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  I took a deep breath and rubbed the back of my head. “I’ve never done this before. What about protection? And what if there’s stuff I don’t want to do? Can I say no after I’ve signed?”

  “Like I said. You get your pick.” He leaned forward. “Between you and me, though, if you want to make money as a guy in porn, the only place to do it is the gay stuff, so your chances are better if you’re willing to do that. People pay more for fetish films and hardcore stuff, but you won’t be pulling those gigs your first time. And I’m required by the State of California to provide the option of protection for all parties involved. You choose not to do it, that’s on you. Not me. So what do you say?”

  I tapped my fingers on the sofa cushion. “I say that sounds too good to be true. Is that the same offer you gave Maggie O’Dale?”

  Ron’s face fell. He put his hands on the desk and pushed himself up. “Who the hell are you? What do you want? How do you know that name?”

  I folded my hands. “Where is she, Ron?”

  “Get out of my house!” He pointed to the door.

  I didn’t budge. “I know she owed you money. How does that work exactly if she was your employee?”

  “I said, get out before I call the cops!”

  “Thank goodness you’re here, officer. Ron was trying to blackmail me.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Yes,” I said, rising. “He took some compromising pictures of me and threatened to release them to the public if I didn’t blow him right now.”

  “Fuck you, man! I don’t swing that way!”

  “Are you sure?” I opened the laptop and spun it around for him to see. “You did just spend the last fifteen minutes looking at pictures of my dick.”

  He tried to open one of the desk drawers, but I slammed it shut with his hand still inside it. Ron let out a pathetic whimper and jerked his hand free. His eyes went to the letter opener on the corner of his desk. I grabbed it first and stabbed it straight through the back of his hand before pushing the desk forward and pinning him to the wall.

  I vaulted onto the desk and pressed my forearm to his neck. “Everything you know about her. Now!”

  “Fuck you! You think you’re the first asshole to threaten me?”

  “I think you West Coast pricks could do with a few East Coast lessons. Lesson number one: if you want to fuck someone over, make sure you’re prepared to deal with their family.” I drove a fist into his gut.

  He doubled over, gasping. “Maggie didn’t have any family.”

  “She has me now, and you’ve got exactly thirty seconds to tell me where to find her before I cut your dick off and feed it to you.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Stefan!” Josiah’s voice thundered from the doorway.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. What the hell was he doing there? I couldn’t exactly just let Ron go, not when I was so close to answers, but I couldn’t talk to Josiah with him there either. The second I turned my attention away from Ron, he’d go for the gun in his desk drawer again. There was nothing to do but knock him out. I missed with the first punch, but the second did the trick.

  I turned around to sit on the edge of the desk, arms crossed. “I was wondering when you’d catch up with me.”

  Josiah eyed Ron, who was slumped over the desk, his hand pinned by the letter opener. “Punching first and asking questions later is more my style.”

  I shrugged and slid down from the desk. “Ronnie here is a special kind of asshole. Trust me when I say he deserves it.”

  “Oh, I know.” Josiah grunted and pushed the desk aside. “Well, we ought to prep him for a proper interrogation, don’t you think?” He put his hands on his hips and glanced at the doorway, where the pretty girl from earlier stood, a hand over her mouth. “Do ya have any handcuffs handy?”

  Ron woke twenty minutes later, naked and cuffed to one of many beds in his house. Moving him hadn’t been easy, nor had stripping him. He must’ve greased himself up to get into those pants.

  I stood to one side, a hammer in hand. It wasn’t a claw hammer, but it’d do for breaking kneecaps and other body parts if needed. Josiah sparked his angelic flame as soon as Ron looked at him.

  Fear filled the trapped man’s eyes. “Who the fuck are you people?”

  I grabbed him by the hair and pulled. “Here’s how this works, Ron. We ask the questions. You answer. If you hold out on us, or if either of us doesn’t like your answer, I smash something on your body.” I pushed his head back down. “I’d start talking if I were you.”

