Taken by the Beast (The Conduit Series Book 1) (7 page)

I wasn’t a good fit for that place, and I sure as hell wasn’t a good fit for Abram. Our last interaction would’ve told anyone as much. All I wanted to do was stop thinking about him—about his brooding eyes, about his hard, sculpted chest, about his stupidly handsome (and always scowling) face. Most of all, I didn’t want to think about the electricity that sparked between us more and more every time we were near one another.

I promised Dalton I would give it the weekend and let myself cool off before I officially quit. He didn’t want me running in there and saying something I would regret. So I sat around all weekend, twiddling my thumbs, chewing the scenery, and all around chilling out. Turned out Dalton was right. After I got a hold of myself, the fire in my gut—the thing that was pushing me to run away from Abram and The Castle so quickly—died down. Even the desire to leave faded.

I was left only with this: the knowledge I would be better off away from there, away from him. Away from my unexplainable feelings that threatened to ruin a good thing between Dalton and me.

And that was as clear as it was pertinent. It was for that reason I knew I still had to quit.

I moved down the stairwell to the club as carefully as I had every time, save the first. Expecting to see him standing outside an unbroken sphere of police barricades, I was stunned to find the alleyway empty and the pavement littered with shredded crime scene tape.

“Damn him,” I muttered.

I hurried the rest of the way toward the door, ready to type my security code into the pad and get this over with, but the door was already open. In fact, it was swung out so far it had practically fallen off the hinges.

“Abram,” I called through the door. “Abram, you’re not supposed to be in there. They could throw your dumb ass in prison for this!”

When he didn’t answer, I stepped inside. I was going to kill this man even if I ended up in an orange jumpsuit. I flicked on the lights to get a better look, but what I saw took my breath away.

The entire place was in ruins.

The furniture was tipped over, destroyed with its pieces splayed across the floor. Glasses lay shattered in shards on what was left of the bar, and scorch marks spotted the drapes and carpeted areas. All my work in tatters around me.

“Somebody set this place on fire,” I whispered to myself.

“Among other things.”

I jumped back a step. Even though I had expected Abram’s presence, his voice still startled me. But nothing was more alarming than his condition.

Abram sat ass against the floor, his knees to his chest, his eyes transfixed on the destruction surrounding him. Though he remained his hulking self, dressed in a gray pair of pants and a tight matching blazer, he looked smaller somehow.

It didn’t take me long to recognize the look on his face. It was the same one I felt on my own when my agent told me I had aged out of modeling, when I had to move to a smaller apartment, when Mom was diagnosed. It was utter defeat, the sort one only earns by watching everything they’ve built melt away in an instant.

Maybe I had been wrong about Abram not caring about The Castle. Whatever things in this world were important to him, this club was among them.

I walked a few steps toward him, but decided it prudent to keep at least some distance between us.

I splayed my hands. “What happened?”

“Looters, I suppose. That’s what the fire department told me.” He shrugged lightly. “They took the beer, all the alcohol. Smashed up the place pretty good. I’m told I’m ‘lucky’ they were able to contain the fire. Some
luck
, huh?”

My hand flexed into a fist at my side. “My God, why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t think you would care,” he mumbled.

“That’s not fair,” I said, shaking my head. “I know we didn’t leave off in a good place, but if you needed me, I would have come.” I cleared my throat, turning to hide the blush creeping up my cheeks. “I mean, it’s my job.”

“Is it?” he asked, arching his brows. “After the other day, I wasn’t sure. What are you doing here anyway? You obviously didn’t know any of this was going on, and you’re not on the schedule.”

“I came here to quit.” I sighed. “But it’s not—”

“Quit then,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you.” His gaze panned the room. “I know I gave you a hard time before, but you shouldn’t have to go through this. It isn’t your mess to clean up.”

Turned out that was all it took. Looking at Abram, so humbled, so downtrodden, and hearing him tell me that none of this was my problem … well, it made me want
to
make
it my problem.

