“Nothing complicated.” I head for the stairs. “We're going to give my daughter exactly what she wants: a show.”

“A show,” he echoes weakly, hurrying to keep up. “Great. Because your family's definition of entertainment seems really healthy and not at all terrifying.”

I pause at the bottom of the stairs, the weight of what we're about to do settling like spent gunpowder in my chest. “Ethan. You don't have to come.”

“Yeah, I do.” He straightens, steel entering his voice despite the fear in his eyes. “Layla's my friend. And friends don't let friends get tortured by psycho tech genius crime families alone.”

I don't respond, but I let him see my slight nod of acknowledgment before I start up the stairs.

Behind us, the crayon map lies abandoned on the floor, its red lines looking more and more like blood spatter in the basement light.

5

LAYLA

The lighter's flame dances closer to my skin. Cassie holds it with the same delicate precision she uses on her keyboards, studying how the heat makes my muscles twitch. My wrists are raw meat against the zip ties, but the pain helps. It keeps me anchored when the rest of me wants to drift away.

“You understand why I have to do this?”

Her voice is almost gentle. Blood from her last session still dries tacky between my shoulder blades, where she carved something in delicate strokes.

The wounds are precise, surgical almost, mapped across my skin like a constellation of Cassie's rage. She's been methodical, each cut and burn placed where Kaden will see them first when he finds me. If he finds me.

My arms bear the brunt of her handiwork. Long, thin slices crisscross from wrist to elbow, a macabre latticework that weeps crimson tears. Cassie has carved her initials into the tender flesh of my inner forearm, signing her masterpiece.

The burns are concentrated on my shoulders and collarbones, angry red welts in the shape of a clockface, scorching a trail of them across my skin, a mocking perversion of Kaden’s tattoos.

She's left my face untouched, save for a single cut bisecting my left eyebrow. A precision strike, mirroring the scar that mars Kaden's own brow.

“He needs to hear what he left behind.”

Cassie rises, the cool wind of her departure nearly causing me to weep in gratitude, and adjusts a dial on her remote. My recorded voice fills the suite through hidden speakers. The sound makes my stomach turn—not because of the agony captured in those moments, but because of how carefully she's edited them. Layered them. Built them into something worse than the truth.

I try to swallow, but it’s like my throat is lined with broken seashells.

She perches on the leather armrest beside my prone form on the floor, close enough that I can smell her perfume, sweetly at odds with the dried blood under her manicured talons. My blood.

I force my head up despite the way it makes the room spin.

“You're admirable, you know.” She studies me with eyes like arctic water. “You lasted pretty long. Trying to stay quiet for him, it's sweet. Misguided, but sweet.”

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