Page 127 of Anchor

He was talking to a woman sitting on the stool next to him. Smiling at her. Putting his hand over her naked shoulder. Goddess, he looked so much like Taland. You could tell that all of them were related with a single look. None had Taland’s charisma, but Seth was only a couple of years older than him, and though he kept his hair shorter, their faces, their eyes were incredibly similar.

Eyes that were on me once more, and I could have sworn that he saw right through me—for a second.

Then he arched a brow and looked down at the woman he was talking to again.

What the…

The charm.

My own thoughts came to a halt when I remembered that I was wearing a different face—Seth didn’t fucking recognize me. That’s why he wasn’t coming closer or shooting me in the head from where he was sitting or something. Hedidn’t knowit was me!

Slowly, I took Taland’s charm out of my pocket. He said his mother had made all his brothers charms like that, so Seth would recognize it. I really, really hoped he would.

When he looked at me again, I raised the charm in front of me and held it between my thumb and index finger so he could see it.

He did.

The way his face changed so suddenly, I was tempted to turn around and run away. The feeling only intensified when he, without ever looking away from me, said something to the woman sitting next to him, and stood up.

Goddess, he was bigger than I remembered—or maybe it was just my fear talking? But he recognized the charm, and whether he knew it wasmeor not didn’t matter because he nodded his head to the other side of the club, toward the dance floor and the main stage, and then he disappeared so fast I had to push people out of my way almost violently just to keep up.

My hands were in my pockets. I held onto the charm tightly in one hand and played with my ring in the other as I followed Seth across the wide space. But it was so crowded and dark where the moving lights didn’t hit, that when he disappeared behind a door that was as black as the wall, I almost missed it.

Two men stood to the sides of it, and I realized their beers hadn’t been touched. They were just holding the bottles in their hands as they looked around.Guards. They weren’t customers come to hang out—they were guards, and when I was closeenough so they could see me, they analyzed every inch of me before I’d even stopped in front of them. I thought they were going to stop me, ask my name or what the hell I was doing here, but then the one on the right leaned in and pushed the near-invisible door open.

Behind it was darkness, only darkness. The lights of the club didn’t reach there, but that’s where Seth had gone, and that’s where I needed to go as well.

Remember what you’re doing this for, I told myself to help me push this fear back. But even though I continued to walk right into that darkness, my hands shook and my heart galloped in my chest and I couldn’t fill my lungs with enough air.

Then the door behind me closed, and the music of the club cut off by half, as if I’d been transported outside. The sound of footsteps was perfectly clear coming from ahead, but the only thing I could make out with my eyes was a dim yellow light possibly over twenty feet away.

Keep going, keep going, maybe Taland is in there somewhere,I chanted, and with my teeth gritted I made it to a small area with a table full of car magazines piled up at the edges—like a waiting room. The walls were yellow, with a painting of a blue flower in the middle of the longest one on the right, and on the other side was a door, open just a crack. I went through it, slowly, all the while reminding myself to breathe.

This corridor was a lot longer, and there were smaller lamps dotting the white walls on the sides every few feet. I couldn’t see the other end, but I heard the steady footsteps just fine. I followed them for what felt like hours but must have been minutes. I went down a set of concrete stairs and through a wide door made of metal. It led me to a large room that reminded me so much of that basement where I’d been chained before that I almost screamed.

Cold. Dark. Thick concrete walls. Lockers and cabinets, tables scattered all over, weapons—guns and knives and throwing stars here and there like they were fucking toys to play with—and furniture, too, to the right. A carpet and two big sofas made of black leather, a large TV screen right there on the floor, with piles of what could have beenCDcases all around it. Two Play Stations, books, magazines…

And behind the biggest sofa was a wide desk like the one my grandmother had in her office, fancy and shiny and carved to perfection, except the color of my grandmother’s desk was a cherry red, and this one was a deep grey that almost looked black.

Radock Tivoux sat behind it with his crossed legs resting on the corner, and his fingers laced together as he watched me with a small smile on his face.

“What do we have here?” said a voice from the other side of the room—Kaid Tivoux with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall, watching me.

“She has Taland’s charm.”

Seth was standing somewhere behind me to the left of the entrance door, and I hadn’t even seen him.

“She told Gerald that she was Rosabel, and she was looking foryou, brother,” Seth continued. I imagined he was talking to the eldest because I couldn’t look away from him myself as I slowly stepped to the side, closer to the door again, until I had all three in my line of vision.

The three Tivoux brothers, the same men who’d chained me and tortured me just weeks ago. Those same men.

Then Seth stepped in front of me. “Where’s the charm?”

I swallowed hard, leaning back just a bit. I wanted tojumpaway, but I didn’t want to show them what I really felt right now. If they saw my fear, it was as good as over. I needed to keep a mask on my face now more than ever.

And I did.

Raising my hand, I showed him the charm that Taland had left me, and Seth smiled. Then, just like I expected, he grabbed it from my fingers lightning fast, as if he was afraid that I wouldn’t let him take it.

---