Page 89

EIGHTY-NINE

XERO

Amethyst doesn’t elaborate on how she plans on making me beg for my life. In her defense, it’s difficult to form words with my cock down her throat and my leather belt around her neck, but her eyes burn with enough murderous intent to make me spray a load over her face.

She seethes in the shower, fumes in the front seat of my car, and sulks as we sneak around the back of her mother’s mansion in Alderney Hill. I visited it multiple times while Amethyst hid here after the incidents with the embalmed corpse.

According to the property records, Melonie Crowley purchased the building fourteen years ago from a company that was owned by Enzo Montesano. He’s the former don of New Alderney who died from an unfortunate heart attack, leaving his most lucrative assets to his second-in-command, Frederic Capello.

I met Enzo’s eldest son, Roman, on Death Row, where he languishes for a crime he claims he didn’t commit. Montesano was one of the few inmates who thanked me properly for all the benefits the fan club negotiated. His housekeeper’s bruttiboni is insanely delicious.

The interior lights are off, which could mean anything at this time of the night, but lamp posts illuminate the house’s garden and well-kept facade. It doesn’t matter because we’ve looped their security feed to broadcast footage from last night.

Amethyst breaks away from me as we approach the kitchen door and heads toward a garden maze consisting of two-foot-tall shrubs. “Mom always leaves a key beneath a stone, but I can’t remember where.”

“I have one.” I unlock the door.

“What?” she hisses.

I beckon her closer. “It wasn’t difficult to make a copy after the first time I broke in. Come on.”

With a huff, she traipses back, her features held in a tight mask. I wrap an arm around her shoulder, lean into her ear and murmur, “Are you pissed because you wish I’d used a bone I plucked from the catacombs? Because if your kinks extend to osteophilia, you and I might have a problem.”

“Shut up.” She elbows me in the ribs and steps into the mud room.

It’s a small chamber between the kitchen and the outside, lined with tall shelves for hats, coat hooks, and a bench where a gardener can take off their boots and slide them underneath for easy storage.

Melonie Crowley might be a terrible mother, but the woman has exquisite taste. We continue through the kitchen in the dark, through a wood-paneled hallway, and up the stairs. Amethyst leads the way through her home, even though I’ve committed its layout to memory.

She pauses at the top of the stairs and points a knife between my eyes. “Don’t try anything stupid,” she hisses. “I mean it.”

“You’re the only woman I ever want to defile,” I say with my hand on my heart. “It’s only ever been you.”

Her lips tighten, even though I meant every word. As she continues toward her mother’s bedroom, I reach into my pocket for the duct tape. The plan is to disable the harpy and demand answers about Amethyst’s missing memories. I won’t dissuade her from putting 13 Parisii Drive on the market because I want to buy it and sever any control the woman has over my little ghost.

Amethyst opens the bedroom door and stills in the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” I ask .

“She’s not there.”

“You’re sure?” I peer over her shoulder at an unmade bed. “Get behind me.”

I creep inside, with my senses alert. When I place a hand on the mattress, the sheet is cold. “Looks like she hasn’t yet come home. Does she have a boyfriend?”

“No,” Amethyst says, sounding scandalized. “She’s married to my dad.”

I whirl around, my brow rising. “Have you remembered anything?”

She steps back and frowns. “No?”

“You said he lives here. Show me evidence he still exists.”

She rubs the back of her neck, looking sheepish. “Last time I checked, his clothes weren’t in the closet, but there are photo albums.”

“Where?”

She walks around the four-poster bed to a bookshelf set within an alcove and pulls out a leather-bound tome. “This is the one,” she says, her voice breathy with nerves. “The last time I looked, I found photos of my dad.”

Joining her at the shelf, I take the album along with two similar-looking items. After checking the bookshelves for hidden compartments, I ask, “Is there anything else we need to bring back with us?”

She glances around. “My dad’s things are in the spare room.”

“Show me.”

I follow her out into the hallway to a door at the far end of the house. Inside is a simple room with a twin-sized bed, a wooden desk, and an armchair in the corner. She opens a wardrobe that’s empty, save for a single outfit hung on wire hangers.

Her shoulders sag. “Oh.”

“What do you see?”

“I think this belongs to my Uncle Clive.”

“What did you see the last time?” I ask, keeping my voice soft.

“A closet full of tailor-made clothes. Lots of shoes. Shirts, still in their packaging.” Her voice catches. “Did I hallucinate them, too?”

“Come here,” I say with a sigh .

She walks toward me with her head bowed, and I pull her into a hug.

“You were under a lot of stress when you came here. I acknowledge my part in that.”

Pulling back, she stares up at me through glistening eyes. “I still can’t tell what’s real.”

My heart sinks at the distress she must be feeling, realizing the parent she thought she knew was just an illusion. A loss like that must leave the same gaping hole as a bereavement. Losing faith in her senses has to be equally as disorientating.

