Andie swallowed, fear seeping through her bloodstream, but she couldn’t falter. Not now. “Crystal,” she managed to say in a low voice.
Burr smiled. He always had liked a challenge.
Jack couldn’t get home fast enough. As usual, he ran as many red lights as he could, he drove way past the speed limit, and he cut off as many people as he could. If he wasn’t a businessman, he could surely have been a racecar driver. When he pulled up in front of the guesthouse, he threw open the door and dashed outside and up the steps before lodging himself into the room. Beverly was already there, and merely from the looks on her face something had happened.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice coming out guttural. “Where is she?”
“Now, Jack, you need to calm down,” Beverly began, but Jack cut her off with a snarl.
“How can I possibly calm down, Beverly?” he shouted, his brow furrowing low. “Melinda called me to say that Andie hasn’t showed up at her apartment yet, and then you tell me to get back to the house! I think I’m entitled to be upset! Where is she?”
“She’s not here,” Beverly replied in a calm voice, though her green eyes were just as worried as Jack’s were. “I came in here and couldn’t find her. At first, I thought she had already left, maybe a little later than originally intended. But I found something that you should see.”
“What?” Jack asked, all patience completely lost by this point. “What is it?!”
Beverly turned, without a word, and began to walk through the living room and into the kitchen where there was a door that led out back to a one-acre backyard. However, she gestured at the door itself and found that the lock itself was jammed as though someone had broken it to get inside. Andie wouldn’t have done something like that because she had keys, nor would she leave the back door unlocked – she was paranoid about burglars.
“Someone took her,” Jack stated, pressing his hands together in hopes that would keep his temper under wraps. “Someone took her while I was just across the street! What the fuck am I going to do?”
“If you don’t calm down,” Beverly clipped, narrowing her eyes at her ward, “whatever it is you do intend to do will not go off without a hitch and not only endanger your life, but enhance the danger to Miss Shepherd’s as well.” A pause. “Perhaps you should call Miss Lespoir.”
Jack nodded, taking Beverly’s warning into consideration, but his breathing was still rigid and he was still incredibly upset. Without warning, he grabbed one of the plates that were in the sink and threw it across the room so it shattered on the opposite wall.
“If I’m being honest,” Beverly murmured to herself, “that was actually quite calm, considering.”
“Phone,” Jack demanded, his hands shaking. “Phone.” He intended to call Reese and get Andie back. Now.
35
“It’s Burr,” Jack said, running his fingers through his hair, disheveling it even more. “Burr has her. I don’t know how, but he has Andie.”
“Okay,” Reese said. “Then go get changed. We’ll get her back, Jack. I’m with you. Let’s get her.”
Jack nodded his head and disappeared without another word. From there, Reese immediately turned and headed out the door and to her car. She knew where Burr was, knew where he kept Andie. Her mother had been working on this Vigilante Registration Act, and plenty of times, it referred to warehouses in The Zone. No one would expect Burr to be at a place like the Zone. It was the perfect place to take a captive.
It must have been where Gabriel had attempted to take her when she spotted Andie outside the restaurant. Father and son must be working together. But why?
Reese was already driving, not sure if Jack had wanted her to wait. There was no time to wait, however. Andie needed to be found and she needed to be found now. This wasn’t the first time the Burrs had tried to take her. The motive, as of right now, didn’t matter, but Reese was positive it had to do with Jack. She wasn’t sure if Burr knew Jack was Black Wing. Burr was the devil; did he have the same cognitive ability God had where he knew everything? Reese wasn’t certain. But for whatever reason, Burr wanted to get to Jack-slash-Black Wing, and somehow, he knew he could do it through Andie.
She parked her car in front of the warehouse. She didn’t care if he heard her approach or if her car ended up stolen. Didn’t care about any of all of that. All she cared about was getting Andie back. And in order to do that, she needed to buy time for Jack to make his entrance.
There was no way she could take on the devil herself. But she could try. She could distract him.
When she reached the doorway to a warehouse, she was surprised to find it unlocked. Then again, perhaps he was expecting Jack. Perhaps Burr wanted to be found. She slid it open with all of her strength–it was heavier than it looked–and the first thing she saw besides the electricity running through the building was Andie, tied up and beaten, battered and barely moving, in the center of the empty room, on the cold hard cement.
Slow clapping echoing through the room caused the hairs on her neck to stand up, and it prevented her from running over to Andie to make sure she was still alive. Reese hated herself in that moment, hated that she was truly afraid. Not for Andie, though she was worried, but for herself. For her life. Now that she knew Burr was the devil–the real, actual devil who was evil and ruled in Hell and wanted nothing more than to see people suffer–she was more than scared of him.
What the fuck am I doing?
You’re here for Andie. You’re here for the people of Onyx. Jack will be here soon. He’ll know what to do.
She took a deep breath and released it. It might have calmed her body down, but it did nothing for her nerves.
“Miss Lespoir.”
His voice was familiar and silky and she immediately hated it. The more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t believe that her mother worked for this man. That the city believed he could be trusted to do what was best for them as their district attorney. She wished her mother was here, wished her mother had told her more about her work and what she did and whether or not she liked Burr. If she liked working for him. She hated that she couldn’t talk to her mother now. God, she hated it.
