Page 53 of Sunrise (Monarch Club #3)

Sophie

I’m not supposed to be happy that someone’s dead. Suicide is devastating. But I feel nothing at all when they tell me Christopher is no longer a threat.

That pop I heard was him eating a bullet.

I didn’t believe it, so I asked to see the body.

It’s most definitely him. He doesn’t look human anymore. He looks fake. Maybe that’s how my mind chooses to process what’s happened. I don’t know.

None of this feels real.

Fireflies blink in the grass and cars slowly drive by, being nosy.

I’ve refused medical treatment. The shakes are nearly gone now.

The drugs are out of my system and I’m… well, I feel inhuman.

There’s no emotion in my voice when I retell everything for the fifth time.

There’s also a detective here and though they insist on taking me inside, I refuse to budge from the old lady’s lawn.

And I’m not going to the station either. Not today.

I can’t do anything else today.

“Do you recognize any of these women?” the detective asks, pulling out a stack of photos.

I stare at unknown faces, shaking my head as I shuffle through brunette, after brunette, after …

“Her.” My heart sinks as the redheaded woman in the picture smiles at me. “I saw her with him once. At the Monarch Club.”

“You’re a member there?”

“Employee.”

“And what type of work do you do at the Monarch?”

“I teach couples how to play safely together in the bedroom. I’m a dominatrix.” My confession feels hollow. No pride, no fear, no… nothing. “What happened to her?”

“She was found dead in a dumpster last week. Drug overdose. We believe it was the same kind he used on you. Toxicology will verify it.”

They took my blood already.

The detective’s tone softens as they explain the rest of the photos in my lap. “They were all Dommes, Sophie,” she says, folding her arms. “All except her. She was taking classes to become one, though.”

Were. As in… no longer.

“Did he kill them?”

“Yes.” She shows no hint of sorrow. Maybe she has to hide those emotions as part of her job.

I know I would if I was chasing sick murderers around for a living.

I’d have to be cold to survive it. “We believe he uses online forums to find new victims. Travels to their location and stalks them while simultaneously fostering a Dom/sub relationship with them. He earns their trust and then...” The rest of her words trail off because it’s clear what the outcome is.

“And it’s taken you this long to find him?” Vault seethes beside me.

“We’ve been hunting him down for three years.

He’s a ghost. We’ve tracked his movements across the country but were always too late.

He’s changed his name at least a dozen times, never leaves a paper trail, and only uses cash.

He’s smart enough to keep his head down and covered, so we’ve only managed to find him a couple of times on surveillance cameras. He’s gone before we can catch him.”

I cover my mouth and stare at the woman smiling in the photo again. “What was her name?”

“Meredith Ricci.” With graceful movements, she flips the photo over and recites every woman’s name, as if she’s done this a million times, over and over and over again.

Every face that looks up at me is a life that monster took.

“This is Samantha,” the detective says softly. “We believe she was his first victim.”

I’m going to pass out. “Her name is tattooed on his arm.”

“Yes. That was one of the first details we found to connect him to her murder.”

“And you’re sure he’s dead?” I’m too scared to believe it. Even though I saw his body with my own eyes, I don’t trust it. What if there are still drugs in my system and it’s making me hallucinate?

“Yes. He’s not going to hurt anyone else ever again. You were lucky.”

“She wasn’t fucking lucky. She was brave and strong and smart,” Knox snaps at her. “She fought her way out of there by herself.”

He sounds devastated about it.

The detective nods, acknowledging everything Knox throws out there. “Do you mind if I stop by in a couple days to ask you more questions? I’d like to wrap this case up swiftly if possible. ”

“Sure.”

“We’ve got her from here,” Vault says, getting extra protective of me again. He takes the detective’s card, and my eyes lift to Ryker. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper to him.

He squats down in front of me, his mouth set in a hard line. The way he stares at me is like having the devil look straight through your fucking soul. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, Sophie.”

“I lied to you. This whole time… from the beginning.” Is he going to fire me over this? Trust is so important to him, and I’ve broken it.

He swipes the tears off my face. “We’ve all lied to protect ourselves at least once in our life, honey. But next time you have a problem, if anyone even so much as sneezes wrong in your direction… come directly to me, understand?”

“And me,” D says.

“And me,” Vault adds.

“And me.” Knox tips his head. “We’ve got you, Soph. Always.”

Their fierce loyalty makes my tears flow harder.

The rest of the night dissipates into a surreal dream. I don’t know how I get home. I’m not sure where Ryker and Dmitri are now, but I vaguely remember them saying they were heading back to the Monarch to give us privacy.

Sitting on my couch, wrapped in another blanket, I still have my soiled dress on. I can’t seem to make myself do anything sensible, and I don’t want anyone helping me. This limbo is frustrating. I need to snap out of it and can’t.

“I’m hungry.”

“I can make you some food.” Knox hurries into my kitchen, all his nervous, pent-up energy dying to be put to good use. “What would you like?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay, I’ll make a bunch of stuff, and you can—”

“I don’t want food.”

