Page 141 of Lock Up the Darkness

“Thanks,” she said.

“Always, baby.” I reached into the little server pouch clipped to her pants and pulled out a napkin. “You can wipe it off as you head back through the bar, we just need enough people to see the marking, and then it’s done, message sent.”

“Andrew Hollis, that sleazy shit, is gonna snap pictures?”

“Probably, yeah. You figured out from Asher’s texts that he’s working for Carson, his eyes, yeah?” At her nod I went on, “He’ll want to do a good job for him, Carson getting photographic proof will be a nice cherry on top.”

“Okay,” she said, stoically.

I reached out and took her hand. “I’m sorry you have to be put through this.”

“Don’t show that sentiment once we head back in there,” she said, almost ordering.

I gave her hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to do this, be okay with it when it’s just me here.”

“Jonah—”

“No, Aurora. What happened between us on the bench, that was real to me.”

“Aside from all the cursing and bellowed comments, right?” she said, not believing me.

“That was the only part faked. I don’t fake the rest. I need… I need it to be real.”

She flinched, letting me know I was getting through to her and that hard edge she’d put back up.

“When I’m with somebody like that, it’s the only thing that’s ever real.”

She nodded, then sucked in a steadying breath, and started for the door. “Ready?” she asked over her shoulder.

No, but I had no choice.

I walked to her, wincing, before forcing myself to fist my hand in her disheveled hair, then drag her out of the bathroom, and make a public spectacle out of her.

Fuck me.

29

~Killian~

Asher’s wretched coughing grew louder the closer I came to the salon, where he was now holed up, working on cracking Revenant’s code.

I’d come home early and found myself outside Fusion.

My foolish intent had been to pick Aurora up after work and give her a ride home.

I’d been stopped in my tracks when I’d caught sight of Jonah beating the shit out of that sleazebag, Andrew Hollis, in the parking lot. He’d crushed the guy’s phone to dust beneath his boots, just like he’d crushed that fucker’s ribs. He was usually so efficient and strategic with the punishments he dealt out on the Infidels’ behalf. But this had seemed way more personal. There had been so much emotion fueling his brutality to unnecessary heights. So much rage and pain. And frustration.

Hell, if anybody could recognize that, it was me.

The corner of the lot where he’d been dealing out some intense violence had been shrouded in shadow and out of the direct view of the few people still inside Fusion for the last half hour before it closed up shop for the night. But I’d seen some of the cheerleaders about to make their way out, so I’d had to intervene.

Jonah had been so worked up, he’d spun on me, snarling in fury, coming at me, before I managed to deflect his blow, then knock him back. That had jarred him enough to make him come back to himself, and he’d offered a slew of apologies, before quickly finishing the job with Hollis, beating the bastard into unconsciousness. Then we’d taken off, leaving him in a pool of his own blood on the ground. We’d texted Asher and he’d made a secure call for an ambulance, because the guy was meant to survive, not die there in the lot.

As he’d deserved.

Asher had filled me in about him being the eyes that Carson had on us, the reason I couldn’t be seen with Aurora, the reason she had to be seen as their whore.

The reason that was getting under my skin more and more each day and making everything else so much heavier and worse, making the burden of the normal façade I had to keep up heavier than ever.

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