  “W-what do you want? You want Maggie? I don’t know where she is. I’ve got guys looking for her, though. Bitch skipped out on her contract.”

  “This contract?” Josiah held up the contract we’d dug out of one of his desk drawers. It was long, complicated, and full of more double-speak and legalese than any document I’d ever seen. He held the flame to the bottom corner and let the burning contract drop.

  I nudged Ron’s chin with my hammer. “Did I say stop talking?”

  “Okay, okay. Just give me a second.” He closed his eyes. “I met her in a bar. Some seedy shithole about two months ago. She was young, hot, and looking for a break. I bought her a drink after she got off-shift and she complained about being broke, so I pitched her the usual. She went right for it. Didn’t even care that it was porn. Never seen a girl so eager. I promised her a cut of the profits and film credit for a single shoot.”

  “But your single shoots never make a profit, do they, Ronnie?” Josiah shook the flame out of his hand.

  “It’s not my fucking fault they don’t. New girls are stiff. They gotta learn how to sell it better.”

  I lifted the hammer for a swing, but Josiah held up a hand and shook his head.

  “Maggie went to SNK Studios to try to get them to buy her contract,” he said. “Did ya know about that?”

  “I knew she wanted out and that she was looking for someone to buy her out, yeah. Fucking Amy. She could’ve gone to anyone. She went to my ex-wife just to dig at me, but Amy said the same thing I did. She was too timid for the mainstream shit. I saw the promise in that girl. She was raw gold as a submissive. Just needed to get the right dom for the project.”

  Josiah nodded at me.

  I brought the hammer down on Ronnie’s hip.

  He howled in pain. “The hell! I’m telling you everything!” he said through his sobs.

  “Just wanted to remind you to stay on track.” Josiah folded his hands behind his back. “What’d you do after you found out she went to Amy?”

  Ron glanced at me. “I couldn’t let that stand. I was going to beat the shit out of her, but after one fucking slap, she falls to her knees and starts begging me. Not for her life, but for the life of her child. Bitch was pregnant. Says right in her contract, she had to disclose that.”

  Josiah’s face went blank. “Maggie’s pregnant?”

  “I don’t know if it was true, but it’d explain a lot. She’d been putting on weight in her face. I told her get that weight off. She had financial obligations to meet. Gave her the name of a guy who could help her with that.”

  “You gave her the name of a drug dealer,” I said. “A drug dealer who sold her heroin and got her fucking addicted.”

  “Beauty and stardom come at a price. Find me a starlet who isn’t snorting coke or shooting up. I dare you.”

  He didn’t deserve the hammer, so I gave him a fist in the form of a good punch to the ribs. Wasn’t anything he could do about it either, not with both his arms and legs bound. He made a pathetic choking sound as all the air rushed out of his lungs.

  Josiah’s hand closed over my shoulder, and he pulled me back to lean over Ron. “Where is she now?”

  It took Ron a minute to recover. “How the fuck should I know? She’s not my problem. Not anymore.”

  Josiah grabbed him by his curly hair. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Means the bitch finally succeeded in conning some asshole to buy
out her contract. Paid me more than what she was worth.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t remember the name. Something weird. Reese or Rommy… Contract’s on my desk with the body shots.”

  Josiah turned to me. I nodded and left the room to return to Ron’s office for a search. It’d gotten wrecked when I pushed the desk, and dragging Ron out of there didn’t help any, either. Papers were scattered all over the floor. I dropped to my knees and started picking them up, glancing at the headings in hopes of discerning their purpose. Most looked like ledgers—income in, expenses out.

  I found the book of body shots lying overturned beside the desk and picked it up. Page after page of naked women stared back at me, but I didn’t find Maggie in there. At least not anyone who looked like the Maggie in the picture Josiah had. Maybe he’d be able to find her, or maybe Ron had another book of body shots. A recent photo would be much more helpful than the old one he had, even if we had to crop it for modesty.

