Page 7 of The Secrets That Kill

And still, I can’t see his face.

“I’m okay,” I say, gripping my glass. A hot wave of shock hits me. I’m still holding the glass from the party. Why didn’t Ismash it against Anton’s face? I extend my arm and try to move past the man. “Let me go. I need to find?—”

“Cara?” His voice is the kind that wakes the deepest and most forbidden dreams, there’s a familiar edge that brushes me in strange ways.

It has to be the shock.

Of course it is. That jackass Anton threatened to rape me. And something—I swallow. Something bad happened in Seven7Seven. To someone.

My God, please don’t let it have been Cara.

“The police. I have to call the police.” I scramble for my phone, but he plucks it from me with those thick fingers. I catch a glimpse of an expensive-looking watch peeking out from the cuff.

It’s definitely the watcher from the club.

“Anton Popov doesn’t give a damn about the police. He thinks you were left as a present for him. A gift. And he killed someone in my club. To the cops, he’s untouchable.”

My stomach churns. “Please let me go.”

“I promised Cara I’d watch out for you. So we’ll go and wait somewhere safe until she comes for you.”

He slams the car door before I can respond. There’s a telltale click of a lock.

The panic is back, full force. I’m trapped with nothing more than an empty glass as a weapon.

I stare out the tinted windows. The car doesn’t go far, just a few blocks. It pulls up to a building, the motor purring. My pulse, in contrast, races as a thousand thoughts flare to life in my head, making it almost impossible to think. I need to calm the hell down.

Leaning forward, I tap on the privacy window between the front and the back where I am—still holding the stupid glass—when the front passenger side door opens and closes.

Dropping the glass on the seat next to me, I lunge for the handle of my door, but it’s still locked. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit!”

The car starts to move again and my heart thumps hard against my ribs.

But all we do is enter some kind of closed-off parking space.

I know where we are. I know this building.

Orb.

I’ve seen the black painted, cast iron, six-story building online, in magazines left in the library at college, even on the news.

The private club is one of those old school places. It’s not a club with dancing that I’m aware of. That goes on in the exclusive Night Arrow bar a floor below it.

If Seven7Seven is hard to get into, Night Arrow is harder and Orb next to impossible.

And… I swallow. Down below, in the depths of the building, is where the decadent and depraved O-Ring sex club is rumored to be. No cameras, phone, or recording devices allowed. You don’t miss the gossip because even the mainstream trendy kinksters want to be seen there, which, apart from boring old me, is everyone.

Everyone wants to say they’ve been.

“Calm down.” The words that float back do nothing to relax me, though.

I breathe and count and start looking for another weapon when the door opens.

The man is big. Dressed in a black uniform, he doesn’t smile. “Mr. Vale sends apologies. I’ll lead you up to his table at Orb to wait for Miss Cara. This way…”

We walk inside. The impossibly tasteful luxury of the club with its dark tones and bronzes gives it the edge of discretion and decadence. But this time, no one watches or looks at me.

The driver or bodyguard or whoever he was who led me here didn’t say another word, and I’m gauging my chances of getting up and walking out.

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