I had to physically hold onto the arms of the chair to keep from launching myself across the room to snuff him out. To beat a debt out of him that he’d had coming to him for seven years.
He’d taken the one thing from me that had ever mattered. The one thing that could never be replaced.
My hands curled tighter to the chair as my vision clouded over in red when my attention caught on the woman who trailed behind Jarek with her hand twined in his.
It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see her face.
I’d recognize her from a mile away.
My stomach soured, and hot hatred pounded through my frozen blood, ripping open an old, ugly wound.
Jarek took the last step into the basement, coming up short when he felt the force of my stare, the grudge that burned and the dark ideas that spun too far and too fast.
He angled his head in a clear-cut challenge.
Since her head was downturned, Aster Rose all but collided into his back.
Aster who jerked her attention up to find what had stalled her husband.
Aster whose fire-agate eyes went wide and whose rose-petal lips parted when she found me sitting across the room.
Shock whispered through the air in tendrils of hot static.
Hate and hurt.
Hate and hurt.
I wasn’t sure if it was hers or mine.
Jarek’s eyes narrowed in possession, and his hand tightened on his wife’s.
My jaw clenched, and my heart thrashed.
Haille chuckled as he glanced between us like the snake knew he’d just invited two beasts into the ring, and he was excited by the prospect of us ripping each other to shreds.
A fight to the death.
“Welcome to my home.” Haille lifted his arms in a show of pretension. “Please, have a seat. It is time to begin.”
Jarek took the last spot directly across from me.
Aster stood behind him like an adornment, long, dark brown hair worn in an intricate, seductive twist, pieces trailing down to kiss the skin of her bare shoulders. A black, silky dress draped over her curves like the sluicing of dark water.
And in a moment, I knew all bets were off.
* * *
I wondered if it was possible to drown on hatred as another hand of cards was dealt.
Wondered if my lungs could physically implode with the weight of the loss, with the shape of her presence, if there was a chance we’d be crushed by the carnage strewn between us.
Tension bound the room, and few words had been said, everyone’s attention rapt on the duel going down.
It wasn’t unusual for a high-stakes game.
But tonight, while I sat there trying to hide the fact I was twitching like a rabid beast, it felt like the purse had shifted.
The goal, the objective, the target—they had blurred and hazed and taken new shape.