Page 17 of Darkest Before Dawn (His Perfect Darkness #2)

I nara

I’m still a little shaken when I arrive at work, but I fought hard to get to this moment. I can’t fall apart now.

But I still feel Rex’s warmth from where he cradled me. “You are everything to me,” he murmured.

“Then don’t destroy me,” I whispered back.

He agreed, with a few conditions, to let me do my job. He respected my boundaries, like when he asked to touch me. He didn’t call me ‘little bird.’ He’s trying to respect my wishes, but a part of me wishes we could rewind time to when I allowed him full mastery of my body.

Will I ever hear him croon little bird to me again? I’m wondering if we can repair the damage between us.

Time will tell.

I’m lost in my thoughts the whole way to work. Good thing that Ivan’s driving.

Just before we reach the final block, Rex texts me.

Sir: The team is analyzing the evidence left at your townhouse. I’ll update you as soon as I know more.

It’s the perfect text to get my mind back on the case.

But at the same time, he’s reminding me that he’s still “Sir” in my phone.

Maybe he’s trying to tell my brain to remember what we once were.

I told him to take care of me and give me what I needed.

Maybe he knows that seeing “Sir” pop up on my phone will both soothe and infuriate me.

Being annoyed with him is a safe outlet, one that won’t send me spiraling but will distract me from the horrors of the case.

Or maybe he’s just being his same old arrogant self. He plays this game on many levels. Every move can have five meanings, and I’ll go bonkers trying to figure them all out.

But I’m grateful that he texted. It makes me feel like I’m not so alone.

“Here we are,” Ivan announces when the precinct comes into view. “Good thing they fixed that thing with the grid earlier, or we’d still be in traffic.”

“There was a thing with the grid?” I ask, and he waves it off. “It happened earlier. Don’t worry about it.”

When he gets out and comes around to open my door, identical blond twin giants are waiting for me.

They’re tall and built but move light on their feet, like professional fighters.

These are the bodyguards I agreed to. I let them trail me to the station doors, clocking all the double takes and funny looks we get.

“Have a nice day, Mrs. Roy,” one of them says.

Mrs. Roy? I jerk out of my thoughts and frown, but my bodyguards are already drifting away, so I don’t call them back to correct them. I pull out my keycard and swipe it to open the door.

Instead of the light flashing green to signal the door unlocking, it flashes red. I try swiping my keycard again, but get the same red error light.

“Ramos,” Diego Silva, the crime scene investigator, sidles up to me, a takeaway cup in his hand. “Did I just see two members of Fraternitas walk you to work?”

“What?” I glance back, but the twins have disappeared. “Do you know them?”

“Do I know them?” He looks at me like I’m nuts. “No, I just recognized their rings. I’m not on speaking terms with the most powerful gang in New Rome’s history. Which begs the question—why are you?”

“I don’t know them. They just—” How do I explain that Rex Roy himself made me agree to a security team before he’d let me leave the sex club we both attend? “Long story.” I give up trying to swipe my key card. “It’s been a few crazy days.”

“Your card not working?”

“Guess not.” Just add that to the pile of stuff I have to deal with.

“Here.” Silva swipes his card, and the door locks clunk loudly before the light flashes green to signal they’re open. “The desk sergeant will sort you out.”

“Thanks. I actually need to talk to you about the most recent murders.”

“Which ones?” Silva asks.

“The ones on Green Street. And the murder of Emily Rodriguez.”

“Of course, you mean those. We have murders every day in this city, but the news cycle is only focused on them.”

“They are linked. And I know who killed them. It’s the Bondage Killer. He’s back.”

To his credit, Silva doesn’t immediately roll his eyes. “How do you know?”

I hand over a packet of letters Hamish practically gift-wrapped for me. “These were sent to my home. They match the letter left at the site of the last murder.”

He swears when he turns the packet over and sees the BK script. “The killer sent these to you?”

“Yes. I can explain everything, but right now, I need you to get these to the lab. Front of the line. The works.”

“Bonds needs to know about this. There’s a whole task force set up, and he’s the lead,” Silva graciously explains. He hasn’t asked why I disappeared for several days— maybe he’s been too busy to notice. I’ll have to think of a way to explain my absence to my bosses, though.

