“It was barbaric.” A muscle in my jaw ticks. I'm not sure how much of this phony chit-chat I can handle.
“It was, wasn't it?” She seems to take my insult as a compliment, but who am I to correct her? “And your first night here? How was that? I trust you slept well?”
I did. After coming inside your daughter's sweet little mouth, I slept like a rock. Thanks for asking.
“I slept fine.”
Blair arches one eyebrow, making me wonder if she can hear the dirty thoughts rolling around inside my head. “Just fine?”
“Yup.” I plaster on a smile, just as wide and fake as the one she's wearing.
“Hmm. Not much for small talk today, are you?”
“Nope,” I shrug. “Not really.”
“Good.” The smile, the arched eyebrow, the relaxed posture—it all disappears. Poof! Gone. In an instant, Blair's good mood, no matter how manufactured it was, vanishes. “I'll get right to the point then.”
Ah, yes. The trap. By all means, bait it.
“You weren't supposed to last the night.”
I freeze. The only part of me that moves is my jaw, which tightens to the point my molars ache. I'm well aware that Mercury was supposed to severely fuck me up, but I never expected Blair to come right out and admit she spearheaded that little failed endeavor.
Blair's mouth twitches, barely catching and tamping down a smile. “In fact, I was very clear in my instructions to Mercury. You were not to walk out of the cage, and yet—” she spreads her arms out wide, “—here you are. Now, I have to say, that didn't sit well with me at first, but now that I've had time to mull it over, I've concluded that no matter how inconvenient, this is the best possible outcome.”
“I'm alive, so I guess I'm inclined to agree,” I snap, curling both hands into fists atop the armrests.
“Yes, well, I don't think you quite grasp the full extent of your luck, Mr. Lawson.” She opens a side drawer on the desk and retrieves a small black device, about the size of a book. A few taps on the thing and she turns it to me. It's a miniature computer of some kind, and on the screen is a mug shot. My mug shot. One swipe of her finger has the picture changing until I'm looking at a black and white security still of Eric and I having a beer, mere hours before he brought me up to this very office. Another swipe and I see my mother's house and the patrol car sitting in the driveway.
Swipe.
Griffin getting out of the car.
Swipe.
My mother hugging him at the door.
Swipe.
A bereft Paige crying into Griffin's shirt.
Swipe.
Griffin handing Sid a white cardboard box from his back seat.
Swipe.
A close up of the name written in black sharpie on the side of the box.
K. Lawson.
My chest is so tight, I wonder if a heart attack is going to take me out right here and now. Maybe I'd be better off; just put a quick and painful end to this meaningless charade. Cutting my eyes to Blair, I find her knowing stare burning with triumph.
“You really think I'd allow a man to share my daughter's bed without knowing everything there is to know about him?”
I shift back in my seat, forcing my body into some semblance of nonchalance, even though I know I'm about to get my ass handed to me.
“Your brother has been a thorn in my side for years,” she says. “And he's inflicted immeasurable pain on one of my best Blacklighters, so to say I'm not a fan would be a severe understatement.”
I'm no fan either, but I don't say as much.
“I don't know why you agreed to help Officer Lawson in his futile quest to ruin my business and my reputation. Maybe you owe him a favor, maybe you were acting out of familial obligation. I don't know and, quite frankly, I don't give a shit. I would, however, like to remind you that I'm paying you to do a job, and I expect you to fulfill every duty I or my daughter throw your way. Because whatever he's paying you...I'll triple it.”
I wait for the other shoe to drop. When it doesn't, I hedge closer to her desk. “If?”
She pulls a face and shrugs, the gesture more forced than it should be. “If nothing. I'm merely stating that if you stay here and fulfill your duties, if you look after Mercury and do as you're told, you'll make infinitely more than Officer Lawson is capable of paying you to serve as his pawn. He may have connections, but they pale in comparison to the strings I can pull, I assure you. If I wanted to, I could make you the richest man in New Liberty by the end of the week. And on the flip side, I could have your decapitated body found in a lagoon tomorrow and it wouldn't even make the front page. No one would care, least of all your brother, I'm sure.”
