Page 176 of Dance of Devils

My priority is and always will be to protect Brooklyn—both her physicalandemotional safety.

Right now, she’s still under the impression that Derrick is one of the few if only men she can trust in the world. If she learns the truth about what’s been going on for the last year and change, it’ll destroy her.

And Iwill notallow that to happen.

It’s going to pain me to tell her a lie. Well, a half-truth, if I’m being generous. But again, my priority is to keep her heart safe. And when presented with two terrible options, this is the lesser of two evils.

The lock clicks, and the door slams open as three laughing, groping, sloppy bodies tumble into the motel room.

“Okay, okayyy!” Derrick giggles. “Lemme find that coke. You girls get your fuckin’ clothes off?—”

It’s the girls who spot me first when Derrick flicks on the lights. They scream blue murder, which hashimscreaming blue murder, then all three of them turn to where I’m calmly sitting at the table in the motel room’s kitchenette.

“Youandyou,” I say quietly, gesturing at each girl in turn with the gun in my hand. “Come. Here.”

When they hesitate, looking terrified, I sigh, slip a hand into my jacket pocket, and pull out a folded wad of cash. I start to count it, but then just say fuck it and drop it on the table in front of me.

“This is yours. In exchange, tonight never happened. You never saw this man.” I point the gun at Derrick. “And youdefinitelynever saw me. How's that sound?”

The two of them look at the money, then at each other. It takes about one second for them to shrug, walk over to the table, and pick up the cash.

“Smart.” I smile coldly. “Now it’s time to leave.”

The girls quickly run out the door. Derrick starts to follow but I cock the gun, stopping him cold.

“Surelyyou didn’t think that included you,Derrick,” I growl quietly. “Or is it Mike Brommer down here? Or—no. Don’t tell me. Carl Willoughby.”

His throat works as his face pales.

“W-what do you want?”

“Sit,” I murmur, tapping the table across from me. “Right here. Right now.”

He shuffles over, pulls the chair out and drops into it.

“N-now what?” he stutters.

I take a deep breath, looking at him with cold eyes. “Now it's story time, Derrick. This is a good one. It’s about a girl—beautiful, smart, braver than most. She doesn’t let life break her spirit, even when it beats her the fuck down and grinds her under its heel. She’s….incredible that way.”

I take another breath.

“She’s also aphenomenaldancer.” I sigh, chuckling quietly. “I mean, you should see her, Derrick. She’s unbelievable.Sogoddamn talented.”

He smiles weakly. “She… She sounds great.”

I smile coldly at him. “You know, Derrick, sheis. And the thing is,you fucking know her.” The smile drops from my face. “It’sBrooklyn, you piece of shit.”

Every drop of color drains from his face. His eyes bulge, looking bloodshot and haggard even as fear coils in them.

It wasn’t difficult to find him, although heisgoing by another name down here—Mark Jepson. Because it wasn’t hard to findDiego, not when I told him I wanted to hire a whole team of world-class financial forensics experts to work on Brooklyn’s stepfather's case and that I’d pay whatever it took. Greedy little fuck threw out forty grand as a number, and I told him I’d meet him with the cash.

…That's when I beat the living fuck out of him, broke every bone in both hands, and told him if I ever saw him anywhere near the tri-state area again, I’d cut off his head.

And hegladlygave up his accomplice.

Derrick’s eyes grow wider by the second as the full magnitude of the shit he’s stepped in really washes over him.

“Okay—wait —I can explain?—”