Page 70 of The Toy Collector

I glance toward the sky, where the stars are faint behind city light and haze. “Not bad,” I say, letting the words fall flat.

Rafe chuckles. “Is that so?” He tosses the stub of his cigar into the trash and looks at me sideways. “How about your intern?”

A smile pulls at my mouth. “She’s not just an intern.”

“No?” He arches a brow. “What is she then?”

I take one last drag from the cigar. “She’s mine.” I exhale the smoke with each word.

Rafe stills, the grin slipping from his face as something more serious settles into his features. “You’re serious.” It’s not a question. “Do you love her?”

I nod once. “Deadly serious.” Taking a moment, I contemplate his second question. Do I love my toy? I don’t know. She’s my everything in so many ways. She’s all I can think about, and all I want. Is that love? “I don’t know if I love her. But I’m addicted to her,” I reply, my voice low.

He studies me. “Does she know that?”

Smirking, I reply, “She’s starting to.” I crush the end of my cigar into the ashtray beside us, the hiss of it cutting the air like punctuation.

Rafe lets out a slow, impressed breath, his mouth curling into something that’s almost a smile. “Fuck. You’ve got it bad.”

“I’ve got itperfect,” I correct.

He laughs under his breath, shaking his head as he flicks ash to the side. “Are you going to tell her everything?”

I don’t need to ask what he means; he wants to know if I’m going to tell her who I really am, and what I do behind the curtain. “When the time is right.”

“When is the time ever right?” he laughs.

My jaw ticks. “When I say so,” I grunt.

“And if she walks?”

“She won’t.” My voice is steel. Cold. Absolute. “But if she does, I’ll burn every exit behind her. Leave her with nowhere to run except back to me.”

The silence that follows isn’t awkward. It’s reverent. Like even the night is smart enough to shut up when something holy is declared.

Rafe turns toward the door, but not before tossing me a look over his shoulder. “Matteo’s probably setting something on fire by now.”

“Fuck, you’re probably right,” I agree with a grimace.

I follow him toward the entrance of the Leone Room. The heavy door opens with the creak of old wood and old power, spilling warmth into the cold.

The air inside is thick with the ghosts of a hundred backdoor deals, a thousand whispered betrayals. It clings to my skin like a shroud, threading into my lungs with the scent of old money and blood, scrubbed clean but never truly gone.

Here, the devils don’t wear Prada; they wear Armani, stitched with power, cut from control.

When we enter the room, we left only half an hour ago, it’s barely recognizable. The lights have been dimmed, and there are half-naked and fully naked women dancing on the floors and tables.

Remus sits on the couch, staring at his phone like it’s personally offended him, all while carrying out a conversation with Matteo, who’s getting his dick sucked.

The woman between Matteo’s legs moans dramatically, more performance than pleasure, and he doesn’t even look down. Just takes a sip of whatever’s in his tumbler, flicking his eyes toward us with a grin sharp enough to slice glass.

“There you are,” Matteo says. “We were starting to take bets on whether you got pussy-whipped and ran back to D.C. already.”

Remus doesn’t glance up from his phone. “Speak for yourself. I was betting he snapped and buried a body in the garden.”

“Garden’s frozen,” Rafe mutters, heading for the bar. “You’d need a flamethrower.”

Matteo hums. “Idohave one of those.”

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