Page 21 of Take Me Darkly

His phone chimed loudly, shattering the rising tension like glass.

Anton’s jaw clenched as he pulled the device from his pocket. He glanced at the screen, and I saw something shift in his expression. It was frustration mixed with resignation.

“I need to take this,” he said, his voice clipped. “It’s the publicist.”

“Now?” I couldn’t keep the disappointment from my voice. I’d been so close to getting him to open up to finally understanding the secrets that haunted him.

He answered the call, his tone shifting to something more business-like. “Veronica.”

I couldn’t hear the woman’s voice on the other end, but I watched Anton’s posture go rigid. His knuckles turned white around the phone, his eyes narrowing into lethal slits.

“How bad?”

A pause.

“Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know who the reporter is, and you were right to bring Devon in. You’ve been doing great so far, but I think the more people we have on this, the better. What’s our next move?”

I stood, moving closer despite knowing I probably shouldn’t interrupt. But watching him, seeing the tension radiating from every line of his body, I couldn’t stay away.

“I understand,” Anton said into the receiver. “Issue a formal statement. Keep it vague, sympathetic, and brief. And Veronica? You, Devon, and Zeke need to audit our communications immediately. Someone is leaking internal details.”

He ended the call and stood motionless, staring at the darkened screen of his phone as if he intended to crush it in his palm.

“What happened?” I asked quickly.

“The press coverage regarding the fire in Italy has breached the dam,” he said, his voice quiet, controlled, and deadly. “Devon Wilkshire is flying in from Washington to manage the fallout personally. Someone leaked your identity to the tabloids. Your name, your relationship to me, the arson, the shooting—it’s trending globally.”

My stomach dropped. “Globally? But... how? Why?”

“It doesn’t matter why. You’re missing the point. They’re digging into you, Serena. Details about your mother’s house, when it burned, the hospital where you were treated, and hell—even where you went to college.” He turned to face me, and I saw the barely leashed rage churning in his dark eyes. “Someone’s making you the story. And by extension, they’re making me the story. I’ve kept a low profile, and I’ve been somewhat of an enigma to the media. My public profile has always been carefully curated. They know about the penthouse, and about my business ventures in cryptocurrency and venture capitalism. But Club O remains a secret—one of the few I’ve managed to keep. But now they’re like a dog searching for a bone.”

I sank back onto the sofa, my mind reeling. “But how? I’m nobody. Who would leak my private life?”

“I don’t know. If all this shit about the Serpent’s Disciples is correct, it could be they’re using the media as a smoke grenade to flush you out.” He moved back to sit beside me, his presence suddenly overwhelming in its intensity. “This changes things. I’ll need to talk to Zeke about it, but I think the danger to you just increased exponentially.”

I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around yet another new development in the span of an hour. “I don’t understand. If nobody knows about this place, how can I be more vulnerable?”

“Because a tabloid parasite named Mac Owens has picked up the trail,” Anton explained, his voice tight with controlled rage. “He’s a bloodhound. He tried to dismantle my friend Alexander Stone’s life a few years ago, and we had to pull massive strings to bury the story. Owens saw my name attached to the Italian police reports. He doesn’t know about Club O yet—the financial structures are buried behind impenetrable shell corporations—but if he connects the dots, he gives the Disciples a direct map to this front door.”

“A map to me,” I whispered, the words tasting like ash. “I’m the loose end.”

“We are the story,” he corrected fiercely.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out, the crushing weight of guilt pressing down on my chest. “I dragged you into this nightmare, Anton.”

“Stop.” His voice cut through the air like a blade, making me flinch. “Don’t you dare apologize for being targeted by monsters. This is not your fault.”

But it felt like my fault.

Everything did.

I’d been naïve and hadn’t seen the threat looming over my family. I’d blindly followed my father’s leads, not seeing that there could have been more hiding beneath the surface. I thought about his final days, and the words we’d spoken to each other.

* * *

“Six months ago, I came across a stone tablet and took this rubbing of it,” my father explains. “It’s the proof that Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s ashes are in Rome, Serena—not in Egypt. But some have gone to great lengths to keep this information hidden. They will kill to protect the secret and⁠—”

My father’s words cut off as he’s overcome with another coughing fit. My mother hurries to grab a tissue from the dresser and hands it to him. He holds it to his mouth as his body convulses and spasms. To my horror, when he pulls the tissue away, it’s stained red with blood.