Page 91 of Cherry Auction

“I know you were screwing someone back there.” I wave a hand impatiently. “But where was Brooke when you last saw her? You know we’re downtown. There are reasons we don’t want you going in the back alley to fuck beyond just getting picked up for public indecency.”

“Oh.” Moira blinks in confusion and then her eyes widen. “Oh.” She frowns. “Actually, I thought she was right behind me.”

We both start walking quickly towards the door. When I pick up into a jog, Moira’s still matching me. She reaches out to touch my arm. “It’s okay, though. It’s just Gus, from the shelter.”

“Who the fuck is Gus from the shelter?” I demand as Ithrow open the door to the alley, stomping out and looking both ways. I don’t see Brooke or anyone else.

“The handyman. Brooke knows him. They used to play—” Moira says, following me out. “—chess. Wait,” she turns around, forehead scrunched in confusion. “They were just here.”

“Jesus, Moira,” I swear, a bad feeling sinking in my guts as I spin and start sprinting back into the club.

Maybe it’s fine. Like Moira says, she knew the guy, so maybe after he got his rocks off with Moira, Brooke asked if she could bum a ride to the nearest train station.

But the bad feeling in my stomach counters, a sense honed by a lifetime of thingsnotbeing fine.What if it’s not fine?

I run faster to get to Domhn in the club’s office.

THIRTY-EIGHT

DOMHNALL

I grasponto the passenger’s seat door handle with white knuckles as my Audi speeds down the highway with Quinn at the wheel. Isaak and Moira are in the backseat. The bright screen with a map on the dash between Quinn and me fucking mocks me. Sixteen minutes until arrival.

Sixteen fucking minutes.

He has a thirty-minute head start on us.

She’ll be gone before you get there, you gobshite. You’ll lose her again. Not just lose her. Now you’ve had a glimpse of what the demon’s done to her mind. He had her this whole time.

Because I was fucking stupid enough to believe he’d actually died. All I saw were autopsy pictures of the water-logged body. It clearly had the same build and distinctive tattoos on its chest. But he’d obviously manipulated someone into getting his same tattoos before killing them and tossing them in the Danube.

I’m a fucking idiot for never considering the possibility.

Seventeen minutes ago, Quinn, Caleb and I watched back on the security camera footage as she collapsed to the ground in front of the fucker when he snapped his fingers in her face. If I’d had anything left in my guts when I saw it?—

The fist not gripping the door handle comes to my mouth. Jaysus. I was so wrong, this whole time. How could I have ever believed she’d been in on it for a moment?

She was only fucking thirteen. She was a little fuckingkid.

You were, too. It’s her soft voice in my head, and I slam my fist against the dashboard. I don’t deserve for her to be here in my head absolving me of anything.

But her voice keeps echoing even as I smash my fist against the dash over and over.

He was bigger. There was nothing either of us could’ve done against such evil.

“Domhn!” Moira’s scream finally breaks through, and the fact that Isaak’s physically restraining me from the seat behind me.

“Sorry,” I choke out, my throat still thick with the whisky I was busy pouring down it when Quinn stormed in the office demanding to see the security footage. It’s why she’s driving now, not me.

I can’t even show up now when Mads needs me. Just like back then. She disappeared and I tried to look for her when I could. As soon as I had the resources, I hired the best international private investigators. All they ever found was a trail of other young men like me, mostly rotting in jails, eyes devoid of life, all with the same story. A beautiful blonde American girl had tricked them into it, they said, and her father?—

As every lead was exhausted, I let myself believe the less painful story. Occam’s razor. The simplest solution tends to be the best. She was workingwithhim, and I was just another naïve boy horrifically played by a twisted family of con-artists. She wasn’t out there being subjected to the monster’s torture. She was a monster, too.

It was a far, far easier explanation to live with than the truth.

“I know this machine can go faster!” I shout, wrestling to get away from Isaak. Unsuccessfully.

“I’m already going eighty-five,” Quinn snaps back, eyes staying on the road, as she slams the blinker on and swiftly maneuvers around several cars. “The last thing we need is to be stopped by five-o.”

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