King of Pride (Kings of Sin #2) by Ana Huang

I stayed silent, letting my puppy-dog eyes do the talking. They were the same eyes that’d gotten me out of trouble when I played dress-up with my mother’s clothes as a preteen and accidentally ripped her favorite dress. She’d only grounded me for, oh, two weeks instead of the rest of my life.

After a minute of silence, Kai released a weary-sounding sigh. “What did you have in mind?”

My innocent, pleading expression melted into a grin.

Success! Isabella, one. Kai, zero.

I flipped through my mental calendar of events for a good spot to take him. A nightclub was too generic, a sex dungeon too wild. What kind of place would take him out of his comfort zone without sending him into—aha.

My mind screeched to a halt at a certain weekly gathering miles away. My brother had introduced me to it, and the more I thought about it, the more perfect it was.

My grin widened. Thank you, Felix.

“It’s a surprise,” I said, evading Kai’s question. “Do you trust me?” I was already sliding out of the booth and heading toward the exit, my blood fizzing with excitement.

I couldn’t wait to get out of here and see Kai’s face when I brought him to the site.

“Not particularly.” But he followed me, his face stamped with suspicion. He handed our coat check ticket to the attendant. She returned less than a minute later with my patchwork trench—one of my prized Goodwill finds; I’d snagged the genuine leather piece for less than twenty-five bucks—and Kai’s custom-made Delamonte. “This activity wouldn’t happen to be illegal or illicit in any way, would it?”

“Of course not.” I placed a hand over my chest, insulted. “I’m offended you would even ask. When I participate in illegal activities, I do it myself. I’m smart enough not to involve coconspirators.”

Another, even wearier sigh.

“Fine.” Kai slipped on his coat. “But if it involves glow-in-the-dark anything, I’m leaving.”





CHAPTER 14


Isabella



Forty minutes later, our cab rolled to a stop in the industrial bowels of Bushwick.

“No,” Kai said flatly, staring at the building before us. Cracked windows glinted in the moonlight and graffiti turned the red stone exterior into a riot of colors, cartoons, and curse words. It was dark save for a row of lights blazing on the top floor. “This looks like the type of place where serial killers stash their victims’ bodies.”

“And you say I listen to too much true crime.” I slid out of the backseat and stifled a grin when Kai paid our driver with a pained expression. He could complain all he wanted, but he was here and he wasn’t leaving, or he would’ve asked the driver to take him home. “I promise, there were no dead bodies the last time I checked. But that was over a month ago, so I can’t guarantee things haven’t changed since then.”

“If I’d known you were such a comedy fan, I would’ve brought you to the Comedy Cellar instead.”

“It was a lack of foresight on your part, but perhaps next time,” I quipped, implying there would be a next time.

My stupid, overly hormonal heart thumped at the prospect.

Kai and I hadn’t discussed our almost-kiss yet. After three weeks, what happened in the library seemed like a fever dream, the product of exhaustion and fantasies bleeding into real life. Looking at him now, so rigid and proper in his four-thousand-dollar coat, it was hard to imagine him ever losing control like that.

“Perhaps.” Kai eyed the warehouse’s black metal front door like it was infested with cholera. Someone had spray-painted three giant boobs on it, along with the word Titz in fluorescent yellow. “How charming.”

“It is.” I shrugged off my disappointment at his lack of response to my next time remark and typed the security code into the keypad. A second later, the door buzzed open. “You know what they say. Third boob’s the charm.”

Kai coughed into his fist. If I didn’t know better, I could’ve sworn he was hiding a laugh.

The door shut with a clang behind us. We walked down the dimly lit hall and took the elevator up to the top floor, where a woman with blue pigtails and black lipstick sat on a stool by the entrance. There were no rooms in the building; each floor was comprised of one giant, loft-like space, and she looked inordinately small against the cavernous backdrop.

She glanced up from her sketch pad long enough to check our IDs and my membership card before waving us past.

The studio was empty save for the woman at the door and a skinny, goateed blond rubbing blue paint over his torso like it was baby oil. Everyone was probably downstairs, but I wanted to ease Kai in before I threw him into the deep end.

He stopped at the edge of the tarp covering the gray concrete floor. A temporary wooden wall stood in the middle of the room, covered with white floating canvases and paint-filled balloons hung on push pins. Detachable tabs locked the canvases in place. Next to the wall, a rolling bar cart held drinking glasses, several bottles of clear alcohol, and a jar brimming with folded slips of paper.

Kai’s eyes moved from the balloons to the bar to the blond artist, who was now doing yoga stretches on his corner of the tarp. Quite a sight, considering he wore nothing except paint and a pair of loose-hanging shorts.

A faint grimace crossed Kai’s face when the blond shifted into a killer praying mantis pose. “Isabella.”