Page 66 of Nemesis

It means he’d rather maim than kill. Or he prefers his enemies to suffer a slow death.

When I don’t reply, he adds, “She’s downstairs.”

With that, he turns and leaves me standing there like an idiot.

Do I want to talk to Artemis again?

Is she in any state after I walked out on her?

I sigh and set the rifle aside, checking that my handgun is still in the holster in the small of my back. It is. I meet him at the end of the hall, where the greenexitsign flickers ever so subtly.

Tall as it is, there’s no elevator in this building.

We take the stairs to the ground level. Around and around we go, until my knee protests and I grit my teeth to stop from complaining.

My knee is always the first thing to ache. The first to alert me to incoming storms, even. A weird trick, but true enough. And it’s helped me avoid the rain on more than one occasion. The reason for the ache isn’t positive, but whipping out the partytrick to impress the random person beside me at the bar gives me a dose of levity.

We exit into a small lobby. There’s a row of mailboxes along the left wall. Some packages are collecting dust on the floor. One of the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling light is out.

Malikai Barlow spares none of that a glance. The back of his cut saysHell Hounds MC, and I bite the inside of my cheek. I should’ve noticed it before I followed him down eight flights of stairs.

Bad enough still that I left the rifle, but this? Willingly following a member of a motorcycle club—one who could’ve easily lied about who awaits me at the exit.

Unprepared.

Sloppy.

This could be a trap. A clever one. No one knows—no onereallyknows—my relationship to Artemis Madden. But he said her name easily, as if he’d said it a thousand times before.

—the golden girl is up next?—

I blink hard, erasing the hazy image that floated up out of nowhere, the echoing words that followed.

We get outside, my muscles tensing for the attack.

But no—here she is.

She fiddles with a helmet in her lap, half sitting on a motorcycle. There are three other guys surrounding her, taking up most of the street.

Not that anyone gives a fuck.

Her half-lidded eyes stick on my shoes, and she giggles to herself.

“Drunk,” Malikai mutters. “At nine-fucking-thirty in the morning.”

I scan the street. Besides Malikai’s three club members, and the bike Artemis uses to keep herself upright, there’s nothing.No movement, no sounds. A block away, in the opposite direction of the docks, floats the sound of construction.

A decimated warehouse is being rebuilt.

“Well?” Malikai demands.

I straighten. His words are for her, not me, but they rake down my spine all the same.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” I snap.

The Hound eyes me. “Oh, really?”

I keep my expression even and don’t reply. I haven’t dealt with him before. I’ve barely got the lay of the land. But I do know that guys like him respect confidence. If I show fear, I’m done.

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