Page 13 of The Queen (Masterpiece Duet 2)
There are bands around my chest. One for memory and one for fear. And another for watching my future crumble. There’s no pretending nothing is wrong. No Dr. Stanhope and the impossible dream of a different life. The roots of the city run way too deep to really let me go.
Chapter Eight
I step out of the cab, blinking at the bright lights shining from the Den’s windows. Pavement pulses with a life of its own, the music from inside its heart. I paid the driver twenty bucks extra to wait while I ran inside Daddy’s apartment, but it was empty. Not a surprise considering he isn’t answering his cell. My stomach still sinks to the bottom of my feet, my whole body jittery and hot.
I’ve been this way since I found Avery gone, half-wondering if I’ll wake up.
If all of this is just a dream.
The Den is a private club for the rich and dangerous men of Tanglewood. I’ve seen the place dark, almost abandoned, with Damon in a half-buttoned shirt and no shoes. And I’ve seen the place glittering like an underground casino prepared for the biggest game of the city.
But I’ve never seen it look like a nightclub, purple and blue and pink pressing against the windows, smoke winding out of the narrow opening in the door. Two large men wearing black T-shirts stretched across muscle guard the door, a seedier version of the lions who guard fancy libraries. Patience. Fortitude. And a flat aspect in their eyes that makes me uncomfortable.
I drag my carry-on luggage behind me, thumping down the stone steps to the landing, the door below street-level. The iron railing is slick with dew, because it’s closer to dawn than midnight. The roar behind the heavy oak door shows no signs of stopping.
“Hello,” I shout over the noise. “I’m here to see Damon Scott.”
One bouncer looks at me, unimpressed. The other doesn’t even bother to look away from that place two feet in front of his face. Neither of them make a move to let me in. They don’t move to stop me, either.
“Can I go inside?”
The bouncer who acknowledged me gives a noncommittal nod. Apparently they aren’t very concerned with a guest list at this party. Or security, considering anything could be in this luggage.
What on earth is going on?
I step through the door, half expecting them to spring into action and block me. But I stumble into the dimly lit foyer, the mirror reflecting the light of a disco ball that appears to have been slung from the antique chandelier with rope.
My eyes struggle to adjust as I stumble over something blocking the path. It’s one of the leather chairs, I realize. The ones that normally sit in uneven circles around the gilt tables, for men to have dangerous thoughts. Now it’s sideways in the hallway.
And it’s moving.
In a flash of scattered purple light I see why. There are two people on the other side, half-naked, having sex. Or very, very close. They’re moving in rhythm with the music, making the chair undulate against me, almost as if they’re grinding directly on me.
I jump back and bump into another group of people in the opposite parlor. Not dancing. They’re kissing. They’re doing a lot more than kissing—having sex in a tangle of limbs and tongues. God, what’s happening here?
I feel like I’ve fallen through the mirror and ended up in some alternate version of Tanglewood, everything turned around and upside down. Daddy is missing, and now there’s some kind of orgy happening at the Den. Maybe Damon Scott is missing, too.
Or maybe he’s been pining after you.
Avery’s voice rings in my ears. What if he withdrew from the Den? From a life of crime?
He might not even realize what’s happening in this place, how they’ve torn it apart.
I push farther into the Den, determined to find the stairs. I know which bedroom is Damon’s, a fact that still brings heat to my cheeks despite all the sinful acts being performed around me.
Through the doorway I can see a dance floor, where a crush of people move to the music that seems to emanate from the walls. I have one foot on the stairs, the heavy little luggage lifted an inch off the hardwood floor, when I see something in the far corner of the dance floor.
A little space carved out of the crowd, an invisible velvet rope respected by these people who’ve respected nothing else in the Den.
I take one step closer, drawn by the mystery of it, the gravity.
And there’s Damon Scott, sitting in a high-backed leather chair, a devilish half smile on his face, two days growth shadowing his jaw. His suit is past rumpled, as if he’s worn it several days now, but he shows no sign of slowing. Dark eyes survey the crowd like a man looking out over his land—and in a way, that’s what these people are. The valleys and hills of his inheritance, fertile ground being sown.
