Page 88 of Lock Up the Darkness

“When this is done, we get her out too. Swear it to me.”

“I swear it, brother. We’ll undo what they’ve done to your mom.”

“Good, because there’s no freedom for me without hers too.”

“I know it’s a package deal.” He pocketed the device and his phone. “I needed you to understand the threat that the Head Infidels are to Aurora, what she’s truly pitting herself against by doing this with us.”

“That’s why you were so brutal in the ring, you knew all of this.”

“Yes.”

“It was you trying to protect her. In your sick way, but still.”

“She couldn’t just be good enough, she had to be the very best. By their standards.”

“And she is?”

“She is.”

I frowned at him. “Who was the Nyx they referenced?”

“Nyx was mentioned in the Iliad.”

“Greek mythology?”

“Right. Darkness and shadow. Nyx was an ancient entity feared by even the gods.”

“In this context, by them? Our fathers? Aurora’s even?”

“Feared and revered alike, it seems. We’ll know more soon either way.”

“How did you get that recording?”

“When my father brought me in there to torture Revenant, I planted a bug. I needed to know exactly what was going on. I needed an in. There are no more references to Nyx after that, just my father goading his captive and torturing him, while failing to get the answers he wanted about who Revenant had in place to take down the Infidels, how he’d infiltrated them. I needed more intel, but time ran out with my father in a rage at his failure to get answers, and subsequently calling for an execution. I had to get Lance out.”

“Because he made you a promise to work with you, one he never kept.”

“Not never, but not so far.”

“It’s been three years, Ash.”

“He had to play dead in a bid to protect his daughter. When my father got too close recently, chatter began again, signifying that he’s actually alive. It changes things.”

“And you think he’ll come to you and make good on his promise now?”

“I think he’s thought better of it and won’t want to involve me at all. He’ll try to do it alone, to finish what he’d started before he ended up captured in that slaughterhouse.”

“How the hell did he? Isn’t he the best of the fucking best?”

“He is, so it’s a hell of an interesting question. Something must’ve thrown him off course.”

“Or someone.”

“Perhaps.”

A thump sounded on the kitchen door and we both looked to see Jonah now standing there, urgency spilling from him. “Our guest is awake. And pissed.”

“Put some clothes on before we head up there,” I told Jonah, who was only dressed in a pair of the tightest boxer briefs known to man, neon-blue like half his spiky hair, his inked chest on full display.

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