Chapter 6: Corrupted Heart: Chapter 6

“Here!”

I groan as Naomi shoves another tequila shot into my hands.

“Naomi, really, I’m good.”

“You’ll be even better once you drink that!” she grins back at me.

No, I’ll be drunk once I drink that. I like to have fun as much as the next girl. But I’m not a huge party animal. Mostly it’s because of dance. I can say with full authority that the worst hangover in the world is the one with Madame Kuzmina glaring down her nose at you asking why your pirouettes are so off today.

But the other reason is that I just don’t enjoy being out of control like that.

Neither Naomi nor Milena is a big drinker either, for the same dance-related reasons. I mean, we all work our asses off, day in and day out, to stay at the very top of our game physically. Getting drunk, which is literally ingesting poison, isn’t usually on our to-do list.

But it is on the docket tonight.

Naomi’s already got the rosy cheeks and glassy eyes that come from drinking in loud, energetic clubs with music pounding and people dancing. Milena turns to clink her glass to ours, and she’s looking like she’s having an even better time.

Hey, I’d probably be as drunk as her right now too if I just found out I wasn’t being married off to a troll like Anton Chernoff.

I wince as the tequila burns down my throat, warming my stomach and making my blood pump a little wilder and hotter.

“Yes!” Milena crows, slamming her empty glass down on the bar. She turns to survey the crowd of clubbers grinding and gyrating in the pulsing, neon light.

“Okay, first things first, we need to find some cute boys and show them how shitty of dancers these other bitches are.”

“Meeeow!” Naomi laughs. “Careful everyone, Milena’s got her claws out!”

“Russians and tequila are a fiery combination,” Milena giggles, flipping her long blonde ponytail. “Shoulda stuck with vodka if you wanted me docile.”

I grin. I’m having fun, and the tequila is melting away the stresses of life. The music throbs and pulses, and the pull of it makes me want to close my eyes and just dance.

At the same time, there’s the pull of something else. Something dangerous and volatile. Something that feels like a shadow lurking just beyond my peripheral vision, its claws slowly reaching out to me.

I fish out my phone and open the site again. The chat window still shows our last exchange, with the icon by his username still darkened.

RaisedByWolves: Either use the safe word, in which case this ends here and now, permanently. Or else you WILL be seeing me tonight.

BrokenBee: I’m sorry. I have to go

My pulse skips.

I didn’t use the safe word.

I just said “I’m sorry, I have to go.” I want to tell myself it was just an oversight, a technicality. I mean, I did make it clear that I wasn’t going to make our rendezvous tonight. But it’s not the same thing as using the safe word. And I know why I deliberately didn’t use it.

Use the safe word, in which case this ends here and now, permanently.

I didn’t use it because I know that when he said “this ends”, he meant “forever”. Not “for the evening” or “until next time”.

Using the safe word with whoever my mystery partner is shuts this whole thing down entirely. And there go my chances of exploring the aching need, however dark and depraved, that I can’t stop feeling deep in my core.

It’s like staring into the black mouth of a cave and being both terrified of what might be inside but also equally scared to walk away without ever exploring it.

That’s why I didn’t use the safe word.

“C’mon!” I jolt back to reality, shoving the phone into my bag as Naomi and Milena drag me out into the mass of writhing, dancing bodies. We push our way closer to the DJ booth, creating a little room for ourselves as we start to dance.

I mean, we might be bunheads, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get down and dirty with some thumping club music.

Soon enough, we’re attracting attention from more than a few guys. Three of the bolder ones move into our little dance circle, each of them wordlessly pairing up with one of us. A guy with blonde hair pulls close to Naomi. Another guy with tanned Latin skin and gorgeous long hair starts dancing with Milena.

The one that slips close to me momentarily takes my breath away because of his sheer size.

For a split second, I freeze. My eyes snap up to his face, my pulse thudding as the thought crosses my mind that he’s the same man from the alley the other day. The one who’s been in my head ever since. The one who inspired me to sneak onto Dante’s website and match with the ultra-dominant RaisedByWolves, whom I’m standing up right now.

When the young guy in front of me grins nervously, though, the illusion shatters.

It’s not him. The man in the alley might have been wearing a mask, but the raw power, confidence, and darkness that emanated from him like smoke is nothing like the clearly nervous energy this guy has.

“I’m Matt!” he screams in my face.

“Bianca!” I yell back.

“We’re celebrating!”

“Yeah?!” I reply.

I’m not focusing on Matt. My mind is still on the leering mask and the hand around my throat. The throb of danger and malice teasing through my core.

“Yeah! We all just got hired at Ironclad Holdings!”

“Oh,” I shout without enthusiasm. “That’s…cool.”

“It’s a hedge fund!” he explains in a loud voice over the music.

Ugh. Of course it is.

I glance past him, locking eyes with Naomi. She looks as unimpressed with our new friends as I am. When I catch Milena’s eye, she mouths “help me”, and I stifle a grin.

“We’re gonna go grab drinks!” I scream at Matt. “Nice meeting you!”

“We’ll come too!” he yells.