  I still hadn’t found the paper Ron was talking about either, so I slid the desk farther from the wall. The middle drawer clattered to the floor, flipping over as it hit and dumping more receipts. I picked it up, but it came apart in my hand. No, not apart. I’d exposed the false bottom. Inside sat another photo book, the contents of which made my stomach turn.

  I snapped it shut and turned away, trying to calm the rage that’d surfaced. My eyes fell on a paper with the company letterhead, a contract between Ron Sloch and someone whose name began with an R. I couldn’t see the rest because of the way the paper had fallen. Maybe it was the photos, or maybe it was some premonition in my subconscious, but I broke out into a cold sweat as I pulled the paper free. My stomach dropped as I read the name of the creature who’d bought Maggie’s contract: Remiel.

  I took the contract and the photo book back to Josiah. “Remiel.”

  “Shit!” Josiah kicked the bed and put his hands on his head, repeating the expletive half a dozen more times with more passion in each utterance.

  “That’s not all.” I held the book out to Josiah.

  He took it and opened it to the first page, his face like steel. Slowly, he looked up. “It’s one thing to be a slimy bastard with bad contracts, entrapping and practically enslaving young women, but children, mate? Some of these aren’t even old enough to go to school.” He tossed the book onto Ron’s stomach. “You’re a fucking pedophile.”

  “I’m not,” Ron protested. “I never touched a kid, never once. I just take the damn photos and pass along names when the sick fucks come to me. I don’t do anything but make a few bucks on the side. It’s not my fault.”

  Josiah folded the contract in a crisp line twice and slid it into his pocket. With slow, methodical steps, he crossed the room to pick up my hammer.

  “Now wait a minute,” Ron said as Josiah closed. “Wait just one goddamn minute!”

  Josiah didn’t. He picked up the discarded pillow from the floor and pressed it to Ron’s face, holding it there while Ron kicked and twisted, struggling to get free. When his limbs finally stopped jerking, Josiah pulled the pillow away.

  I leaned over Ron. “Is he dead?”

  “Nah. Just unconscious. It’d take longer than a few minutes to suffocate him. Help me get him flipped over.”

  “Are we going to kill him?”

  “No, not us.”

  It took a good fifteen minutes to work the hammer up Ron’s ass. He woke up partway through and screamed until we shoved the pillowcase in his mouth. Staging the rest of the scene was easy enough: Book open at the foot of the bed, a few choice contracts scattered around, and an anonymous phone call made to the police on the house phone. We’d practically done the cops’ job for them by the time we washed up and left.

  Josiah stole Ron’s car keys and commandeered his Bugatti, the one the bartender at Daily Bread must’ve seen Maggie jump into. As I got into the passenger seat and he rolled down the windows, we heard sirens in the distance.

  I pulled a pair of sunglasses from the visor and slid them on. “Where to now?”

  “Anywhere but here,” Josiah answered and sped out of the driveway.

  Chapter Nine

  Josiah

  “Fucking hell.” I popped the top button on my shirt and paced at the end of the bed. Stefan had upgraded to a decent room while I’d been busy with Eosyn. It was edging toward the heat of the day outside, but it was uncomfortably cool in the room. He’d turned the air all the way up and just let it run while we were out. I still felt gross after my encounter with Ron, so I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled my shoes off, intending to jump into the shower.

  Stefan stood in the entry to the room, casting a long look into the bathroom. “I killed some people last night.”

  I paused with one shoe off. I’d known Stefan had it in him to be a killer. There was no way to grow up in the world he had and still have clean hands, and he had put a gun to the back of my head shortly after we met. But three people in one night? That was a lot, even for me. “Maggie’s dealer?”

  He nodded. “And some other gangbangers.”

  “Any chance the police’ll be looking for you?”

  “The only thing those gangsters trust less than outsiders are the police. No, they’ll handle vengeance in-house if there’s any coming.”