Wow. She's done her homework. I'm impressed. Pissed, but impressed.
“Whatever he promised you,” she continues, “I guarantee I can give you more.”
“As long as I'm a good little boy and keep my mouth shut.”
Blair stands so swiftly her chair goes flying out behind her, crashing into a bookshelf as she leans over the desk, as close to me as she can get while still maintaining a physical barrier between us. “As long as you stay here, do your job, and protect my daughter.”
I snort around a laugh. “From what I've seen, Mercury can take care of herself.”
Right now, that's the only thing I'm sure of. Mercury doesn't need me to fight her battles. She's a goddamn warrior in her own right. She doesn't need protecting.
Blair smooths a hand over her perfectly styled hair and props a hip on her desk, looking down her nose at me. “You're not wrong, but you're also incredibly naive. This...” she twirls a single finger in the air, “is all Mercury's ever known. No one asked her if she wanted a life filled with violence and greed, but that's the straw she drew, and one day soon, she'll be sitting right here behind this desk, and she'll be the single most powerful person in Farewell, which means she'll have enemies.”
I can't hide the way I jerk to attention.
“There are people out there,” Blair says, pointing to the window, “who don't want Mercury to take over.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Blair repeats. “Because money corrupts. Because power is addictive. And because everyone here knows my daughter is a monster.”
Wow. I mean...wow.
I already have a low opinion of this woman, but the fact that she's willing to speak that way of her only child makes me wonder who the real monster is.
“Don't look at me like that,” Blair sneers. “Judge me all you want, but I know Mercury. She's brash, unpredictable, cunning, manipulative, and, as you've seen, extremely dangerous when given the chance. If you give someone like that the kind of power this position offers, there's no telling how they'll use it. I care about Mercury—don't misunderstand me—but when people show up at my office door, demanding to speak with me about the monster of Farewell, I know exactly who they're referring to.”
Now that...I can't quite wrap my head around. Is Mercury misguided? Yeah. A little fucked in the head? Most definitely. But a monster? No. She hasn't reached that point just yet. She's still on the right side of redemption.
“You really think she's a monster?”
Blair gives me a curt nod. “I do. And you would too if you knew how many people she's put in the ground.”
Now that is new information. I make a mental note to discuss this with Eric the next time we're alone.
“You can think what you like about me, Mr. Lawson, but I do care about my daughter. I have faith in her ability to lead. The future of Farewell is in her hands, so I need to know if her Keeper and I are on the same page. Because I need someone on the inside, someone close to Mercury who has pull when it comes to swaying her. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I think you could easily become that person.”
Truth be told, I agree. I think I could become a prominent fixture in Mercury's life, which is a real head trip, considering what little time we've spent together.
Unsure of how I'm supposed to respond, I s
ettle on a one-word answer. “Okay.”
Blair stands behind her desk, palms pressed to the top, hips cocked to one side. “Kessler,” she sighs. “Believe it or not, I'd like for you to prosper here. I'd like to see you happy. And mostly, I'd much rather have you as a friend than an enemy.”
“Enemy?” I jerk my head back in feigned outrage. “I'm no one's enemy. I'd never hurt Mercury or anyone else here for that matter. Just because Griffin's my brother doesn't mean—”
Blair reaches into another drawer, and this time when she retrieves what she's looking for, she slams it down on the desk between us, and my brain misfires.
It's a gun.
My gun.
Blair drops the audio recorder next to it and the sound of plastic clattering against wood echoes through the room.
Fuck.
Fucking fuck.
They combed the room while we were gone, and now Blair thinks she's made a liar out of me. But she's wrong. I didn't stash the gun under the bathroom sink because I didn't want to get caught with it. I hid it because I knew I'd never use the damn thing.
“Blair...”
