Page 61 of Make Me Lie (Rich Demons of Darkwood 1)

We made it down the stairs, led by Cain of course, and the crowd easily parted in front of our group as we made it over to the ring. Sweat was glistening all over Paxton's perfect body as he came over and did a fist bump with Cain and the others. Paxton and I locked eyes again, and I smiled at him, prepared to congratulate him on his amazing performance, but he looked quickly away, walking out of the ring and suddenly disappearing into the crowd before I could get a word out.

"Where's he going?"I asked Remington, thinking that it was odd he wasn't sticking around to celebrate longer. All around us the champagne was beginning to flow—the champagne and the drugs—like all the dealers had just been waiting in the wings for the aftermath of the fights.

Remington gave me a Cheshire cat grin. "He's just going to burn off some steam, I'm sure," he told me. "There's always a plethora of ladies waiting around the locker room for a chance with the victor."

My stomach felt like I'd swallowed a rock. I grinned weakly at Remington and he continued to smile at me all too knowingly, like he knew exactly the effect that his words had had on me.

Before I had a second to dwell on it for too much longer, an alarm sounded, echoing around the whole room and sending the crowd into panic.

"Fuck. Someone called the cops," said Remington, not sounding too upset about it.

Just as he said that, and I began to panic along with the crowd, loud footsteps pounded down the stairs from the main entrance where we’d come in, and police officers made their way into the room, yelling at everyone to freeze.

Fuck that. There was no way I was going to stick around to get picked up by the cops. Yes, I had perfect identification papers to go with my new face and name, but I was sure that one of the assholes around me would give me away in five seconds if given the chance. I'm sure the cops would like nothing more than to make my life even more miserable, even with all the help I'd given to pick up The Demon in the first place.

Nope, it wasn't happening.

"I'm getting out of here," I yelled at Remington. "Where are the other exits?"

Remington smirked and pointed to two doors across the way. I rolled my eyes and looked for Cain and Stellan, finally spotting them and seeing that they'd already started to head for completely different doors, confirming my gut feeling that Remington couldn't be trusted with helping me to get away from the police.

I punched Remington in the arm and headed after Cain and Stellan, elbowing a couple of people away just in case they got any bright ideas to get me in trouble. Cain and Stellan went to a door underneath the staircase that led to the glass viewing boxes and disappeared inside.

The police were making their way through the crowd, so I picked up my pace, making it to the door and getting inside as well. The staircase was dimly lit, and I took the steps quickly, wondering why Remington hadn’t tried to follow.

I gasped in relief when I made it to the top of the stairs and the door led out to the chilly night air. This part of the warehouse was empty, with no one around. I could hear the din of the police sirens from somewhere on the other side of the building, so I took off in the opposite direction, trying to find Cain’s car. I went down an alleyway and found myself by the road, only to see Cain’s car driving towards me, Stellan in the passenger seat. Stellan saluted me as the car flew past, leaving me stuck in who knows where without any means of transportation.

I sighed, knowing I had a long night ahead of me trying to figure out how to get back to campus.

I should’ve been furious, but I couldn’t find it in myself to be that mad. Images of the fight played in my head, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the coldness of the night passed down my spine as I thought about how Paxton had looked in the ring.

Yes, I should have been furious, but some part of me, a big part, thought that perhaps it had all been worth it. Just to see that.

* * *

Remington

I’d been dropped off by the cops at the steps of my father’s mansion over an hour ago, and here I sat, waiting outside his office like an errant schoolboy. It was all an enormous inconvenience, but I’d brought it upon myself. I could've easily slipped away with the others, but sometimes I couldn't help but rebel when I had the chance.

Obviously, there was no way that the cops wereactuallygoing to take me in once they realized who I was, but I knew that it would have annoyed my father to have his son dropped off in front of the mansion in a cop car for anyone to see. Not that there was really anyone around at 3 AM, but my father wouldn't care about that.

Our long-time butler, Paul, opened the door to the study and stared down at me disapprovingly. "Your father will see you now," he said disdainfully, as if I was the one who kept him at his beck and call twenty-four seven.

"Good to see you too, Paul," I said with a smirk as I ambled past him, in no hurry for the lecture I was about to endure. It was only recently that these visits had just been lectures; growing up they'd been much different. But no one who knew Senator Taylor, the finest politician that the state had ever seen, and current Majority Leader of the United States Senate, would ever suspect him of the things he did...on a daily basis.

"Stop," Paul ordered, and I gritted my teeth as Paul walked over to me and waved a metal detector down my front, back, and sides. Paul holstered the metal detector in his belt and then began to personally pat me down. I winced when he brushed against my dick a few too many times. I would have killed him, but Paul was one of the many things I had to put up with to keep my little brother and sister safe.

Finally, the sexual assault/strip search was done and Paul ushered me into the office.

I walked in, feeling the need to wash my skin in bleach, and immediately came to a screeching halt. My father was sitting behind his enormous desk that hailed from the time of the Mayflower, two Eastern European prostitutes kneeling in front of him and taking turns licking his leaking dick. Now I wanted to claw my eyes out after a bleach bath.

I knew my mom was probably comatose upstairs at the moment, safely encased within the haze of her favorite cocktail of Vodka and fentanyl. I was pretty sure that my dad administered the fentanyl himself, giving her just enough to make sure she didn't die on him and raise questions. She knew what happened in this house but had long since stopped caring as long as she got her "fun" juice, as she called it.

"Where's Andrew?" I snapped, averting my eyes as one of the girls took an especially long lick down my father's dick. I wish I could've said this was the first time I'd walked in on a scene like that, but growing up, my father had actually delighted in forcing me to sit on the couch behind him and watch.

Like I said, if the public could only see the man in front of me when he was in his element.

The senator smirked at me before leaning over his desk and rolling up a crisp hundred-dollar bill so that he could snort the pile of cocaine on his desk. One of the girls cried out as his fingers tangled and pulled on her hair, and he forced her farther down until she was choking and crying. He closed his eyes in ecstasy, and I wasn't sure what was doing it for him more, hurting the girl or the drugs coursing through his system.

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