Page 73 of Cruel Pleasures

Destroy a woman who shouldn’t hold any meaning. Yet as my chest tightens, deep down I know the opposite is true. I’m increasingly preoccupied with Imani Makune because she’s the one thing in my vapid, soulless, rich, and glimmering world that feels… real.

That has heart. Genuine emotions. Thoughts beyond designer labels and inheritances.

A real woman with warm flesh and honest reactions. She’s not artificial and sanitized like the rest. She’s imperfect and flawed but complex in the most puzzling way.

But what agitated me most was the glaring knowledge that this real woman I’ve become infatuated with could never care about me like she does her friend. The real Archer Hurst would give her nightmares.

A couple of dead bodies had sent her running the first night of the Midnight Games.

The twisted, fucked up truth about me and my family would drive her past the brink of sanity.

My infatuation is foolish. It’s made up of delusional fantasies that the persona I put on in her company could become reality. I could hide what I really am.

And yet I can’t get her off my fucking mind.

I can’t let Ryu complete his mission. I’ve begun to realize I can’t even finish mine.

The manor halls have emptied at this hour. Most members have either forayed into the Market for after-hours fun or have retired for the evening. Timothee catches me on my way up a staircase on the third floor.

“Is everything to your liking, Master Hurst?”

“No,” I grit out. “Everything’s far from my liking, Timmy.”

“Is there anything I can do to improve your evening? I can arrange for some of the products to be sent up to your room? There are several readily available. Just tell me the measurements and attributes you’d prefer?—”

“I don’t want to fuck prostitutes tonight, Tim Tim,” I growl. “I’m looking for Ms. Newton. Have you seen her?”

Awareness dawns on his pointed face. “Ah, yes. I have. Earlier. She consumed quite a bit of champagne and spice in one of the playrooms.”

I can’t disguise the deepening rumble in my chest. “The playrooms? Which playroom?”

“I believe it was…” he pauses to think a second. “I believe it was room six.”

“Room six?!”

My face darkens. The caretaker takes a cautious step back, immediately alarmed by my murderous look. He asks another question that my ears fail to hear. I’ve already blacked out from the moment, striding past him.

A minute later, I’ve returned to the Market. I dart straight for room six, flinging it open to the protest of another clueless staff member. The door bangs against the wall as I step inside expecting to find him and Imani in the middle of a session. Instead, I enter to a vacant room with spools of rope dangling from the ceiling.

No words exist to describe the feeling that slams into me. The riot of envy, rage, disgust, and bitterness that explodes from within. I’m consumed by the intensity of it, fuming to the point of shaking as any semblance of sanity vanishes. Only madness remains.

Madness and a manic desperation to act.

Kill.

He did this. This was his doing. His move to undermine me.

But first, her.

The recklessness felt from the spice multiples to untold levels.

I whip out of the room in a blur.

My heartbeat hammers away as fast as my legs carry me through the large, extravagant house. One second I’m in the hall of the Market, and the next I’m on the third floor landing, blowing through like the most destructive tornado.

Yet another staff member attempts to interrupt me ’til I bark at her to get the fuck out of my face and she scurries off like a frightened mouse.

Room 313.