Page 51 of Dance of Deception

“Now why the hell would I do that?” he growls.

I lift my chin, steeling myself.

“Because,” I say, voice calm but razor-sharp, “if you don’t, I’ll tell everyone about your fondness for dog masks and chasing girls through underground mazes.”

The air between us throbs with a dark, lethal energy that turns my legs to jelly.

Carmine goes completely, unnervingly still, whiskey glass halfway to his lips, the ice inside shifting with a soft clink. His fingers tighten around the rocks glass, just slightly. With excruciating slowness, he sets it down on the bar cart—a quiet, controlled click of crystal against wood.

Then he moves.

Fast.

Before I can react, he’s already shoving the coffee table aside like it’s nothing, making it scrape so suddenly and violently against the floor that I flinch.

My heart climbs into my throat, choking off my scream. I backpedal instinctively, but my legs hit the couch.

Then, I’m falling.

The cushion catches me, but before I can scramble up, Carmine is there.

Towering. Looming. Caging me in.

His shadow devours me as one large, veined hand wraps around my throat, pressing me back to the couch—not choking or hurting, just holding me in place and reminding me how fuckingpowerlessI am right now.

My breath turns quick and shallow, my pulse thrumming frantically against his palm.

He leans in, his ice-blue gaze burning into mine, lips slightly parted, like he’s debating whether to speak orbite.

“You just made the biggest mistake of your life,” he growls.

A shiver rips down my spine.

I should be afraid. And I am. But the fear is twisting into something else that I don’t want to name.

Just like last time.

His grip tightens slightly, as if he can feel it too.

I force my voice to work. “You have two options,” I whisper. “Either you pick?—”

“Do you evenknowwhat you saw the other night?” he murmurs darkly.

I swallow with difficulty against the hand around my throat. “Yes.”

His lips curl. “No, you don’t,” he says. “You just fuckingthinkyou do. If you really did, you’d be running as fast as and as far away from me and this city as you could, and you'd bury yourself in a dark hole, and never,evercome out.”

Sirens blare in my head as his hand closes tighter around my throat. As his eyes pierce mine and he leans down close.

“If you had even an inkling of what you saw the other night, little dancer,” he snarls, “coming here and throwing itinmy fucking faceis the single last thing you’d ever dream of doing.”

The room is pin-drop silent when he’s finished.

Slowly, his powerful grip unwinds from my throat. His hand drops, leaving behind a throbbing, tingling sensation that makes me flinch in spite of myself as he stares down at me.

“You should have stayed Miss Nobody who heard and saw nothing, little dancer,” he growls. “Because the one fucking thing you don’t want to be with me is someone who saw far,fartoo much.”

He steps away, his eyes never leaving mine.

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