Vigilante 01 - Who Knows the Storm (8 page)

He went to the side of the bed—nightstand, a white basket filled with the proper accoutrements for seduction. Lube, condoms, a pair of shiny silver handcuffs, a length of white rope, a pale pink vibrator.

If only he had the time….

The silver handcuffs in hand, Nox climbed onto the bed. He tamped down the urge to slap that perfect round ass or run his tongue down the grooves of his spine. No, the only thing he let himself do was run his hand from the lowest curve of Cade’s back—careful not to touch the bruise he’d put there earlier—then up to brush against the spiky softness of his hair and farther up, to his slender wrists.

He snapped one cuff on, then hooked them through the handily provided white leather loops attached to the headboard before snapping the other on.

At the very least, after tonight Nox would have enough jerk-off material to last a year.

Nox felt the interrogative words on the tip of his tongue when he caught the subdued notes of music from the other room. Voice commands would be a safeguard if something went wrong with a customer—the other possibility being someone watching on closed-circuit television.

Two things Nox didn’t want to find out the hard way.

He sucked in a deep breath, then swung one leg over until he straddled the small of Cade’s back.

Nox flattened his palms against the padded headboard in an attempt not to come; he could feel the front of his pants dampening, thighs shaking as he stalled his hips from rubbing himself to an orgasm.

Cade trembled underneath him.

He leaned down, their bodies aligned—and he was insane, truly out of his mind, because God, this felt amazing—and pressed his mouth against Cade’s ear.

Before he could speak, an alarm shrieked through the room.

Chapter Seven

C
ADE
STRUGGLED
against the handcuffs, pulling frantically at the restraints. The minute the fire alarm went off, his client jumped up and flew out of the room like a wanted man.

Leaving him there.

Leaving him handcuffed to the fucking bed, hard and confused and
Jesus
.

Voice commands weren’t working. The alarm screamed relentlessly until Cade started to feel nauseous.

Something about that guy—something was off. For a few panicked minutes, Cade thought he was the hooded guy from the street—but no. The height was off. This one was taller. Sounded different.

Smelled….

Different but familiar?

Cade cursed as he twisted his body, trying to get his knees under him so he could get some leverage.

He heard a door open in the other room. He turned his head and shouted, “Hey, in here!”

“Got it, got it.” Rachel. She came into view as the alarm continued to wail. From the side table, she grabbed the small key for the handcuffs. “What the hell happened?”

“Customer freaked when the alarm went off,” Cade panted. “Is there a fire?”

“Bomb threat,” Rachel said, her voice tight as she unlocked the handcuffs.

Cade hissed as his abraded wrists came free. “Goddammit,” he spit out. Rachel helped him sit up, tugging him off the bed as soon as he was upright.

“We have to evacuate,” she said tightly. “Zed’s furious.”

“So am I,” Cade muttered, pulling off his gloves, then rubbing his wrists as he headed out the door.

T
HE
POLICE
swarmed the entrance of the Iron Butterfly. In the middle of the chaos of emergency personnel and the crowd of people flooding the street, Cade shivered under the blanket Rachel had hastily thrown on him as they hurried down the back steps. It was starting to snow, little pellets smacking down and making a crunching sound as Cade walked gingerly in wet socks down the block.

“Midfuck, eh?” Alec said, startling Cade.

“Chained to the fucking bed. Didn’t get farther than that.” Cade’s teeth chattered.

“Come here.” Alec pulled Cade farther down the street, out of the immediate crush of frantic guests and the employees attending to them. On the next block sat a small restaurant catering to those looking for some quiet and coffee. They were closed, but Alec rapped on the window until a server came over.

“What happened?” the girl asked as she opened the door.

“Faulty alarm—can we sit for a spell?” Alec asked, full-wattage charm and flirty lilt to his voice. “Do you mind?”

The girl was young—too young to see through Alec’s blarney. “Oh, you poor things—come in!”

