Page 6

6

Tovah

T he next night, I stared at myself in the mirror. My pink hair was curled into mermaid waves, my eyelids were painted a soft rose gold and lined with bronze liner, and my lips were painted in my favorite pink gloss. My cheeks were a soft pink, and not from blush—but there was nothing I could do about that.

I was wearing black leggings and a tight black button down that emphasized my chest and ass. And yeah, all the other bumps and swells society liked to shame people over having. “Plump,” “fat,” “plus-sized,” “curvy,” or whatever the hell they wanted to call me: it didn’t matter. In my opinion, these extra curves added to my appeal.

Society could suck it.

I looked amazing. Like, hot as hell. Hotter than hell, even.

And I was disgusted with myself.

“Damn it,” I told my reflection. “You’re trying too hard, Tovah Kaufman. Why are you trying so hard?”

Kaufman wasn’t actually my last name, but I’d trained myself to respond to it, so I answered to it—and only to it. Even when I was alone and talking to myself.

That didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that I’d put in a ton of effort for a meeting with the last man in the world I wanted to find me attractive.

I pointed at myself in the mirror. “Liar.”

Because I was lying.

Regardless, I brushed my hair to mess up the waves and curls, and put makeup remover on a cotton pad, rubbing at my eyes and lips until my face was bare.

Better.

Now he’d know I didn’t care.

Even if I knew I did.

I turned to leave the bathroom and find something else to wear—maybe a hoodie and sweatpants, when I stopped in my tracks.

Why was I putting so much effort into not looking cute? What was I trying to prove? It was a Saturday night, and I was going out after the interview with my friend Lucy, so we could bitch about men together and dance our asses off. Was I really going to come all the way home to change when I could just meet her after the interview?

Glaring at my reflection, I pulled out the makeup I’d just taken off and the curling iron and started over from scratch. I would be late to the bar where we were having our meeting but not…that late. And the asshole could learn patience—it would be good for him.

The Stacks was the bar I worked at. It didn’t open for another couple of hours, and I was the only one who was supposed to be there from now until opening time. I could have a private conversation with Isaac without anyone overhearing, in a mostly neutral location—but one where I was in control.

And, as my fallback plan: The Stacks’ giant bouncer, Alex, lived above the bar. If things got…tricky with Isaac, I could always text him to come down. Isaac might be the big bad mafia prince, but Alex was 6’7” and weighed three hundred pounds—practically all muscle.

There. Sorted.

A half hour later, I was made up, hair done, a coat and scarf wrapped around me. It was a cold night, and I hoped my car didn’t take forever to warm up.

My car did me one worse. When I got in and turned on the ignition, it sputtered a few times before giving up entirely.

“Fuck!”

I tried again, but now it refused to do anything.

Checking my phone, I groaned, realizing I was already five minutes late. I couldn’t afford an Uber, and the next bus wouldn’t come for thirty minutes.

Guess I was walking.

I didn’t have Isaac’s number to text him, and emailing to say I was running late just annoyed me, so I got out of my car and ran-walked the five blocks to the bar. Fortunately, I had been the captain of my high school’s track team, and even though it had been a few years, I could still run.

When I arrived, it didn’t matter that I’d put on makeup or done my hair. I was sweaty, my face was bright red because of the cold and physical effort, and who knew what the wind had done to my hair.

Pulling the door open, I found an annoyed Isaac leaning against the bar, typing on his phone.

He looked good. Black jeans, black long-sleeved shirt that defined his pecs, arms, and abs lovingly, like it was a girlfriend—or the sculptor who’d created him.

When he looked up at me, he scowled, dimples hidden, dark hair falling in his darker brown eyes before he pushed it back.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, even though I hated apologizing. “Something distracted me.”

Something like the mindfuck of wanting to look good for him and hating that I wanted to look good. Not to mention a dead car, but if he made a joke about me being poor, or worse, if I saw pity in his eyes, I’d have to scratch them out, and my nails weren’t long enough for that.

Isaac looked me up and down. I fidgeted. Heat rose in my chest and my breathing went shallow as I realized he was checking me out and not even bothering to hide it.

“I’m sure it did,” he murmured, and fuck it, I was going to scratch his eyes out anyway.

