I don’t remember walking through The Place or leaving it for that matter. Just the sound of the door hissing shut behind me. The drive back is a blur, streetlights smearing across the buildings in a grotesque painting. My hands are clean, but my mind isn’t.
At home, the only things I care about are a bottle of whiskey and the recording from the warehouse that I found in Victoria’s room. How did she go from that broken woman to the one that I almost begged to hear moaning?
One pour. Then another. Then enough to empty the entire bottle. I want silence. I want oblivion. And I want to know how to fucking destroy my little dying ember.
But all I get is her voice, her moans, the image of her body. The way she never begged, yet I offered myself without hesitation.
I drink until the world tilts, until my body sinks into the leather chair. My phone is in my hands before I even realize I’m typing something, perhaps a message. But I’m not in control anymore. And maybe that’s what she wanted all along.
CHAPTER 14
VICTORIA
Iwake up with cotton mouth, dry, cracked lips, and a pounding in my head that is unrelated to the pounding I should have gotten yesterday.
With probably three hours of sleep or less, my brain is not functioning properly. My skin feels clammy after last night, a mix of sleep-sweat and the lingering residue of a messy orgasm session.
Yesterday was…interesting, to say the least. What Azrael did in that warehouse terrifies me now just as much as yesterday. He found a crack to exploit and now I have to figure out if I’m really as unbreakable as I thought or if the mask I’ve been wearing for years has always been this weak and just waiting for a chance to crack.
But then the memories of what we did, in this very room, come back. He’d watched me like I was the only important thing on this earth. He’d stroked his cock in response to my every move, because he’d wanted me just as much as I wanted him.
The sound of my phone buzzing pulls me out of my thoughts. Two missed calls and a new message:
Unknown number: This was your plan, wasn’t it? To get in and rot my existence. I will rip you out of my fucking head and break you so badly there will be no pieces left for you to glue back together. You wanted to feel something? Little ember, meeting me will be the biggest regret of your life.
Alex keeps on calling, but I decline the calls, focused on the message.
I never gave Azrael my number, but I don’t need the name to match the unknown number with the face behind it. His voice is laced through every word. He must have been drunk—I know better than to think he’d willingly message me first in the middle of the night—but it doesn’t change the factIwas the one he thought of while drinking.
I reread it an unhealthy number of times, my lips curled against the pillow like a fucking teenager that just found out the boy she likes, likes her back. There is rage in the words, but it is the kind that comes from need. And I like it. I love being the itch under his skin that he cannot scratch away.
He will wake up later and regret his message, but how good of a subject would I be if I didn’t twist the blade just a little deeper?
Victoria: Oh, Professor. Do you always think of me when you drink?
I toss the phone aside and force myself out of bed. For the first time in a long time, I don’t want to go ahead with my day and let life move around me. I want to stay in this very room and relive the image of him here, looking at me with the need I so desperately want him to feel.
The days are passing, and my dear Professor refuses to meet me. I messaged him on Monday and Tuesday—only ten times, but his drunk text had given me confidence. On Wednesday, I tried calling him. Thursday, he wouldn’t look at me during the lecture. I was right there, in my seat, but he acted like nothing had happened and we were back at square one. And with no active contracts, all I could focus on was my Professor.
The fact that I’d shown him he can’t control me that easily would be quite entertaining, if not for the fact that he’s acting like our little experiment is over—which it’s not, because I still cannot feel a goddamn thing and my brain is the same as it was two months ago. I even went to his place, ready to ambush him, but when he saw me there, the only word he said was “Out.”
For now, the plan is to abduct him if he doesn’t come back to his senses by Sunday night.
I’ve been dragging myself through the week until today, Saturday. My unofficial ritual day. If I’ve learned anything in the twenty-six years, I’ve walked this planet, it’s that structure is survival. Rules, rituals, patterns, anything that keeps the usual chaos on a leash. And for me, that starts with wine.
For that, there’s only one human I can tolerate: Andrew. He doesn’t ask idiotic questions like, ‘What mood are you going for?’ or ‘Why do you need twelve bottles every week?’ He hands me the bottles, nods, and goes back to pretending his liquor store isn’t obviously a front for something far more illegal. I don’t ask. He doesn’t ask. It works.
The city is waking up slowly, summer creeping under the edge of spring. The sky still holds the glossy shades of morning, the crisp air blending with the smell of weed that follows you wherever you go in this city.
Women push strollers, people walking dogs, they’re all smiling like they are happy to be alive. It pisses me off and almost destroys the good mood I was in just an hour ago. I want to scream just to make them drop those pathetic, cheerful faces. Why are they so happy? What do they have to laugh about? Go home and fucking stay there. Today belongs to me more than it will ever belong to them.
Andrew’s shop sits tucked between a defunct tailor and a bookstore that hadn’t changed its window display in the six years since I started coming here. The wood-paneled door has no sign, just a brushed steel handle and a buzzer you are expected to know about.
Inside, the light is dim, but not dark. Lamps cast soft amber puddles over stacked shelves, bottles lined the walls, and the smell of oak would make you believe you are in a public library.
As I step in, the bell above the door gives a tired chime, and I see Andrew behind the counter turning his face to me. He nods once and quickly heads to the back to bring out my order.
When he comes back with the bottles, I pick them up and I’m ready to leave when I stop halfway back to the door. I turn back around and go to the counter, something I’ve never done in the past.