Page 20 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

“I’ve done stories on terrorists and criminals…” I began, coming to my feet ready to assert myself, but he waved me back down.

“And they were separated from you, from us,” he gestured between the two of us. “These people they… they live in our houses, in our homes. They work with us, day to day. And they know more than we do. Do you understand?”

Maybe he was drunk after all.

“No. I don’t.”

Then he burst out laughing and clapped his hands.

“Oh, this is rich,” he said, placing his hand on his belly, as he leaned back, making himself far too comfortable in my space. “You had no idea that Hugo had a different name, did you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I clenched my jaw. “But if I did, I would know that he’s not from Marseilles or Amiens. He’s from Paris.”

Bellamy smirked. “Did he ever tell you that, outright? Or did you assume?”

I narrowed my eyes, the faintest bit of doubt niggling like a parasite in my brain.

No, he was definitely from Paris. He had told me so, hadn’t he? His voice. His accent. They were very much from Paris.

“Imagine, the world’s best investigative journalist never investigated her own lover.” He leaned back and chuckled, looking at me with those reptilian, blank eyes. He was drunk. I was almost sure of it. Had he been drinking all through the night? “Ironic, no?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I denied, again, feeling like Peter denying the savior.

Though there was a kernel of truth in my statement. He wasn’t my lover. He was so much more. He was my great hope. My comfort.

He was a talisman, a north star, a small object that tied me to this world, and kept me from opening my wrists. Him. My boys. My sister.

The names I was too scared to say in my prayers, in case the jealous devil heard it and took his revenge.

But Bellamy was right. I had never investigated Hugo.

I couldn’t. Richard might look into my computers - or one of his men might.

My curiosity about a single Legionnaire might lead him to suspect something.

It might bring attention to Hugo, and I didn't want that.

So I had tempered my journalistic instincts.

“Then answer me truthfully,” Bellamy’s voice was so… off-putting.

I had hated it before. It was like he was trying to be the caricature of an old world fop - flippant, and colorful. Too bright, too airy. But this voice? The one without the frills? It sounded… dangerous.

“Are you ready to take down Richard Davenport?”

My nostrils flared, my fists clenched. I did what I always had - I froze. I stopped every bit of movement in my body, and waited until I could know exactly what I needed to do. How to keep myself alive.

Bellamy leaned forward just a little. Just a touch. “You know that he’s involved.”

I did. But I couldn’t say anything. I wouldn’t. My secrets were mine, and no one would use them against me.

“You know that he’s a bad man.”

He was looking for something in my reaction. I could tell by the way his pupils ping-ponged around my face.

“You know what he can do.”

The question wasn’t that I knew… but how did Bellamy? How had he figured it out? How was he involved?

I parted my lips to speak, needing to ask a question. But no words left mine. So he filled the silence once more.

He snorted, then smiled.

“You want to take him down, don’t you?”

Something in my face, in my breath, in the air around me must have given me away because he smiled as if I had confirmed it. As if I had agreed to be his conspirator. But I was sure that couldn’t be it. Because I was a statue.

“Well… that’s certainly… useful.” He was acting like I had spoken.

He looked away from me, pursing his lips. He quietly touched a small pin in his ascot, stroking it lovingly.

He nodded, as if he had come to a decision, then looked back at me. He smiled. Not a real one. The one he gave everyone at any time. The bright, incandescent, toothy-smile. Then his voice changed back to the same odd foppish cadence, and I wondered if I had hallucinated the last few moments.

“The next Underground fight is in Scotland. I have the address, and was granted a plus one.” His eyes lifted towards me. They were dark, it was unsettling. “Be my companion.” He bit his lower lip, regarding me for a tense and silent moment. “Maybe we can help one another.”

“How on earth could you possibly help me?” I felt like I stood in quicksand, ready to tumble to my doom.

How did he know so much? Where had I slipped up?

I wanted to ask, but couldn’t, because asking the question would be as good as confirming its validity.

“In all the time I have known you, you have never helped me.”

“Not that you know of.”

“Never.” I said with certainty. “So why should I trust you now?”

He sucked his lips into his mouth by the teeth, and tilted his head, observing me like he was a dog, curious about a helpless looking human.

I didn’t like it.

Because I was helpless. I had been ever since I walked down the aisle to meet the devil at the altar. And I had done it all for the wrong reasons.

“You may know of me, Cali,” he said, pouring another drink. How many shots was that now? Four? Five? “But you have never seen me.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Really?” He turned his eyes downward, until his lashes covered his irises. “What color are my eyes? Tell me quickly.”

I had no fucking idea.

I had seen his clothes, his ascot, his pompadour hair, but his eyes? I drew a blank.

“It’s not your fault,” he finally said, casting his eyes up to me.

They were blue. A crystalline blue, like the dash of light that runs under the ice of a frozen lake.

“It’s the ensemble, you see. The outfits.

In fact, if I were to show up in a suit as boring as Richard’s, you’d never know I was there.

” He placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself to a stand. “It’s just razzle-dazzle.”

He moved to the door, his wrist bent, his fingers grazing the silk at his throat.

“You see, it’s just showmanship,” he giggled.

I heard steps outside. I recognized them like the rhythm of an executioner’s drum. They halted at my door, and it opened, creaking to announce the arrival of the Devil.

“Darling,” Richard greeted with that fake, predatory smile. The kind that never reached his eyes. His brow lifted when he saw that I had company. “Bellamy.”

Bellamy’s demeanor completely changed. His shoulders sloped, his pelvis curved to one side in a more feminine stance, and he grew two inches shorter. His shoulders seemed to slim as his hand flopped, his wrist limp, onto his ascot, stroking it like a fond pet.

“Richard, oh my! Where have you been?” His voice was breathy, and musical again, full of all his usual exuberant affectations.

“Calissandra and I were just celebrating a new cooperation. Have you heard of the Underground Circuit? Oh, of course you have! You were with us last night! Silly me, for even asking. There’s a third - can you believe it?

- a third female fighter! Well, it seems that there’s practically an epidemic of these women warriors in MMA, and we’re going to do some investigating. Doesn’t that sound like such fun?”

Bellamy walked over to Richard, and traced his fingers over my husband’s jaw in a flirtatious move.

“Just think, with me working with your wife, I’ll be seeing so much more of you! How delightful, yes?” Bellamy leaned forward and sniffed loudly. “Oh, dear, Chanel is not your scent.”

Then Bellamy let out a laugh, walked out of the room, his cheerful “cheerio!” floating back towards us until it faded into something as soft as the flutter of a bird’s wings.

What… the… fuck?