Page 52 of Rogue

“Already so swollen. Jaxson couldn’t keep his goddamn hands off of you.”

I try to pull my head back but with his free hand, he holds it in place.

“I should make you take my cock in that big mouth of yours. That temper of yours is going to be your downfall. I won’t tolerate it. Or your stubbornness.”

Before I can anticipate his next move, he pinches my lower lip. “Ouch,” I moan, jerking my head away. “What the hell?”

“Listen good and listen hard. If you breathe a word of my . . . leniency . . . if you tell anyone the truth about what went on in here, I’ll kill him. Loverboy is on his final leg as it is.”

He tugs me up by my hair. “Go back to the great room. I’ll be right behind you.”

I reach for both ends of my bra.

“No. You’ll do it once we’re back inside.”

“Fine. But just know, this won’t humiliate me,” I lie.

“It’s not meant to.”

I don’t understand his meaning until we return to the great room. Until after I catch his nod and I’m allowed to fasten my bra.

Diego’s voice cuts through the room. “Don’t.”

“You motherfucking bastard,” Jaxson snarls, fighting against the body lock Declan has him in. “You’re going to pay for this.”

Gone is the lighthearted prankster. The smug-faced player. The man who doesn’t have a serious bone in his well-muscled body. Except, he does. Because Jaxson’s furious. I watch, like I’m witnessing a complete stranger being tackled to the ground, him fighting like the devil possessed.

Because of me. What he thinks happened inside Hayden’s bedroom.

I open my mouth then close it. Stifling my “No, he’s playing you.”

“Good girl. There’s hope for you yet,” Hayden says as he zips up his pants. Then, in a booming voice, he addresses the room. “Kylie, Declan, Diego, Francis, and Jaxson. Report back to the Ranch next Monday morning for your orders. Everyone else will complete a ten-mile run then report back to the great room at one p.m. sharp. At that time, who I hire as an on-call member will be decided. After my decision’s been reached, the rest of you will come to my office and I’ll pay you for your time.”

“You bastard,” I whisper, as I watch in horror, as Declan raises his fist then knocks Jaxson out.

“That’s right,” the manipulative man says. “Going forward, better remember it.”

14

Paris

Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in Oklahoma and beyond, on that miserably rainy morning so long ago, Hayden plucked me from the mean streets of Shelby and manipulated me into working for him.

For a price. Everybody has their price, isn’t that the hard cold truth? He paid me and in turn, I sold my chance at normalcy, of settling into a house with a white picket fence, daisies in the front yard, roosters on the bathroom wallpaper. I wince, remembering another time, another place where I confided in Jaxson about my dreams for an average life. It was the first time I imagined the possibility of us. Our future together. Our happily-ever-after.

I look down at my fingernails. The chipped pink polish, broken brittle nails, and the grime buried beneath them. I wiggle my fingers, blackened by burnt calcium carbide dust from the miner’s lamp I’ve been using, then blow out a long huff. Normal’s overrated, anyhow.

How many women can boast their boss wants them dead? Like, cut-in-the-throat dead or knifed-in-the-forehead dead, not lip service fueled by some idle office spat.

Well, hop in line, you bastard.

I’m done with running. To drive the point home, my pace slows as I pass through Montparnasse Cemetery—which is more of a cross between a museum of famous deceased artists and a park than a cemetery. I’ve come a long ass way from where I’d been nine months ago. Desperate. On the run. Worried about my sister. In mourning—for a man my inactionsdidn’tkill.

The sooner I terminate Novák, the sooner I can bid this City of Love good-bye forever.

The catacombs have become a second home to me. Yeah, right. That’s me talking crazy. Yet it seems like it with the amount of time I’ve spent exploring the underground tunnels beneath Montparnasse. Taking notes on what leads where, which levels are marked, where the dead ends crop up. An impossible task.

What I’ve discovered is this: catacomb might sound like a cozy nesting place for an insect and trendy Parisian artwork, but when you stray too far, it becomes nothing but an endless spiral of sewers seeping through layers upon layers of tunnels.