I leave my car two streets over and make my way to the apartment building, wondering if I should have at least told Pippa where I was going. If I go missing and am never heard from again, at least that way she could report my last known location. But I can’t. One, because I don’t have my bloody cell phone anymore and I’m not a savant with numbers, and two, because she would probably carve me a new one for not listening to her.
I press the buzzer for 12c, wondering if Lacey is going to be here. I’ve brought my medical bag with me just in case she is, so I can inspect her wounds and change her dressings, plus a crap ton of antibiotics that she’s definitely going to need. There’s a crackle over the intercom, but no one speaks; the speaker blares as whoever is upstairs presses the entry key, and the door clicks open.
I climb four flights of stairs before I hear the rumble of music and laughter. Someone’s having a party. A lone guy, suited up with his hands folded in front of him, stands at the end of the hallway, already watching me approach. Doesn’t take long for me to realize the music is coming from the apartment I’m after, and the guy in the suit? He’s standing watch over the door. What the hell?
“Can I help you, madam?” he asks me. His voice is smooth and low, his skin the color of warmed honey. With his shaved head and imposing six-and-half-foot stature, he’s intimidating in the most gentile of ways. Like a stiletto blade—slender and beautifully made, but still as deadly as can be.
“I’m—Zeth told me to come.” I’m majorly pissed that he would tell me to come while he’s having some kind of blow out. It was probably his idea of damage control, make sure there are plenty of people around so I can’t cause a scene about…well, everything.
“May I have your name, Miss?”
“Sloane. Sloane Romera.”
The tall guy doesn’t check a list or speak into an earpiece, which wouldn’t really have surprised me; he just seems to already know my name. “Welcome, Ms Romera. My name is Michael. If you need anything this evening, please don’t hesitate to find me.” He steps to one side and opens the door behind him, blocking the room inside from view with his body. He gestures to a table behind the door with an open palm, smiling courteously. “Please, if you would kindly select a mask.”
Select a mask? My toes curl inside my shoes. The last time I had to wear a mask was back in the hotel when I’d met Zeth the first time. It hadn’t mattered in the end because of the dark, but still, the associations are enough to make liquid dread cycle through my veins.
“I don’t think so,” I tell Michael. He gives me an understanding nod, like he’s been through this before.
“I apologise Ms. Romera, but without a mask I’m afraid I can’t let you inside.”
Mother. Fucker. I want my phone back. I want to see if Carrie/whoever the hell she is, is alright. I want to find out what Zeth knows about my sister. My jaw sets as I look down on the table, which is considerable in size. There are six masks left, and four of them are plainly masculine. The two feminine ones are both black with golden swirls, but one of them has a shining, metallic black, purple, green feather plumed from the side of it. It’s pretty so I pluck it up and Michael does me the honor of affixing it into my hair. Seems like the guy has done this before. “Thank you for obliging us, Ms Romera,” he says, and then he moves back so I can see into the room. And my stomach bottoms out.
******
I’ve heard the term before, but I’ve never seen it in real life: Orgy. Group sex. Gang bang. My mind shorts out after that. I can’t think of any more names for what I’m witnessing right now.
The apartment immediately opens out into a large open-plan space, and in that space at least fifty people are in various degrees of undress. Some men are still fully attired, while lithe women, dresses delicately slipped down to reveal a perfectly shaped breast here, ridden up to reveal shaven pussies there, sit on their laps or kneel at their feet on the floor.
Black leather bindings bite into flesh wherever I look, interspersed with couples kissing and groping at one another, hands everywhere. On the far side of the room, a man rocks his head back in sheer bliss as a woman on her knees, completely naked, sucks on his rock solid cock for everyone to see.
My mouth hangs open. I turn around and Michael, still standing there, shrugs. “If you’re looking for Zeth, he’s in the back room. But you’ll have to go through the apartment to reach it.” A slow smile spreads across his face. “Boss told me not to close the door right behind you, though. Doesn’t think you’ll make it.”
Well fuck me, he was right about that. I don’t need this shit. I shake my head, stepping toward Michael and the still-open doorway. Michael lifts one shoulder again. “He said you were a prude. He bet big on you walking out as soon as you saw…” he looks over my shoulder into the room beyond, smirking. “Well...”
“He’s an arrogant son of a bitch,” I snap.
“He sure is. You wanna teach him a lesson, you could go find him instead of leaving. Go tear his head off?”
I narrow my eyes. “Did you bet money on this?”