Page 9 of Midnight Masquerade

I don't know if unicorns are magic. But the curvy little goddess seated beside me dressed in a unicorn onesie certainly feels a little like magic to me. And for a motherfucker who gave up believing in magic and fairytales a long damn time ago, that's something special.

Chapter Three

Madeline

Iprocess what Drake said as we drive through town. Despite the late hour, there are people everywhere. Halloween is way too popular around here.

But he's right, I decide. People do tend to forget the trauma they left you with, even when you don't. It's easier to brush aside the way you made someone feel than it is to forget the way you felt, especially when their mistreatment is a core memory for you. To them, it's just another memory in a long line. But foryou, it's foundational, indelibly stamped on your psyche for the rest of your life.

No matter how big you grow or how old you get, you never forget how small you were made to feel.

It makes me sad that someone like him knows what that's like. He didn't deserve it, and I think he hates Halloween because of it.

"Pull over," I say, coming to an instant decision.

He turns to look at me, his brows furrowed.

"Just trust me, Drake." I smile at him. "Pull over."

He reluctantly navigates the truck to the curb, parking outside an old Victorian that looks like Halloween vomited all over it. There are fake gravestones all over the yard, with body bags hanging in the trees. Spiders dangle beside them from strings.

Honestly, if I ever find out who decided spiders should be a whole thing, we're going to war. I might even learn to fight just to make it happen.

"We need a bag." I unlatch my seatbelt and start rummaging through his truck. For a reclusive billionaire, he has a lot of crap in it. I toss pens and notebooks and at least fifteen different packages of gum into the backseat. "Okay, seriously. Why so many notebooks?"

"I take a lot of notes." He shrugs defensively.

"About what?"

"Businesses."

I narrow my eyes on him. "Uh, what exactly do you do, Drake? Spy for a foreign government?"

He chuckles. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a smart ass?"

"A time or two."

"We own nine different companies," he mutters. "My brother, Jack, calls me nine thousand times a day to discuss somethingor another about one of them. It's easier to keep his bullshit straight if I write it down."

"You own nine companies? Impressive." I wouldn't even know what to do with one company. Trying to keep the inner workings of nine of them straight seems exhausting to me. I toss another notebook in the back and grab a pair of boxers off the floorboard.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters.

I dangle them from my fingers, turning to look at him. "Um. Why are your underwear glowing in the dark?"

He makes a grab for them, but I quickly hold them out of his reach, smirking. "Don't look at those, unicorn."

"Oh, I'm definitely looking at these." I unfold them and then crack up laughing. "Why are their stick figure people doing it on the crotch of your underwear, Drake?"

"They aren't stick figures. They're constellations."

"Okay. So why are constellation people doing it on the crotch of your underwear?"

"Because my asshole brother thinks he's funny," he mutters, stretching across the seat to grab them from me. He immediately balls them up and tosses them into the backseat over his shoulder. "It's supposed to be The Big Bang."

"Oh, clever." I giggle and then reach into the floorboard again, coming up with an empty plastic bag. "Aha!"

"Unicorn, why do you need an empty plastic bag? What are we doing here?"

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