He was a dick, sure. But he was also right. I shouldn’t have to go through this. No one should.

Not even him.

“I can’t believe how selfish people are,” I said, and I crossed the rest of the way to kneel beside him on the floor—even though it would likely ruin my designer skirt. “To hit you when you’re down like this, all for a couple bottles of beer and whiskey.”

“Please.” He scoffed. “Tell me you aren’t as blind or ignorant as the firemen and police officers in this town.”

“What?” I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t think this was a burglary?”

“The fire started upstairs,” he said, his gaze lifting up. “Where that girl was killed.”

I wasn’t sure whether it was what he said or the way his dark eyes bore into me after he said it, but suddenly it was hard to form words.

“I—you …” My hands twisted together in my lap. I wanted to reach out to comfort him, but for some reason, it felt wrong. “You think someone was trying to destroy the evidence?”

“No,” he said, scowling. “I think someone
succeeded
in destroying the evidence. The entire attic is gone. Most of the bottom floor was ravaged.”

I didn’t know what to say. Nothing would make him feel better.

“There’s nothing left here, Ms. Bellamy, at least nothing you can help me fix.”

“So that’s it?” I asked. “You have one bad week, and you just give up?”

He smirked, challenging me with his gaze. “Says the girl who came to quit.”

I lowered my head and stared at my hands folded in my lap. “It’s not like that.”

He sat up straighter, some of his old self shining through again, and I didn’t know whether to be grateful or annoyed for that. “Then tell me what it is like.”

Yes, I
had
just come in to quit, in no small part because I saw this place, and my boss, as a lost cause. That didn’t mean I wanted Abram to feel the same way, though, and I wasn’t sure how to tell him that without letting on to thinking the place was doomed no matter what.

“I—uh—”

He tilted his head to one side. “You what? Are you at a loss for words, Ms. Bellamy?”

I slammed my fist against the ground between us. “You are extremely aggravating!”

Abram leaned back against the wall, hands folded behind his head, and closed his eyes. “There’s the door,” he said, pointing. “No one’s making you stay.”

That was probably
why
I was so upset right now. Because if I was being honest with myself, a small part of the reason I had done this—a very, very small part—had been because I wanted him to fight for me to stay. Now here I was, trying to convince him he still needed me.

Something wasn’t right here.

And still I tried.

“I get that it’ll be a lot of work—”

“Too much work, Ms. Bellamy.” He brushed himself off and stood up. Even now, after having known him for this long, I was still shocked by the sheer size of him. “And for what?”

“For this!” I answered, waving at the wreckage and hoping he could see it for what it could still be. “You worked really hard on this.”

Well, whenever you weren’t disappearing for the night.

“
We
worked really hard on this!” I added, following him as he marched toward the hallway. “We worked our asses off for this stupid club, and now you’re just going to walk away because things got rough?”

“Is that what you think this is about?” He turned to me so abruptly that I took a step back. His eyes bore into me again, and I could barely catch my breath. “What’s happening here is dangerous. These disappearances, this murder, that howling thing in the woods—this is not pretend, Ms. Bellamy. This is not some dark fairytale you can dismiss or ignore. Real people are
dying
. Do you think I care about this ridiculous club, about these walls and floors? This was supposed to be a place they could go! A place where they would be safe while—” He bit his lip hard and looked at the floor. Looking back up at me, he added. “It was never about this
place
.”

“Then what?” I asked in a small voice. “What is it about?”

“Don’t you get it?” His brow furrowed, as though he was surprised that I didn’t already know the answer to my question.

“It’s about … the people?”

“You, Ms. Bellamy,” he said, softening his tone. “It’s about you, of course. Ever since you fell into my arms, ever since the moment I saw you, with that freckle in your eye and your take-the-world-by-storm nature, it’s been about you.”

My heart jackhammered in my chest, beating so hard I was sure it would shatter my ribcage. Was this actually happening? Was Abram telling me he had feelings for me? But that couldn’t be right.

“What are you saying?” I asked, too stunned to move.

