Dancing in the Dark

by T. L. Martin

  He stares at me so intensely it peels back the layers of my soul, one by one. When I feel naked and cold, I try to turn my cheek, but he holds my chin in place. My heart skips a beat. I have no choice but to bare myself.

  Releasing my jaw, he slides out and holds me as he crosses the room. He lowers me on the sofa so I’m sitting, then drops to his knees and yanks my ass to the edge.

  “What are you—”

  I gasp, my pulse skyrocketing as he wraps his lips around my clit and sucks. I squirm with every pull and lick, then jerk when he fills me with his tongue. A shock of pleasure makes me clench, and I drop my gaze to his head between my thighs. I clutch his hair and grind against him, watching him let me relentlessly fuck his face, and holy hell, I take it back—this is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

  With a growl that vibrates straight to my core, he digs his fingers into my hips and pulls me flush against his mouth, like he’s feasting on his last meal and isn’t willing to miss a single drop.

  “Shit. Adam.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Crackling sparks explode inside me, one after the next, making me jolt against his mouth. “I-I’m coming.”

  Waves of pleasure slam into me hard, and my eyes roll back into my head before I finally come down. Sighing breathlessly as the gentle aftershocks roll in, I sink into the sofa like melted butter.

  With a long moan, I force my eyes open and look at him. He’s still between my thighs, but his eyes are locked on my face, soaking in my expression. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then brings it to my stomach. His lips graze my belly button so softly I can almost pretend it’s a kiss.

  I stroke the back of his neck, captivated by the shivers rolling through him with every brush of my fingers. When he pulls back and tugs my dress over my hips, I frown. “Wait. What about you?”

  He stands, his eyes darkening in a way that makes somersaults flip in my stomach. Bending down and caging me in with his palms against the sofa, he leans into my neck. His teeth nip at my scarf, pulling it down, and he flicks the tender area beneath with his tongue. His lips brush the spot so delicately I shudder.

  God, can he see what he’s doing to me?

  As though reading my thoughts, he lifts his chin, scanning my expression while skimming my lips with his. I part my mouth, breathing out and watching him close his eyes as he breathes me in.

  “Don’t worry,” he murmurs, his deep voice husky. “I’ll get mine.”

  Before I can respond, the door swings open and Adam is pulling me up beside him. Griff’s enormous frame blocks the doorway as he narrows his eyes, darting between me and Adam, then the sofa behind us. He scowls, his gaze lingering on me. Adam’s warm hand curls around my waist, and he leads me forward, watching Griff with every step. His hold on me is effortlessly possessive and delicious as ice cream on a summer day.

  I swear I see him wink before he says, “Thanks for your hospitality. Brother.”

  “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night,

  and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

  —Sun Tzu

  With my grip locked around Emmy’s waist, I head down the hall and back to Raife’s office. I’m fucking hard as shit, but my cock is going to have to get over it. I step inside to find Raife absent and Felix collecting the papers on the coffee table.

  I narrow my eyes. “Short meeting.”

  Felix flicks his gaze up to me, shakes his head, and shoves the files under his arm. “It’s done, man.”

  “What’s done?”

  “Murphy.” He walks up to me and adjusts his bowtie. “Raife is setting up his pickup for later today as we speak.”

  I grit my teeth, clutching Emmy tighter against me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “They already sent a file straight to Murphy. It has all we’ve got on Misha. His involvement controlling everything from Katerina’s crimes to the sex trading, burning the extra bodies—even their romantic affair. Anything we were able to dig up.”

  My jaw ticks. That’s nothing new. In fact, it’s exactly what we sent Murphy when we first tried to get to him several years ago. At the time, he proved with ease that none of it was strong enough to connect him directly to the crimes. Not that we expected it to. We don’t need ‘hard evidence.’

  We lived it.

  We were set to move forward—until we weren’t. It wasn’t until Felix discovered a particular photograph buried deep in Murphy’s private files three years ago that Raife lost it, and Murphy slipped from our grasp.

