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My blood chilled. We both knew whohewas. The man I was running from. The man who ruined everything.
Power games. It was all power games. Me not rushing to fill the silence most people would squirm in.
Though I didn’t let it show, his words sent a cold sliver of fear through my midsection. Jasper was here on an errand for his employer, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country. He could have people killed in the blink of an eye. More often than not, it was Jasper doing the killing.
I sat down in the armchair farthest from him, kicking off my heels in a faux gesture of relaxation. My body was taut and coiled. I wasn’t armed, but there was a handgun in the cabinet beside me. Or at least there had been when I left. Jasper was likely smart enough to search the house and remove any potential weapons before I arrived home. If he was indeed coming to threaten me into submission, to drag me back to the city and back to the transgressions I’d sworn off—which I was trying to atone for. Not that I was under the impression any amount of atonements, Hail Marys or good deeds could wash me clean. The goal was just not to accumulate any more misdeeds in my ledger.
“He’s going to be disappointed when he realizes he cannot tell me what to do,” I told Jasper over the rim of my glass before I took another sip.
He watched me. Didn’t speak. Just watched.
I let him.
Let him undress me with his eyes. Let him relive the many things he’d done to me in the past. Let him tease me with the knowing that he could coax me into doing them right then,even as I was trying to shed the skin that had once tingled with excitement at his touch.
Half of me hungered for it—for him. Even then, knowing better.
Because I would nevertrulyknow better. Not with him. He’d gotten his talons deep inside me, and he could drag me into the abyss whenever he so wished.
His eyes were a swirling chocolate brown, almost black in the dim light. His brows were heavy, a slash in his left eyebrow from a bar fight when he was seventeen … over a guy who’d grabbed my ass.
He kept his chestnut hair in a bun at the nape of his neck, rather than the curtain that was perpetually falling across his face when we were younger. His jaw was sharp, angled, never with so much as a five o’clock shadow.
Jasper Hayes was exceptionally handsome. But that was just another detail. Adornment meant to distract, meant to reel in unsuspecting prey.
“No, he cannot tell you what to do, Calliope,” he replied, draining his drink. “But I can. And for now, I’m content with watching you play house and watching him whine like a petulant toddler at not getting what he wants.” He stood, buttoning his jacket. “There’s a time limit on that, though.” He looked around the house again, his nose not physically turned down, but I didn’t miss the slight curl of distaste on his lips. He did not like the warm, homey environment with pictures, personality and a stain on the sofa from my niece. “There’s a time limit on all of this.” His eyes found mine. “Before long, you’ll be back where you belong.”
He let the statement weave through the air and morph into the threat—the promise—it was, leaving the scariest part unsaid.
Back where you belong … with me.
Then he was gone.
It was as simple as that. A drink shared with a man I used to love, now a demon working for the proverbial devil who wanted me under his thumb or dead.
I didn’t sleep that night. I couldn’t shake off the terror.
My time in Jupiter was limited.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
Unless I wanted to go up against The Monster of Manhattan.
And I would.
That’s what I was doing there, after all. When I wasn’t babysitting, managing accounts for my brother, day trading... I was searching the underworld for information that would save my life and bring down an international criminal organization and my childhood sweetheart.
Not that Jasper had ever been sweet, even when we were kids.
That’s why I’d fallen for him in the first place.
I met Jasper Hayes when I was sixteen years old. He was new in our small town, having been placed with a foster family in the area.
Our high school was unique in the sense that it wasn’t overly ruled by cliques. The star quarterback was also a mathlete, and how much money your parents made wasn’t a status symbol. No one gave a shit if you lived in a trailer park or if you had an in-ground pool, though the pools were nice.
The hierarchy of high school so overly portrayed in the movies of the late ’90s didn’t exist. Not in my town, at least. Sure, there were a few assholes, as there were anywhere, but bullying wasn’t an overly large problem. The small town Igrew up in was squarely middle class, no vast socioeconomic differences between classmates.
It was all so peaceful and vanilla. It made me a little sick, even at sixteen.