Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The inside of their car smelled like leather, weed and gun oil that had seeped into the fabric. It was too clean for grim reapers and too sharp for ordinary people. A predator’s den disguised as luxury.

I slid into the back seat, and Lucifer, that’s who he looks like, I do not know his name, slid in after me. The other two claimed the front like they owned it, shoulders stiff. The man turned the key, and the engine purred to life.

The silence that followed was alive, pulsing, suffocating. It gnawed at me, pressed on my ribs, until I wanted to scream just to shatter it.

I folded my arms across his jacket that I was putting on, pulling it tighter over myself, acutely aware of how little I had on underneath. The fabric swallowed me whole, heavy on my shoulders, smelling like him. Smoke, leather, danger. God, why did that matter? I shifted toward the window, watching cliffs blur into cityscape, smoke trailing in the rearview like a ghost that wouldn’t let me go.

Finally, he spoke.

“My name is Tony,” he said, voice calm but carrying a gravity that pulled my gaze back to him whether I wanted it to or not. “What’s yours?”

It should have been simple. But the way he asked, it didn’t feel like small talk. It felt like a demand. Like the wrong answer might cost me.

I hesitated for a half-second. “Valerie.”

He leaned back, his reflection catching mine in the tinted glass. His mouth moved slowly, deliberately, like he was savoring it.

“Valerie.”

The way he said it… like he was tasting my name before deciding if he’d spit it out or swallow it whole.

“And your relationship to Michael Sebastian?”

My spine stiffened. The air thickened instantly. I didn’t like the way he asked, like he already knew the answer.

Was this an interrogation? Was I sitting in the back of a car or a cell? Either way, I was helpless.

I barked a laugh that came out sharper than I meant it. “Relationship?” My voice dripped with venom. “He’s my ex now.”

The word cracked the silence open like a gunshot.

In the front seat, Vivian twitched just a little. Her glossy head tilted, like she wanted to look back at me, but she kept herself facing forward.

Tony didn’t even blink.

“Your ex,” he repeated, his tone flat. “Less than twenty-four hours ago, right?”

My jaw clenched. “Yes.”

The scorn in my voice was impossible to hide. My hands curled into fists against the folds of his jacket, my nails biting into the fabric. “And before you ask, I have no idea where he is. No clue what he’s done to you. But if he stole from you, just know…” My throat burned as the words broke free. “..he stole from me too.”

The man in the driver’s seat shifted, grip tightening on the wheel until the leather creaked. Vivian’s nails drummed once against the dash before going still. The air turned knife-sharp, cutting between us.

Tony only studied me, his gaze was too deliberate, too precise, like scalpels slicing me open one layer at a time.

He tilted his head, just slightly. His lips curved into a  flicker of recognition.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

Vivian finally snapped. “Why do I feel like you’re lying.” Her voice was venom on silk. She half-turned in her seat, eyes narrowing at me like claws unsheathed. “Michael doesn’t just happen to run off on the same night she decides to play runaway bride.”

“I didn’t decide anything,” I shot back before I could stop myself. My voice cracked sharp in the confined space. “He left me there like garbage. Do you think I’d be riding half-naked in this car if I had answers?”

The driving guy muttered something under his breath but Tony’s gaze never wavered.

He leaned closer, enough that the scent of him wrapped around me, enough that his shadow swallowed mine. His voice was low, deliberate, meant only for me even though the others could hear.

“You hate him.”

I froze.

“Every word,” he continued softly, eyes burning into me, “comes out like poison. You hate him.”

I swallowed, throat dry. My tongue darted out, catching the bitter taste of smoke in the air.

 “Yes.”

The single syllable fell from my lips like a stone tossed into a well.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was charged. The entire car seemed to shift with it, as though my answer had tilted the balance of something I didn’t understand.

Tony’s lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile.

 “Do you want revenge?”

The words hit me harder than the wind on that cliff.

I snapped my gaze to him, my pulse jumping in my throat. The fire that had been simmering inside me surged, flaring so hot it scared me.

I looked at him, he had those storm-dark eyes that never seemed to blink, that sharp smile carved into his face like it had been put there by something cruel. I realized he wasn’t mocking me. He was serious.

And so was I.

“Yes.” My voice came out raw, dangerous. A vow, not an answer. “Yes, I want revenge.”

The atmosphere in the car shattered like glass.

Vivian shifted hard in her seat, her body tense with something I couldn’t name, was it anger, maybe, or fear. The driving guy’s eyes flicked to the mirror, sharp, searching Tony’s face like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

 “Can you help me get it?” I asked, each word dragging out of me like a blade.

He adjusted, his body shifting, his head tilting, his hand brushing along his jaw as if to buy himself a moment and he cleared his throat.

It wasn’t nerves. I had surprised him and the look in his eyes told me he liked it.