Page 63 of Hero & Villain
Was that Jezebel’s game, seducing villains to the other side? Not that I’d ever be a hero, I just wasn’t going to hurt anyone who was innocent. That wasn’t the kind of villain I could be, and Toni had said that I got to choose.
A rumble sounded like thunder, but it was a motorbike up the street. Of course it was, because it never rained in Vegas.
A shower of sparks came from my left as someone flicked a cigarette butt into the bright night. All right, there was some kind of rain, but not the kind that washed anything away.
I walked through a blur of loud laughter and honking cars before I reached the Providence. It was a sleek, pale building that rose like an Art nouveau phallic beast.
The entrance was massively arched, with vines and flowers carved into the stone. The stained glass doors showed a couple wearing fig leaves listening to an enormous snake. The doors opened soundlessly when I stood in front of them, warmth and quiet beckoning me away from the street.
I walked in, my puppy slippers making shushing noises on the marble floor. The lobby was an enormous stone garden accented with real plants and vines that circled the massive curling chandelier. Everything sparkled or gleamed, like thewoman behind the front desk in her neat cream skirt-suit and chignon.
She smiled when I approached, as if I weren’t wearing pajamas and slippers. “Good morning, how can I help you?”
I pulled the card out of my pocket and placed it on the smooth surface. “I want to see Dirk Prescott. Do you know where he is?”
She was the kind of competent person who would know or be able to find out in a matter of minutes. She smiled and nodded. “He’s in the gentlemen’s lounge. In the future, you can access the lounge from the east entrance so you don’t have to walk around the long way. Take the elevator to level G, but make sure to activate it using your card. You’ll walk down the hall to the door at the very end, next to another set of elevators, which you may wish to use in the future. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
She was so delightfully eager to please in a completely professional way. “That’s all, thank you.” I took the card and went to the elevators, noting the elaborately wrought iron sign ‘Heaven’ to my right hanging over a set of white stone stairs leading up, and another sign on my left, ‘Purgatory,’ over another set of stairs going down, but the marble grew progressively darker with streaks of red until it was almost black as it disappeared below. I was sensing a very subtle theme. Still, even purgatory looked clean.
When I stepped into the elevator, the glass panels lining the spacious box had more garden scenes. I pushed the round button with a G and put the black card against the blinking bowler hat button at the top. The elevator surged down smoothly enough, but I was still reaching for the guard rail. The doors opened before I could panic with a ding and a, “Welcome to the Gentleman’s Club. Leave your hat at the door,” from amesmerizing voice that I’d heard before. Horse definitely had a flair for the dramatic.
The thick plush carpet silenced my footsteps even in my slippers. I walked down the endless hall with one simple motivation that logic couldn’t conquer. I needed to end Dirk. I needed to destroy the threat from the only man I’d ever let close to my heart.
When I got to the door, I shifted my grip on the knife until it was more comfortable in my palm with the blade out. I put my other hand on the cool steel, took a deep breath, and walked inside.
Chapter Nineteen
VILLAIN
It was absolutely silent in that room far beneath the surface, dark blue carpet and silvery blue flocked wallpaper surrounding groups of tufted leather chairs. They looked worn, comfortable, the kind of chair you spent a lifetime wearing in. Paper newspapers mingled with expensive devices on the tables next to the chairs. It was like a library without any books.
A bar ran along the back of the room, but it smelled like green tea mixed with scotch. Where were the stripper poles and the bartenders?
There was a dark blue door to the right of the bar. Maybe Dirk was in there, although it was four or five a.m. so maybe he was in bed like a half-sensible person.
I headed for the door, walking around a large dark leather wingback and then froze, staring at Dirk Dagger, in the flesh, face relaxed in sleep as his head rested against one wing, a tablet on his lap, a cup of hot chocolate by his elbow.
Here he was, at my mercy. I could kill him in less than a second. It would be so easy, and so right. Even if he didn’t know who I was, the way I felt about him made him a risk that I couldn’t take. I couldn’t care about anyone else that mygrandfather could use to control me any more than I could allow Dirk to have the upper hand, to be the one who controlled my strings.
I inhaled deeply and then lunged, but instead of slitting his throat, I slapped the flat of the blade against the side of his neck. I wasn’t going to kill a sleeping man; it would be too easy. I straddled his lap, steel against his throat when he opened his eyes, sleep gone with a blink as he realized the situation.
“Give me a reason not to kill you,” I said.
He stared at me for too long before he said, “How could I argue with the goddess of death? I have no objection to dying.”
I scowled at him, sliding the blade up until it met his obnoxiously perfect chiseled jaw. “I have no objection to killing you.” Was that true? Could I kill him when I couldn’t kill Baldy? What else could I do?
He smiled. That conniving, viciously deceptive man actually smiled at me! “I felt from the very beginning that we had a lot in common.”
I bared my teeth and pressed the blade harder against him. “What did you do it for? Was it money, business, revenge? Why did you kiss me on top of that tower?”
He raised an eyebrow. “It couldn’t possibly have been because I wanted to?”
“You aren’t an idiot.”
“Neither are you, but you kissed me. Why did you, Daniela Delavigne, kiss some worthless piece of flesh in such a flagrant display of depravity for the whole world to see? I was your first kiss, wasn’t I?”
“I’d been kissed before. Don’t try to change the subject. Why did you kiss me?”
