Page 89 of Greed: The Savage
Oh, God.
When the heart broke, it did so not with a large crack across the middle but an excruciating slowness. The process was debilitating, exacting slow, punishing suffering. It compoundedupon sorrow to punish the one who’d committed the greatest of follies.
Finally, Dynevor spoke. “I’ve got enough places for you to hop around. I’ll send word to the Hell and Sin. You’d probably want to start there though. Ryker Black’s got a new club he started some five or so years back. That’s another option. If you want to hide completely and definitely not get yourself too close to anybody and build your walls up, any one of my sisters will have you in their households as staff.”
“No—” she said hurriedly. He’d given her so much and he was offering her even more.
He nodded slowly. “You’ve already got a place in mind.”
He’d given her everything and deserved the truth from her. She prayed he’d see why, even as she would forgive him if he couldn’t.
Addien held his gaze and nodded slowly. “I must go somewhere, where…” She couldn’t bring herself to say Malric’s name. It hurt too much. “The people at Devil’s Den won’t be able to reach me.”
Dynevor’s expression hardened.
He didn’t make her say it aloud, which she certainly owed him.
“You do know that’s the one place I can’t help you?” he asked gruffly and without anger.
In a heightened reminder of why she had to get the hell out of here, tears sparked her eyes, prodded by his concern.
“I do,” she murmured, her voice rough. “I need to go there.”
There, the club where Malric’s brother had betrayed one of the proprietors, was a place he’d never be able to step foot on the streets outside, forget about the inside of those scandalous walls.
Dynevor nodded. “It is done.”
She and all contact with Malric, the man who’d broken her heart so completely, were at an end.
It is done.
Chapter 23
Grim-faced, Thornwick arrived back at the Devil’s Den later that evening.
His appointments and day’s events confirmed Thornwick’s darkest suspicions.
He and Constance, one of the girls at the Devil’s Den, had spent the day visiting six prospective patrons, each eager to host one of the club’s performances. At every stop, the script had been the same—someone tried to spirit Constance away, or lure him off so she could be cornered alone.
She’d known the assignment from the start. They’d set clear parameters for her safety, and she’d been armed besides. Even so, he should have felt more guilt than he did for enlisting her—if only to spare Addien the risk of crossing paths with some debauched lord whose tastes ran to the profane.
As he’d anticipated, Constance had been cornered, and he’d stepped in. The thrashing he delivered to the pleading nobleman confirmed what he’d suspected—the ring that had preyed on children and street-born women years ago was back in play.
When they returned to the Devil’s Den, Thornwick sent Constance on ahead and relieved her of duties for the night. He let himself in through the front entrance of the club.
The butler, a big brute of a fellow with a past darker than the night, greeted Thornwick. “My lord.”
“Jem.” With a shrewd gaze, Thornwick took in the Devil’s Den.
Business boomed; the club swelled to overflowing. Lords lounged with painted ladies draped across their laps, while serving girls in short, filmy gowns with skirts cut to show a generous length of leg slipped like specters among the tables, keeping snifters, tumblers, and flutes brimming. Already-deep-in-their-cups noblemen drank greedily, as songbirds and ballet dancers performed their wicked exhibitions for the men on the main floor.
Yet beneath the revelry lay an unnatural quiet, a breathless anticipation thick with the scent of impending danger.
Scandal, as it did, galloped through the ton. A nobleman’s murder would be meat for every gossip in London.
Only the ones with their ears to the gutter, however, understood the implications.
The calm before the storm…and yet the head of security wasn’t even at his customary station.
