Damaged Queen (Darkness Within Duet 2)

“I know it looks bad right now.”

“It doesn’t just look bad. It is bad. I can’t marry him. Not like this. Not knowing that … he’s this person. I don’t want to do this. There’s a lot I can take, but … people not being allowed to have a choice. I can’t. That’s too far.”

“I know it’s hard.”

She burst out laughing. “Hard. You think this is just hard? It’s fucking painful.” Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked at him. “I do love him, and it kills me. I can’t do this. I won’t.”

“I thought this when I first joined the team.”

“I really don’t want this talk.”

“I had your mother and you to take care of. Bills mounting up, and this job. I was in heaven, but I knew it was a bad choice, and still, I took it. I learned to look the other way.”

“You ended up divorcing Mom and being with a woman half your age.”

“You know I didn’t want to fall for Hannah. She wasn’t your mother.”

“You’re right, she wasn’t,” Harper said.

“But Hannah didn’t judge me when I came here. She didn’t point a finger and tell me I was a bad man or that I’d sold myself. She didn’t constantly remind me that I fucked up.”

“So she became the better option. No offense, you sound pathetic.” Harper stood up and dumped her coffee out.

“I know this is hard.”

“You don’t have a fucking clue how hard this is. I’m such an idiot. You think this is easy for me? I love Draven. Love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone else in my life, and yet, here I am, considering leaving. I’ve got to go. I can’t stay here knowing when he goes and does his deals, someone will die.”

“It gets easier,” Ian said.

“For you, for others. Not for me. Not with this.” In her mind, she thought about one of the girls, wanting a better life. Harper had convinced her to follow her, that an entire world was waiting for her and she just needed to have faith, to grasp it. Alan wouldn’t let a single girl slip through his fingers. Whenever he called, there was always someone he wanted.

Harper needed some fresh air, and she left through the kitchen door, finding little peace in the fresh air as it brushed across her face.

Guards were out in force, and she walked right on past them, going to the cells.

She didn’t go inside, not today. Harper paused and said a little prayer for all the women who’d come before her and had died here.

She moved on through the gardens, trying to find some peace, anything that would help her deal with the pain exploding inside her chest.

“I thought I’d find you out here.”

She turned to see Axel walking toward her. The first thing she noticed was the bruise on one part of his face.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Draven likes to make sure I know who is boss.”

“He did this.”

“I didn’t exactly defend myself, and I probably deserved it.”

“You didn’t deserve this.”

“You’re sweet, you know that, right?”

“I’m not sweet.” She reached out about to touch his face, but he caught her wrist, holding it tightly.

“He had a right to hurt me. I told you where to find them, and I set this chain of events off. I’m willing to pay the price.”

“According to you and Draven, I did.”

Axel waved his hand through the air. “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.”

He held her hand and started to lead her down one set of gardens she hadn’t explored.

“Where are we going? You know I can get shot from leaving the grounds.”

“You’ll be safe with me, I promise.”

He kept on walking, and they had to have crossed some kind of border.

“Talk to me, Axel. You’re scaring me.”

“Well, in my search for everything to do with Alan, I went through many of his well-known hiding places. You see, as kids, we had a tendency to spy. When we were about five, we all wanted to become spies. We thought we were so clever. We’d sneak into areas of the house where private conversations were happening.”

“I bet you guys saw and heard a lot of stuff you wished you hadn’t.”

“Bingo. That we did. Anyway, we’d been seeing a lot of shit for a lot of years, and so one day, imagine my surprise when I found that Alan liked to hide certain things. Be it murder weapons, or blackmail tapes.”

“He actually had blackmail tapes on everyone?”

“You don’t get high in this world without a bit of blackmail. You ever wonder why Draven, me, Buck, and Jett could get away with so much crap?”

“I didn’t really think about it.”

He shrugged. “It’s not a lot to think about. Our fathers had dirt on all the town’s people. The politicians, the cops, and they used it to keep them in check and all of us in line.”