When I turned toward him, he was right there behind me, grabbing my head and kissing me hard. His tongue snaked around in my mouth, his hands going down my sides, cupping underneath my ass until he pressed me up against the door.
It was different now. It had been wrong before and I knew that but now it was another shade of wrong that was about more than just me. It was about Camden. I couldn’t do this to him knowing what I knew now, what I should have always, always known. Even if Camden didn’t want anything to do with me after this was all over, it couldn’t even be an option. This had to stop.
“Ellie,” Javier whispered as he pulled his lips away and started biting down my neck. I felt powerless, frightened and cold. “Ellie, I need you. I missed you.”
Lies, lies. Too many lies. His fingers went down to my thighs, gathering up the length of my dress. His other hand went to his pants, started undoing his fly.
“Javier,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “This isn’t the time.”
“There’s always time for this,” he said, nipping at my collarbone, near the edge of the razor blade. I held my breath, dying inside.
“No,” I said. I ducked under his arm and went to the opposite side of the bathroom, hands at the wall.
He had his cock in his hand, stroking it, the look on his face one of lust and madness.
His smile was lopsided, wickedly amused. “No? You don’t get to say no, Ellie.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, pulled down my dress. “I’m saying no now. Don’t you want to know how my fucking date with Travis went last night? Don’t you want to know if he touched me, threatened me, hurt me?”
He looked taken aback, enough so that he put his dick away and zipped up his fly. He walked over to me, smoothing back his hair. “Okay. If it’s so important for you to tell me, but I already heard it from Enrico.”
I swallowed down the anger that was building up. That he could send me off to be with such a monster, the monster who did those things to Javier’s own family, and not even care to hear about it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I spat out. “I guess you know about the plans for tonight?”
He smiled. “Yes, I do. And it’s perfect, Ellie, just perfect. This couldn’t work out better. Dinner. Food. Tonight is when you’ll do it.”
A wave of horror flashed through me like the lightning strikes outside. “When I do what?”
“When you kill Travis.”
My mouth dropped open and my hand automatically went to my necklace. “I am not doing it. I’m not killing him. I’m leading you to him. I’m working as a mole. I am not your assassin. I am not your weapon.”
“You’ve always been a weapon,” he said, coming closer and pulling something out of his pocket. “That’s what makes you and I so good. This time you’re the weapon and I’m the one holding the trigger.”
He brought out a necklace with silver angel wings as the pendant. He flicked the edge of it and the angel wings opened up, a locket. Inside was a tiny, tiny vial of powder.
“What is that?” I said, barely breathing.
“It’s poison,” he said matter-of-factly. “Tonight, you’ll put it in his food. He will die.”
“I … I can’t … I won’t. They’ll know I did it!”
“They won’t. I’ll be waiting for you outside, Ellie. I’ll be there.”
“No,” I shook my head. I wouldn’t do it. And though I could have pretended for the sake of pretending, to make things go easier, to get him out of here, I wanted to let him know that I wouldn’t. That he couldn’t make me do everything he asked. That I was stronger than he thought I was.
“This whole time,” I said sadly, “this was your plan, wasn’t it?”
He furrowed his brow. “It’s better this way, Ellie. You have to be the one to do it. It’s the only way you’ll get your revenge.”
“You need your revenge too.”
“Yours is more important.”
“Or maybe my life is more expendable than yours,” I said bitterly.
His face contorted like I had slapped him in the face. “How could you say that?”
I chewed my lip and held out my hand. “Just give me the damn necklace.”
“No, I’d rather put it on you,” he said reaching for the one around my neck.
“No!” I yelled, ripping out of his grasp. But it was too late. His hand closed around it and he ripped it off. He stared at the razor blade in his hand. The tracking device staring up at him.
Fear took a hard, sharp hold of every part of me.
His eyes burned, blazed, unable to accept what he was seeing.
“What is this?” he seethed, his face reddening.
I could have come up with a lie, if I really tried. But there were no lies left in me.
“What is this?” he screamed. He grabbed my face in his hands, squeezing my chin and my lips, the pressure burning against my bones. “Who gave you this? Tell me!”
“Or what?” I tried to say. “You’ll kill me?”
His eyes widened, all whites around the yellow-gold, his pupils black as night and mean as sin. His grip on my face became tighter and I started to squirm from the pain.