Page 32 of The Heart of Midnight

Glancing up at the monitors, I get my answer. She’s sitting in her living room on the couch with her arms crossed,wearingthe fucking Muerte mask.

Oh yeah, she knows.

So why didn’t she tell?

Twenty

Avery

My heart is pounding my chest as I wait for Scar to come find me. I don’t know how he’s going to react to seeing me in his stupid faux Muerte mask, but after hearing the cops at his door earlier, I knew I had to take it when I found it. I didn’t really know what I was looking for when I slipped free of my restraints, but I didn’t initially have any plans on leaving that basement. I just wanted to look around Scar’s favorite place for a bit, and when I first came across his box of weapons and the mask, nausea coiled through me. For a second, I considered that he and Muerte were one and the same, but with all of the opportunities he’s had to kill me, I know he can’t be. If he was, why the fuck would I be alive?

Still, I knew the cops would never believe whatever story he would have had to come up with for owning his harrowing box and mask, so I stole them and hid them for him. His explanation for all of it is mine alone, and when they left his house without taking him with them, I knew I was finally going to get it.

Putting the mask on wasn’t planned, but to be honest I’m so damn annoyed he has one of these at all, I want to fuck with him a little.

So I wait.

And wait, and wait.

But after almost an hour passes, Scar knocks twice on my front door and lets himself in. “You’ve been busy.”

“Have I?” I tug the stupid mask off with a sigh, my sweaty hair matted to my forehead as I release a breath. “Mask is fucking hot. What took you so damn long to come here after they left? There’s no way you didn’t check those cameras until now.”

I toss it on the floor near his feet and cross my arms, watching his body language as he bends down to pick it up. “Oh, I checked them. I just couldn’t figure out what the hell you were doing.”

“Cooking alive, obviously.” I narrow my gaze and decide to let that go, because we have a much more important conversation we need to have right now. “Why do you have that? Was it to scare me into your arms? Because I already wanted to be there. You didn’t have to—” I wave my hand at the mask and his box — “Pretend.”

“Pretend?”

“Yeah. You already knew I was scared of him when you bought that, right?”

But as I look at him now, I’m getting a much different vibe. He looks like a caged animal.

“Just forget you saw this.”

Fat fucking chance.

“Scarcello.” I take a hesitant step forward and stand taller. “I took them so the cops wouldn’t see them, and I did that for you blindly. Talk to me. Why are they even knocking on your door?”

“Sit down, Avery. Where’s your cell phone?”

There’s nothing but cold defense on his face and I know he’s not screwing around.

I bite my tongue and do as told, moving to the couch to sit before I tell him where to find my phone. “It’s probably still charging. I haven’t even looked at it since I snuck over here.”

I’m still wearing his shirt and a new pair of panties, but for some reason I feel much more exposed now than I did earlier. I thought I’d seen every side of Scar there was to see, yet as he takes my phone and takes the battery out, I’m starting to think I was wrong.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“I didn’t take any of it out.” The box sits virtually untouched on the coffee table in front of me as I watch him closely. “You’re ridiculously tense, and something tells me I’m really not going to like whatever the hell you’re about to say. So just say it.”

“How’d you find this shit? The mask, specifically. It was under a trap door in the floor.”

He’s pacing around now, checking in the pages of books, behind pictures on the wall, inspecting my lamps. Biting my lip, I think back to the moment I slipped from the ties and bite on my nail before speaking. “Well I just wanted to look around your space. Honestly, I was curious if you stalked me and had pictures hidden somewhere, so when I saw the outline of the door I got excited. Seeing that was a shock, but I knew you’d have an explanation, and if it had anything to do with the cops I knew it had to be moved. They wouldn’t understand.”

Feeling around under the coffee table, Scar exhales hard. “What exactly is it you think they wouldn’t understand?”

He looks paranoid as hell, but when every place he searches comes up blank I see him relax a little more so I don’t comment. “That you and I have a lot of kinks, and how you probably only got that mask to sneak into my room after midnight some night, but I’d never tell them about that either. Those nights are ours.”

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