She lifts a hand, cutting me off. “Let me make myself abundantly clear, Mr. Lawson. Griffin tried to fuck with me and he lost. So from now on, you don't work for your brother, you work for me. Whatever arrangement you had with him is now null and void. If you reach out to your brother without my authorization, you will disappear. If you cooperate with the NLPD on the open investigation regarding my bar and my girls, you will disappear.”
She lifts the gun in her hand, pointing it at the ceiling. Something about her stance tells me she knows exactly how to operate the damn thing. “I want to like you, Kessler, I really do, but until you prove you're a loyal Keeper instead of a spy for some podunk, ass backward police force that doesn't give a shit if we live or die, I'm holding onto this. And if for some reason you decide to fuck up my life, I will gladly rid you of your ability to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide. Do I make myself clear?”
I nod. Just once. Like a good little soldier.
“Crystal clear, Ma'am.”
“Good.” She drops the gun back into the open drawer. “Now get out.”
Fucking gladly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mercury
“Look up.”
Layla stands in front of where I'm perched on the sink basin, sitting perfectly still while she applies an obscene amount of makeup to my face. According to her, my daily beauty routine is 'lackluster at best' and she insists on 'painting me up right'. A waste of time if you ask me. Under her scrutiny and heavy hand, I don't feel like a fighter; I feel like a wannabe beauty queen. We should be doing warm-up stretches in the training room right now, not contouring my fucking cheekbones.
“Your eyes are gonna look huge.” She smiles proudly, dragging a thick eyeliner pencil across my bottom lashes.
“Is that a good thing?” I ask, not moving a muscle. One small twitch and she'll blind me with the damn thing. “Kinda seems like I'm making a vulnerable area a bigger target than it should be.”
Layla stops moving, and when I roll my eyeballs down to look at her, she's smiling. “I like this Mercury,” she says softly. “It's good to hear you speak more than two words at a time.”
She may like it, but it's still a struggle for me. As a Violet, it was easy to get away with keeping my mouth shut—something I mastered at a young age thanks to my mother's aversion to the sound of my voice and my father's hatred of unnecessary questions—but now, as a Blacklighter, if I don't ask about or voice my opinion on an issue, there will be consequences.
“It's all about the presentation,” she muses, getting back to the task at hand. “Regular fights aren't like your initiation ceremony. You won't make as much dealing with locals, and you'll make even less if no one bets on you. People don't take chances on nobodies, and paying customers want a little more than a young woman in a dress, you know?”
No, I don't know, but I guess I'm about to find out. Even though I grew up roaming these halls, there's still a lot I don't know about this life—details that aren't privy to anyone but those bearing a black sun, and tonight, I finally get the crash course in true Blacklighting that I've been waiting for.
“Who's coming in?” I ask, referring to the Blacklighters we'll be facing in the cage. “Blair never said.”
“Sneed. My least favorite Blacklighters in the whole damn country.” She dabs a brush in black eye shadow and blows on the tip. “Those Arkansas girls are all built like brick shit-houses and have the pain tolerance of a lobster.”
I don't understand that reference. “Any advice?”
She laughs under her breath. “Yeah. Keep hitting and don't stop until they black the fuck out. You can only win by a knockout or a yield, and in all my years fighting for Blair, I've never seen a single woman yield.”
“Never?” I'm surprised. Seven years as a Violet introduced me to some piss-poor fighters; women who would rather fall to the floor like a pile of wet towels instead of take a beating, and I watched those same fighters walk out of an initiation fight with a brand matching mine, knowing deep down they wouldn't last a month.
“Think about it, Mercury. Getting your ass handed to you would suck, but how would a Madam feel if their Blacklighter just gave up in the middle of a fight and didn't see it through? You know your mother. What kind of consequences would she serve up if you yielded?”
The very idea of Blair doling out punishment for a failed fight is enough to turn my stomach.
“I'd rather bleed out on the canvas.”
“Exactly.” Layla taps a brush to the end of my nose. “Now turn around and tell me what you think.”
