Page 20 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Smith

Something tickles my face, dragging me from a deep sleep. I try to brush my fingers over my cheek, but my hand snags in someone’s hair. My body jerks awake, the haze of sleep I’d fallen into burning off as my hand drops back to my side.

Zoey’s nuzzled against my chest, snoring softly. The venomous little thing is quiet for once. I stare at her through lopsided glasses. Half of her is in focus, the other half blurred.

Judging from the darkness inside the suite, it’s been hours since I tended her wounds. Since she fell asleep in my lap.

Christ.

My eyes are stinging like hellfire, and there’s a dull ache behind my temples.

Missed lunch with Myles. Almost missed dinner, too.

I glance at Zoey again, sprawled without a care, as if she hasn’t unraveled my entire life in a couple of hours.

I can’t afford to fall sleep again.

Not here. Not with her.

Moving carefully so I don’t wake her, I slide Zoey off me. I pause at the side of the bed, working stiff shoulders, flexing sore hands. Peeling back the bandage to examine my wound. Already healed to the point where I don’t need a bandage anymore.

Won’t even scar.

Pity.

I twist around to face her, grip the edge of her robe with two fingers, and inch it up her thigh.

Higher, higher.

Until I see the first perfect welt caned into her soft flesh. Then the next. The next.

…twelve lashes?…

It was too much for a first caning. But it could have been worse. It could have been a belt, or a paddle.

Could have been a razor blade, Smith.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I flick her robe back down her leg, my breath shallow and harsh as I rush to my feet.

I storm away to I fetch my shirt and jacket from the bathroom but I’m back seconds later, watching Zoey sleep as I roll my sleeves up my arm.

Everything’s already wrinkled to hell, no point in pretending I have my shit together.

She looks so damn peaceful. Nothing like the traumatized captive I dragged in here this morning. Her skin is red but not as inflamed as before. A perfect canvas for the ladder of sullen strips over her ass and upper thighs.

Only two of the twelve marks came close to drawing blood.

My hands are in fists, and they ache when I force them open.

I should apply more salve, but my shift at the casino starts in a few minutes. I’ll barely have enough time to head over to the Devil’s Luck and change into a fresh suit, let alone take Zoey down to the Angel’s quarters.

But I don’t dare leave her in this room.

Gently, making sure not to wake her, I gather a sheet-bundled Zoey into my arms and leave, heading for the basement.

Christ knows I don’t want to, and that’s exactly why I should.

She belongs with the other girls, earning her keep. Repaying her debt.

Not tempting me to lose control.

Eddie gives me a double take when he sees me coming down the hall but, good man that he is, says nothing as he opens the door for me. Zoey stirred a few times on the way over, but didn’t wake. Not unexpected after a session like the one she had.

Her body is in shock. It needs all the time it can to heal. And the body heals when it sleeps.

If I don’t bombard my brain with logic, I’ll just turn around and take her back upstairs.

I lay her down in the narrow single bed, cocooning her like an invalid. Brushing hair from her face. Pulling the sheet over one of her toes when I see it peeking out.

Delaying.

Stalling.

Christ, why is this so hard?

I almost slam her bedroom door, but stop myself just in time. Eddie gives me a somber nod when I storm out, but again—good fucking man—he says nothing.

He can probably sense the barely contained violence inside me.

I tug my clothes straight as I head for the parking garage. I’m late for my shift, but that’s not why I keep fisting and flexing my hands.

Troy should have messaged me to check in by now.

But he hasn’t.

Like Eddie’s silence, it’s appreciated…but ominous. As if he knows I’m in too delicate a state to be riled up. The last thing I need is everyone walking on eggshells around me, but the alternative is even less appealing.

It’s fine.

Everything’s just fucking fine.

I’m working my shift, not thinking about the red-striped body I just abandoned on that sad bed in that sad, beige room. And when I’m done, I’m heading back to my room to finish up the quarterly compliance review.

Not checking in on Zoey.

She’ll be fine.

And maybe, by some miracle, Myles won’t call to harangue me about Howler. He might be over it by now, but guaranteed when he sees a replay of the video, it’ll be fresh in his mind.

I stop walking, my hand outstretched to open the staff entrance leading to the lower floor of the casino.

Christ.

The video.

Myles and Richmond review the footage from our playrooms in his office in the evenings over a glass of cognac and cigars while they decide which ones to upload to the website. I have a standing invitation to join them, but I rarely do.