  The photograph was of a sixteen-year-old boy, naked, with dirty-blond hair, sunken-in eyes, and hollow cheeks. Written in permanent marker at the bottom: No name. Due for redistribution.

  Raife stalked Murphy, barged into his house in the middle of dinner, and stabbed him in the stomach from behind. Of course, if Raife had followed protocol and planned for a proper pickup, he would have known there was a guest in their restroom at the time, who happened to be an off-duty cop. A dirty cop in Murphy’s pocket, but a cop nonetheless. Raife barely escaped without getting shot.

  The only fortunate thing to come out of the experience was that Murphy didn’t link Raife’s current identity to No Name from fifteen years ago.

  Murphy had no idea how personal that night really was.

  It was easy to assume his attacker was one of his many disgruntled, cheated clients, and Murphy’s fear of damaging his delicate reputation overrode any impulse to seek justice. He already had us—anonymously—threatening to leak Misha, and a stabbing in the midst of all that would hurt more than help. He thought offering us a shit-ton of money was enough to make everything disappear and reset life to normal.

  And it was.

  It had to be.

  For a little while.

  It was dumb luck that Raife didn’t get caught. Murphy did investigate us harder than shit after that incident, however, and he came too fucking close to connecting all the dots and figuring out our identities. If it wasn’t for Felix’s talents, he would have too. He would have reburied us before we made it out of our own graves.

  Releasing Emmy, I refill Felix’s shot glass with a bottle on the table and down the whiskey. “What aren’t you telling me, Felix?”

  Emmy tracks my movements, her brows furrowed as she shifts her gaze from Felix to me.

  Felix scrubs a hand over his face. “You, ah, wanna send her downstairs to Aubrey for a few?”

  I squeeze the glass in my hand. “She stays.”

  He blows out a breath but answers me. “They didn’t send the file anonymously this time.”

  The hand at my side curls into a fist. Fucking idiots. “Of course they didn’t.”

  “We’ve been going over this at some of the meetings, but lately you walk out or spend them doing kil”—he glances at Emmy, clears his throat—“in the basement.”

  “Bullshit. You fucking know this plan is shit, and you knew I’d shut it down if I found out about it. This was purposefully outlined in my absence.”

  He rubs the back of his neck. “Look, man. When you walked out this morning I was gonna wait till you got back before moving forward, but we all know you’ve been distracted lately. And Raife had other ideas. Your little show didn’t help.” He waves a hand between me and Emmy, and a breath of dry amusement leaves my lips.

  Convenient. Raife the puppeteer. If Emmy doesn’t break me down enough to lose any sense of boundaries, at least she distracts me. Either way, she works to his advantage.

  “The files we sent him are encrypted, all right? He’s the only one who will be able to figure out who we are based on the clues I’ve left him. As far as the duplicates we’re releasing—”

  “What fucking duplicates?”

  “The ones I set up to automatically release to all major news platforms tomorrow morning, once we’ve got Murphy in our hands. Those are anonymous. There’s no way to trace them back to any of us.”

  “So that’s the plan? Get Murphy here by the end of the day, then take Misha public?”


  “Fuck yeah. Raife still wants to see his reaction while he watches everything fall apart.”

  Shutting my eyes, I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose.

  “What’s the problem?” Felix steps closer. “You get Murphy, Raife gets his publicity stunt. Everyone wins.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter, shaking my head. “I’ve been trying to convince him to bring Murphy in for weeks, and he suddenly decides he agrees? For no fucking reason?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe he’s sick of waiting, like the rest of us, and figured he’d compromise so you both get what you want.”

  “We’re talking about Raife, brother.” Setting down the glass, I shove my hands in my pockets. “Nothing is ever that straightforward.”

  Emmy shifts beside me. “Adam . . .”

  Felix glances away, his face twisted in thought. “Maybe. But this shit seems sound enough to me.”

  Still fixed on Felix, I grumble, “Raife. Fucking polar opposite of sound. How exactly does he expect to pull off a quiet pickup with a man like Murphy? An operation like this takes extensive planning, more than usual, unless you want his disappearance to lead back to us.”

