Dangerous Temptation (Dark Dream 1)

“You don’t want to go with him,” I said on a forced laugh. “He’s a mean, old guy.”

I watched as his full lower lip rolled under and wobbled. When he spoke, his voice was threadbare. “But where else will we go? Who’s gonna take us?”

Despair moved through me like a ghost, leaving behind a bone-deep chill.

I didn’t know.

I had no answers and Brando was just a kid, all he had were questions. As his sister, his only family, I felt responsible for comforting him even though I had no idea how to even comfort myself.

“You’re coming with me,” Tiernan said, suddenly in front of us, the rest of the mourners having dispersed back toward their cars, a few lingering to pay respects at the gravesite before they moved on.

“Yay!” Brando cried, throwing his arms around Tiernan’s lower legs, clinging to him tightly even though the older man looked horrified by the gesture. “I knew it.”

“What?” I breathed, sucker punched by Tiernan’s calm assertion.

I’d asked him for help, but never in my wildest dreams had I assumed he would offer this.

He blinked those eerily pale eyes at me as if I were an idiot. “You. Are. Coming. With. Me.”

I gnashed my teeth together, my hands forming fists I planted on my hips. The desire to stomp my foot was strong. Instead, I ground the heel of my tired black pumps (Aida’s castoffs) into the grass.

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” he said easily, awkwardly patting Brando’s shoulder before he carefully pushed him away with three fingers to his shoulder as if he was afraid of cooties. “It’s done.”

“Done?” It couldn’t be. These things took time. I knew because the CPS agent we’d talked to had assured me I’d need patience with the proceedings. We would probably be shuffled around to different foster families before they could find a permeant placement. “There’s no way.”

His grin was wolfish. “You’ll learn there is always a way if money is involved or the right name is whispered in the right ear. Luckily for you two, I have both. You’re coming home with me to New York.”

I looked wildly to my left and right, desperate for an escape hatch I knew I wouldn’t find.

“It’s true,” Elena said from behind me and I realized I’d forgotten about her, about Ezra, about everyone except for Tiernan and Brando. “The expeditated hearing was this afternoon and the judge granted him temporary custody.”

“It’s just temporary,” I confirmed on a relieved sigh.

We could still get out of this. It wasn’t too late.

Anyone was better than Tiernan.

He was rich and handsome, but those qualities were only a thin veneer over the decayed heart of him. I could smell it, the rot, and see it, the sin lurking behind his green-eyed gaze.

No one could convince me otherwise.

“Probationary,” he confirmed, that same cruel grin curling the scarred side of his mouth. “Just to prove none of us will kill each other.”

Elena and Brando laughed.

I didn’t.

My gaze was locked with Tiernan’s as I fought an internal battle.

I didn’t trust him. I didn’t even like him.

How could I trust him with the care of Brando? Only, had I trusted Aida with him? No. I’d been his mom and dad, his sister and best friend, his caretaker. I might not have given birth to him, but I was in every other way his parent and I was proud of it. I’d been taking as good care of Brando as I had the means to do.

If Tiernan was our guardian, I’d have even more resources at my disposal.

Maybe even surgery that could afford Brando a life free of seizures and their protracted consequences.

He was bright, too. Smarter than most of the kids in his class. If we moved to New York, I was sure we could find a better school—the best school—for him. He could grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer, a comic book artist or a world-class baker. I didn’t care what he did when he was older, I just wanted to see him get there healthy and happy, ready to succeed.

Maybe Tiernan was the best choice for Brando.

But was he the best choice for me?

There was something about him that stirred me, dredging up the gunk at the bottom of my soul until everything seemed murky, unknown and vaguely threatening. I didn’t like not knowing who I was around him, what I might say or do just to get a rise out of him. It was like two polar opposite magnets. As a kid, I’d loved trying to force the like poles of each magnet against each other just to feel the hard energy pulsating between them, unable to meet but vibrating with tension.

I had this gut feeling, festering and painful, that if I went with Tiernan, I’d never be the same again.