Vault sinks to his knees in front of me. “You’re okay.”

I don’t feel okay. I feel like a… I don’t know what. I just…

“I had to dominate him,” I say as my body and soul tear apart from each other. “I had to use what I love in a horrible way. I manipulated him and abused my power.”

“You didn’t have power, Sophie.” Knox stalks over and squats down next to Vault. “The sub always has the power, right?”

I nod.

“You didn’t abuse your position. You didn’t manipulate. You did what you had to in order to survive a fucking serial killer.”

The way he says it makes me want to vomit.

A serial killer.

All those women…. All those photos….

“I need to shower.” Standing up, I nearly run them over as I head upstairs.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Stopping midway up, my knees hit the steps.

“I got you,” Vault says, carrying me the rest of the way.

???

I manage to eat half of a grilled cheese sandwich before I’m scared it’s going to come back up. I can’t sit still, yet I have zero energy to move.

Vault and Knox give me space but stay close. I go from bedroom to bathroom to patio to porch to kitchen to living room and back to the bedroom again. I feel like a prisoner in my body. I’m caged. There’s no escape.

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” Knox says, sternly. “You have to.”

He’s right and I can’t stand it. I thought I could go one more minute. Just… one more minute. I can do anything for one more minute.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I say again. It’s like I’m stuck on repeat. My motions, my mind—I’m stuck in a loop I can’t get out of.

“How about you try to lie down again?” Vault asks.

“No.”

“Want to watch a movie?”

“No.”

Knox holds my face in his hands and looks at me for a long time. I somehow start to match his breathing, which he notices. Nodding, he inhales…exhales…inhales… exhales… encouraging me to just take in a breath and let out a breath. “Good girl. Keep going.”

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale… exhale…

“Put on one of her playlists,” he tells Vault without breaking eye contact with me.

Vault moves like a phantom through my living room and the sweet beat of one of my favorite songs starts playing .

Knox moves with it, dancing ever so slightly at first. He gets more and more into it as the seconds pass. “Come on, sweetheart. You know you want to dance with me.”

I don’t know if I do or not, but I want to try. I’ll do anything to make myself feel better. To feel… normal.

Vault gets behind me and I lean back, giving him permission to touch me. I keep flinching at the slightest things—a car driving by, a toilet flushing, a cricket chirping. I hate it. I’m sure they do too.

“That’s it.” Knox coaxes me to move my arms. “Fuck yeah, baby. Let’s go.”

We dance together, awkwardly at first, but after the first two songs play, I’m ready for the next one. I listen to these playlists all the time, so my brain automatically gears up for the next song. I sing along to it, making more of an effort.

Knox snaps his fingers.

Vault spins me.

The relief ebbs and flows, and I struggle between crying and laughing. Soon, I’ve petered out and sit on the couch, cocooned in my blanket again.

How long will it take for me to get this shock out of my system?

How long until I feel like Sophie again?

Tears sting my eyes, and I hate myself for crying over this. I should be throwing a party. I’ll never have to run or hide ever again. Animal is dead. Christopher Rivetti is dead . Bad guys can’t come back from the grave. Right?

It’s way past midnight and my house is dark. The guys haven’t moved from the floor next to me. I run my hand through Knox’s hair, soothing myself while laying curled up on my sofa.

“I don’t want to be here,” I confess, not knowing if I mean in this house or on this earth.

Vault and Knox both look at each other and I feel like I’ve failed them. I’m making this hard when I should be better.

“We don’t want to be here either,” Knox says, sitting on the floor with his back to the couch. “But it’s where we are.”

“And it’s where we’ll stay.” Vault rests his head on the cushion by my knees. “Until sunrise.”

I’ve asked Vault a dozen times what sunrise means. The only answer he’s ever given was that he hopes I never find out.

Well, this is it.

Sunrise means sitting in the dark with the ones you love.

It means breathing for one more minute, then one more minute after that.

It’s holding onto each other and staying together even though you’re desperate to run until you’ve disappeared into the ether.

To be the sunrise is to outlast the dark. Be the glimmer of hope on the horizon.

Having Knox and Vault with me makes the fear less debilitating, but I can’t shake the fact that something doesn’t feel right.

“I don’t trust that he killed himself,” I say, rehashing the part that confuses me the most. “All this time he’s stalked me… lived only a few blocks over from me…he had too much patience to just give up so fast after I escaped. Him committing suicide doesn’t make sense.”

Silence falls upon us, and I keep running my hands through Knox’s hair to comfort myself.

“You’re right,” Knox says in the darkness. “It wasn’t suicide. But he’s still dead and can’t come back. He’ll never come after you again, Sophie.”

My fingers curl against his scalp, tugging his hair as his words sink in.

Knox killed him.

For me.

I let go of my fear with my next exhale. “Thank you,” I whisper, closing my eyes in relief and fall asleep somewhere around four in the morning.

When I wake up, the sun is high in the sky.