Page 38 of The Devil After Dark
“His name was Dimitri Acker,” Thea added.
My world tilted. I was hot and cold at the same time and my hands started trembling as I took a few strides to Thea’s desk and leaned over to see her computer screen. “Don’t look,” Ivan said and pulled me back. “You don’t want to know.”
“How was he killed?” I stammered.
“They don’t know yet, but parts of him were cut off,” Stephan said carefully.
“Stephan!” Thea hissed.
“What?” Stephan hissed back. “She asked!”
“I did ask,” I confirmed, my voice shaking. “What happened to him?”
Stephan looked cautiously at Thea and Thea looked at me. “Hishands were cut off and so was his tongue,” she said quietly. I was going to throw up. “His eyes were gone too.”
My stomach turned and my body hunched forward as it tried and failed to empty its contents. “I … I need to leave,” I gasped and pushed away from Ivan.
“Liana!” Thea called out as she scrambled from her desk. But I was already in the lift. I slammed my finger on the button for the bottom floor and pressed my back to the wall as I forced air through my nose. This was not happening.
He will never touch you again.Cassio’s words from last night echoed in my head. Dimitri would never touch me again because Cassio hadmurderedhim. He had murdered him then came to sleep in my bed and fuck me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried not to vomit.
forty-one
LIANA
“I… um … I would like to talk to someone about getting a restraining order,” I said to the officer at the front desk. The pen he was writing with paused as he looked at me and my fingers tapped nervously on the counter. Cassio would never stop. He was dangerous and volatile. I wasn’t about to turn him in for murder. It was truly only a hunch and I had no proof. But, my logical brain was screaming at me to do something to protect myself and this was it. My heart on the other hand wanted Cassio regardless. He had killed someone to protect me. Did that make it okay? There was something so strong between us, but he was a danger to me. The way he had responded when I brought up my concerns had confirmed it. Him murdering my ex-fiancé confirmed it.
“Of course,” the officer said. “Do you have a preference to speak with a male or female officer?” His voice was so calm and unassuming. I hadn’t expected this.
“Female, please,” I said quickly as I glanced around the waiting room.
The officer nodded. “One moment.” I watched him pick up the phone and dial numbers. Then I looked away. I could faintly hear him say a name and ask for someone to come to the front. I was too busy focusing on just breathing to bother listening to whatever he was saying.
A door buzzed to my right and a woman in jeans and a blazer with a badge hanging from around her neck stood holding the door open. “Miss, you can follow Officer Arlo.” The officer behind the desk pointed to the woman.
“Thank you,” I mumbled and followed the female officer through the door. I followed her through a bullpen of desks and into a hallway. My heart was pounding. I was really going to do this. Ihadto do this.
“We are just going to go to a private conference room to talk,” she said reassuringly. I nodded and continued to follow her past glass windowed conference rooms.
I could see there was a meeting taking place in the next room and I glanced over as we walked past. A familiar tattooed hand rested on a table. I followed the tattoo up a muscled arm where it disappeared under a dark grey t-shirt. Cassio’s ice blue eyes met mine as soon as I looked at the man’s face.
I could only hear my own breathing and my heart beating in my ears. “Never mind. I’m sorry to waste your time,” I blurted out. Then I turned and walked as quickly as I could back the way we had come. Cassio wasn’t just a businessman. Cassio was part of the gangs.He was a leader of the gangs. I had completely missed all of the tiny clues he had dropped for me. He owned multiple unnamed businesses as a front for his drug money. He knew a gang enforcer. The mask.
I pushed open the door the female officer had taken me through and crossed the entry. I could hear someone calling after me, but I didn’t stop. I burst through the police station’s front doors andjogged down the steps. I couldn’t go to the police. Cassio owned the police.
I had been walking the city streets for hours at this point and my feet were killing me. The stairs to the underground train felt harder than they should have, but I guess I was just exhausted. I hadn’t stopped to eat or drink the entire time I had been wandering after leaving the police station. I was simply at a loss for what to do. I had thought through every scenario and every situation and still had not found a solution. Cassio had made it clear he would not let me go. I could only expect him to escalate.
The warm push of air blew my hair as the train slowed and stopped. Normally I was more aware of my surroundings, but I couldn’t find the energy to scan the people as I stepped onto the train and slid into an empty seat. I just wanted to get home. I just wanted to get home and to not worry about Cassio being there or showing up. I wanted my sanctuary back.
The ride felt faster than it should have from the side of the city I was on, but I slipped off the train at the transit station just outside the city to catch my bus. It was already dark and I wrapped my arms around myself as I stood, waiting for the bus. I welcomed the warmth of the bus as I again mindlessly sat in a seat and stared out the window. I was on autopilot. I knew when to pull the cord indicating I wanted the next stop without even thinking. I crossed the street and followed my feet down the darkened side-street towards my complex without so much as a glance around me. My hand was shaking as I lifted my electronic key card to open the gate. The lift in my building was still not working and I rolled my eyes, letting out a frustrated sigh as I yanked open the door to the stairs.
I only snapped out of my trance when I opened the stairway door to my floor and saw my condo’s front door open. Someone wasin my condo. Or they had been. There was no way to know if they were still there. As if the thought summoned him, a huge body filled the doorway and my eyes caught on the masked face. Masked, but not the same mask Cassio wore. A completely different mask. A gun raised and pointed at me. My bag fell from my fingers and the smack of it on the floor snapped me out of my frozen state.
I slammed the stairway door closed and ran. My feet stumbled down the stairs as I ran. Men were shouting behind me—more than one man was chasing me. I ran faster, not daring to look back to see how close they were. It felt like the entire stairwell was shaking with our pounding feet. The next thing I knew I had careened past the first level and was already down the first set of stairs to the subterranean garage below my building. I tried to stop, then realized there was no way I was getting back up the stairs in time to make it out the front door. I had to go out through the garage. My legs burned as my hand on the railing yanked my body forward to keep going. I slammed my body into the door at the bottom of the stairs and burst into the parking garage. The gate to the garage was opening and I ran towards it. The door behind me banged open and I heard the men yelling as a motorcycle peeled into the garage. The driver screeched to a stop mere feet in front of me, throwing the bike sideways.
“Get on the bike!” the biker yelled. I paused, but only for a heartbeat. “Get on the bike, Angel!” I did. With two steps I swung my leg over the bike and wrapped my hands around Cassio’s waist. Gunfire erupted and the bike tires squealed as the bike jumped forward and ripped out of the garage and into the fresh night air. I pressed my face into the back of the man I now gripped tightly as my hair whipped around me and the motorcycle sped off into the night.
forty-two
