Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 305

Chapter 305

I left them to finish getting ready and crept back to the living room, positioning myself behind the door where I could see Julian on the couch through the narrow gap between the hinges and the frame. He was still asleep, still snoring, still completely unaware that his carefully constructed prison had just been broken open by a woman he had dismissed as nothing more than a talented whore. The irony was so rich I could practically taste it, and I allowed myself a small smile in the darkness before the sound of a phone ringing cut through the silence like blade.

Julian’s phone. On the coffee table. Vibrating against the wood with the insistent urgency of someone who was not going to stop calling until they got an answer.

I watched him stir, watched his hand fumble across the table in search of the phone, watched his eyes blink open and then narrow as he registered the name on the screen. The call was important. I could tell from the way his posture changed, the way his shoulders tightened and his jaw locked, that whatever news was coming through that call was not going to be good.

“What happened?” His voice was rough with sleep, the words slurring together at the edges.

I could not hear the other side of the conversation, but I could read the responses in Julian’s face the way I had learned to read every man who had ever tried to own me. Confusion first, the brow furrowing, the lips pressing together. Then disbelief, his free hand coming up to rub at his temple like he was trying to physically massage the information into his brain. Then anger, the jaw clenching, the knuckles going white around the phone, the whole body tensing like a spring being compressed.

Julian’s response hit the air like gunshots, and I felt my own eyebrows rise in surprise. Celeste had filed for divorce. Celeste, Julian’s wife, the woman he had been obsessing over since the day I met him, was finally cutting the cord. I would have applauded if I had not been busy hiding behind a door and trying not to breathe too loudly.

“There has to be something we can do.” Julian’s voice was climbing now, the controlled fury giving way to something closer to panic. “A delay. A counter-filing. Something.”

I watched him listen to whatever his lawyer was saying, watched the color drain from his face, watched his free hand curl into a fist at his side.

“No,” he said, and the word came out louder than he probably intended, echoing off the walls of the empty apartment. “No, this cannot happen now. I need more time. I need time to show Celeste what kind of man Dominic really is. Once she sees the videos, once she understands that he is no better than me, she will reconsider. She has to reconsider.”

I almost laughed out loud. He was still clinging to the Dominic Ford plan, still convinced that the footage I was supposedly retrieving right now was going to be his salvation, still completely unaware that Dominic Ford did not exist in my agenda.

The call ended, and Julian sat there on the couch for a long moment, his phone clutched in his hand, his chest heaving with the effort of processing everything that had just been dumped on him. Then he pushed himself to his feet and headed for the door, moving with the jerky, uncoordinated stride of a man who was fully panicked, and I knew that this was my moment.

I slipped out from behind the door and followed him, my footsteps silent, my body moving with the fluid, predatory grace that had been drilled into me through years of training and necessity.

He reached the door and pulled it open, and I saw him stop, saw his shoulders go rigid, saw the exact moment when his brain registered that the guards who were supposed to be guarding the house were currently unconscious on the floor. He stepped back into the apartment and slammed the door, his hands fumbling for the

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deadbolt, and then he turned to run for the room at the end of the hallway, and I struck him.

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The blow landed exactly where I intended it to land, the same spot on the neck that had dropped six other men tonight, delivered with the same precision and the same force. Julian went down like a building imploding, his legs folding beneath him, his body hitting the floor with a dull thud that I felt through the soles of my shoes. He landed on his back, his eyes open and staring at the ceiling, his mouth forming a word that never made it past his lips.

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