Page 146 of Unorthodox
Addison calls my name again, apprehension threaded through her voice. I wonder if she thinks I’m dead. If shehopesI am.
Not yet, love.
I tear my eyes away from the alcohol and unlock and open the door.
Mamie is behind Addison, smoothing down her black dress. She meets my eye. “She ate breakfast.” Glancing at my shoulder, white gauze taped over it, she says, “Think you’ll live?”, a small smile playing on her lips.
Someone in this house spoke to Luca.I intend to find out who the fuck it was.
I keep my eyes on Mamie’s for a long moment, but she doesn’t falter. Doesn’t look away and doesn’t lower her arched brow as she waits for me to answer her.
“I always live.” I glance at Addison between us, wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, and step back to let her in. Her green eyes meet mine for a second, then she walks into the room, smelling like goddamn cotton candy. I look to Mamie. “More guards will be here tonight. In the meantime, no one comes past the gate.”
She says nothing, only nodding in response, and I close and lock the door, turning around to watch Addison take in my bedroom.
It’s far bigger than hers, but with the same dark hardwoods throughout. The bed is a king, and at the foot of it I have a grey trunk full of knives, rope, and chains.
For a moment, I wonder how she’d look with a knife to her throat as I fucked her. Then I think about last night, Colton cutting her with the blade. The wounds were surface level, nothing that couldn’t be healed with a dab of alcohol. Still, the thought is enough to have my hands balling into fists.
If he had killed her, I’d have failed my brother again.
I cannot do that.
Addison glances at the bed, her hands tucked under her arms. Her golden hair is messy down her back, and I like it like that. It looks like she just got fucked. And the last person to fuck herwas me.
She turns away from the bed, toward the leather couch across from the table with the decanters. Making up her mind, she crosses the room on bare feet and sits down on the couch, finally looking up at me.
Then her gaze shifts behind me, and for the first time since she’s been here, I see her face light up.
Frowning, I turn to see what the fuck she’s looking at.
The goddamn alien documentary, a cartoon spaceship spinning on the ground of what’s supposed to be earth, then blasting straight up into the air. Rolling my eyes, I turn back to her and see she’s smiling, flashing her white teeth, the gap between the front two making my dick hard.
“You like this shit?” I ask her.
She doesn’t even look at me. “Yeah,” she says, still staring at the TV. “Me and Danik used to watch conspiracy and alien stuff a lot.”
The mention of her brother has me clenching my fists. “Have a drink,” I tell her, nodding toward the glasses and the rum. Without waiting to see if she’ll do as I said, I walk across the room to grab the remote and my gun from the nightstand.
But my phone is lighting up.
A text message from the same number that just called me.
Feeling every muscle in my body tense, I grab my phone. Enter the passcode.
At first, I don’t know what I’m looking at. I blink a few times, staring at my screen. But then it hits me, and I feel as if I’m choking. There’s a sour taste in my mouth, a burning in my throat.
I want to drop the phone.
I want to… I look up, see Addison watching me, and I have the sudden urge to run to her. I want to grab her. To make sure she’s still real.
I don’t move.
I look back at the phone in my clenched fist, my thumb over the screen.
Glassy eyes stare up at me, deep brown, but dull and unseeing. Blue-tinged skin marked with bruises, visible teeth marks along her jaw. And just below her chin, Evora’s body is cut away. Only her detached head stares up at me from my phone.
As if on autopilot, I dial Jameson’s number. He doesn’t answer.
