I don’t know what to do with this information, so I stuff it in the back corner of my mind. Black mentioned she made a mistake when we first met. There was some guy that she lost because of the job and she seemed to regret it. Was she speaking about Sean? I can’t even fathom the notion. She’s older than him by at least five years. How’d they even meet?

I switch gears to the other questions I’ve had rattling around in my mind. “Did you love Amanda?”

He glances up at me. “Did you love your parents?”

My jaw locks and I refuse to show more emotion. My gaze narrows. “I’m not taking anything for granted. Did you love her?”

Sean sighs and runs his hands through his dark hair. “Yeah, I loved her. I wish I was there that night. I wish I died with her so I didn’t have to endure this. I’m a morbid fuck, Avery. Seeing you, and finding out you were working for Black, felt like a slap in the face. But, then I realized that you didn’t know our history—that you were telling the truth. You captivated me in a way that’s incomparable. I had to know more about you. Then, Black put her foot down and said no. I had to twist her arm to get her to say yes for another date. She always says yes to more money. It’s the chink in her armor. She’s so afraid of being poor again.”

“Wait a second—you asked me to marry you knowing that Black would throw a hissy fit?”

“That’s an understatement. She’s more likely to put a bullet in my brain, but I know she won’t hurt you. You’re the prize we’re fighting over. She wants to keep you around because you’re a money tree and I want you because, well, you already know that part.”

I swallow hard. I saved the darkest question for last. It’s finally time to ask. “And the box?” I don’t need to elaborate; we both know what I’m talking about.

His lips are pressed tightly together and he holds his breath. I know he doesn’t want to tell me, but he does. “I was angry after Amanda died and handled a call girl a little too roughly in a small space. She was terrified and begged me to stop. I didn’t.” He doesn’t look up. Instead, Sean’s gaze is glued to the floor with his hands tugging on the back of his neck, as if he hoping the ground will open up and suck him straight to Hell.

I’m cold, and don’t spare him. I have to know what he did and what happened. Being like that with him triggered something. I have to know. “What happened to her?”

Sean’s lips are smashed together, forming a thin line. The muscles in his arms are bulging as he pulls on his neck. After a moment he sucks in air and confesses, “I pushed her past her limit. She couldn’t stop screaming while I was fu**ing her, and then she went silent. I thought she was all right, but she wasn’t. When I was finished with her, I let her out, but she had a blank expression on her face. I talked to her, but she didn’t respond. Her eyes had a vacant haze, as if she was no longer there. The woman is a walking shell of what she’d been. I destroyed her. She’s in South Oaks and has been since our encounter.”

My eyes are wide with shock. “The mental hospital?” He nods. “And being like that with me, in that small dark space, did what? Made you think of her?” My skin is covered in goose bumps. I want to cry. That woman could have easily been me. I’ve tried to do that for him, and he reacts to my fear—it arouses him in a way that’s incomparable to anything else.

“Yes, I thought of her, and then Amanda. Everything I touch dies in my hand and the same thing’s happening to you. You were vibrant when I met you, and now I’ve blanched the color from your cheeks and caused you nothing but pain.”

I say the words that I’ve been thinking, because that’s all that really matters. “How do you want this story to end?”

Sean glances up at me. There’s a sheen over those dark eyes and I can tell he’s surprised. He expected me to run screaming, but I’m still sitting here. I haven’t moved or berated him for his actions. Death can destroy people and make them long to be amongst the ones they lost. I understand that part of him more than he thinks. “I want you to be safe.”

I smile sadly at him. “We both know there’s no such thing. The concept of safety is fake. We both know that. Anything could happen to anyone at any time.”

“You’re safer without me. We both know that.” He sits up straight and shakes his head.

“Perhaps, but if you hadn’t come along when you did, I would have done something horrible with someone else to ease my pain. They wouldn’t have cared about me. You do.”

“Stop making logical arguments, Miss Smith. That’s supposed to be my job.” He watches me and although I want to smile, I don’t. Sean glances away and sighs. “So what now? What do you want, Avery?”

