Page 32 of Darkest Before Dawn (His Perfect Darkness #2)

I nara

Something soft strokes my face. I sit up, and feathers fall from my body.

I move and wince when something crunches underfoot.

Feathers and fragile wings. Don’t think about it.

I stagger forward into a small, dark room.

The walls bow inward, covered with pictures of victims. One photo floats down and lands in front of me.

It’s the picture of my family, with every face crossed out. Including mine.

Somewhere, I hear Burgess muttering, “Another body. . .”

“No,” I gasp, shuddering awake.

“I’ve got you.” It’s Rex. I’m in his arms, still wearing my dress. I must have fallen asleep in the chair. I’m still half in the dream, feeling the broken feathers over my skin.

I rub my eyes, but it feels like there are grains of sand digging into my eyeballs. I blink, but it doesn’t help.

Air wafts over my face. We’re still in the cave, and he’s carrying me to the elevator.

“What happened? What did you find?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning.”

He’s taken off his helmet, but he’s still in his body armor. I look him over. No blood, but the black surface might just hide it well.

“No, tell me now.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Sir,” Hamish calls.

“Later,” Rex answers and keeps walking. I hear and feel the whir of the elevator.

I must fall asleep again in the elevator because the next thing I know, I’m in bed in Rex’s bedroom. I’m naked except for my panties, and the shower’s running nearby.

When Rex walks out, he’s in nothing but a towel. I search him for bruises but see none.

I scoot over to make room for him on the bed but put a hand on his shoulder before he can sink back into the bed. “Tell me. I won’t be able to sleep until you do.”

Rex’s shoulders slump, and I know he wants to spare me from whatever he’s about to say. “He started talking as soon as we secured him. But he didn’t have much to say. He swears he’s also a victim.”

“What?” I try to reconcile that with the moment tonight when Ted approached me. His eager energy.

“The Bondage Killer sent him things with explicit instructions to deliver them to you. The first was the photo you found at your desk at work, which came to his work mailbox at the paper. The letter he had tonight was slid under his apartment door. He felt threatened, so he did BK’s bidding and sought you out. ”

My brain is fuzzy, so it takes me some time to sort through this. “So he’s innocent.”

Rex’s lip curls. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“But he’s a victim, like me.”

“He seems to think so. He spent the rest of the time begging us to protect him from the serial killer.”

The disdain in Rex’s voice makes my stomach twist.

“Did you kill him?” I’m afraid of the answer but I ask anyway. Rex hasn’t hidden his murderous side from me, and I won’t shrink away from it.

“I wanted to. He has no business breathing the same air as the decent people of New Rome.” He takes a strand of my hair into his fist and clenches it like he wants to absorb it into his palm. I wait for the painful tug on my scalp, but it never comes.

“But no, I didn’t kill him.”

My breath eases out of me.

“I have people watching him and his place to see if the Bondage Killer contacts him. But he’s still breathing. We let him go.”

“We?” I remember the bikers in the alley. It makes me uneasy that Rex is allied with a criminal gang.

“I had an audience. A few useful acquaintances.”

“St. James?”

“Some of his brothers. Fraternitas loaned us a space to question him. Don’t worry, we didn’t torture him.” A small smile touches his lips.

“Thank gods.” I’m already wrestling with a crisis of conscience. I’m willing to bend protocol, but the ends don’t justify all means.

Rex angles his body more to face me. “Why do you care about him?”

“He’s innocent.”

“He’s sewage in human form. He was all too willing to do a murderer’s bidding. The world would be a better place without him.”

“You can’t go around killing people who annoy you.”

“Can’t I?”

“Rex, I can’t condone the way you’re. . .” I don’t even know how to describe what he did—chasing down Ted and gassing him. I give up trying and rub my mouth. “I’m already on the wrong side of the law.”

“The world isn’t so black and white.”

“You don’t live in the gray. You’ve embraced the darkness.” I wait for him to argue, but he doesn’t. He can’t. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to uphold justice?—”

“There is no justice. The concept you have, it’s a fantasy. A fairytale. And you’re not a child anymore.”

I glare up at him, but he doesn’t back down. “Justice may be blind, but wealth and power tip the scales. They always have.”

“I guess you would know.” There’s no one more wealthy and powerful than Rex.

“I do know. Because I use mine to tip it back.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to fight.” I’m exhausted. I’m still piecing together everything that happened tonight.

“Tell me what you need.” He uses his dom voice, and I relax immediately. It’s heady, having such a powerful man willing to bend the world to my wishes.