  The detached, emotionless way he talked about it left uneasiness coiled in the pit of my stomach. He’d been rough with Ron too, although the bastard had deserved it. Usually, being a violent prick was my job, and Stefan played the mild-mannered yet lovable asshole.

  He passed in front of me. The bed bounced as he sat down next to me, then shifted as he laid back, hands folded over his chest, to stare at the ceiling. There was still blood under his fingernails.

  “I’m sorry,” Stefan said.

  I finished removing my shoe, pulled off my shirt, and stood. “Order us some food. I’m going to wash up.”

  I turned on the shower and stood in the water, staring at the wall, remembering Maggie’s smile. The bruises on her arms. The marks on her neck. I’d been able to scare away the last one with a little trick of magic, thinking maybe Maggie just fell in with the wrong guy. It was a one-off thing. Happened to the best of us.

  But the drugs, the shady porn studios, and now Remiel? How long had she been on this downward spiral, and I simply didn’t notice because I chose not to? What if I’d been involved in her life? Been a better friend, at the very least. I could never have been a father to Maggie. No, she’d been born into tragedy. That entitled her to a shot at happiness free of the world of magic and all its horrible costs. It was why I’d taken her from Los Angeles as a baby, why I’d given her to that couple in Nebraska, and laid more protective spells over her than I’d ever done before. I had done everything right. How did things turn out so wrong?

  Now the cycle had begun again. Maggie was pregnant, and she was such a mess she hadn’t quit using. If the child somehow managed to survive the abuse Maggie’s demons were doing to it, the poor thing would spend its life fighting impossible battles.

  I leaned forward and made a fist against the tile wall. My bloodline is cursed. Maybe it would’ve been better if I’d never let her be born.

  Memories of a darkened bathroom rushed in. Light exploded in the sky outside, illuminating the side of Evette’s face in shades of crimson and sapphire. She sat on the closed toilet, a third test strip in her lap.

  I leaned against the locked door and crossed my arms. “Do you really think the fourth one is going to say anything different, Evette?”

  She massaged her forehead and let out a quivering breath. Her voice was strained; she sounded panicked. “I can’t be pregnant, Josiah. You don’t understand. I can’t.”

  Evette was right. I didn’t understand the problem. If she didn’t want the kid, she’d just do what Deirdre and Ellie had done. Both had been pregnant too. Christian had sent them away somewhere until it was all over, like a little vacation. They’d be back soon.

 
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “We just need to go to Christian with it. He’ll take care of it, just like he did with the other two.”

  Her hand slid down to cover her mouth. She choked on a sob. “I can’t. I won’t.” She got up from the toilet and gripped my shirt. “You have to help me get rid of it.”

  I raised my hands. “You need to tell him, Evette. He should be a part of this.”

  “No!” She threw herself against me, sobbing against me. “Please, you can’t tell him!”

  Invisible hands choked me. Still a boy myself, and I had fathered a child with this woman. Someone who could never be mine. Not truly. I didn’t love her, not like I loved magic.

  I could have her if we left, I thought. We could walk out the front door while everyone else was upstairs, drinking and doing their small magic. No one would stop us. But if I left, there would be no more lessons. No more power. No matter how good I got, I would always be second-best to Christian. We would live on the run, always afraid that he was coming for us. What kind of life was that? A seventeen-year-old father and a twenty-two-year-old mother, on the run from a sorcerer with limitless power? We would be dead inside a week.

  I pushed her away from me. “It’s not my problem, Evette. Do what you’ve got to do.”

  She fell to her knees on the bathroom floor behind me as I opened the door. I left her there, sobbing and alone.

  Only a few weeks after that, I had my rooftop duel with Danny. My world fell apart in slow motion, a train wreck even I couldn’t watch.

  So I pulled away from it all, sank my time into fucking groupies with little to no talent, getting high, and wasting my magic on cheap tricks for kicks.