“So good to finally meet you.”
The door slammed shut and Reese spun around. Without thinking, she grabbed her bow and nocked an arrow to it, pointing it at air. He laughed and she spun around again. Where was he? Where was his voice coming from? She looked up, trying to see his silhouette in the rafters but… nothing.
“Behind you.”
Reese spun again, her back away from the door, only to find Lucas Burr in a suit more expensive than one of Jack’s. It molded to his body perfectly, his blond hair coiffed back. His cufflinks glittered in the electric light, and Reese knew they were real gold. He was literally dressed in the millions. His shoes were shined–possibly they were new, bought just for this evening–not a hair out of place. He had to look perfect for the kidnapping, apparently.
“The infamous Seer.”
Reese kept her arrow pointed at him, even as he continued to walk towards her. He didn’t make any sudden movements, wasn’t being aggressive towards her. In fact, he looked calm. Smug. As though everything was going exactly the way he had planned. He didn’t look like he had a care in the world, not even with Reese’s arrow in his face.
For a second, her grey eyes flickered over to Andie, but she was still in the same position she had been in before.
“Your mother was one of my best employees,” he continued, and she felt her grip on the bow tighten while her grip on the arrow loosened, as though she was ready to shoot it and mar his perfect, beautiful face ugly. “You look just like her.”
“Why do you have Andie?” Reese asked through gritted teeth. She wanted to ignore him because she knew he was just trying to goad her, trying to get to her, to get under her skin. Trying to make her squirm.
“Because she is the key to getting exactly what I want.” He smiled then, and she nearly flinched. He looke
d like a beast, like an animal.
“And what do you want?” Maybe if she could keep him talking, Jack would get here. Maybe this was the perfect way for her to buy the time she desperately needed. Andie didn’t look like she could waste much time anyways.
“Souls, of course.” He answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You are a bright, young woman, Miss Lespoir. You know who I am. You know how this world works. I’ve been in Onyx for a few years now, trying to accumulate more souls to join me in my paradise.”
“Hell is not a paradise.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “You’ve never been there. All you know is hearsay.”
Reese gave him a flat look. “Why her?” she asked, her brow knitted together. “Why Andie and not someone else?”
Lucas’s face contorted into something distasteful. “Don’t play dumb, girl,” he said. “You know why. She has Black Wing wrapped around her finger. If I can kill Black Wing, send him back to that place, I can cause Onyx to erupt in total and complete panic. Their precious symbol of hope, ripped from them the same way God rips souls from bodies and then judges their merit. If the city succumbs to chaos, they won’t seek God. They’ll seek me.”
“You hate humanity,” Reese pointed out. “Why would you want them to turn to you in their time of need?”
“So I can crush them. I’m here, collecting souls, from city to city. I want to crush their hope even further until there is none left and they are like me, shunned from God and Heaven and humanity. I want them to feel empty and alone and lost. I want them to hate their families and friends, their homes. I want them to hate themselves. I want them to hate God.”
“Like you.”
The answer was simple. How could she not have seen it before?
“What do you mean?”
“You live a miserable existence and you want everyone to feel the hate and the jealousy you feel. You want everyone to be miserable, just like you. And some people are that way. But you’re not satisfied with them. You want to turn people miserable. Because they, at least, have a chance to redeem themselves.”
“Are you attempting to psychoanalyze me?” He laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart. I am what I am, and no one can change me. I don’t want to change.”
“God still loves you, you know.” Reese had no idea how she knew certain things, didn’t know if what she was saying was actually true. She almost felt as though someone was speaking through her while she was still able to maintain control of her body. “You’re still His.” She tightened her fingers on the string of her bow. “But I’m not here to preach to you or try and save you. I’m here to get Andie back.”
He started laughing again. “You amuse me, Miss Lespoir,” he told her. “I genuinely like you. You would have been a good match for my son. But I can’t let you rescue Miss Shepherd. If Black Wing can fall, anybody can. And when they do, which they will, that’s my cue to strike.”
“You’ll at least let me try?” Reese asked, pouting her lips.
He smiled darkly. “I’ll relish in it,” he promised.
She immediately released the arrow and it went straight for his heart. Lucas easily stepped out of the way. She fired again. And again. And again. He was too fast. Reese was out of arrows and she needed to think fast. She didn’t want to turn her back to him, didn’t trust him to fight fair, but she needed to move around and collect her fallen arrows. Her eyes looked left, right, down, up, and then –
The sprinkler system.
She could hit the pipe with the arrow, causing water to shoot out. All she needed to do was distract him long enough to grab more arrows. She needed to pierce his heart. Just because he was immortal didn’t mean he wouldn’t feel it. The reminder of what pain felt like would send him back to Hell for the next century, trapped in his own tortuous paradise. At least, that was what Henry had told her.
At that moment, she shot the overhead pipe and prayed for something, anything. When water burst out, just like in the movies, she thanked God. Lucas shouted when he got drenched, giving her just enough time to dash past him…
…and slip on the slick concrete, falling forward and landing flat on her face. She couldn’t help a grunt of pain as she forced herself to roll on her back in order to keep her eyes on Lucas. She couldn’t let him out of her sight. She realized, then, she had lost her bow in the fall.