“Nope!” Milena cuts him off, grabbing my hand and Naomi’s and dragging us away.

“Oh my God,” Milena groans when we’re back at the bar. “He was telling me about his stock portfolio.”

“At least he was hot,” Naomi’s face sours. “Mine told me he’d—and I quote—‘never been with an Asian before’.”

“Oh, fucking gross,” Milena blanches.

I wrinkle my nose, shaking my head. “Yeah, nope. You wanna get out of here?”

Naomi frowns. “Not yet. I like the vibe here. Let’s just put a hard stop on any more finance bros.”

“Deal,” I groan.

“Shots?” Milena grins at us.

I make a face. “I don’t know if⁠—”

But she’s already flagging down the bartender. Before I know it, the saltshaker is in front of me, another chilled shot of tequila is in my hands, and the fiery alcohol is burning my throat again.

I wince, choking a little as I bite down on the lime afterward.

“Wow,” I hiss, blinking. “That one…”

“Yeah, we gotta go dance it off,” Milena laughs.

“I have to pee, actually.”

“Same,” Naomi chirps.

In the end, we all end up heading to the bathroom at the back of the club together. The line is, predictably, a menace. But eventually we’re at the front. The single bathroom is tiny, so there’s just room for two people to squeeze in together.

“You go, I can wait,” I tell them, since Naomi’s been crossing her legs for the last ten minutes.

I’m waiting in line feeling the pressure building in my own bladder when a girl steps out from around the corner of a dark hallway and glances at me. She grins at me and leans close.

“There’s actually another bathroom down that hall and around the corner,” she whispers conspiratorially. “No line, either.”

Oh hell, yes.

I blurt out a thanks and then dash off around the corner and down another hallway. At the end, past an empty coat check and a door that looks like it leads outside, is another ladies’ room, just like she said.

And there’s not a single other person here.

Perfect.

I step inside to find a much larger bathroom than the tiny one we’ve all been waiting in line for. This one has four stalls, one of which I quickly occupy.

I’m just finishing up when I hear the bathroom door swing open. It pauses, like someone’s holding the door open.

Then I hear heavy footsteps slowly move into the bathroom, and the door closing again. The footsteps move down the line of stalls, until they come to a stop right outside mine.

My eyes drop, and I shiver when I see heavy black motorcycle boots.

Men’s boots.

Something dark twists awake in my gut as I listen to the slow, deep breaths coming from the other side of the stall door. Feel the lurking malice. Smell the danger in the air.

My skin tingles as I stand and pull my underwear back up, the faceless danger lurking barely a foot away on the other side of the stall door.

I could scream. I should scream. But would anyone even hear me down here? I pull my phone out of my bag, my hand shaking as I glance down at it.

No service. Of course.

“You tried to dodge me.”

I almost shriek when he speaks. My hand flies up, clamping over my mouth as I tell myself that if I’m quiet enough, he won’t know I’m here.

Yeah, right.

“You can’t hide from me, BrokenBee.”

My heart skips a beat. My core clenches, and the color drains from my face.

What the actual fuck.

My brain almost can’t process it. Because the second he says that name, I know who is on the other side of the door.

It’s him.

My stranger. The one I blew off tonight. The one I didn’t use the safe word with. The man I’ve planned an anonymous rape fantasy with, who somehow just fucking found me.

Alone. In a club bathroom.

My pulse skyrockets. Something raw, exciting, and terrifying explodes through my system as my mouth falls open.

This is real.

This is happening.

Now.

I yank the wig out of my bag. I throw my hair up into a bun and quickly shove the blonde wig on over it, tucking any stray strands under the edge. It’s not perfect. And it’s probably a stupid idea anyway. But I’m still hanging on to the whole idea of this being at least semi-anonymous.

Not to mention dangerous and insane. What are you thinking?

“Tick-tock, babygirl,” he growls, his voice like gravel and whiskey. Like black smoke and the stain of India ink on paper.

I’m pushing one last strand of dark hair under the wig when the stall door suddenly kicks in. My scream lodges in my throat as I look up with wide, terrified eyes at the leering neon mask towering over me.

Holy fuck.

He’s fucking huge. I’m five-foot-four without the heels I have on now. And the man still looms over me, easily over a foot taller than me. He’s in black jeans and a black leather jacket, left open to reveal a white t-shirt pulled tight across a massive, muscled chest.

A venomous, deviant energy throbs off his very skin as he slowly inclines his head, creepy neon mask and all, to the side.

“You tried to evade me,” he growls again, that rough, deep voice sliding over my skin like tentacles tightening around me.

“No…I…”

“That. Was. Foolish.”

In a nanosecond, he charges into me. I scream as he grabs me and roughly spins me around, pinning me hard against the metal wall of the bathroom stall. My pulse explodes into orbit, my eyes wide with terror and my ears ringing. He yanks my arms behind my back, and I choke on another scream as a zip tie yanks tight around my wrists.

“Should have used your safe word, babygirl,” he hisses darkly into my ear, the spicy clean scent of him mixing with my paralyzing fear. “Too late now.”

A bag is yanked over my head, plunging me into darkness.