“I know exactly what I want. I want the man that’s hidden beneath the layers of grief and scorn. I want to stop feeding the monster that preys on darkness and fear. I want the real you, the one you’ve banished, because you’re afraid that man will turn to dust in the daylight. I want you—the real you. The man that laughs with his whole body, the one that stuffed snow down my pants, and brought me a gourmet dinner on the beach. I want the man who put the ring on my finger and I don’t want him to run when he’s afraid.”

Our gazes lock as I speak, and those last few words cut him, but it’s true and he needs to hear it. I say it as gently as I know how, but kid gloves won’t help right now. He needs to hear the truth. “Sean, I know you don’t think of yourself as a weak person, but with this, you are. Cowering, and disguising who you are and what you think, isn’t living—it’s hiding.”

Sean stands abruptly. His hands tense at his sides and his lungs fill with air quickly, like he wants to scream. But Sean swallows it back down and strides across the room, away from me. Before I can say another word, Sean disappears through the door without looking back.

CHAPTER 6

I remain in the stripper’s dressing room until Mel finds me. I’m lying on a bench with my arm over my face. Mel starts chattering the instant she sees me. “That man has some seriously oversized ovaries. Can you say PMS? He barked at anyone and everyone before shoving his way outside.”

Moving my arm, I glance at her. “Tell me you’re talking about Trystan.”

“Hey! Don’t you go dissin’ my man. Me and Crème Brule are going to be the perfect couple, get married, and have lots of perfect babies. You wait and see.” Mel’s voice has that teasing tone. She has a serious crush on Trystan, which means she won’t go after him. She’s like Sean with things like that. Anyone she actually cares about, she keeps at arm’s length—except me.

I sit up and swing my legs to the floor. “Does he know you call him that?”

“What? Like he’d be offended. It’s the perfect dessert, all rich and white.” She giggles and then slaps her hand over her mouth. “Uh, you didn’t see that.”

I roll my eyes. “You are so mental. If you like him, ask him out.”

“He’s a rock star, Avery. You don’t just walk up to the guy and say, ‘hey, you wanna go out with me?’ Plus, Miss Black will kill me.”

“Miss Black wants to kill you anyway. And you should do what you want. Life’s too short.” I feel a dazed look settle on my face—the one I have when my mind starts to wade through dark thoughts. My mind is a goddamn swamp. No matter which direction I turn, there’s more dark sludge. It’s everywhere.

“So, why’d Mr. Pampered-Ass run?”

I look over at her with a sheepish grin. “I told him he was a coward.”

Mel’s jaw drops. “Holy shit on toast! You did not!”

“I did. He asked what I wanted and I told him—I want him to stop running from himself.”

“Psh, if that’s not the blind leading the blind, I don’t know what is.”

“It is not.”

“It is so. You’re gonna lead that boy right off a cliff. Avery, you don’t even have your own shit together. How can you ask him to do that when you can’t?”

I puff up, offended. “I can so!”

“Avery girl, I love you, but you can’t see past your tits on this. You cower and hide from life the same way he does. How you choose to manifest that fear is different and more socially acceptable, but you’re both in the flame out stage. You’re no better than him.”

It feels like she punched me in the stomach. I raise my voice and wag a finger in her face. “You don’t know shit about this, okay. You don’t know Sean or what he’s done. We’re not the same.”

“Yeah, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re both candy-coated crazy people. You seem all sweet on the outside, but once you get past that outer shell, you’re both a fu**ing mess. If you can’t admit that, I don’t know if we can be friends. It’s one of the only things we have in common.” She smiles at me. “Avery, you have to know that about yourself. Are you seriously sitting there, telling me that you had no fu**ing clue?”

Am I really that messed up? I thought I was healing. My hackles lower a little bit and I admit, “It’s not intentional.”

“Of course not, and that’s the point. It’s a defense mechanism—you can’t turn it off. If you tried, you’d have nothing to shield yourself with. You just told Wonderbread that he’s a coward for leaving his defenses up. The man’s been through some serious shit.”

“And you’re defending him…”

“If that’s your main issue with the guy, yeah.”

“He put some call girl in South Oaks.”

