Page 6 of Phantasm
“So you did what?” She follows me out of the room. “You had sex with him? An Elder? The Enemy?”
We stop in the hallway, waiting for two guys to walk past. “What was I going to do? Turn him down and risk blowing my cover?”
“You liked it.” A wide smile spreads across her lips, but then it dies. “That was dangerous, Cecilia. He could have killed you on the spot.”
“Well, he didn’t. I’m not dead.” Turning on my heel, I ascend the staircase. Lauren is hot on my heels. I won’t shake her now that she’s curious.
“What if you were followed here?”
“I didn’t blow our cover.”
“Are you sure?”
No, I’m not. Delacroix knew I snuck in, and he was perceptive enough to call me out on my lie when I told him my name. Not even my friends know who I am, and it will stay that way.My parents would turn in their graves if they saw me now, but I’m done spending my life hiding to protect my father’s fortune. I don’t care about my family’s bloodline or their old money. I care about revenge. About doing as much damage as I can to the secret society. No one should have to feel the grief I’ve experienced. My father’s disappearance was swept under the carpet as if he never existed. Never mattered. It’s bullshit. The killer is still out there, breathing.
It ends now.
I pause on the top step. “I’m sure. Don’t worry. I know how to cover my tracks, Lauren.”
She looks unconvinced as she watches me stride to my bedroom and shut myself inside. Once the door is locked, I collect my laptop from the desk and make myself comfortable onthe bed. Light rain smatters against the window while the laptop powers up. Restless, I tap my coffin nail against the touchpad.
Memories of Delacroix’s heated eyes invade my thoughts. Pesky, unwelcome thoughts that I wish I could incinerate. I still remember the sensation of his sharp stubble against my bare thighs, which makes me tingle in places I shouldn’t. How can my body betray me like this? It pisses me off. I want him dead, his eyes plucked from his skull. So why am I recalling how it felt when he came all over my ass and back? The sounds he made. And how—despite his threat to kill me—I welcomed his brutality and got off on it. This is one of the men responsible for my father’s disappearance. For all I know, he could betheone behind the attack.
I shake off my racing thoughts. It doesn’t matter. The Exodus needs eliminating. If we kill them all, we will eventually catch my father’s murderer.
My gaze drifts to the rivulets of rain on the glass, but it’s too dark to see outside. Even so, I can’t shake the feeling of being watched. A packet of sour laces is wedged between two empty coffee mugs on the bedside. I pick it up, slide out a lace, and bite off a large piece.Christ, that’s why the packet has the word ‘sour’ written in capital letters on the front.I always forget. Do I even like these sweets? Yes, I do, but I also don’t. Much like my sexual encounter with Darian Delacroix today. I liked his tongue on my pussy, yet I also hated every minute of it.
I open the web browser and type in his name. Pictures flood the screen. He even has his own Wikipedia page. Pretentious asshole. It almost hurts to suppress my eye roll, so I don’t even try.
There are lots of photographs of him alongside important society members. Mustached men in expensive suits and their dolled-up-to-the-nines wives. He’s especially close to that womanizer Nathaniel Sinclair, whom I saw earlier today.Further research shows they went to Harvard together. Interesting. Something else that’s interesting—though it absolutely shouldn’t be—is the fact that I can’t find pictures of Delacroix with other women. I don’t know why my heart does a weird little flip. There’s no reason for it.
Closing the lid on my laptop, I bend over the side of the bed to retrieve the duffel bag from underneath. I haul it onto the comforter and unzip it to reveal an arsenal of weapons. Guns and knives of all shapes and sizes.
There’s a knock, and Keith enters, shutting the door behind him. He glances at the bag on my bed and the gun in my hand, and then he slides his hands into his pockets. Keith is in his mid-fifties, with brown, silvery hair on the longer side—he’s forever running a hand through his locks to keep them off his forehead—and hazel eyes laced with the guilt he can’t shake after losing his younger brother to the Reckoning two decades ago. We rarely talk about our personal lives, so I don’t know him that well. From the little I can gather, he grew up with a strong sense of responsibility for his brother, and it broke something inside him when he failed to protect him. Keith is one of the few founding members who fought in previous Reckonings. They started this rebel group and then welcomed me years later with open arms when I sought them out online.
“How do you feel about tomorrow?” he asks, crossing the room and taking a seat at the edge of my bed.
I study the gun in my hand, wondering if Lauren ratted me out. I doubt it. Keith would be fuming if he knew what happened in that office. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He studies me for a moment and then sighs. “We’ve never attacked the nest directly.”
The “nest” isthe word we use for the rented cottage where the party will take place. It’s mandatory for the Exodus members to attend. In other words, it’s a nest, and we plan to smoke it out.I’ve always believed in hitting them where it hurts. Go straight to the source. It’s ballsy enough that they won’t see it coming because they think they’re safe in their little luxury cottage with the best security money can buy while they destroy families and futures.
I gnash my teeth. Keith notices and removes the gun from my hands. Once it’s zipped back inside the bag, he sits so that he’s facing me on the bed. “I’ll tell you what I’ve told the others—you can back out. A lot of people will die tomorrow. Our own men included. No one will blame you if you change your mind.”
“I’m not backing out.”
I’ve waited too fucking long for this.
He stares at me for a moment. “We’re doing something we’ve never done before. Attacking the nest is not only reckless, it’s a suicide mission. Once we enter that building, we’re not getting out alive. You have to be one hundred percent certain before you come with us tomorrow.”
“I’m certain.” There’s a bite to my tone, and he responds with a tightened jaw. Keith took a shine to me early on. Shame he’s like a father figure and thirty years older than me, or I might have explored my sexuality before sending myself into an early grave. “I want revenge as much as you do,” I continue. “It’s all I can think about.”
“I know.” He doesn’t sound happy. “The anger we feel…it’s poison. A miserable existence. We only feel alive again for ten hours every ten years when we can water the seeds of our anger. If I have learned one thing, the relief I feel when I kill one of those entitled motherfuckers is short-lived. Like scratching an itch. But it returns sooner or later, and I’m tired of scratching.”
In the ambient bedside light, his eyes gleam with a rare show of emotion. “I know what I’m walking into tomorrow. I’m fine with it. I’ve spent the last twenty-five years angry, but you’reyoung, Cecilia. You have your whole life ahead of you. There’s still hope for you.”
“My family is dead because of them. Trust me, there’s no hope for me.”
