The shrieking of the fire alarm sets adrenaline surging through my blood.
He’s here.
And his aim is to cause chaos, and get Avery out into the open.
Panicked patrons flock to the exits, trampling over each other in a desperate bid to break free.
Avery clings to my arm, while Thomson and Walsh reach for their weapons.
‘Come on,’ Kenzi beckons Avery to move.
‘It’s a drill. There’s no fire,’ I shout over the high-pitched wailing.
‘How do you know?’ Sophia demands as her eyes dart around, wild with suspicion.
‘Call it a hunch.’
When the exit is clear, Walsh, Thomson, and I escort the girls back to the office on the second floor. I grab the note from the bucket on the way. I’m not stupid enough to think it’s worth dusting for prints. The stalker has already proved he’s too smart for that.
If I hadn’t been so preoccupied getting Avery off—again—maybe I’d have spotted him.
How did he know we were here?
I’ve put a block on Avery’s mobile. Her location can’t be traced. She hasn’t opened a social media site; I know for sure because she’s whined incessantly about it every day since we’ve been stuck together. He must be watching my building. It’s the only way. He must have followed us.
When we’re all firmly locked in the office, I power up the computer on the desk. Rian’s passwords are always the same, and this one is no different. I key in IlikebigbuttsandIcannotlie, and shake my head. I click into the club’s security cameras, but funnily enough, the system apparently has a fault and has been down for the last forty minutes. How convenient.
I reboot the system and power the cameras back up. The building is empty.
I switch off the fire alarm remotely and the wailing comes to an abrupt halt. The silence rings through my ear canals louder than the alarm. The women, who are all huddling together in the corner of the room breath a collective sigh of relief.
‘Are you sure the building isn’t on fire?’ Kenzie eyes the door like she’s expecting smoke to start wafting under it any second.
‘Certain.’ I tear open the note. Rage ripples through every cell in my body.
Them fighting over you is pointless–we all know you belong to me.
See you soon.
My molars clang together hard enough to hurt.
I missed him.
Again.
‘Who sent the champagne?’ I snap at Kenzi and Sophia. ‘Did you get a look at him? Did anyone approach you? Did you see anyone you recognised, or did anyone stand out as suspicious?’
They glance at each other, alarm creeping into their heavily made up features.
‘No,’ Sophia says. ‘A waiter wearing an Elixir embroidered shirt brought the bucket over. Austin was around somewhere, but I didn’t recognise anyone else. What’s going on here?’ She glances at Avery, whose cheeks are unusually pale.
‘Avery has an admirer. There’s nothing to worry about, but we’re monitoring the situation.’ I’m such a liar. There’s everything to worry about. This guy is ridiculously fucking good. If I didn’t hate him with every fibre of my being, I might actually be in awe of him.
After running every one of Avery’s thousands of Instagram messages through our most sophisticated detection software—cross-referencing linguistic patterns, analysing IP addresses, and deploying behavioural prediction algorithms—we’ve found absolutely nothing concrete to identify the stalker, which is almost more concerning than finding something; whoever this is knows precisely how to operate just beneath the digital radar.
And now this.
‘Comes with the territory.’ Avery attempts a weak smile, playing the situation down to her friends. The last thing we want is to incite panic and fuel the rumour mill.
‘I hear you,’ Kenzi shakes her head. ‘When you’re in the public eye like we are, people think they have some kind of connection with us. Got to keep the boundaries firm.’
‘Speaking of boundaries,’ Sophia’s eyes widen, ‘did you see the news?’
‘What news?’ Kenzi inches closer for whatever meaningless gossip Sophia’s about to vomit.
‘Remember that body they found on the outskirts of the Wicklow mountains last week?’
My ears sharpen, muscles tighten. I told my men to dispose of it discreetly. Apparently they weren’t as discreet as I hoped.
‘What about it?’ Kenzi demands.
‘You’ll never guess who it was.’ Sophia flicks her hair from her shoulder.
‘Who?’ Avery asks quietly.
‘Anton Roche.’ Sophia twists her gold tacky rings around her fingers. ‘Clearly he pushed one too many boundaries—again. Wasn’t he the guy who papped you at Paris fashion week?’
‘That’s him.’ Avery’s eyebrows crease into a frown; her gaze darts to me but I keep my focus on the note in my hand.
‘Was he murdered or what?’ Kenzi demands the details.
‘There was so little of him left, it was inconclusive.’ Sophia shrugs.
I wait, frozen in motion for Avery’s reaction. If she expresses even a hint of horror or disappointment, I’ll know the darkness in me is too much for her. That the beast I’ve become is incompatible with the beauty in her.
The silence stretches like a blade between us.
Her eyes meet mine, curious, clear, and unflinching.
‘Karma’s a bitch,’ she says finally, her voice steady. Not celebrating his death, but not mourning it either. ‘He made a lot of enemies.’ Her make-up is smudged beneath her eyes and she looks beat. ‘Can we go home?’
I exhale the breath I’d been holding. ‘Yes.’ I cross the room and take her into my arms, instinctively. The urge to protect her possesses every inch of me. I press a kiss to her temple and she slumps against my chest. If she has any inkling I’m responsible for Anton’s death, it certainly hasn’t put her off.
‘You’re okay. I’ve got you,’ I murmur into her ear and she snuggles tighter.
‘How did he know we were here?’ She tilts her face up to meet my gaze.
‘I have no idea. But I will find out.’ Even if it’s the last thing I do.