“I need your help, Rex.” I lean against him, and he tucks me close. “I need you on my side.”

“Always.” He murmurs into my hair. “I will always be on your side.”

“Don’t. . . don’t kill anyone.”

“I won’t. But if the choice is between protecting you or upholding some limited law, I’ll always choose you.”

The police precinct roof is perfect for smoking, but few people know this, and Detective Bonds would like to keep it that way.

It’s been a long weekend. He’s spent every waking hour on the case.

Up here, it’s peaceful for this desperate, dreary hour. He should go home and try to get some sleep.

But first, a smoke.

A shadow separates from the wall by the door and coalesces into a giant shape.

A flicker of movement out of the corner of his eyes makes Bonds turn. The figure looms over him, and he recoils.

“What the fuck?” He reaches for his gun, but it’s not there. He didn’t think he’d need it on his smoke break.

“It’s me.” The figure’s deep voice sounds modulated somehow.

“Yeah, I got that,” Bonds scowls and takes a drag on his cigarette to calm his racing heart.

The first time he got a visit from the warrior-like figure, he was on his balcony at home, having a smoke. He still doesn’t understand how such a big guy can move so silently.

“This is a secure building,” he adds, tapping ash onto the roof.

“Obviously.”

The stranger’s dry tone makes Bonds chuckle despite himself. He resents being surprised like this, especially by a freak dressed up like an action figure in body armor, but the dude does have his charm.

Bonds angles his head, squinting, but darkness shrouds the figure, like all the times before. The shadows embrace his form like the night wants to keep the figure’s secrets all to itself.

“What do you want?”

“I have evidence for you.”

This is why Bonds tolerates visits from the fiendish specter. He always comes with something to help a case.

The figure steps closer, and the ambient light slides off his giant form. He’s in some sort of smooth body armor. Bonds wishes he could study the man’s suit up close in better lighting. The black color makes the figure one with the night.

“Rex Roy sent me.”

“The billionaire?”

“Yes. A man approached his wife last night and gave her another letter from the Bondage Killer.”

The few half-awake brain cells fire and Bonds remembers his new single degree of separation from the famous Roy. “Inara?” It might be a trick of the light, but the figure seems to stiffen slightly. “I mean, Detective Ramos?”

“Yes. The man’s name is Ted Raider. I’ve prepared a file on him.” The figure points, looking so much like the specter of death that Bonds is reluctant to turn. But he does and sees a black case sitting on a nearby ledge. He picks it up and flips through it.

In his career, he’s looked through thousands of case files. Habit allows him to scan for the pertinent details. “A photographer?”

“That’s how he got access.”

At the end of the stack is a stained letter in a plastic case. Bonds can smell the sour, smokey scent without even opening it. “This is what he gave her?”

“Yes.”

After the greeting, “Dear Swallow,” the writing degenerates so much that Bonds can barely read it. Only a few passages—“Your doom” and “Come to me”—are even legible.

“This is like the others.”

“Yes.”

Bonds tucks the letter back into the case. He’s been staring at letters like this for so long, he’s practically memorized them. It makes him sick, but he can’t stop hoping they’ll reveal more clues.

“The Bondage Killer sticks to his MO. But he’s never used a delivery boy before.”

“Raider swears he received these letters anonymously, with instructions to hand deliver them personally to Mrs. Roy.”

“You’ve spoken to him?” Bonds looks up sharply.

“This is the third time Mrs. Roy has been personally targeted,” the man continues without acknowledging the question.

“Well, he’s fixated on her.” Bonds can’t keep the worry from his voice. Whatever he thinks about the enigmatic Detective Ramos, he feels protective of her. He tells himself he’d feel that way about any of his colleagues, but the truth is this detective is special. “What about this Ted Raider?

“He claims he’s never had personal contact with the Bondage Killer, that the serial killer left these things for him to deliver. He’s scared out of his mind, afraid he’s the Bondage Killer’s next target. He’ll insist on witness protection.”

“Gods.” Bonds’ brain is skipping ahead, thinking about the next steps.

Tracking down the potential witness, coaxing him in for an interview.

It seems like this stranger—this warrior of the night or amateur detective—already shook Ted down.

Bonds should be protesting the breach of protocol and harassment of a citizen, but practically, he knows that Ted will be spooked and ready to talk. It’ll be easy to play good cop.

“He’ll be delivered to you in thirty minutes. You can question him then.”