  He shrugs. “We fucking know that, man. I’ve still got everything tapped, so we can watch and listen to every move Murphy makes. And besides, this plan might be new, but it’s not far from my original idea.”

  “I believe your original idea was more in line with mine. Pick him up quietly, pull any loose ends out of him, peel his fucking skin, and close this shit down.”

  Emmy flinches from beside me, and my gaze finds hers. She’s staring straight at me, her eyes wide. Fuck. I rub my chin. Since I’m chained to her anyway, I figure she’ll be discovering more than she’d bargained for soon enough. But, yeah, maybe this is too much information for her to soak in at one time.

  Looking back at Felix, I work my jaw. “It’s your fucking shit show. Lemme know when he’s ready for me. If we get that far.”

  Delicate fingers brush my arm. “Adam.”

  My gaze snaps to hers.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, her lips turned down.

  I take a slow step toward her. Slipping my fingers below her chin, I lift her head and rake my eyes along her face. Light freckles. Velvety lips. The gentle strokes of her voice, like a softly played instrument. So easy to presume she’s innocent. Her eyes, however, are on fire. There’s nothing quiet about them. Even after flinching at the mention of peeling someone’s skin, she’s determined to know more. Perhaps now more than ever.

  I don’t know what I was thinking.

  She doesn’t resemble Katerina at all.

  I stroke the pad of my thumb along her plump bottom lip. “You’ll know soon enough.”

  She watches me curiously as I turn toward the exit, but that’s all she’s going to get right now. Some things can’t be explained.

  “The darkness that surrounds us cannot hurt us.

  It is the darkness in your own heart you should fear.”

  —Silvertris

  (Fourteen years old)

  Sofia’s gentle humming fills my cage. After several months, I actually look forward to hearing it, and I drift asleep to the sound.

  “Hey.” No Name nudges my bare foot with his. “You up?”

  Opening my eyes, I shift against the wall, my ass numb from sitting in the same position for too long. “Yeah.”

  “What do you think that song is?”

  I shrug. “Maybe it’s a nursery rhyme.”

  He huffs a half-chuckle. “Even I know that’s no nursery rhyme.”

  Sofia flicks her gaze to us. When she spots me looking at her, she smiles. She’s been doing that more lately, when her mom isn’t here. One corner of my lips lifts, and her grin widens before she goes back to coloring the fibula she’s been working on all day.

  “What are you gonna do tomorrow?” I ask No Name.

  He smirks, tapping one of the bars with a wrist bone Sofia gave him yesterday. It was an accident, really. Katerina was about to do her millionth interview on him, so she pulled him out of the cage. When she got annoyed at him for lifting up her dress before they even made it to the worktable, she threw him back in with me, and he shouted after her, “Hey, throw me a bone.”

  Sofia took it literally.

  And here we are.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  No Name scratches his chin with his finger, like he’s thinking hard about his answer. “Pluck Katerina’s hair out one by one and set her on fire. Then I’m going to the storage room next door to check out what chicks she’s been hiding. I’m gonna fuck them while we watch her turn to ash.”

  I arch a brow and shake my head. We started this stupid game a few weeks ago. I don’t know why. Maybe it helps to pretend we’re not in a cage. Truthfully, though, I go out of my way not to imagine it—getting out.

  Releasing a breath, I rest my head against the wall and scan the studio. Steel walls. Metal table. ‘Art’ display.

  The inside of these walls are all I’ve seen, day and night, for almost two years, and I feel nothing like I did the day I walked in here. I think nothing like I did. She fucking broke me, and honestly, I’m scared shitless of what I’d do if I got out of here alive.

  “Your turn,” he mutters.

  I twist to see him. He’s watching me closely, something disturbed flicking in his eyes as he waits for me to take my turn. The thing is, my answers always have the same pattern. And I don’t even have to think about it because it’s all I picture.

