Page 84 of Seducer

The dark, heinous needs had only been lying dormant. There wasn’t a game, virtual or real, that could quell or satisfy the beasts lurking in our cores. It wasn’t possible. We’d just not wanted to admit we were fucked for life.

“Do you remember anything about either of the two?” Wilder asked him out of the blue.

Xander didn’t react or respond at first and I was certain he’d make his usual joke out of the question. He didn’t, once again looking toward the window. He did that when searching for comfort or answers. Xander had been three and a half. I’d heard kids that young had vivid memories, although most were forgotten as they grew older.

Up to this point, he hadn’t been asked anything about whether he could remember a single detail.

I glared at Wilder. What did bringing up the memories have to do with learning the truth about our worthless father?

“Forget I asked,” Wilder muttered.

“I do remember something,” Xander said. He had a faraway look in his eyes.

We remained quiet.

“I remember the night our mother was killed. I remember hearing her screams. There was blood everywhere, so much blood. She reached for me. She struggled to get to me. Pops stood over her with a butcher knife in his hand. I saw him kill her. Then everything was quiet. So quiet.”

Well, shit.

“Fuck,” I managed, fisting my hand. “The bastard deserved to die. I hope he was tortured.”

Xander sighed.

“We need to get in front of this before we lose contracts and customers,” Wilder suggested.

“What the hell are they going to find, bro?” Xander threw back so quickly I could tell he’d been thinking about whether the truth had been exposed for some time.

Maybe it was the right point in our lives to get to the bottom of the story, to where the truth had been driven until everyone involved in the attempt to keep it on the down low stopped pestering us.

If that was possible.

It wasn’t often that three of the most successful men in the world were the offspring of a monster.

“The truth,” I answered. “We deserve to learn the truth.”

CHAPTER 21

Sara

Level three.

I’d been stuck on level three of Dark Nights for over two hours. After breezing through levels one and two, I’d thought for certain I could control the events. Boy, was I wrong. I’d been consumed with the game since returning home from my interesting evening with Zach. I still tingled every time I thought about what had occurred.

He’d thrown a few cookie crumbs in my direction about the Obsidian Society. The information he’d ‘planted’ had seemed far too organized to me, not something he’d whipped together with an hour’s notice. Now, in hindsight, what I’d read hadn’t been a smoking gun, but I’d seen names of candidates, dossiers developed by someone to weed out the riffraff.

So here I was, returning to the game after lying about developing a stomachache so I could leave work early. I had to master the game, or I’d have no hope of getting anywhere. If I was provided with an invitation. That remained to be seen.

I hadn’t been paying any attention to my surroundings, completely absorbed in the gory, seductive Dark Nights world. The headset was phenomenal, the graphics absolutely stunning and so real. However, at this point the game had been tame in comparison to what I’d heard being discussed in the breakroom. It seemed at least sixty percent of the people who worked at Blackwell played the game every once in a while.

I gleaned a lot by just hanging around. Too bad I’d yet to use the tidbits I’d learned.

When something touched my shoulder, I initially believed it was part of the game. When I realized it wasn’t, a loud shriek erupted from my lungs.

“Jesus Christ, sis. That was right in my ear.”

I ripped off the headset, spinning around to face Kyle. “What are you doing here?” I heard the demanding tone in my voice and he snorted.

“I came to tell you I did what you asked.”

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