“You look beautiful,” Kai says, standing in the bathroom door.
I smile at her, but it’s fake.
“Do you need anything else? Food?”
I shake my head. I can’t eat right now, but I don’t want to draw attention to it. Langston will drive me crazy worrying about me.
“I wish there was more Enzo and I could do. Are you sure you don’t want us to go with you?”
“You’re doing enough staying here and watching Phoenix. Really, you have no idea how much your help means to me.”
Kai hugs me. “We are going to get them back. And when we do, we aren’t ever going to let them go again.”
“I know.”
Pain radiates through my body, but I don’t let Kai know.
She steps back and holds out a silver mask. I take it from her, a familiar pang shooting through me from the last time I wore a mask like this.
We hear footsteps, and Kai steps back to allow Langston through.
“I’ll just be downstairs if you need me,” Kai says before leaving.
Then it’s just Langston and me.
“Wow,” he says as his eyes roam up and down my body. He takes in every curve, every inch of exposed skin, every contour of my face.
For a moment, all I feel is the heat of his eyes gracing my skin. I forget about how scared I am and how my stomach roars with pain and anxiety. For a moment, I feel wanted, desired, lured.
Langston must feel the change, too. Wordlessly, he takes two steps toward me, grabs my neck, and crushes his lips over mine. The kiss is needy and desperate. His tongue pushes into my mouth without asking for permission, without giving me time to think that I shouldn’t be feeling any sort of pleasure when my kids’ lives are at risk.
The kiss continues despite the tiny whispers of reason floating in my head, telling me I shouldn’t enjoy this. All I deserve to feel is pain.
Langston’s tongue disagrees with the thoughts in my head. He pushes them out with each stroke of his tongue until the thoughts flutter away. Finally, when the thoughts have vanished, does he stop the kiss.
“That’s why you will make a great mother,” he says.
“What?”
“Because you won’t even let yourself enjoy a kiss. Your entire thoughts are on the kids. You love them without having met them. That’s why you are going to make a great mom.”
I take a deep breath. Now isn’t the time to argue with him.
My eyes take him in for the first time. He’s wearing a tux that I know he rented, yet somehow fits him like a glove. I can see his hardened muscles beneath the black fabric of his jacket and pants. His erection pushes against the zipper. My eyes shoot back up to his face, so he doesn’t get the wrong idea and think I want to fuck him. But that’s a mistake, too. His hair is tousled, and his face is clean-shaven, making me drool over the sharpness of his jaw. I know I can’t go near his eyes. His eyes are a danger zone I’ll get lost in.
He pushes his hands into my hair, not caring that he’s messing up the curls I spent hours perfecting. He kisses me again—slower, gentler, reminding me that I’m his.
“Whatever it takes,” he says, pulling my lips into his mouth once more.
“Whatever it takes,” I say, agreeing to his promise.
Then, he locks his fingers with mine and leads me out of the house to the waiting car. We climb in the back, and one of Kai’s employees climbs into the front. Langston holds my hand the entire thirty-minute drive to the club, but that doesn’t ease the butterflies in my stomach.
The car eases to a stop.
“Look at me,” Langston says.
I turn and look at him. He holds up my mask and fastens it around my face. “You’re the fiercest, most beautiful, badass woman in there. Nothing will stop you.”
“And you’re the strongest, most handsome, cruel man in there. Nothing will stop you.”
His eyes darken. “I hate you.” There is a bite in his words that is meant to stir a reaction.
“I hate you, too.” Every time I say the words, or he does, I no longer know the true meaning. I no longer know what the words mean when either of us speaks them, just that they mean a lot.
The car door opens. I step out, taking Langston’s hand as he guides me down a sidewalk and inside the club.
We enter the building with blacked-out windows and no sign. There is nothing to indicate what takes place inside.
“Hello, welcome to X. Can I have your name and invite, please?” a gentleman in a tux asks with an iPad in his hands.
“Mr. Langston Pearce and Mrs. Liesel Pearce. Phoenix Brown is who invited us,” I say.
Langston practically growls when I spit out his name as my last, making my insides tingle with what it does to him when I claim him as my husband.
“Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Pearce. The games start in thirty minutes. I’ll show you to the bar where you can have a drink while you wait.”
He leads us down the hallway and stops at an open door. “Enjoy yourselves.”
We walk hand in hand into the room. It’s a spacious room, filled with guests in their most formal attire, all sipping various drinks as a woman sings at a piano in the center of the room. The bar is on the far side. All eyes turn to us as we enter. I suspect everyone does this with each new guest, trying to judge the new competition.
I roll my shoulders back, standing taller. Langston stares them all down. We make it clear we are here to win—anything less will not happen.
Together we walk over to a small circular booth in the corner of the room with a good view.
A waitress immediately comes over. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Two of your finest scotches,” Langston answers.
I don’t know if my stomach can handle a drop of alcohol, but I don’t argue. I don’t want to appear weak, and I don’t want Langston to think something stupid like I’m pregnant or something.
“So what do you think this game is going to involve?” I ask.
“Fucking, pain, torture—the usual.”
I nod.
“We are going to get her back. And if we lose, we’ll try again and again until we win, or we’ll find another way. I’m pretty proficient with a gun, you know.”
His comment is meant to make me smile, but I find I can’t.
The waitress returns with our drinks, and without thinking, I take a long sip, regretting it immediately as it burns all the way down to my anxious gut.
Langston stares at me curiously but doesn’t say anything.
I set my drink down carefully and hold it in my hands while I peruse the faces in the room, trying to determine our biggest competition.
“No one is competition. No one is fighting to get their child back. We’ll win,” Langston says.
His words are meant to be encouraging, to douse some of my anxiety, but nothing but seeing Rose, Atlas, and Declan safely in Langston’s arms will put out my fear.
We sit quietly until the man with the iPad re-enters the room. “The game is about to begin if you will all follow me.”
People toss back the rest of their drinks before standing to follow him out. When I stand, I find my legs trembling. Langston notices, takes my arm, and leads me out. With his hand touching me, I’m calm enough to walk.
We are led into a smaller room containing four round tables, each with five seats. It’s then that I realize there are twenty of us here, and I’m the only woman.