  “I’ll start with her ears. Cut slowly from top to bottom, sawing the blade against her skin till they come right off. Then I’ll wish her luck with her interviews now that she can’t hear worth a damn, and I’ll take my time carving out her eyes. Hard to admire art without the view. Then I’ll stand back and watch the blood stream in waves down her pale skin till she bleeds out.”

  The room is quiet for a moment, nothing but Sofia’s soft humming in the air.

  “Shit.” No Name grins from ear to ear. “You never disappoint. I’m going to have to break us outta here just to see you run loose.”

  My lips quirk, but it’s humorless. I don’t want to know what I’d be like out there. It’s something my cellmate talks about a lot, getting out of here. He’s always planning something.

  After a second, I glance across the room. “Hey, Sofia.”

  She falls quiet, her crayon going still against the fibula when she looks at me.

  “What do you think? Would you ever want to get out of here?”

  She just stares at me, like she doesn’t understand the question.

  “If you could live in a normal house. If you could go outside, play. Would you want to?”

  A swallow moves down her throat, and she nods.

  “Yeah?” I glance at No Name but he’s looking at me like I’m crazy, so I turn back to her. “Would you . . . would you talk?”

  Her eyes dart to the bone in her hand, and she fidgets with it for a long minute. When she lifts her head again, she nods slowly.

  No shit. Blowing out a breath, I sit up straighter. I angle my head and squint as she sets down the half-painted fibula and folds her knees up, wrapping her arms around them.

  She really can get out of here, can’t she? I bet she’s even young enough to still make a life after this shit.

  “You’re kidding, right?” No Name chides. He leans in and mutters, “I’m smart enough not to free Katerina’s spawn, not even if my life depended on it.”

  Ignoring him, I tip my chin toward Sofia. “Hey. It’s okay. Maybe we’ll, uh . . . maybe we’ll figure something out.”

  Her eyes lock on mine, and something I’ve never seen sparks in them. Something that looks a helluva lot like hope.

  The door slams open, and she jumps.

  All the lights flick on at once, making each of us squint in unison.

  “This one here,” Katerina says from the open doorway, gesturing toward the cage where No Name and I sit. Someone stands in the hall,
but I can’t see anything except their shoes. “I’ve been trying very hard with this one. He reminds me of Pet in some ways, so I held out, thinking there was hope. I’m afraid months under heavy evaluation have only proven he’s not like Pet at all, below the surface. There’s just something missing.” She looks at the kid beside me, frowning, and my eyes narrow. “Heart. That’s it. He’s missing heart, and I cannot connect. I’m afraid it’s time to call a spade a spade and redistribute.”

  No Name stands, a smirk on his face. He fucking winks at me.

  I shake my head, my lips tipping up. The sly son of a bitch. Guess that’s one way to get out. “You know where you’ll be redistributed, right?”

  His eyes darken, but as quickly as the shadow shows up, it clears. “No way I’ll let it get that far. Just need one foot out the door, man. One foot out the door.”

  I turn back to Katerina just as she reaches forward, toward the man hidden from view. Her gaze drops while she smooths out his tie, extending the material enough for me to see bronze. I squint, unease uncurling in my stomach. It’s strange as hell watching her touch anyone so intimately—especially when he touches her back, stroking her arm with the backs of his fingers.

  Finally, the mystery person steps into view. I’ve never seen him before, but I know right away who he is. I hear his name from at least one of the adults around here on a daily basis.

  Murphy.

  He’s tall and fills his tan suit. I have no clue what kind of suit it is, but I’ve stolen from enough rich people to know it’s fancy as shit. His hair is gelled to one side, his shoes shined, and he stands like he runs a hell of a lot more than this underground operation. I’ll bet everything he touches turns to gold.

  “Holy shit,” No Name mutters, taking in Murphy’s wealth, just like me. “Him. I wanna be him when I get outta here.”

  “Behind the most beautiful eyes,

  lay secrets deeper and darker than the mysterious sea.”

  —YLD

  Chewing my cheek, I walk alongside Adam. His steps are brisk, and I’d be falling behind if it weren’t for his hand on my waist, guiding my pace.