Page 35 of Feed Your Fiends

“I have something he doesn’t. Someone that can retrieve information not hidden on lost ledgers nearly two decades ago, but trapped inside someone’s brain.”

She arches her brow, but then suddenly, a noise that’s been playing in the background comes to the forefront. We both look at the opened tank. At a pale wet face, gaping like a fish that disappears beneath the surface a second later.

Without a word, Aria leaps from the couch that’s blocking out the tank’s entrance completely and gapes at it with an incredulous gasp. I can hear the question swirling in her mind,‘How hadn’t I heard it? The splashes, the gasps?’Simple. When her focus is on Etienne, the whole world could burn, and she wouldn’t notice.

Her eyes, those calculating eyes, take in the surface, and immediately, she knows the pool must be buried. Whipping around the couch, she sprints down the theatre’s ramp, throwing the doors open.

By the time I follow her, she’s already discovered how to stop my brew with the push of a button. She’s crumpled on her ass, heaving just like Jarett as the central tank drains.

She shakes her head slowly, gazing up at me as I come to stand beside her. “Bart thinks Jarett is the father, doesn’t he? He thinks Madame rekindled an affair with him after all these years because he’s her baby’s father?”

“Why else would she choose him, of all men? A history makes sense.”

Aria swallows. “He couldn’t get anything out of Jarett, but he thinks Elle, Jarett’s daughter, can. Elle…you’re going to use her to get the information…but you don’t even have her.”

“She’s mine. That doesn’t change just because she wants nothing to do with me.”

“Gant—”

“Mine. She can’t leave me, too. Everyone else can rot, but Elle? She’s my angel. My dove.”

“And what are you to her?”

“I can be her angel too.”

“Of darkness,” Aria says, shaking her head again, her petrified eyes travelling back to the tank where Jarett’s still sputtering.

“We balance each other out perfectly, merging into an umbra.”

Gant

“Elle and Jarett weren’t close. He hated her. How the hell does Bart expect some bizarre family reunion to pry the whereabouts of this mystery baby out? How do you even know the baby’s Jarett’s?”

“Because Bart’s desperate.” If only he’d look for the clues in the letters.The mind-numbing musings of a cunt.“And the connection between Jarett and my mother only makes sense if he is the father.”

“But you don’t know that!” she says, her voice cracking. “Hasn’t Elle been through enough? Are you really going to subject her to him again?”

“I never want to hurt her again.”If I don’t have to.

Aria’s shoulders relax. “Good, because I don’t want to hold any more of your secrets.”

“So Elle’s mad with you too?” I ask the obvious.

She gets to her feet, annoyance overtaking her features as she storms up the ramp, not sparing the death portrait a single glance. That’s the best thing about Aria, she can just pretend for my sake.

“You’re welcome, by the way. For taking the ballet shoes. If you think Elle’s angry now, imagine how pissed she’d be if you’d been the one to actually do it. She’d never talk to you again. Not even to spit on you.”

“I wouldn’t have used them,” I say, following her to the couch.

“You were still on the fence at the time.”

“My decision solidified the moment she came to me that night.”

“Because of a fuck?”

“Because she gave me her heart. She trusted me. With everything.”

She squirms and settles into the cushions, looking guilty. “Aren’t you going to question me about the shoes?”

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