The insinuation was clear. There’d been a rumor last year that I got around, started by a vindictive former friend. At first, I’d hated the reputation I’d gotten, and all the cruelty that accompanied it. The stares and the whispering, all the times someone called me a slut behind my back or to my face. I’d come home from class with my face red from shouting at someone one too many times. Aviva and Lucy had threatened to kill “any other motherfucker who dares say one bad word about you.”

Like most wounds, the pain from the rumors and slut-shaming faded, turning from a raw blister to a sore scar. It still hurt, and it was still complete and utter fucking bullshit that my sex life, real or fabricated, could create so much judgement. But there were benefits to people misjudging you. Just like with my changing hair color, no one would suspect the “girl who got around” to have deep, dark secrets. And it made it easier to meet up with my informants, too. No one questioned where I was going so late or what I was doing. The only person who knew that I actually was a virgin was Aviva, and that was fine with me.

So then why did it bother me that Isaac also thought I was a slut? Fuck him. I wasn’t going to bother defending myself.

I crossed my arms.

“I agreed to this interview under the impression you’d be respectful of my time,” he drawled, practically purring the word “respectful,” his eyes lighting up.

Immediately, a wild, horrifying image presented itself to me: naked, arms tied behind my back, kneeling in front of him as he told me to be “respectful” as he unzipped his jeans and pulled out his?—

I cut off the fantasy before it could continue, aware that I was blushing—again. Even worse: I was wet, my breathing was shallow, and my nipples hurt like they’d gone hard. I hated this man, and I hated how much I wanted him. It was the absolute worst.

The worst.

I sat next to him, ignoring the glass of beer he pushed toward me. I knew better than to drink anything someone offered to me that I didn’t pour myself. Aviva had hammered that lesson into my head, and besides, with Vice and Vixen on campus, there was no way I would trust anyone with my drink—least of all him.

“You know,” I said, clearing my throat, hating how husky it had gotten, “you come off as this easygoing charmer to everyone else. Why do I get this grumpy asshole whenever we talk?”

In response, the grumpy asshole grunted.

It was bullshit. I had real reasons to hate him, but he had no reason to hate me. He didn’t even fucking remember who I was.

But I knew who he was, and I was about to use it to my advantage and get the evidence I needed to save my mom and free myself from the cage of perpetual fear.

“See!” I said. “I don’t know what I did to hurt you, Isaac, but?—”

Before I could finish my sentence, he interrupted me. “So what’s the content of this interview? You never sent me questions.”

I slowly exhaled, trying to quiet and calm my pounding heart.

“I didn’t want to give you a chance to figure out a lie,” I said, watching his response.

He gave me almost nothing, face blank, eyes shuttered—except there was a small twitch in his cheek, just to the right of his left dimple.

A tell.

“What would I have to lie about?” he asked calmly, as if he hadn’t given himself away.

Steeling myself for an intense reaction from him, I stated, “Why you’re pretending your last name is Jones, for one.”

My breath roared in my lungs while I stayed still and tried to pretend I hadn’t just dropped a bomb on him. Under the table, I tapped on Alex’s name on my phone, just in case.

He narrowed his eyes, and said slowly, the threat clear, “If you know my real last name, you know better than to threaten me, little snoop.”

Little snoop. I hated the diminutive, the clear derision in it, the hatred.

I straightened, annoyed. “I don’t know who you’re calling little, Isaac Sil ? — ”

Before I could finish saying his last name, his hand was on my mouth, shutting me up. His fingers dug into my cheek painfully, like he could control me. Control my words, my everything. Shock filled me at his touch, and the blatant violence in it. Had I been wrong about Isaac? Disastrously so?

But no fucking way would I let him shut me up. The reason I wanted to be a journalist wasn’t only because I wanted to take his family down and free my own. It was because I had one calling in this life: speaking truth to power.

Growling low in my throat, I bit him, hard.

It didn’t work. Still gripping my face with his big hand, he leaned forward, his dark eyes intent on mine. “You like to play rough, huh?”

I glared at him, enraged. I tried to bite him again, but was distracted when he dragged my chair closer to his with his free hand and then draped a casual arm over it, his hand closing around the back of my neck…

…and squeezing.

Like I was a pet, and he was my owner. Like he was in charge.

My body agreed, heat traveling from his hand on my neck down my spine before pooling at the small of my back just above my ass. I was already wet from my earlier fantasy, but his dominance did something to me—I got wetter.

Angry, frustrated, helpless, and turned on, I shuddered at his touch.

