Mistress of the Underground. Lisa Childs

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СКАЧАТЬ in her desk, she wouldn’t have gone back because of the memories of what had happened earlier that evening.

      She’d made another mistake—just the latest of many in her forty years. At least this time the only one who’d probably get hurt was herself.

      She needed more. So did Ben. But the thought of no longer playing the sex games they’d been playing since shortly after their divorce filled Paige with dread. Her stomach churned at the prospect of dating real strangers, at having to weed through losers and potential serial killers to find a man she could trust as she trusted Ben. And the idea of never touching Ben, of never being with him again…

      But even when they’d been living together, they’d never been completely together. From the day they’d met, Ben had always held a part of himself back from her. She’d excused it because he’d spent his childhood in foster homes, and because of his profession. He’d learned not to get attached, not to get involved. Her first mistake with him had been thinking it would be different with them, that she could love him enough to break down the wall he’d built around himself. Maybe she would have…had she been able to give him what he’d really wanted…

      She pushed open the door Ben had left unlocked and dragged in a deep breath. The room smelled of him—that mixture of musk and leather and sweet cigars. But there was another scent she recognized. It could have been from him; he had often come home smelling of it after a particularly hellish night in the O.R.: death.

      She glanced at her desk and noticed someone had brought in a flower arrangement. This was no congratulatory bouquet from her friends. The roses were black. A dozen of them, dried and dead, so brittle that petals dropped onto her files and closed laptop. The stems protruded from foam that someone had carved into a shape of a heart. But more than stems penetrated the foam: a wooden stake pierced the heart.

      Hand shaking, she reached for the card that was stuck to the stake. Red ink, smeared like blood, spelled out the words: “You’re going to get what you deserve.”

      She replaced the card and stepped out of her office. Once again a strange chill swept down the hall…from that maddeningly locked door. While that door was locked, her office hadn’t been. Anyone could have left the hideous bouquet. “Sebastian!”

      She wasn’t afraid. She was tired.

      “Paige! Are you all right?” Sebastian called out, his voice rough with emotion as he ran down the hall toward her.

      “I’m fine,” she assured him, unsettled that he’d been so easily rattled. Hopefully she hadn’t sounded that upset; she refused to let some misguided joke or a case of nerves unsettle her. “I just found something in the office…”

      “What? Another rat?”

      They had found one the night she’d taken possession. She’d seen a rat in her office as a bad omen. And that had been even before she’d started hearing the voice telling her she didn’t belong.

      “There’s no rat, just those,” she said, pointing toward the black roses as she had the rat droppings, with disgust. “I hope you didn’t waste your money on those hideous things.”

      “I didn’t send them.”

      “What?” she asked, unsure if she should believe him. Along with his considerable charm, Sebastian had quite the sense of humor. “Yeah, right.”

      Hurt flashed in his bright blue eyes. “Paige, I wouldn’t purposely do anything that might upset you, especially tonight.”

      She believed him but wished he was lying. “But if you didn’t send them…”

      Who had? The question raised all kinds of sinister possibilities in her mind.

      Chapter Four

      Ben’s heart pounded against his ribs as he crashed through the unlocked door of Club Underground. He’d done this so many times, so many other nights, that he should have been used to the summons. But tonight was different—tonight he knew the emergency concerned Paige.

      His hand shook so badly he had to tighten his grip on the handles of his medical bag. Sebastian had assured him that she wasn’t hurt; Ben didn’t need the bag. But he’d gotten used to carrying it with him as he never knew when he’d need it. Or when a member of that damn secret vampire society needed him.

      As Ben walked into the dark bar, he called out for Sebastian.

      “Down here,” his ex-brother-in-law replied, his deep voice drifting from the hall.

      Ben headed toward that door Paige had found so fascinating, but before he reached it, strong fingers grasped his arm.

      “In the office,” Sebastian said, tugging him inside the room he had not wanted to see again.

      Hell, he never wanted to see any of Club Underground, but yet he came every time they called. Because he had no choice. And now Paige owned the place, which actually gave him another reason to stay away. He’d never brought her anything but pain. “Is she all right?”

      “Yes. For now.”

      “What happened?”

      “Those happened,” Sebastian replied, pointing toward a bunch of black roses.

      Ben noticed the stake embedded in the makeshift heart, and he understood the concern wasn’t about the flowers. “What the hell. Someone’s threatening Paige?”

      Sebastian sighed. “After the bar closed down for the night, she found the arrangement in her office.”

      “An office she shouldn’t even have here.” Ben ran a trembling hand over his hair. “But why use the stake to threaten Paige? It makes no sense. She’s not one of the society.”

      “Maybe that’s the threat.”

      “That they’ll make her into one of you? Then what? Kill her? It makes no sense,” Ben said, frustration and fear gnawing at him.

      “Sometimes it doesn’t make sense,” Sebastian reminded him. “Sometimes somebody needs no motive other than madness.”

      Ben shuddered, remembering the destruction he’d seen and tried to treat that had resulted from such madness.

      He glanced at the flowers and the stake again. “There’s a note?” He reached for it, but Sebastian pulled his hand back.

      “It says she’s going to get what she deserves.”

      “I want to see it,” Ben said. “Maybe I’ll recognize the handwriting.”

      “Don’t touch it,” Sebastian advised. “She wants to report this special delivery to Kate, the Zantrax major case detective.”

      Ben groaned. “If Paige reports this to her, it’ll put them both in danger.”

      “I talked her out of calling Kate tonight, but I think that was just because she was too tired to argue with me. And she probably didn’t want to wake up Kate.” Sebastian pushed a hand through his hair. “She cares more about her friends than she does herself.”

      “She’s СКАЧАТЬ