I slide off the sink basin and face the mirror, only to come face-to-face with the shock of a lifetime. The woman staring back at me is beautiful—all smokey eyes and deep red lips and thick black hair perfectly curled into huge spirals...but she's not Mercury. Spandex shorts and a skimpy matching athletic top expose more of me than I'm used to thanks to their skin-hugging abilities, and the bruises and scars I've accumulated on my body are on full display, making it seem as though I've already gone ten rounds. As aesthetically pleasing as it is, I hate it. Far more than I ever hated my purple dress.
“Oh! Hold on!” Layla sprints from the room, only to come back a split-second later holding two tan cups. She slips both into the front of my bra from behind, pushing my breasts up higher and even closer together. “There. Perfect!”
Grimly, I look down at my cleavage. “Yeah...perfect.”
I can't fight like this. With my tits pushed up to my chin and long curls trailing down my back just begging to be ripped from my scalp, it's just not feasible. I consider saying as much, but Layla is already tossing her things back in the makeup bag where they belong and heading for the door.
“I'm gonna change and grab a quickie. I'll see you down there.” She waves overhead, leaving the bathroom. “And I'm leaving something for you on the bed. Use it later. Bye!”
The door slams behind her, but I'm still silent, still frozen, still staring at the abomination in the mirror. For a split second, I consider washing off the makeup and running a brush through my hair because I hate it that damn much, but I don't. Layla wouldn't just be mad about me ruining something she worked so hard on, she'd be hurt, and the last thing I need tonight is my top supporter glaring at me from the sidelines.
Since when do I care about hurting someone's feelings?
Before I can answer that question, the door opens and closes again. Layla must have forgotten something. Eyelash extensions or lip implants or something equally useless. The heavy cadence of boots stomps across carpet, and I realize it's not Layla. I know exactly who it is.
“Uhh...”
Other than that one sound, Kessler doesn't say anything else when he comes to stand at the bathroom door. He's frozen, one hand half-combed through his hair, jaw slack, eyes wide but amused.
“What?” I snap.
He shake
s his head. “Nothing. I just...you're gonna fight like that?”
Glancing back to the mirror, I take in my appearance again, wondering what he's seeing right now. Is he pleased? Is he aroused? Do the women he pursues dress this way? Does he like this version of Mercury? And if he does, does it matter?
“I'm going to try.”
He rakes his eyes up and down my body for so long, taking in every minute detail, I start to fidget. I've witnessed compassion in his touch, and I've seen lust overtake his features. I've registered anger in the tightening of his expression, and I've seen clear annoyance or irritation at one point or another. But the look he's wearing now is a mystery to me. There's still so much I have to learn about this man.
“I take it one of the girls did this?”
I nod. “Layla.”
“You don't like it.” The four words aren't meant to be a question. He's making a statement, based on what, I'm not sure, but he's right. I don't like it.
“No.”
“And you don't want to say anything because you don't want to hurt her feelings.”
I stand very, very still. If I say yes, it will expose a truth that no one here needs to know. By admitting that I care about the emotional well-being of another Blacklighter, I'll reveal a weakness—one that could all too easily be used against me, and I have no desire to be construed as anything other than the weapon—the monster—they all consider me to be. Yes, I've killed people, that is no secret here. And yes, I carry myself as if the lives I've taken have no bearing on my mortal soul, but in the end, it's a lie. It's all a lie.
I care.
My Keeper's eyes light, as if he's just unearthed everything there is to know about me, and I know my silence has condemned me. “Not as heartless as you'd like people to believe, are you?” He takes his place behind me, pressing a tentative hand to my hip as he leans down to whisper in my ear, simultaneously trailing a finger down the outside of my arm. I shiver at the contact. “Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me.”
When I finally look in the mirror, all I see—all my brain registers—is Kessler's smile, coy and playful. “Do me a favor. Close your eyes.”
The Monster of Farewell (Blacklighters Book 1) Page 17