His voice lowered, the threat in it like a caress. “You might know my last name, but that doesn’t come close to what I know about you.”

And then his next words shot terror through me.

“That’s right,” he continued, staring at me with triumph. “I know your secret. And while you revealing mine would be an…inconvenience at best, if I revealed yours, it would blow up your entire life, wouldn’t it? I could take it to the police, to the dean… even tell Aviva. ”

No. No, he couldn’t know. There was no way. We’d buried our tracks, kept the past hidden. And if he really, truly, knew the truth of who I was, then why were we sitting here? Where were his father’s men with guns, ready to kidnap and torture me to find out where my mother was? And why now?

I didn’t even realize it, but I’d been jerking my head back and forth beneath his hand in denial of what was to come.

But I couldn’t stop the inevitable. Especially when he said, “After all, if you know my real last name, it’s helpful that I know yours…Tovah Lewis.”

He knew.

He knew.

Oh god, I was dead. Worse, my mother was dead. I’d had a whole fucking plan, and he’d destroyed it in an instant.

Without a second thought, I typed come down to the bar now! to Alex and pressed send.

Unaware of what I’d just done, Isaac smiled, and the light in his eyes and bright white of his teeth petrified me. It was more terrifying when he finally released my mouth, only to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear—the same ear he’d whispered into before. I shivered uncontrollably, fear—and desire—overwhelming my ability to think. To get out of this mess.

“Now, here’s how this is going to go,” he began.

But my inner rebel, the part of me that was sick of being controlled by outside forces, by his family—it wasn’t about to let me be controlled by him. I’d been helpless almost my entire life, and I refused to be helpless anymore.

Shoving away from him in my chair, I stood, still trembling, but lifting my chin and calming my voice despite my fear.

“No, let me tell you how this is going to go, Isaac Silver. You may know my last name, but I know something bigger: You and the Kings are distributing Vice and Vixen for your father, aren’t you? I have evidence that you’re in charge of the entire set up here at Reina, and the nearby schools like Tabb, as well as where it’s coming from.”

“And what’s your proof?” he asked calmly, but his right cheek twitched again.

Pulling up the video, I pressed play on my phone and showed it to him. He watched until the video ended. Then he looked up at me, and this time, he couldn’t school his expression. Shock, rage—and sheer hatred shone in his gorgeous dark brown eyes, revealing the monster underneath.

The monster I’d known was there all along.

Triumphant, I ignored the threat in them, too excited about my checkmate in the game we were playing.

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “Either you give me the evidence to put your father away for life, or I’ll expose you and the team for dealing in date rape drugs. You’re under enough scrutiny as it is, this will ruin all of your futures. No hockey career for you—or for any of them. What do you think’s going to happen to your teammates, to the rest of the Core Four then?” Sweetening up my voice, I added, “It’s an easy choice, Isaac. I know how you feel about your father. I know how you feel about your team. Just give me what I need…and all of this goes away.”

I exhaled, my heart racing from exhilaration, anticipation, and yes, underlying fear. But my mother’s terrified face flashed in my mind. I was doing this for her.

Slowly, Isaac rose to his feet, towering above me. He stepped forward, and then again. I held my ground, even though I had to crane my head back to look at him. He wasn’t going to intimidate me, not this time. I was done with being intimidated by the Silvers.

He was so close we were breathing the same air, our legs touching, my chest brushing his six pack and sending sparks through my body.

“You’ve done your homework, haven’t you, little snoop,” he mused, and there was a hint of admiration in his voice. “Unfortunately, you got two things wrong. First, that video’s old: the team isn’t in the Vice and Vixen game anymore. We learned the harm it can do.” He blinked, and the monster disappeared for a moment, leaving behind a man filled with regret.

But then he blinked again, and the monster was back. “Second, I’ll do anything for my family—and my team. Anything . You may think you’ve won, you may even think this is mutually assured destruction, but one phone call and you’re dead. And then how are you going to expose any of this? Not only that, I will make sure anyone you love, anyone you have left in the world…they’re dead, too.”

My heart froze.

“You wouldn’t,” I said. “Even you’re not that big of a monster.”

He leaned down, his lips almost on mine. I caught his scent: earthy and dark, with a hint of something fresh and surprising. Something that always stuck with me, long after he was gone.

“You bring out the monster in me,” he said. “And he’s thirsty for blood—yours.”