Page 93

NINETY-THREE

XERO

I lie in bed, spooned around Amethyst, holding her down as she thrashes in her sleep. She might have taken the news about her mother on the surface, but her spirit is in turmoil.

What kind of parent tries to assassinate their own child, and why? Even Father, who is the worst kind of human scum, never tried to kill any of us directly. He destroyed our innocence and manipulated us into becoming killers, but he didn’t want us dead.

Amethyst throws her head back, narrowly missing my nose. I hug her tighter and sigh. “Sorry, little ghost,” I murmur into her curls. “This betrayal was something I couldn’t hide.”

She whimpers, her legs cycling beneath the sheets as if she’s trying to escape her demons. I tried waking her, but she’s trapped in a nightmare.

I’ve already concealed enough from Amethyst, starting with my plans to escape my execution. Then, when those photos and threatening letters arrived, I put them aside, wanting to shield her from external threats. I might have been able to hide information on Dolly, but I couldn’t allow Amethyst to continue chasing the approval of that woman .

“Xero?” she cries.

“I’m here, little ghost.”

“Xero, wait!”

My stomach drops. Is she dreaming about the time I left her alone in the catacombs, leaving her to navigate a narrow corridor of bones?

“I’m sorry, Amethyst,” I murmur into her hair.

Her body falls limp for several heartbeats, releasing my arms. I roll her onto her back and study her features. Light from my alarm clock shines on her face, illuminating the rapid movement beneath her eyelids.

I exhale my tension in a breath of relief. She’s moved into a different stage of sleep.

Amethyst is just like me. She reacts badly to betrayal. And like me, she will want closure. I already have people watching her mother’s house, ready to inform me when she returns from wherever she’s gone.

Melonie Crowley isn’t just a woman I want to eviscerate. She’s the key to finding Father and the underground facility. Father is also the key to taking down the group of elites who run the Moirai. With them all gone, I and everyone associated with them will finally have our freedom.

I need to step up Amethyst’s training. Knowing that the person behind X-Cite Media has a deep-rooted personal vendetta makes the threat against her more immediate. She needs a crash course in advanced combat and escape techniques.

For now, I’ll let her sleep. Tomorrow, I will show her no mercy.

Hours later, she’s lying spreadeagled on the bed with her wrists cuffed to the headboard. I’ve used rope restraints on her ankles to keep her legs spread, but allow her arms a fuller range of motion. I bite back a groan at the way her breasts bounce with each movement, and the way her thrashing gives me tantalizing peeks of her pussy.

“Explain to me again why I have to do this naked?” she ask through clenched teeth. If glares could kill, ther malevolent green eyes would cast an Avada Kedavra .

I smirk. “More writhing. Less complaining. ”

She flashes her teeth. “One of these days, I’m going to chain you to a bed.”

“Is that a promise, little ghost?” I ask.

“You’re such an asshole.” She punctuates the insult with a rattle of the chains.

“Focus, Amethyst,” I say. “What did I teach you about breaking through restraints?”

“This isn’t the same as having both wrists cuffed together,” she shrieks. “I can’t twist the chain and break its weakest link.”

“What are your options, then?” I ask.

She tugs at the cuffs. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

This attitude isn’t getting her anywhere. I can teach her the basics, but I can’t predict every possible scenario. Amethyst has spent so much time being dependent on her mother that she doesn’t know how to apply herself. She needs to break through this helplessness to survive.

“Think,” I say with extra bite.

Her nostrils flare. “I can negotiate with my captors.”

I resist the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose. “With what bargaining points, when they already have you restrained and possibly gagged?”

She jerks her head to the side. “Why do you have to be so morbid?”

I grind my teeth, my fists clenching. “Do I need to replay the death of Lizzie Bath?”

“No,” she snarls.

“Because we can reenact all the restraints she endured, step by step, and I can teach you how to break free from each of them.”

“Don’t you dare,” she grinds out.

“Then find a way to break out of these cuffs.” I raise a finger. “Before you whine that I haven’t taught you this particular sequence, remember there are infinite methods a captor can use. You already know all the basics of escape. Now, it’s your turn to apply that knowledge.”

“Alright,” she says, her eyes squeezing shut.

Sighing, I lean against the wall. I knew from early on that Amethyst was nothing like my peers. She’s been sheltered in a life of boarding schools, prescription drugs, and debilitating delusions. In a way, she’s also been coddled, which means she hasn’t had a chance to solve problems on her own.

Before I left prison, I planned to bring her out of her cocoon with the greatest care, but that’s impossible, knowing her life is under threat. If Melonie Crowley doesn’t surface, then finding Father and destroying the X-Cite Group might take weeks, if not months.

“Okay,” she says through panting breaths. “What if I broke the bed?”

“Explain,” I say.

“If it’s a prop, then it won’t be as sturdy as this.”

I nod. “Good point. Anything else?”

“Or I could find another way to snap the chain.”

“Or?”

Amethyst writhes on the bed. “I could unlock the cuffs with a pin?”

I nod.

She glances from side to side across the mattress. “Shit. I dropped it.”

With a smile, I mount the bed and pull out one of the many pins I placed in her hair and slide it into her hand.

“Thanks.”

I lean in to place a kiss on her soft lips, just as she draws back and delivers a head butt. It misses my nose, instead landing on my jaw, but I applaud her effort.

