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“No. I don’t know.”
A lamp is on in the corner, otherwise the suite is in darkness. “Stay here,” I order her. “And stay down.”
“But I—”
“Ray, stay down. Please.”
She snaps her mouth shut and gives a mutinous little nod as she slides off me. “What do you think it was?”
“No clue.”
But with my luck, nothing innocuous and innocent. Better safe than sorry, though, so I crawl on the floor until I reach the lamp and flick the switch off.
Yeah, this is better.
Despite the height of the building, the lights of the city center illuminate the room enough for me to see her lying on the sofa, made of pale curves and dark valleys, those deep eyes staring back at me.
Getting up, I make my way to the balcony doors, keeping my back to the wall. I glance outside.
The balcony is empty except for a table and four chairs. White, of course. A potted plant stands in one corner. No space for anyone to hide behind it.
“So what was it?” she whispers as I return to the sofa.
“Don’t know. A bird, I guess? Could be a crow digging in the plant pot.”
“A crow?” I hear laughter in her voice. “You mean it’s raining crows? Raining in Baltimore.” She hums. “You know. Raining in Baltimore, by Counting Crows.”
“You’re so funny.” I grin at her.
“I know.” She sighs. “Can we talk now? Can you tell me your secret?”
My grin fades as I sit down and pull her to my side. “Yeah.” I push a strand out of her face. “Sure.”
Keeping my voice light, neutral. As if it’s easy for me to talk about this, about a secret that moves in my nightmares like a living thing. Tell her a story only two people in the world know—one of them lying in the hospital, the other risking his neck for me, for our friendship, with the Chinese mafia.
A story that has to do with my past and who I am, but makes no damn sense to me.
At least it’s dark. Secrets spill more easily in the dark.
She snuggles closer, pulling my jacket over our naked bodies. It’s still early hours, no hint of dawn outside. I stroke her soft hair, wrap myself up in her scent, her body, and try to remember where I am.
Here, with Raylin.
Not in a place of monsters, a place of blood and confusion, more than sixteen years ago, the night my parents died and I survived. Survived thanks to one man, who took me away from the slaughter scene.
Uncle Tony.
And that was just the beginning.
RAYLIN
“For years,” he says softly, “I thought the images inside my head weren’t real. Nightmares. They came back in nightmares, that much is true. They gained strength in the night, fed on my fears. The therapists called in by my uncle dismissed them as trauma, and that was it. For a damn long time.”
I tighten my hold on him. I hate how his voice is flat and empty. “What images were you seeing?”
“Blood.” He shudders and I shudder with him. “Pools of it. Dead face, dead eyes… Broken limbs.” He swallows hard, his throat clicking. “My parents’ dead eyes and broken limbs. Their blood.”
Oh God. I don’t know what to say. I burrow closer to his chest, listen to his frantic heartbeat and think about this. Try to remember what I know about his past. I’m never been much for celebrity gossip, but the Jordans’ story was discussed at every job in every coffee shop and fast food stand I got in the past few years. Strange how I never made the connection when Storm told me who the beach house owners were.
