Page 83 of Take Me Darkly

Serena tilted her head to the side and smiled softly. “That’s why she’s so loyal to you.”

“Perhaps.”

I stood and began to pace again, pausing only to pick the coin up off the table. I turned the Brutus Denarius between my fingers, letting the cold metal ground me.

“My original intent was to buy the tax liens and tear this church to the ground. I had the demolition crews lined up. But then I considered the women. If I tore the place down, they had nowhere to go. So instead of bringing it down, I gutted the interior. I transformed the brothel into Club O—a place where those women could survive with options and on their own terms. I offered them jobs, paying them handsome salaries until they could eventually stand on their own two feet.”

Serena’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Do they still work for you?”

“The older women have stayed on as part of the kitchen or cleaning staff. Most of the younger ones eventually moved on and created new lives for themselves.”

“And what happened to Jerry’s body? Did you ever go back for it?”

I nodded.

“Before the contractors poured the new concrete for the subterranean level, Zeke and I cleared the catacombs. We donated every historical artifact to museums. The only thing I kept was a worthless, worn copper coin I’d found in the dirt as a boy—the piece I’ve carried in my pocket every day since.”

With my free hand, I dug the old coin out of my pocket and held it up beside the Brutus Denarius.

“Your lucky coin.”

“That’s right. After we got rid of everything worth saving, Zeke and I took the catacombs down to bare earth. And in the deepest part of it, under where the new gravel would go, we moved Jerry one last time. We dragged his corpse out of the sarcophagus and buried him deep in the dirt beneath the lowest vault. When the contractors poured the new foundation, they poured it right over him, sealing him forever in concrete. The floor we built on top of him is the one I named The Dungeon.”

I watched her take it all in. The name of the room she’d raised an eyebrow at weeks ago, the one she’d thought was just theatrical, seemed to take on a new meaning.

“Why did you name it The Dungeon?”

I suspected she already knew the answer, but I gave her the explanation anyway.

“A dungeon is a room built for punishment—it’s the lowest place there is, and where you keep things that deserve to stay in the dark forever. I didn’t name it to be clever. Nor did it have anything to do with BDSM or kink. I named it because it was fitting for Jerry’s final resting place. He’ll forever be in a dungeon, where he belongs. And every night, good people walk across his grave and find pleasure in the place he built for cruelty. There’s no monument I could’ve raised to that man that would suit better.”

For a long moment, she only looked at me. Then Serena stood up, closing the distance between us. She reached out, taking my hands, sandwiching the two coins between our palms. She lifted my knuckles to her mouth, kissing them slowly, reverently.

“Thank you for telling me everything. Now I understand why you refuse to let the FBI near this building. You have so much more to lose than just the club. But more than that... I see the abused boy who experienced cruelties no child should ever face. I see the man who beat a john bloody in an alley because the girl looked back at him with his mother’s eyes. I see all of you, Anton. And you are the bravest, most extraordinary man I have ever known.”

Her words shattered every defense I possessed. I had prepared myself for disgust, for horror, for the moment she realized she was bound to a killer.

Instead, she wrapped herself around my darkness and pulled me into the light.

I gathered her into my arms, lifting her off her feet, and carried her back to the sofa. I settled her into my lap, my hands framing her face, my thumbs wiping away the warm tears tracing down her cheeks.

“Now you know the whole truth, princess,” I growled gently, pressing my forehead to hers.

“I do,” she whispered, her hands tangling in my hair, her blue eyes blazing with absolute, unyielding devotion. “And I won’t take a single word back. With all my heart, I love you, Anton.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Serena

* * *

I sat curled in Anton’s lap with my cheek pressed flush against the broad, warm expanse of his chest. We stayed silent for a long time, the heavy quiet wrapping around us until I felt the erratic, thunderous beat of his heart finally begins to slow to a steady, rhythmic pulse. He smelled of sandalwood, smoky bourbon, and the distinct, intoxicating heat of his skin. I breathed him in, clutching his frame as if he were the only solid thing in a world.

The raw confession had drained him, leaving behind a profound stillness I’d never heard from him before. Anton wore quiet the way other men wore expensive suits—deliberately, as armor to keep the world at bay. This was different. This stillness came from a man who had carried a mountain of blood and rot alone for more than a decade, suddenly standing in the light with a conscience stripped bare.

I turned his truth over in my mind like a jagged shard of ancient glass, searching for where it had broken him and where it might still hold together. He’d left himself entirely vulnerable, handing me the weapon that could destroy him and quietly waiting to see if I would use it against him. He believed the hardest part of the night was over—that laying his monsters out on the floor was the ultimate sacrifice.

He was wrong.