“Did he light her on fire or f*ck her?” I glance at her like she’s crazy. “Uh, Avery, call girls are there to be screwed. If she didn’t want him to do her, she shouldn’t have taken the job. If he lit her on fire or buried her alive to listen to her scream, then I’d be more concerned.”

“He doesn’t do that, but he likes fear. He thrives on it.”

“Dark fucker, isn’t he?” I nod. “Kind of like me. Well, since you two are no longer an item, I want Sean. I bet I can make him cry.”

“He’ll make you cry and beg for mercy.” I know she’s teasing, trying to get a rise out of me, but I don’t take her bait.

Mel slaps her hands on her jean-clad knees, “Well, if that’s all, then I—”

Mel is ready to walk away, but the offer from Black is still bobbing up and down in my thoughts. Every time I consider it, I think it’s ridiculous and shove it back down, but it pops up again. I blurt it out before she can finish her sentence. “Black offered to make me madam.”

Mel is half standing, with her butt sticking out and her hands still on her knees, when she pauses. Her jaw drops and she sits back down. “White girl say what?”

“Hey, that’s my catch phrase.”

“Yeah, it didn’t sound right coming out of this luscious mouth. But enough of that. Black seriously offered?” I nod and go into the details. When I finish Mel is uncharacteristically silent. “What’d you say?”

“She told me to think about it.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know.” I’m picking at my nails as I speak. “I’m kind of thinking that it depends on what happens with Sean, but then I’m depending on Sean for everything. Black tapped into one of my biggest fears and twisted.”

“I’d let you stay with me, but I’m screwed everyway ‘til Tuesday until they catch whoever shot my twin.”

I blink at her. “She looked like you.”

Mel puts her hands on her h*ps and tips her head to the side. “Yeah, we’ve been through this already. You saw her, thought she was me…”

My brain is grabbing at strings and my neck prickles. I don’t know what it is, but something is off. I can’t place my finger on it. “Wait a second.” I pull out my phone and call Black.

“What?” she snaps.

“The girl you sent to check on us at the hotel—what’d she look like?”

Black sighs dramatically into the phone. “Avery, I don’t have time for your—”

I’m insane and cut her off, saying each word staccato. “What. Did. She. Look. Like?”

Black huffs and spits out a description. “It was Tawny—dark hair with ghastly gold streaks, caucasian with olive skin, green eyes, about five foot seven, and a buck ten.”

“And she died?”

“Yes! Avery, we’ve been over this already.” Miss Black is yelling at me, but she’s wrong. Her information is totally wrong and she doesn’t know. “Unless you have something helpful to add, or you’re accepting your new position, I suggest you hang up.”

Done. I disconnect and stare at Mel. “There’s another dead body.”

CHAPTER 7

“What? Who?” Mel’s golden eyes go wide.

“The girl that was in the room—the one who looked freakishly like you—wasn’t the girl Black sent over. It was someone else. Black assumed the dead call girl was hers. She never saw the body and the police still haven’t released her name, but I saw her.” I shake my head and shiver. Continuing, I think out loud, “That means the original hooker that Black sent to our room was either in on it or she’s dead.” I tell Mel what Black told me.

“I know Tawny and that wasn’t her. I’m calling her.” Mel pulls out her phone and dials. After a second she hangs up. “It went straight to voicemail.”

“Her battery is dead.”

“Or she’s at the bottom of the bay.” Mel tenses and presses the edge of the phone to her lips.

“Mel, I don’t like this. What if it’s just some random person killing off Black’s girls? I mean, they tried to take a shot at me, they tried for you, and Tawny’s missing.” My throat’s grown so tight that I can’t swallow. “What if this has nothing to do with Sean and everything to do with Black?”

Mel’s golden gaze cuts over to me. “I don’t trust Black, period. But offering her own staff up to be slaughtered isn’t like her. Especially you and me. We’re her bread and butter. No one out earned me until you came along.”

I add, “Black has a pretty big fear of being poor.”

“I can’t blame her.” Mel rubs her hands over her face and shakes her head. “It makes no fu**ing sense. Someone is playing us and I’m inclined to think it’s one of the fu**ed up Ferros since all this started when Sean came around.”