Page 2 of Wicked Pursuit

I swallow hard and type out a response.

Be there in two.

I hitch my purse more firmly onto my shoulder and stride out the door. It’s not particularly late, so there’s plenty of foot traffic. I fall in with a group of chattering college students. There was a time when Carver City was split more intensely, but years of peace have changed things. Now college bars nestle right up next to places where seedier business is arranged. There’s an unspoken agreement—the lieutenants of the various territories stay away from civilians, and if a normal person wanders into the wrong business, they’re sent on their way without any violence. It works. Mostly.

The small hairs on the back of my neck lift.

Someone is watching me.

I glance over my shoulder, certain my ill-advised partner has followed me. He’s nowhere in sight. In fact, no one seems to be paying me much attention. That’s almost enough for me to brush off the feeling, but I’ve been trained too well.

Growing up the way I had, even while dodging my responsibilities as heir, there was no way I could avoid certain realities. Carver City may be at peace, but that doesn’t change the danger inherent in our life. Violence could erupt at any moment, at least in theory. As a result, Da taught me to trust my instincts. If they say run, then I run. If they say hide, then I hide. Better to be overcautious than to end up dead.

Right now, they’re saying that someone is following me.

I pick up my pace, hurrying to the bar where Michelle is waiting for me. She’s a perfect mix of her parents, short and with generous curves and a thick waist, her skin medium-brown and her hair dark and wavy. Tonight she’s wearing a pair of painted-on jeans and a cute flowery top that does wonders for her cleavage. “About time you got here!”

“Sorry, I got held up.” I’m still not quite sure how I feel about what happened... No, that’s a lie. My nerves are alight and my skin feels too tight. I want tomove. To dance and scream and chase this feeling of being alive. “Is anyone else coming?”

“No.” She makes a show of pouting. “The only person who returned my text was Zayne, and only to tell me that he’s got work in the morning and isn’t interested in being hungover for it.”

I drop into the chair next to her. “That sucks. I haven’t seen him in ages.” He’s not an heir like Michelle and me but like Michelle, he’s one of the only people in this city I consider a friend. Or at least I used to, before I started dating Luke. The rest of the heirs and spares range from friendly acquaintances to those who don’t give me the time of day. But at least none of us are enemies. We’ve all grown up the same, with the importance of peace in Carver City drilled into us from an early age.

“You’d see him more if you came out more.”

I shrug because she’s right. Luke and I used to come out with them when we first started dating, but then his job got more demanding and I convinced myself I liked the chill nights at home and... here we are. “Tell me about this new girl you’re seeing. When do I get to meet her?”

“Oh, you know.” She waves that away, happy to flit to a new subject, just like I hoped she’d be. “It’s not that serious. So probably never. But I just heard the juiciest gossip.”

My phone buzzes. I motion for her to keep going as I glance at it. Unknown number? Frowning, I pull up the message.

Unknown

Someone’s been a bad girl.

I scoff.And someone has never heard an original line in their life. I’m about to put down my phone when it buzzes again. This time, it’s a picture message. The lighting is dim and the framing is strange, as if it was taken through a gap in a door. Even so, I recognize what I’m looking at immediately.

My dress, held up around my hips by hands with scars on their knuckles.

My bare ass, lifted just enough for someone to see that I am most definitely fucking the man I’m straddling. The man who isn’t my boyfriend.

And, in the mirror behind the booth,myface.

Another buzz.

Unknown

What would your boyfriend think?

“Is something wrong, Ruby?”

I startle and nearly knock off the glass of wine the bartender just set down in front of me. “No. It’s fine.” I don’t sound convincing, even to myself. Sure as hell not enough to get past Michelle.

She narrows her pretty green eyes. “We lie to other people. We don’t lie to each other. What’s going on?”

My resolve to keep my earlier activities to myself crumbles. I’m not ready to talk about whoever the fuck is texting me—I’ll deal withthatlater—but cheating on Luke? That knowledge is a stone in my stomach. I cast a look around the place. It’s a completely different crowd than the last one, even though only a handful of blocks separate the bars. We’re firmly in neutral territory here, and while there hasn’t been war between the territory leaders since before I was born, everyone still breathes a little easier when they’re in the shadow of the Underworld. Whoever took that picture of me isn’t here. I’m sure of it.

Mostly sure.

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