Chapter 43

Crystals POV

I stare at the phone as it vibrates on the table. Tarzan’s name lighting up the screen like a curse. My finger hovers over the answer button, but I can’t bring myself to tap it. Every fiber of my being screams that this man is trouble. A mistake. A demon in polite skin.

But I also remember what I did last night.

The red paint still stains my hands in invisible smears. I can’t unsee the way it dripped across Viktor’s front door, the eerie symbol curling like a serpent in blood.

Tarzan never told me what the mark meant, and when I asked, he looked at me like he could crush my skull between his fingers.

“Don’t pry into what you can’t handle,” he said. I believed him.

My actions were making me feel sick.

I silence the call and shove the phone in my pocket as I get into the back of the taxi. The driver did not strike a conversation as the soft humming of rado song filled the car and I could only thank the heavens because my thoughts were too consumed with doubts to make smal