I head back the way I came, slipping my leather gloves out of my pocket and tugging them on.

If I hadn’t instilled such paranoia in Myles, I’d have been able to access that footage remotely, deleting it from the servers. But it all goes to a hard drive on Myles’s computer, erased from the cameras the moment the upload is complete.

And I made Myles promise not to give anyone remote access to his computer.

Even me.

My only option is to go in there and delete it manually.

And I need to get there before they upload that video to the website, because I know they will. No one can see that session.

Zoey was spectacular.

She’ll have clients standing queue around the block.

My driver is having a cigarette near the entrance of the underground parking garage. He flicks it away, but I just shake my head and hold out my gloved hand.

Everyone is so blessedly silent today.

He tosses me the Bentayga’s keys as I pass, frowning like he wondered if he did something wrong. But the only thing I can fault him on right now is his speed. He drives like a fucking grandmother on her way back from church.

The Bentley roars to life under my hands, responding to my touch like a loyal beast. I wrench the wheel, tires squealing against concrete as I take the parking garage ramp at a speed that would make my driver faint.

The SUV’s weight shifts beneath me, but I control it effortlessly, feeling the precise moment to ease off and when to accelerate. As soon as I’m out of the garage, I punch the throttle, and the Bentayga surges forward.

The digital speedometer climbs rapidly as I weave through traffic, pedestrians and other cars blurring at the edges of my vision. Horns honk, but they don’t matter.

The thought of hundreds of strangers jerking off to Zoey’s pain, like they’ve earned the fucking right , has me in a vicious rage.

Myles doesn’t look surprised when I storm into his office a few minutes later. Probably because he was watching me on the monitors as soon as I stepped out of the elevator.

I cross the office’s sitting area with its overstuffed leather couches, joining Myles and Rich by the large desk on the other side of the room. There’s a sitting area, a poker table, and a dry bar, with plenty of room to spare for other…pursuits.

If these walls could talk, we’d be serving multiple life sentences.

Isabel is already fixing me a drink, Lulu watching me pass from her seat on one of the couches. She’s sitting stiffly, probably still tender from her play session yesterday.

“Call off the search, Rich,” Myles says, grinning broadly at me from around his cigar as he stands to pat me on the shoulder. “Our boy’s come home.”

“Just in time.” Richmond smirks up at me from his seat in front of the computer. To his credit, it’s not on purpose.

Him and Myles didn’t see eye to eye when they first began working together. Add in Rich’s addiction to coke and Myles’s love affair with scotch, and it was bound to turn physical. That’s all I care to know about the scar on Richmond’s face, the one that gives him a permanent half-smile.

They’ve been thick as thieves ever since.

Richmond spends more time with clients than I do, unless they like playing cards, but instead of suits he opts for bulky jackets, polo shirts, and slim fit jeans.

We’ve all tried to get him to stop.

He’s in an olive green bomber jacket and white polo shirt tonight.

“Grab a seat,” Rich says, pointing his chin to Myles’s now empty office chair. “Was just about to show him Zoey’s video.”

I grab the mouse from him, tugging it away before he can hit the play button.

“No point. It was a disaster.”

Richmond raises an eyebrow, tilting his head back to stare up at me. “A fun disaster, like that time we had the mud wrestling?”

I sigh, shaking my head.

Troy and I had to intervene because a party goer decided she didn’t like the way one of our girls had been looking at her boyfriend.

I threw away a perfectly good shirt after that. A spot of mud might come out with enough pre-soaking, but not if you end up on your back in an inflatable kiddie pool covered head-to-toe in the stuff.

“No,” I say. “Not the fun kind.”

“Oh, definitely the fun kind.” Myles chuckles as he crouches over Richmond’s shoulder, his gaze switching back to the computer screen as he grabs the mouse. “Shit got fucking wild, Rich. Here, let me show?—”

“Don’t!” I dart forward, knocking the mouse from his hand.

He slowly straightens, but it’s Rich who blurts out an indignant, “The fuck’s up, Hutchinson?” Like I’ve told him to go to bed and it’s only seven.

“It was a fucking disaster.” I can barely get the words out. I’m caught between wanting to snap Richmond’s neck, or throw the fucking computer off the desk.

Anything to stop this.

Myles sits back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and curling a finger around his cigar. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I thought you?—“

“Doesn’t matter how messy it got,” Richmond drawls, leaning back with the kind of grin that makes me want to break his jaw. “Did she scream?”