Page 43 of A Light in the Darkness
It doesn’t last as he smirks at me, and then he balls his hand into a fist and sinks it right into my stomach.
The force knocks the air from my lungs, and I gasp in agony as I fold into myself… into him. The knife falls from my hand, clattering on the marble floor, as he pulls me against him, hoisting me over his shoulder.
Everything went black for a moment, though I didn’t pass out. I can still hear him, still feel the pain, still think… I just can’t see.
When my vision returns, I realize maybe I just squeezed my eyes shut too tight. Whatever happened, I see the receding form of the upstairs as he jostles me down the steps.
At the bottom, he reaches for something hanging from the ceiling. I assume it’s the light switch, until I feel the chain slip around my neck.
Panic consumes me as he throws me off of him and I imagine being hoisted up until my neck breaks. But he doesn’t mean to hang me… at least, not yet. I know, because the slip around my neck doesn’t pull taut when I land in a heap on the cold basement floor. He’s already looping a smaller one around my wrists, taking advantage of my panic at choking to bind them together over my head.
The force pulls my shoulders up until it feels like they’ll be ripped from the socket, and I cry out in pain as it tugs me backward.
I can see the outline of him because of the minimal light left from the open door above us, and I know he’s watching me as I get to my knees, trying to find the energy to stand.
“I like that you prefer things the hard way.” He laughs, though I can’t make out his face through the dark. “Just like your mother.”
Chapter twenty-six
Remy
I thought freeing sixty of Davos’ prisoners would make me feel accomplished. I thought it would fulfill some small part of me.
I thought wrong.
In the week since our escape, I haven’t felt any more at peace than I did before we saved them. I don’t regret it, of course, but I didn’t expect to feel as emptyafteras I did before. An unexpected consequence of saving so many lives was exposing myself to all the horrors they witnessed… and they witnessed a lot of horrors.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t open my home to sixty strangers, so we did the next best thing. We bought a hotel.
Senator Massarini insisted on making a personal contribution, so he contacted some counselors and therapists and paid them a hefty fee to sign an NDA and live in a hotel room until an indeterminate time. He and his wife had to get home to their children, which Elaine was extraordinarily grateful for. She seemed over his wife’s presence from the moment she showed up. I could tell that Victor wanted to do more, but family comes first. I get that.
Rook, Dom, and Harley have taken charge of organizing the chaos at the hotel, Elaine has spent nearly every waking minute cooking and cleaning there, Kent and Rich have been running security to ensure nothing gets out of hand, and Michael and Dimitri have put themselves in charge of ensuring that no one finds them.
My house has been quiet. It’s unsettling— the kind of quiet that makes you think there’s something around every corner. It’s the kind of quiet that makes your thoughts sound like screams. I’vebeen avoiding the refugees, despite my team telling me that some of them have asked about me. Facing them feels like admitting failure… again.
It’s why I’ve already moved onto the next storehouse, even though the rest of the team is already reeling to deal with what we’ve done so far. They tried to talk me out of it, but I need this. It’s why I’m on the jet, headed to a little stone chapel that was abandoned by the church fifteen years ago when the whole town of Vieja Oaxaca disappeared. The landmarks are all still there, but all of the townspeople left it long ago. It’s the perfect place for a monster like Davos to hide his victims.
Kent sits across from me, silent as he looks out the window. I insisted I could do this alone, but he insisted that Rich could handle security for the refugees. I think at this point Kent would follow me into Hell if we thought his wife was there.
I want to tell him we’ll find her, but how do you find someone who doesn’t exist? How do you find someone whose identity was stripped and deleted as if they were never there at all?
I understand why he’s willing to go to the end of the earth to find her. I’d do the same for Claire. I was lucky that Rhea woke me up when she noticed she was gone. If she hadn’t, Claire would have been on a plane to God only knows where, and I may have never known it was Jovich who facilitated her abduction.
Just thinking about it puts a fire in my veins. I still intend to find my predatory half-brother and make him pay for what he did to her. I didn’t kill Wes when I first had the chance because I wanted to use him as leverage, but that was a mistake. I never needed the leverage—I just needed to go out on the hunt, just the way I’ve been for the last few weeks. I’ll find Davos eventually, or I’ll die trying. And along the way, I’ll burn down every last one of his safe houses, his torture chambers, and prison camps. And I’ll kill as many people as dare to defy me.
I can feel our descent beginning and know that we’re getting close. In the distance, I can just make out the big stone cathedral.It towers high into the sky, the opposite of his previous sprawling estates. But I know that the reason he chose this place is because of the catacombs beneath the cathedral.
An abandoned city provides protection from prying eyes, but it doesn’t make for a good place to invite wealthy men to come visit. This building, which grows as we drop closer to it, is a holding cell. Traders drop their cargo off here and the men in charge of the whole operation make the arrangements for where they will be sent. The catacombs are great for hiding things—people.
We both know, based on what we’ve figured out about this place, that Kent’s wife isn’t here. This is a place without electricity, running water, or access to food. It’s not meant for long term use, and his wife has been missing for the better part of four years now. The greatest possibility is that she’s no longer even alive, but I don’t dare tell him that, and he wouldn’t dare listen.
We’re just landing when my phone rings.
I’m not sure who I expect to see on the caller ID, but it’s not Moose. He never calls me—just types up his reports to assure me nothing new has happened, and answers when I call him. I half-expect it to be her again, drunk and missing me. At least then I’d know she’s thinking of me as much as I’m thinking of her.
“What?” I say into the phone, not bothering with pleasantries. Moose was never my friend—I bought his loyalty. My pleasantries were never part of the bargain.
“I’m resigning.” Moose says abruptly. “I’ve had a family emergency. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but—”