While she went to beg her manager’s good grace, Alec tucked a chattering Cade into a chair, then stripped off his socks. “Come on, feet in lap and let me give them a rub.”

“Stop trying to fuck me,” Cade grumbled—then put his feet in Alec’s lap.

“You look like a sad drowned rat—not interested. Also I’m a bit pissed at whoever decided to fuck with us tonight. My client is quite the big tipper,” he sighed, rubbing his hands together before applying them to Cade’s skin. “What about you?”

“What about me? Asshole got me facedown on the bed, handcuffed, and then split when the alarm went off.” Cade trembled under the wet blanket. His whole body ached.
My God, what a day.

Alec offered one arched eyebrow in disdain. “The stud you left with? Shame. I was going to ask you his name—I haven’t seen him around.”

“He said he didn’t come to the Butterfly very often.”

More police cars and armored vehicles sped by. Fucking false alarms and fake bomb threats—they usually turned out to be some dick who couldn’t cover his bets and needed a way to sneak out.

“Name?”

“Patrick Mullens.”

Alec seemed to thumb through a mental Rolodex, then shook his head. “No, not anyone I recall.” He’d begun to massage Cade’s feet, digging his fingers deep into the arches.

Cade stifled a moan, biting his lip to get his focus back. “He was acting strange—I don’t know.” Cade shrugged.

“You think he called in the threat?” Alec’s hands stopped moving.

“No—he was with me the whole time.”

“Could have had somebody on the outside do it,” Alec offered.

Cade shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Does he really think he can skip out on a bill? They’re gonna charge his account anyway.” He sat in silence for a few minutes while Alec worked his magic. “The whole thing is just…weird.”

He knew he should just let it go, chalk it up to the nature of the business, but it gnawed at him all the same.

I
T
WAS
almost two hours before they got back into the building. Rachel found them in the restaurant, sharing a plate of tiny Italian cheesecakes and a pot of espresso.

“Meeting, now,” she snapped. They didn’t get enough time to offer her a seat before all that was visible was the back of her head.

“I believe there’s a meeting right now,” Alec deadpanned.

Cade’s socks were dry, after a bit of time spent in the oven of the restaurant, and he and Alec made a run through the accumulating snow back to the Iron Butterfly. In the lobby, Damian was directing the staff upstairs to their posts, offering complimentary drinks, meals, and accommodations to clientele for the rest of their stay—the words seemed to actually pain him. He spotted Cade and waved him over.

Limping from the cold, Cade crossed the lobby to Damian’s side.

“Your client,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

“That son of a bitch,” Cade muttered. “Left me—”

Damian waved him off. “He paid double your fee and left you a 50 percent tip.”

Cade blinked.

“And he left you this.” Damian pulled out his tablet with the blinking message icon under Cade’s name.

Holding the blanket closed with one hand, Cade took the tablet, then flicked the message icon.

Sorry.

- Patrick

Chapter Eight

T
HE
ALARM
echoed in Nox’s head as he raced down the back stairs of the Iron Butterfly. He could hear doors opening as people began to panic and evacuate.

“Fire!” someone shouted.

“Bomb!” another screamed.

Nox moved quicker, his steps sure, his well-conditioned body moving with ease even as guilt wracked him. The warring began to slow his steps as his body screamed “go” and his conscience screamed “what about Cade?” He was two flights down when he turned around, fighting against the flow of people now hot on his heels.

He made his way through the river of frantic guests and staff trying to escape the building. They broke his momentum, pushing him backward until he struggled to the side and pulled himself onto the railing.

Deftly, he climbed, hauling himself up like a kid on the monkey bars, swinging up and over until he reached the floor he’d come from.

He wasn’t going to leave that kid alone and handcuffed to the bed.

His fight-or-flight response had kicked in wildly at the first sound of the alarm. It sounded like the evacuation, like the klaxon at his mother’s sanitarium that terrible night. His heart pounded violently—he needed to get out, wanted to, but no.

