Page 89 of Take Me Darkly

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Anton

* * *

Something was off with Serena, but I’d let her walk out anyway. That wasn’t like me. I stood frozen in the center of the quiet bedroom, the heavy silence settling over me like a suffocating shroud. I didn’t trust what the quiet was telling me.

Noticing the micro-expressions, the subtle shifts in posture, the cadence of a voice—that was the first discipline I’d ever taught myself as a boy trapped in Jerry’s hell. It was the only instinct that had kept me alive. This morning, Serena had answered me in short, guarded sentences. Her striking blue eyes had flicked everywhere except toward mine. There was a cool, deliberate distance in her tone—an invisible wall erected between us.

That sudden distance was why I had let her go without pressing her. A part of me knew her soul was reeling. I’d unburdened the darkest secrets of my past last night, laying out the blood and poison at her feet. I was certain she was lying awake, paralyzed by countless terrifying concerns about the monster sharing her bed.

I miscalculated.

The brutal realization burned in my chest. For more than a decade, I’d kept what I’d done buried deep behind a vault no human soul was permitted to open. Some would call stripping myself bare in front of her an act of courage. I knew better. Revealing the truth hadn’t set me free—it had rendered me dangerously vulnerable at a time when I needed to be an absolute, unyielding weapon.

My phone vibrated violently in my pocket, the sharp double-buzz breaking the silence.

I pulled it out, my dark gaze landing on an email notification. The sender’s address was a randomized string of characters, instantly setting off every internal alarm. Everything that reached this account was filtered, sorted, and vetted before it ever got to me. It was an address I used strictly for important Club O business, and one that only a privileged select few had access to.

The subject line was simply my full name: Anton Romano.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, a sudden spike of ice flooding my veins. Something wasn’t right. I felt it in my bones even before I opened the message, my pulse hammering against my ribs as I swiped the screen.

Mr. Romano,

You have been enjoying our silence. Do not mistake our quiet for distance. We are closer than you believe.

Carlo Martinelli spent the final years of his life learning that certain doors are to stay sealed. His daughter has been remarkably slow to inherit the lesson. You have been slower still.

That ends now.

We know Serena did not die in Lucca. We know she is alive in Manhattan. We know she hides behind your walls and sleeps in your bed. We also know your secrets. Return what belongs to us and we’ll leave her alone. Leave us wanting, and we will take what is ours by force.

You have built something very beautiful to keep her in. But beautiful things break the same as any other.

And as you already know… they also burn.

At the bottom of the screen, right where a signature belonged, was the stylized mark of a twisting serpent. The coiled ink seemed to stare back at me—patient, lethal, and waiting to strike.

The floor seemed to tilt, the room spinning for a fraction of a second before my focus slammed into place. Everything became terrifyingly flat, razor-sharp, and absolute.

I read the message a second time, dissecting every word like a forensic analyst. They hadn’t specified what item they wanted returned, but they didn’t have to. I’d bet money that whatever they wanted was in a dead man’s journal, and it was three floors below me, locked in Zeke’s safe.

They also hadn’t named Club O or the street address. But they knew she was alive. They knew she was in New York. And they knew she was with me.

Do not mistake our quiet for distance. We are closer than you believe.

I was dialing Zeke before my mind even finished processing the threat.

“Where are you?” I demanded, cutting straight through pleasantries, my voice a low, lethal growl.

“Just walked into my office. I was about to go over some VIP security clearances with Myla⁠—”

“That has to wait,” I snapped. “I just forwarded an email to your secure address.”

“Pulling it up now.” A pause. Then, a sharp curse. “Fuck.”

“It hit my private server three minutes ago,” I said, pacing toward the door. “I need you to trace the originating IP.”