Page 81 of Take Me Darkly

I send iron blows into his face, shattering his nose, splitting his cheekbones, dragging him down to the wet pavement. He isn’t fighting back—he’s coughing blood, whimpering—but the monster inside my chest is finally unleashed. I feel like I’m beating every john whoever climbed the stairs to my mother’s room. I’m slaughtering every hand that ever touched me.

It’s the girl’s terrified scream that finally snaps the fever.

She’s huddled against a dumpster, her hands shielding her face. When I step away from the unconscious body and drop to my knees before her, the breath leaves my lungs like a physical blow.

Her hair is the same color as my mother’s. Her eyes are my mother’s eyes. For one terrifying second, the alley tilts and I am looking at my mother’s face. But this girl is younger—barely sixteen, bleeding from a split lip.

I let the man crawl away into the dark, and I crouch down in front of the girl. I make my voice as gentle as I own.

“I’ve got you,” I say, forcing my voice into a low, gentle calm. “You’re safe. There’s a doctor I can call. Let me help.”

She shakes her head frantically, scrambling backward against the rust-eaten metal. “No! No, I have to go back! If I’m gone when the shift ends, he’ll hunt me down! He’ll kill me! You don’t understand—Jerry will murder me!”

The name hits my chest like a physical strike, locking my lungs.

Jerry.

The world goes deathly quiet. The rain stops making sound.

“Say that name again,” I demand, stepping closer.

She clamps her mouth shut. She’s terrified of me now, too. “I can’t. I can’t cause trouble. He finds out everything. Please, just let me go.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I vow, holding up my blood-stained hands. “I just need a name. Jerry who?”

“Jerry Arnold,” she sobs, wiping blood from her chin. “He owns us…the girls. He broke my friend last week. He told us what he did to Rebecca when she tried to take her kid and run. He put something in her needle and let her die! He laughs about it! He uses her death to keep us quiet! Please, mister... I don’t want to die like Rebecca!”

The alley spins. My blood turns to ice.

Years of buried grief, rage, and guilt explode behind my eyes with nuclear force.

“Rebecca was my mother,” I whisper.

The girl goes dead still. Her swollen, tear-filled eyes climb from my bloodied knuckles, up my bespoke wool coat, to my face.

Recognition and sheer shock wash over her features as her cracked lips part. “You... you’re the one he talks about. The boy who escaped.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Anton

* * *

The city sounds drifted in through the open window on the warm night air—the rhythmic hiss of late traffic, a distant siren, and the low, collective hum of a city that never sleeps. Below, I could hear the muffled thud of luxury car doors, heels striking the old stone steps, and the faint, wicked ripples of laughter as members came to and from Club O. Beneath it all, vibrating straight through the floorboards, was the deep, sensual bass of the club, muffled by a century of brick and stone.

People were indulging their dark desires below, but up here in the warm glow of the lamp, Serena sat motionless. Her undivided, breathtaking focus remained entirely on me. The air felt heavy, and I still had so much more to tell.

“The girl I met in the alley was Myla,” I said, letting my head drop back against the velvet sofa cushion. “Sixteen years old, bloody, broken, and beaten half to death by a john. She couldn’t have known who I was, yet in a few sentences, she shattered the pristine illusion I’d spent years constructing. I’d convinced myself I’d left the rot behind. Then this young woman—practically still a child—was thrown into my path, bringing every nightmare roaring back to the surface.”

Serena’s voice trembled. “What did you do? Did you take her in?”

“No,” I said, admitting the part I would never forgive myself for. “She wouldn’t come. She was more afraid of him than she was hurt, and I couldn’t force her. So, I made her memorize my number and told her to call if she ever needed anything.”

I reached for the bourbon, found the glass empty, set it down again and contemplated if I wanted to pour another. Serena didn’t wait for me to decide. Getting up from the sofa, she went over to the liquor cart and poured me a single. It was like she knew I hadn’t gotten to the worst of the story yet.

When she returned to me, I continued.

“Looking back, I shouldn’t have let her walk away. I’ll carry that the rest of my life. But understand me, princess. I didn’t let it go. That night, something shifted inside me. I realized every dollar I’d laundered, every mathematical calculation I’d made, was a weapon. And I finally knew what I was going to use it for.”