Page 139 of The Secrets That Kill

The level of Broken Angel I’ve been given membership to doesn’t have a card or anything as mundane as that. It’s beautifully simple; my name now opens all the doors I want.

But I don’t really need that since the ball, or party, or whatever the fuck you call this event with people dressed up and posturing like they’re important and not intimately involved with the scum of the Earth—gives me all the access I need.

I have a very lethal poison slid into a seam of the inside pocket of my suit pants. Neurotoxin, venom of the blue-ringed octopus, mixed with another substance. A few drops inHenderson’s drink, and a quick pin prick of Henderson’s skin like I’m the big bad from a fairy tale will more than do the job. It’s a double-death approach because I don’t want to take any chances.

It’s also something that will assuredly be noticed in an autopsy, but I’m betting the moment I take him out and get all the blackmail material, no one will call for an investigation. Because those in power who could potentially call for any investigation will be part of the blackmail.

My lips twist. I’d prefer to use a knife on that motherfucker, watch him bleed out at my feet.

But bringing in a weapon isn’t worth the risk.

So now I just have to wait for him to turn up and request a private audience.

Ivy’s eyes are a little big as we navigate the rooms. I sweep her into my arms for a dance. It’s a little off brand for me, but she needs something comforting right now. But it also brings us out into the center of things without making it look deliberate. People can watch and we can be in our zone.

Or at least look that way.

She stiffens in my arms, a sharp breath expelling from her lips.

“You okay, Pollyanna?”

“Yes, Sir.”

She’s not. There’s fear in her eyes, and for the innocent she is, I don’t blame her. People are leaving this space to fuck in the room next to us. You can hear their moans and howls beneath the music. And there’s a wild, raucous chant that filters in.

She doesn’t know what happens in that room, but I do. Men are throwing down drugs and money to entice the pet whores in this place to debase themselves. They’ll be the girls who end up suffering a horrific life of sexual servitude and torture, the ones who can’t escape, ones who will be keptunder the control of their masters with drugs and threats and blackmail.

In other rooms girls are, no doubt, getting abused, fucked, gangbanged. More pet whores used for vicious play.

And then there are men who just go off to have fun with the girls mingling around us. They’re the stars of this place, the females who will do anything and everything those fucks can’t get from the women they brought with them.

The people surrounding us—some I recognize in passing, others because they’re public figures—are the ones who fucked and used Ruby. The ones who abused her to the point she was only good enough for the rougher, nastier stuff. They might have killed her through the drugs she could earn by letting them destroy her body. Or they might have gone too far. Then there are the snuff film rumors. Pornos that feature the actual death of a performer at the end of a sadistic act.

I’ll never know the truth about how she died, and it plagues me.

I’m not sure I want to.

Bottom line is she’s dead. Because of Henderson. According to Orion, at his hands. Whether he fucked her and got too into breath play and choked her, or just had enough and killed her, or sold her knowing she’d die…to me it’s all the same. He may as well have put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

“Are we going to one of those room?—”

“No.” I look back at her. “You never, ever go in one of those.”

“Why?”

Fuck. I lean in, mouth to her ear. “I’m telling you something I’m trusting you can handle. Those rooms keep girls they bought, coerced, kidnapped. Girls they force to be here. And they’re used. Abused. There aren’t any safe words or safetynets. You stay with me. You don’t ever leave my sight. I know you’re scared, but I swear I’ll keep you safe.”

“You hate me.” Her voice is thin.

“No. I told you I don’t.”

She’s really scared and I have a deep-seated want to protect her, the need to keep her safe beats at me.

This is more than me wanting her. It’s more than wanting to calm her fears, it’s more than me just not hating her.

My chest tightens, pulse leaping into my throat and battering the side.

I’ve got…feelings for Ivy. I poke at them and they’re big, both delicate and overwhelming in their might. I have no fucking clue what to do with them. I don’t have feelings for people. Not good ones. It’s not what I do, who I am.

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