You don’t leave people behind.

Nox got back to the floor and pushed the door open. In the hallway, red lights flashed and flared; Nox focused on running back the way he came, to get back to the kid, to—

He saw her at the other end of the hall.

A tiny dress, long legs, a drape of red hair. She couldn’t have looked more different than the last time he saw her, standing on the deck of the ferry with a murderous look in her eyes.

He froze.

She was running down the hallway, knocking on doors and shouting “Evacuate!”—the irony made him dizzy.

When she spotted him, his heart clenched, but she showed no recognition, no reaction beyond her purpose for being here. “Sir? You have to get out of here. I’m sure it’s just a false alarm, but—”

“In the Monarch Suite. Someone is still in there,” he managed to grind out. He gestured down the hall.

“Oh, okay—thank you.” She smiled, then pointed toward the stairwell door. “Please head downstairs to the lobby.”

Nox stepped back as if she were coming after him, when, really, she just turned and went in Cade’s direction.

Nox turned and ran.

S
HE
WAS
alive.

He made it to the street, momentarily confused by the lights and crowds and policemen and emergency units. Snow fell, but it wasn’t the pretty kind that dusted the street and cabs. An icy mix and a wind kicking in from the north. A storm, possibly a bad one.

Nox didn’t bother to hail a cab. He took off down the main drag toward the south exit of the District. If someone was following him, he didn’t want to lead them back home.

He slipped in his dress shoes, the lifts he used to appear taller screwing with his balance, the icy deluge picking up as he walked as quickly as he could manage. The crowds thinned as the weather worsened—he could see the wall ahead, lights dimming as fewer businesses and advertisements populated this area.

If she recognized him, there would be guards following. Or cops alerted to pick him up. If she knew who he was, she’d send someone to the house….

Oh God.

He got off the main drag quickly, ducking onto a small side street. It looked more residential—newly built apartment buildings with wide front windows and tiny balconies—no one out and about, no activity for the entire length of the block. Worker housing, he thought.

A parking garage sign caught his eye; he went purposefully into a side door.

He needed transportation.

The tiny electric car was his first choice. It wasn’t hard to break into—this model had a nasty habit of shorting out, and Nox knew what the hell he was doing with wires. Four and a half minutes—a record, considering his hands were shaking and he couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder.

She was alive.

She looked right through him, but that meant nothing. He was already on the Iron Butterfly cameras. That man had scanned his card.

If she recognized his picture even though the name was different…. Seventeen years had done a lot to change his appearance, but Nox had recognized her right away. Was he burned into her mind the way she was in his?

Swallowing down the panic, Nox quickly started the car. He could barely maneuver inside the curved interior, but comfort wasn’t his priority. He needed to get home.

Nox used a second pass, one he had tucked in his sock, to exit the parking garage. The streets were nearly deserted as he eased onto the main road; a few cops crawled down the strip, making sure the tourists got to their destinations safely as the rest of the force seemed to be streaming in the other direction toward the Iron Butterfly. Plows and salt trucks were already lined up at the south entrance, ready to make sure this part of town was accessible at all times.

He went north.

The snow hit the windshield; the tires ground in protest at the slick road. He drove onto the Freck Memorial Highway, going past the District line until the paved road ran out and the uneven broken concrete of the old highway began.

He took the car as far as he could, abusing the undercarriage until it whined and shimmied with each bump and crater it hit. When a tire blew on an especially hard hit to a buckled piece of pavement, he stopped.

A few wires snipped and touched together—the smoke started a second later as he exited the car. Nox cracked the window, then slammed the door, white tendrils creeping out as if to follow.

He walked through the growing piles of snow, hands in his pockets for warmth, head down as he walked toward home.

The tux and silly shoes provided no actual protection or warmth against the building storm that obscured the moon and his vision. Instinct was the only reason he knew where he was. Each step seemed to pull him closer into the memory of that night, and every moment, his worry intensified.