“I’m real. If you see anything that doesn’t look right, point it out to me and I’ll help you understand it.”

“Okay,” she replies with a gentle nod.

“Is there anything else you’d like to take from this house?”

She shakes her head, loosening a tear that trickles down her cheek. I brush it away with the pad of my thumb, my insides twisting.

Did I have to be such a heartless bastard? If I had taken just Amethyst’s address instead of staying behind to coax that assistant into the death she had coming, I would have arrived at Parisii Drive before the first man even attacked.

I should have confronted Amethyst about the merchandise and the book deal, explaining that I didn’t want her monetizing our relationship. We could have dealt with the threat of X-Cite Media without adding extra trauma.

My psyche is so accustomed to slow revenge that I targeted her biggest weakness: her fragile mental state. The moment I realized she thought I was a hallucination, I doubled down and retrieved the corpse of her attacker.

I exploited her vulnerability, wove a twisted reality to alter her perceptions, making me no different from Father. As I gaze into her tear-filled eyes, I’m reminded of my own struggles with a shattered mind—the pain, bitterness, and helplessness of being deceived.

My actions have brought back her tenuous grasp on sanity, all because of my dented ego. Is it any wonder she doesn’t fully cooperate with her training? She’s a civilian, not a seasoned operative .

“Amethyst, I’m sorry,” I rasp, my throat raw at having to say such hollow words. “This is my fault.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks. “You’re protecting me.”

I’ve gaslighted her into believing I’m a hero, when she deserves so much better.

“Come on. Let’s return to your home.”

“What are we going to do after it’s auctioned? Live in one of your other places?”

“The safe houses, you mean?” I ask and walk her out into the hallway.

“Yeah.”

“These days, we only use them for storage and deliveries,” I mutter. “Most of us live underground.”

“In the catacombs?”

“And basement apartments spread out across the city,” I reply with a smile.

We continue down the stairs into her mother’s study, where we scoop up a family photo and a pile of letters from the desk. After checking the entire downstairs for clues about Amethyst’s past and finding nothing, we leave the house and walk through the grounds toward the car.

I drive back to Parisii Cemetery in silence, casting Amethyst furtive glances as she pours over the photo album. Every so often, I catch glimpses of a happy, dark-haired couple in the photos, performing family activities with their young daughter.

“Do you remember any of this?” I ask.

“It’s still blank,” she mutters.

At a stop light, she shows me the last picture, where Melonie Crowley stands outside a casino with a handsome, dark-haired man. “This is the latest photo I have of them. My dad looks exactly the same.”

“It’s at least five years old,” I reply.

“How can you tell?” Amethyst looks down and holds the page closer to her face, as if looking for a timestamp or signs of aging she’d missed.

“The building behind them says Casino Montesano.”

“So? ”

“It’s been the Capello Casino for four years.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Roman Montesano was in the cell opposite mine on Death Row. I researched the hell out of that guy.”

“Oh.” She gulps. “Why?”

“I told him I headed an organization of my own and asked if he wanted his casino back. Helping a man like that would have been a lucrative job.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he had it covered.”

“And did he?”

“Who knows?” I mutter. “Montesano isn’t going anywhere, and someone else still owns his casino.”

My phone rings. I check the caller display to find Tyler on the screen.

“Report,” I say.

“The recruiter texted. He spoke to his boss about your proposal, and they’re not recruiting new talent,” Tyler says. “Although you’re welcome to submit videos for a revenue share arrangement.”

“Fuck,” I growl. “Any progress on accessing their systems?”

“Not really,” he mumbles. “They’re tightly sealed. More secure than the Pentagon. We keep getting bounced back before we can even attempt a breach. I’m working on it, but their protocols are insane.”

I grit my teeth. “We’ll find another way. Did you at least get into his phone?”

“Yeah. His name is Harlan Stills, and he lives inside his place of employment. No family, no significant other, and no social life outside working for X-Cite Media.”

“That could be his work phone,” I mutter.

“It’s personal. His superiors would be appalled he’s undermining their security using his work phone to hook up with underage boys.”

“Good lord.”

“Don’t worry. We already have a profile chatting with him as we speak, and let me tell you… I wasn’t impressed with the dick pics. ”

“Lure him out for a meeting.”

“Working on it, boss,” Tyler says before hanging up.

Amethyst stares at the side of my face, her features tense. “Do you think he’s recruiting children on the internet for his videos?”

“I don’t think a company as careful as X-Cite Media would use such publicly trackable methods, but I can tell you one thing… Harlan Stills won’t live long enough to threaten another kid’s life.”

It’s time to make a move, crack some heads, and destroy this vile operation from within. Not just for the woman I love, but for every victim who ever fell prey to those monsters.