“I’ll tell him. I’m going right now to give my statement.” It’ll suck being at the center of a murder investigation, but I have to tell the truth. My privacy is a small price to pay for stopping a madman.

It’s your choice, Rex told me. Before I left, he told me he’d support me in any way he could and protect me from the fallout. The thought warms me before I push it away.

Silva tells me good luck and heads off. I go to the room reserved for the task force.

It’s the same one we used for Gregory Martin’s murder.

I track down Bonds and pull him into an interview room, where I tell him as much as I can—about the letters sent to my home and how they tie the Bondage Killer to the current murders.

“These are photocopies of the original letters.” I spread them out. “The originals are already in the lab. But I have initial findings.” I lay out the lab reports Hamish worked up. “Handwriting is a match to the original Bondage Killer.”

Bonds grabs a few pages and reads quickly. His face goes blank in a way that tells me he’s processing all of this. It’s not every day a serial killer comes back from the dead.

“Where did you find these?”

“A friend was collecting my mail and brought them to me.” I explain that they were in my townhouse mailbox.

“The killer probably wrote them over a period of days and delivered them all at once.” Talking about these letters gives me a creepy crawling feeling and the sensation of disgusting film coating my skin. I try not to twitch.

MY Swallow is the greeting of one letter. Bonds spots it right away.

“Are you Swallow?” he asks.

“I think so.” This is miserable, being a witness on a case I’m supposed to be working. I swallow down the sick feeling and keep my responses as cool and professional as I can.

“I believe it refers to my name. I was named for my great grandmother Enara.” I spell it for him, and he writes it down. “It means ‘swallow’ in the Basque language.”

“Huh.” He keeps reading. “He mentions seeing you in a park. Was that recent? Did you know you were being followed?”

“It’s possible. Maybe he didn’t follow me for long.” I shudder, remembering the cold feeling on the back of my neck. The sensation of being watched.

I have another terrible thought. “It could also be a reference to me as a child. There’s evidence he cased families before. . . ” I let my voice trail off. Bonds gives me a nod, and I rally. “He might have stalked me in a park, then and now.”

My memories are back. My father, holding my hand. My brothers running ahead, eager to get to the ball field. Me, insisting my father push me on the swings. The golden light sifting through green leaves.

“Why now?” Bonds is asking, and I pull myself back to the present. “What triggered him to put these in your mailbox all at once?”

“It’s possible he found out where I lived when a murdered man was dumped on my doorstep.” Rex inadvertently led a killer to me. The irony.

“When he was last active in Elyria, he always seemed one step ahead of the police, even though he was sending letters to them. A detective on the case speculated he might have ties to a member of the police force. I can put you in touch with her.” Lacy Collins was a detective on the Bondage Killer’s case and, in many ways, my surrogate parent.

But I haven’t spoken to her in years. I’ll have to break the silence now.

“It’s not uncommon for a killer to embed themselves into their own investigation,” Bonds tells me what I already know. “Or return to the crime scene.”

I point to the lab report. “There’s evidence that the card stock for the most recent letters matches the paper he used before. He might have returned to the warehouse and raided his own supplies.”

“And kept them all these years, just in case he needed to start another letter-writing campaign?”

I have to brace myself before I ruthlessly explain.

“The Green family was murdered in the same way my family was. And Emily Rodriguez looked a lot like me.” It’s taking everything in me to sound detached, like I’m talking about a case and not my own life.

“It’s possible BK is angry that I got away from him and now he’s come back to finish the job. ”

“Fuck me.” Bonds throws down the papers and scrubs his face with his hands. The details are finally dawning on him. “If this is true, we’ve got a serial killer resurfacing after, what, sixteen years? And targeting his former child victim, who happens to be an actual detective working on the case?”

“It’s true.” I’m impatient for him to catch up so we can start tracking the Bondage Killer down.

Rex believed you right away, my mind points out.

I have to admit, it’s nice when Rex is on my side.

The thought that right now, he’s doing all he can and scouring the city for clues makes me feel better.

“All right. I’ll set this as a line of inquiry.”

I start to interrupt, but he holds up a hand. “No, Detective. You’re too close to this. I’ll need a profile from you, but you’re too involved in this. You’re off the case until further notice.”

White hot rage slices through me. “Are you seriously sidelining me? I’m your best bet to understand how he acts, how he thinks?—”