“Stay safe, cherub,” he finally says. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.” He crosses the room, heading to the door out to my backyard, not sparing me another glance.

That shouldn’t hurt, none of this should hurt. But it all does. I don’t want him to go. My heart wants to give into him even if my mind knows better.

Halfway to the door, he pauses. Swearing under his breath, he turns and stalks back to me. He wraps a hand around my waist and takes my lips savagely.

I gasp into his mouth as he grinds into me. The kiss is over as soon as it’s begun.

He releases me roughly. “If you want to see me for any reason before tomorrow, you know how to get ahold of me.” He backs up. “I’ll be waiting.”

And then he’s gone.

Chapter 15

March, seven years ago

“Tell me about your mother,” Des says across from me.

The two of us play poker and drink booze in my dorm room, while outside a rainstorm batters against the windows.

The booze had been his idea. “A little corruption will do you good, cherub,” he’d said when he’d appeared in my room with the bottle, winking at me.

I’d sputtered at the sight of the alcohol. “That’s not allowed.”

“Do I look like the kind of guy that follows the rules?” With his leather pants and inked arm on display, he most definitely didn’t.

So reluctantly, I’d rinsed out my mug and my water glass and let the Bargainer pour us each a glass of “really fucking good” Scotch.

It tastes about as good as a dirty rim job.

“My mother?” I now say as Des deals out a new hand.

I pick up my cards distractedly, until I see the hand he dealt me.

Three tens. For once I have a chance at winning a round.

His eyes flick from me to the back of my cards, then back to me. “Three of a kind,” he says, guessing my hand.

I glance down at the tens in my hand. “You cheated.”

He picks up his drink and takes a swallow, his muscular frame rippling in a very pleasing way as he does so. “If only. You’re easy to read, cherub. Now,” he says, setting down his glass. He looks coolly at his own cards, “tell me about your mother.”

I fold my hand, taking a sip of the Scotch and wincing a little when it hits my tongue.

My mother’s one of those subjects that I never talk about. What’s the use? It’s just one more sad story; my life has enough of them.

But the way Des is looking at me, I’m not going to casually be able to change the subject.

“I don’t remember much about her,” I say. “She died when I was eight.”

Des is no longer paying attention to the game or the drink. Those two sentences are all it takes to divert his entire focus.

“How did she die?”

I shake my head. “She was murdered while she and my stepdad were on vacation. It was a mistake. They were aiming for my stepfather, but ended up shooting her instead.” My stepfather, who was a seer. He’d failed to foresee it—or maybe he had foreseen it but couldn’t or wouldn’t stop it.

Innocent or guilty, that night haunted him.

“Her death was why he drank.” And his drinking was why …

I suppress my shudder.

“Where were you when this happened?” Des asks. He still has a calm, lazy look about him, but I swear it’s just as much of an act as his poker face is.

“Home with a nanny. They liked to go on vacation without kids.”

I know how my life sounds. Cold and brittle. And that was the truth of it. Technically, I had everything—looks and money to go along with it.

No one would suspect that there were long stretches of time when I was left alone in my stepfather’s Hollywood mansion, with only a nanny and my stepfather’s driver to look after me. Business always came first.

No one would suspect that those long stretches of loneliness were so much better than when he returned from trips. He’d see me and fall right back into another bottle.

And then …

Well, those are more memories I try not to dwell on.

My skin still crawls anyway.

“Why was anyone trying to kill your stepfather?” Des asks, our game of poker utterly forgotten.

I shrug. “Hugh Anders liked money. And he didn’t care who his clients were.” Mafia bosses. Cartel lords. Sheiks with links to terrorist groups. He brought enough of his work home for me to see it all. “It made him a very rich man, and it made him a lot of enemies.”

Maybe that was why he had the Bargainer’s calling card in his kitchen drawer. A man like my stepfather walked around with a target on his back.

“Did you ever do business with him—before you met me?” I ask.

I hadn’t meant to voice that particular question, and now I find myself holding my breath. I don’t think he knew him. The Bargainer hadn’t acted like he knew him when I first called on him, but Des was made of secrets. What if he had known my stepfather? What if he’d helped him, the guy that abused me? The man that either directly or indirectly led to my mother’s death?

Just the possibility has my stomach turning.

Des shakes his head. “Never met the guy until he was swimming in a pool of his own blood.”

The image of his dead body flashes before my eyes.

“How about your birth father?” Des asks. “What was he like?”

“A nobody,” I say, peering into my glass. “My mother accidently got pregnant when she was eighteen. I don’t think she knew who the father was; he was never listed on my birth certificate.”