“I really am sorry about this, Miss Lespoir,” Lucas said, kicking the bow off to the side. “To be honest, I thought you’d make this a little more challenging for me. Ah well. It’s all the same in the end, isn’t it?” Once he was directly in front of Reese, he knelt down. “I’m going to have to kill you because of what you represent. I think I’ll do it by one of your own arrows too. Poetic justice and all that. I promise I’ll make it quick, so you do know I’m merciful.”
Before he could do more, an arrow was suddenly jammed through his chest, the tip a few inches from Reese’s face. In an instant, he burst into ash before he disappeared into nothingness.
And then Andie all but toppled over, practically in Reese’s lap.
“Is he dead?” she asked, breathless.
“For now,” Reese answered. She smiled a tired smile and got to her feet before helping Andie do the same. “Come on, closet bamf. Let’s get you home.”
36
It was almost like a dream… They were set free, and because Keirah turned, just to look, just to make sure, it turned into a nightmare.
They were trapped, and she’d be sent away.
But she always has something up her sleeve…
The minute Keirah and Noir returned to their bedroom, Noir gripped Keirah’s shoulder and thrust her around. Before she could blink, he snapped her head back with the back of his hand. She nearly toppled down from the force. She caressed the stinging injury with the pads of her fingertips but she did not cry or tear up. She knew she would be left with a red mark so defined each of his knuckles would have its own groove. It would only emphasize the J on her opposite cheek.
“What the, um, hell, princess, was that?” he said, his voice maintained but tense, similar to a lion ready to pounce. He fixed his gold eyes in hers, his scar twitching involuntarily. She realized then that that was his tell; the chink in his armor. Originally, she thought he did it with purpose, to inspire fear in his victims lucky enough–or unlucky, depending on perspective–to get close enough to his face to really see his scar. But that wasn’t the case. It was something that happened when he felt he was losing control. He couldn’t help it.
It made him seem more human.
“That was our freedom.” He smacked his lips so the sound echoed off the concrete walls. The dark shadows made his eyes look like liquid. “And you, well, you threw it all away so you could look at uh this.” He gestured at his face, which only seemed to make him more upset. The anger, so clear on his face, was unlike him. Though he looked nothing short of terrifying, he also looked… vulnerable.
“You’re beautiful.”
He acted fast, and Keirah didn’t even think before she realized the pain in her face had doubled. He uttered one word.
“Don’t.”
Keirah didn’t listen.
“No.” She stepped towards him, hoping he could see the truth in her words on her face. “It’s the truth, Noir.” She paused. “Jace.”
He flinched at the sound of his name on her lips and she dared to take a step forward. “I lo–”
He cut her off by leaping in her direction. He knocked her down as his long fingers coiled around her neck. He had choked her so many times, they fit into their proper place like a lover had her side of the bed. The back of her head smacked the floor and for a split second, she saw stars, but she didn’t particularly care. The pain faded to numbness. Her one goal was to get through to him, to make him believe her words.
“Don’t uh say things you don’t really mean,” he told her in a dark voice, his fingers tightening their grip.
“I do,” she choked
out. Blackness began to replace the stars and her head started to tingle. Her eyes watered and though she wanted nothing more than to keep her eyes open, she couldn’t. She might die here by his hands. Her soul would be trapped here forever. There was no way she’d be allowed to go to Heaven, not after what she had done. It’s all right. As long as I’m trapped with him. Her only regret was how things ended with Andie.
And then she could breathe again, and she sucked in air like an addict sucked alcohol.
“What?” he hissed, his eyes still doubtful, still filled with so much hate.
It took Keirah a moment to realize what he was asking her.
“I love you,” she managed to get out. She was breathless and her throat burned, but he could not deny the sincerity in her tone. “I love you for exactly who you are. Jace, Noir, it doesn’t matter because I love you. This isn’t a phase. This isn’t Stockholm Syndrome. This is love. At least, this is the way I interpret love.” She wished it didn’t hurt to speak. “I don’t know if it’s wrong or right–” She cut herself off. “Actually, no, scratch that. I do know it’s wrong on so many levels. But I don’t care.” She shrugged. “I want to be with you. For as long as you’ll have me.”
Noir let out what sounded like a strangled sob before biting the inside of his cheek so hard, Keirah was certain it would bleed. “Then why…” He let his voice trail off. It was as though he was afraid to speak, afraid to voice his concern. It was like he believed she already rejected him. She had never seen him this way before. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“I faltered. I didn’t know if you would follow. And if we were stuck here, at least we were stuck here together.”
Noir’s jaw popped and he loomed over her. This was the Noir she knew. This was the Noir she fell in love with. “You ignorant fool,” he hissed. “I would have followed, well, I would have followed you any uh where. I just don’t want to be herrre.” His voice was crisp and articulate. She shivered when he stepped closer to her. “You got us into this mess, dollface. I, uh, I expect you to get. Us. Out.”
The Dark Paradise Trilogy Box Set Page 86