“I’m saying there are things happening here that you don’t know about, that you shouldn’t have to worry about.” He set his jaw. “You need to leave this club, leave this town, and don’t ever look back.” He gave me a long stare—one that I might describe as longing if I was forward enough to believe it—then he added, “Your final paycheck will be in the mail by the end of business today. Have a good life, Ms. Bellamy.”

He turned and lumbered toward the back room. I followed after him just in time to watch him head through the ‘symbol door.’

He was not just going to say that and walk away! I rushed behind him and grabbed the handle, but it scorched my fingers. I yanked my hand back.
What the hell
? It was way too hot to touch, let alone turn.

I chewed my lip, eyeing the door, thinking about shouting at him through the hunk of wood to come back out here. But even the thought of doing that made me feel pathetic. I had come here to quit—to get away from him. And now I was running after him, on the verge of begging him to talk to me?

No, I couldn’t be that girl. But I certainly wasn’t going to be the girl who took commands from some man who didn’t even know how to work a damned ice machine.

Yes, there were things going on here. Things I didn’t know about, and things that I
did
. There were reasons for me to stay in this town. Dalton, for one, and for two, well … Abram.

Ugh
.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall beside the symbol door, tilting my head back. I was here for Lulu. That’s why I came in the first place, even if most days it felt more like she was helping me. But I promised I would be here when she had her baby, and if for no other reason, that was why I would stay. I certainly wasn’t going to run away just because some asshole told me I should.

I moved back to the club’s main area, deflating as I surveyed the mess. Dalton aside, this club had been the only bright spot in my last few weeks. Fixing this dive up—making it a place people wanted to be—filled me with a sense of purpose that I hadn’t felt since Mom died.

That’s when I knew what I would do. Instead of
telling
Abram what I was thinking, I would
show
him. I would fix this entire place up and let him see for himself that I was stronger than whatever dangers he feared for on my behalf. He might have been ready to throw in the towel, but I wasn’t. We would worry about the rest later—add security, do a night of free admission to show this place wasn’t a murder barn … whatever necessary, we would do it. But Milan-be-damned, this club wouldn’t be left for dead.

Mom didn’t raise a quitter and, soon enough, Abram would know that, too.

It took three phone calls and all of forty-five minutes to get help putting The Castle back together. I would have liked to give myself a huge pat on the back for proving myself to be a competent and effective manager (if that was even what I was anymore), but the truth was, for all the upper crust snootiness New Haven had garnered in the last decade, work was still few and far between—which meant the lowly middle class couldn’t turn away employment opportunities. Even if those opportunities happened to be at a murder scene.

I couldn’t, of course, actually do any of the refurbishments until the police tape officially came down. And since that wasn’t happening for a day or two, I had plenty of time to load up on supplies. Unfortunately, the only décor store I could find that didn’t have the word ‘Barn’ in the title was a good fifty miles away, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me.

It was that want for supplies—or, more precisely, the hunt for the perfect replacement tables—which had me on the road that night.

I should have gone earlier, but Lulu had woken up short of breath and, as the designated freeloading best friend, rushing her to the emergency room fell under my jurisdiction. It was just gas (thank God), but when you’re that preggers, they apparently have to run three dozen tests no matter what brings you to the hospital.

By the time I got her back home, fed, and safely in bed with Jack snoring in the next room, the sun had already set.

I thought about putting the trip off until tomorrow. I even thought about asking Dalton to come with me. It could be a date, of sorts. But I was behind schedule, and if I was going to be serious about this, then I needed to get a move on, and Dalton would have been … distracting.

I cut onto the main road, my mind firing off one stressing thought after the next. Things were supposed to be simpler here. This was supposed to be the place I could chill out and start over after my mother’s death.

But here I was, dating one man, thinking about another, and strutting down a runway surrounded by an ever-growing audience of dead bodies that looked unnervingly like me.

Why was I doing this? I never wanted to run a nightclub, and I sure as hell didn’t see myself settling down in New Haven.