Seconds later, Amethyst unlocks the first cuff before moving on to the second. She unties her legs, hurls a cushion at my head and rushes out of the door. I let her enjoy her triumph for a minute before ordering her to get dressed.

After brunch, we practice breaking through restraints together, with Amethyst thinking ahead for a range of contingencies. She keeps a bobby pin between her fingertips as I overpower her and arrange her limbs in the best positions to give maximum slack.

In the afternoon, Camila joins us with a group of operatives, and we practice hand-to-hand combat until Amethyst is exhausted. After that, I take her to an underground parking lot, where I teach her to unlock trunks from the inside .

I’m spiraling. Pushing her into a state of over-preparedness because we’re operating in the dark. I was blindsided by the knowledge that Amethyst’s mother was Father’s new wife and appalled that I’d had her in my grasp and allowed her to escape.

Amethyst breaks out of a truck’s doors covered in sweat and doubles over with her hands on her knees. This is the eighth vehicle she’s tried, and she’s panting hard and fast.

My chest tightens at having to squeeze a week of lessons into a single day. “Good job, little ghost.”

“Can I have a rest before we move on to the next exercise?” she asks, still out of breath.

“We’ve finished for today.” I scoop her up in my arms. “Let me take you back.”

She rests her head on my shoulder, her body falling limp. “Thank fuck. I was at my breaking point.”

Pressing a kiss on her damp brow, I walk toward the exit, where Jynxson awaits with Tyler.

“Report,” I say.

“I’ve found Nocturne, or rather, his website,” Tyler says. “He runs a private-members club with nights for BDSM and swingers. Once a month, they hold a slightly more vanilla event for the general public and anyone who wants to become a member.”

“How many tickets did you buy?”

“Nine so far,” he replies. “I want to stagger the purchases, so it doesn’t look like we’re a group. I also looked into Melrose Manor, where the club nights are held, but it’s owned by an offshore consortium.”

“I’m more interested in finding Nocturne. What do you know about him?”

Tyler exhales a long breath. “Someone wiped a shitload of records on him, and it looks like he doesn’t exist. He might be going by a different name, because all I have are a few forum posts from former members, reminiscing about his old club.”

“Do we even know if he’s connected to the Ministry of Mayhem?”

Tyler shakes his head. “There isn’t a scrap of evidence online that links him. ”

“Send Camila photos from previous club nights and see if she can get Harlan Stills to identify him.”

“Consider it done.” Tyler darts away, leaving us with Jynxson.

“What do you want to do about McMurphy?” Jynxson asks.

I adjust Amethyst in my arms. “How long has she been imprisoned?”

“Thirty-six hours,” he replies. “I’ve left her with a week’s supply of water.”

“Good. Any update on the studio?”

“It’s just regular porn with professional actresses. Everyone working there gets paid in cash by a guard who lives in the downtown house with Harlan Stills. That’s also where they edit the footage.”

Cradling Amethyst in my arms, Jynxson and I continue through the exit and into a hallway where he calls the elevator. She’s either ignoring us or sleeping, but she’s earned her rest. After our little spat this morning when I reminded her of Lizzie Bath, she focused on her training like a professional.

The elevator arrives, and we step inside, letting it transport us to a brightly lit mechanical room filled with HVAC units, electrical panels, and pipes running along the ceilings.

We pass through the vast space into a tunnel where an electric cart awaits. Jynxson jumps into the driver’s seat, while I sit beside him with Amethyst curled on my lap.

He starts the engine and drives down a dimly lit tunnel connecting the parking lot to a network of underground passageways that span Beaumont City. The low rumble of the motor echoes off the concrete wall as he drives toward the Parisii neighborhood.

“How’s the training going?” he asks.

“She’s a fast learner,” I reply as she twitches in her sleep. “Strong combat skills for a beginner, and she can break out of ropes, cuffs, duct tape, and zip ties.”

“That’s good, right?”

I grunt.

The air grows colder as we continue through the tunnel, which narrows the closer we get to the buildings around the cemetery.

“So, what’s the problem?” he asks.

“There’s only so much I can teach her in a controlled environment,” I reply with a sigh.

“That’s the same with all assassins.”

“But she’s a civilian,” I mutter. “And a target.”

He blows out a breath. “Then we’ll have to put everything we have into taking down X-Cite Media.”

Jynxson launches into a plan of attack, outlining how we can destroy the house and out-of-town studio, but I’m listening with half an ear. He’s only talking to fill the space, because we both know Amethyst’s problem is bigger than just a snuff movie studio.

Any mother who wants their child dead is a monster, but one who would engineer her daughter to be gang-raped and murdered in front of cameras is a special kind of evil.

We could kill every bastard associated with those movies, but it wouldn’t be enough to protect Amethyst. Not while her mother still draws breath.

“I’ll put pressure on the Spring brothers to keep digging,” he says. “Dolly is still out there, dishing out orders. We have her email address. It’s only a matter of time before Tyler hacks into her account and traces her location.”

Leaning back in the seat, I cradle Amethyst to my chest. “Time is a luxury. If Dolly can’t get Amethyst, she’ll target a substitute, like she did with Lizzie Bath.”

When we reach the tunnels on the edge of the cemetery, Jynxson pauses to let me disembark, and I continue on foot through the underground walkway that leads to 15 Parisii Drive.

Amethyst stirs, her soft curls brushing my face. “Xero,” she murmurs. “I think I know the next target they’ll take if they can’t find me. It’s my best friend, Myra.”