Page 12 of A Light in the Darkness
“Trust me, he isn’t present there.” Michael shakes his head. “This is the devil’s territory. These people—their name is the first thing taken from them. They’re all just numbers there. The next thing they take… well, depending on what they’re there for, they take their ability to have children. Sterilize them. Not all of them. Apparently, they have a clientele who come specifically for the pregnant ones.”
There’s a gasp as Elaine drops the pot of water she was taking off the stove and jumps back, her toes just barely missing the boiling water that sizzles against the floor. Harley and Kent jump into action to pull her further from the mess, while Rich steps gingerly through the puddle to retrieve the pot. Thankfully, she hadn’t yet started boiling the noodles or else we’d be picking those up, too.
I don’t move as everyone frets over my housekeeper, asking whether she’s certain she’s alright and if she needs anything. I simply stare at her, trying to decide what exactly she knows.
When her eyes snap up to mine, they’re full of tears she looks like she’s struggling to hold onto. Her lips are open around whatever she isn’t saying, quivering like the words are trying to push themselves out. “Yes, Elaine?” I ask calmly.
I watch her throat work to swallow, see her wipe a tear from her cheek. “There’s… something I need to tell you.”
Chapter eight
Claire
Taco Tuesday was decidedly uneventful, unless you count Rhea drinking too much and making a spectacle of us. I don’t, since that’s pretty par for the course with her, but I could tell how much Moose hated the attention being on us. I couldn’t figure out if it was because he didn’t want to be in the fold with us or because it made his job more challenging when she captured the attention of everyone in the room. Of course, that’s normal for her too. Heads swing in her direction whenever she walks by, and it’s got to do with more than just her sultry eyes and the way she walks, like a model on the catwalk. She just has an aura that’s hard to deny. It’s what drew me to her, after all.
And it’s what I’m worried about happening tonight when I leave Moose alone with her so that I can go on my date with Austin. It’s stupid and petty and pathetic that I don’t want her to sleep with him, especially when you consider that I can hardly stand him. Or at least, I tell myself I can hardly stand him. I’m not so sure nowadays. Ever since Rhea suggested fucking him, I’ve been thinking about it… almost obsessively.
“The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Rhea had said.
And she was probably right, because as long as I’m thinking about seducing Moose, I’m not thinking about Remy… or at least I’m not thinking about how much I miss him, how much I want him to come drag me back to him. I’m only thinking about how much it would piss Remy off, knowing he hadn’t wanted me to leave, but he couldn’t offer what I needed to stay.
But I won’t be getting under Moose. That’s a disaster waiting to happen, and the only disaster I want to be part of is the kind I create. The kind that makes men cry, makes them hurt. I don’t know if it’s lust or blood lust that’s making me agree to this night—a night out without my best friend, without my shadow, without inhibitions or restraint. Whatever it is, it’s going to strangle me if I don’t give it some sort of offering to keep it at bay, so tonight, I’m channeling the girl I left behind in Costa Rica.
I must look as different as I feel, like I switch skins as I flip a switch in my brain, because when I step out of my room, Eli’s jaw gapes and Moose looks momentarily caught off guard, as if he’s not sure who just stepped out the door. It’s fair, of course. They haven’t seen this side of me.
Being in Costa Rica, having Remy at my side or just knowing he was at my back, had made me feel bold, confident, and unafraid for the first time in my life. I was even a little unhinged in the best way, because I had him as a security net. I knew that if I fell, he’d catch me in those black wings of his like the fallen angel he is. Without the comfort of him and with a shattered heart, I reverted back to who I was before him. But I am not the same girl I was before him, so I never should have bothered pretending I was. The last few months have crawled by and yet I have nothing to show for them, because I haven’t been living.
Tonight, that changes.
“Damn, Monroe.” Eli says appreciatively, his eyes sweeping me up and down. Next to me, Rhea smirks without the faintest bit of jealousy, which only makes me feel worse about hoping she doesn’t fuck my bodyguard tonight.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Moose glowers.
Moody motherfucker.
“It’s called a corset.” I smile at him with a sugary sweet disposition.
“I know what a fucking corset is.” He snaps. “But what is… all this?”
“That is the kind of outfit you wear on a date when you want to bring a man to his knees for you.” Rhea explains, adjusting the pendant that hangs around my neck. I know the corset is pushing up my tits, drawing attention to the thin red line left by Slick’s knife. But it’s not the scar that Moose is looking at—it’s the strings that lace the sides of the top.
It takes a minute, but he seems to realize he was staring, because he clears his throat as his eyes snap to Eli’s. “Boudreaux will kill you.”
“Oh, I won’t be fuckinghim.” I laugh at Eli, though he has eyes that could probably melt the devil’s cold heart. “So,Boudreauxdoesn’t have to know.”
“It’s not going to happen, Claire.” Moose says tersely. “Go fucking change before I change you myself.”
Somebody must have turned the heat up, because that makes me instantly warm. “You don’t get to tell me how to dress.” I laugh, covering up the fact that I nearly choked on those words. “You don’t have any say over me.”
“I work for someone who does.” Moose shakes his head. “And I’m not letting you go out dressed like you’re inviting the whole fucking fraternity to come take turns on you.”
“Moose!” Rhea gasps, at the same time Eli shakes his head, looking like he’d like to slip into the floorboards. But the words don’t hurt me, even though I’m certain that is what he wanted them to do. He wanted me to get mad at the insinuation so that I’d stalk off and change into something less conspicuous. He wants me to fight him on this, and as much as I want to fight him, I also want to win.
“You think I’m a whore, Moose?” My whisper is thick as I reach for the phone tucked away in my jeans pocket. “You think I’mhiswhore, don’t you?” He doesn’t say anything, his teeth clamped together and his jaw rigid. “You probably saw my little video, hmm?” I close the distance between us, noticing the way his eyes dip tomy chest, to the scar. He definitely fucking saw that video. And he thinks Remington Boudreaux bought me. He thinks heownsme.
I haven’t been able to decide what kind of guy Moose is in these last few months. He acts like an asshole, like he can’t stand me, like he wants to be anywhere else. And he also lets his gaze linger. I didn’t know what sort of man Moose was, but suddenly, I do.
“You like pretty things, huh? Is that why you work for Remy? Because he pays you enough to buy all the pretty things you want?”
