Page 47 of Her Dark Lies
Foundational Aspects
Allow me to explain how the Compton’s pet project really works.
What William Compton hath wrought in the forties with his friends in DC who were determined not to let another despot ruin the world was carried on in a variety of aspects as the family grew in both power, influence, and money. William developed the initial infrastructure, Eliza right there at his side with the international component, bringing in informants from Europe and beyond during the war. Their son Will took it through the artistic community. Their brilliant, quirky grandson Brice expanded the family fortunes into IT, developing software that lived on pretty much every computer in the free world, which gave them access to everything and everybody, and by marrying Ana, was able to continue within the artistic community through the magazine,Endless Journeys.
Jack and the youngest Compton brother, Tyler, were the ground invasion, working to further the family business and disguise it as altruism. On the surface, the Foundation was their own version of Doctors Without Borders, addressing both medical needs and technological innovations for impoverished nations. The Computer and Band-Aid Brigade, Jack called it, when he was in a self-deprecating mood. Though he rarely joked about it, because running the legitimate side of the Foundation was serious work, lifesaving work, backbreaking and heartfelt, terrifying at times and gloriously fulfilling in others. Jack and Tyler took it to the streets, hitting the deepest cesspools and elegant ballrooms of the world.
Below the surface, it allowed the Comptons access to an infinite number of sources.
Elliot, the middle child, stayed closer to home, working with Brice Compton in the IT business, running the AI branch—artificial intelligence—that serviced government facial recognition and biometrics. Though Compton had a massive consumer branch, their most lucrative contracts were all top-secret government work, just like all the major firms.
And there you have it. Four generations, reporting for duty, sir.
Oh, was I not supposed to say that?
Fuck their NDA. I’m dead, remember?
I can’t be forced to keep their nasty little secrets.
But Claire, eager, people-pleasing free-spirit likes-it-from-behind Claire, has now agreed to be their bitch. And in so doing, has started a cataclysmic shift in her universe.
That’s how it always happens with the Comptons. The stroke of a pen, the stroke of a clit, and boom, they have you wrapped in spider silk, ready to be sucked dry.
Will she survive it? Will her precious chrysalis crack open and free the raging butterfly trapped within? Or will it wither and die?
I really don’t care. So long as the family is stopped, nothing else matters.
28
I Know What You’ve Done
Jack uses the light on his phone to see the contents of the drawer in the closest of the omnipresent hall tables outside his parents’ suite. He pulls out a flashlight, flips the switch, and starts toward his old rooms, playing the beam along the floor. He doesn’t really need the light, he knows the Villa so intimately he can easily maneuver in the darkness, but he’s feeling unsettled, so welcomes the extra illumination.
He needs to think, damn it. None of this makes sense. An assassin sent to Nashville, someone spying on them, and Morgan’s body showing up two days before his wedding? Add in the hijacked servers... It doesn’t matter that his mother thinks things are under control, Jack fears something truly sinister might be afoot.
Someone is trying to stop his future with Claire.
Too late. He smiles internally. Too fucking late. They are here now, on the island, where he can keep her safe. There is nothing he won’t do to protect Claire. He doesn’t understand why anyone would want to test him. He will trample anyone who dares try to hurt her.
From the moment he met her he knew, deep in his soul, this was his person, the one he was supposed to be with, raise a family with, grow old with. He’d never felt that with Morgan. Not like this, at least.
Maybe it was the way the light hit Claire’s eyes as they walked through the streets of Nashville. Maybe it was the way she moved, graceful, like a dancer, the strides long and confident. Maybe it was her art, her abandon when she held the paintbrush, how she was so wholly in the moment he could tell she was on another plane entirely.
Maybe it was the smudge of paint on her cheek, when she showed him the big bloody painting she was working on, the monstrosity of a canvas that he, having grown up around the great masters, recognized immediately as important but had no real idea exactly what itmeant. Unlike Ana, who was a tastemaker, art to him was simple; he knew what he liked and what he didn’t. As to the rest, well, that was part of what he found so fascinating about Claire, how she saw the world, how her mind’s eye took the mundane, synthesized it, and made it into a masterpiece.
Maybe it was her humility. She didn’t think she was the greatest artist, though he tended to disagree. With time to focus on her work, and the right patron, he thought she could be a household name.
Maybe it was the way she looked at him, like he was the most handsome man in the world. Maybe it was because when she looked at him, she didn’t see what he could do for her. She didn’t see his money, his family, his destiny. She saw him. All of him.
Claire had no idea who he was when they met, and he’d kept the illusion in place long enough to be sure she was in love with him. Just him. Just Jack.
There is no other woman like her, and he knows this first-hand, having sown his oats across four continents. No, he won’t let anything happen to her. He fears, though, more people will die before this attack is over.
Who is behind it? The family has plenty of enemies. They’ve been exerting their unique brand of pressure discreetly for decades. The list of people who would be happy to see the Comptons fall is long and varied.
So why now? Claire is the only common denominator.
He wants to head to the bridal suite, to see her, be near her, but, recognizing his overprotective mood and knowing she has to be asleep by now, he detours to his own childhood rooms to catch his breath. Ascertain where the threats are actually coming from.
