Chapter 3 Wren
He’s alive.
Relief crashes over me in a wave. I’m swimming in it—drowning in it—until Rafe tilts my chin and pulls me up for air.
“Has your lemonade been spiked?” he asks, amused.
It feels like it. “I didn’t know you had another brother,” I murmur.
“Really?” He sounds surprised. “You’ve never met Gabe?”
My mouth opens, then closes again.
Even in the throb of confusion, I know I don’t tell lies. Even those in the lightest shade of white get stuck in the base of my throat, and I have a hard time choking them out. But the truth is now stuck there too, because if Rafe doesn’t know we’ve met, it means Gabriel hasn’t told him either.
Which means he doesn’t know about that night.
I shake my head.
Rafe laughs in disbelief and lets go of my chin. “Yeah, well, Gabe keeps himself to himself.”
You know, perhaps we’re not talking about the same person.
Maybe he’s talking about another man, one I haven’t spotted yet, who happens to have a similar name.
Maybe someone over at the bar or surrounded by that group of girls in the corner.
A man who fits the Visconti mold, with a sharp suit and an air of importance like the rest of them.
Perhaps there’s not a man in the shadows. It’s just the darkness playing tricks on me.
Anticipation grips my neck as I slowly look over my shoulder. I find the strobe light and track its path over stilettos, discarded penis straws, and pools of spilled liquor.
It inches up the wall.
Ink.
Scar.
A green gaze clashing with mine.
In a short, sharp breath, he’s gone again, reclaimed by the shadow.
Rafe’s eyes warm my cheek. “He’s not as scary as he looks, I promise.”
My body is throbbing, and I swallow thickly. “Does he live on the coast?”
“Sometimes.”
“And he works for the family business too?”
His smile pulls taut. “Mm-hm.”
From what I’ve seen of him, even under the dimmest of lighting, I can’t imagine him sitting behind a desk tapping away on a keyboard. “Doing what?”
He pauses. “Security.”
My heartbeat slows a little. Well, I suppose that makes sense. The Viscontis are probably worth a fortune, and I’m sure both their family name and bank accounts bring all sorts of criminals out of the woodworks.
It would also explain why I haven’t seen him around and why he was lurking in the shadows of the parking lot. Being covert is likely part of his job description.
But it doesn’t explain what he was doing that night.
ABBA fades, and the DJ rambles something incoherent over the microphone. A loud cheer ripples through the crowd in response.
Rafe puts his hand on my shoulder and flashes a brilliant smile.
“It was a pleasure, Wren, but it’s about time that I …
” He tugs back the cuff of his shirt and glances at his bare wrist. A look of contempt flickers through his expression.
“Get a new watch,” he mutters, then kisses the back of my hand.
If he notices it’s shaky, he doesn’t mention it. “Save a dance for me tomorrow, okay?”
With a wink, he’s gone, parting the crowd with his mere presence.
Now what?
I’m too jittery to dance or make small talk. Shuffling from one foot to the other, I run my sweaty palms down the side of my dress and peer around. Tayce is still AWOL, and Rory and Angelo are still attached by at least two limbs and a mouth.
Rory. I bet she still hasn’t had any damn water.
I take a step toward the bar but stop myself.
My legs are like jelly—but why? Why am I so nervous?
I should be happy—he’s alive!—and I am happy.
In fact, I should bounce on over to him, throw my arms around him, and tell him so.
Then we’ll gush over how it’s such a small world and how we can’t believe his brother is marrying my best friend, then we’ll marvel about how we’ve never bumped into each other before this.
I’m sure he’ll thank me. And then …
A cold sweat drifts through me.
And then he’ll ask me to tell him my secret.
There it is, the source of restlessness humming under my skin.
My mind drifts back to that night. The ghost of the October chill caresses my nape, and those words dance on the tip of my tongue. I blow them out in a long, hard breath, letting them dissipate between dancing bodies, never to be uttered aloud.
Another cheer rises up from behind me, and a plucky base fissures out of the speakers. Someone shouts my name over a rising beat. When I spin around, two lines have formed on the dance floor.
Well, then. The day I don’t dance to the “Macarena” is the day I’m dead.
Usually, I’d elbow my way into a space front and center, but tonight, the black hole in the back corner has a gravitational pull. So I squeeze through a gap in the first row and join the far end of the second, turning to face the front before the strobe light can reveal the man at the heart of it.
Shyness is a foreign concept to me, and it’s not the reason I can’t bring myself to turn around and break the ice.
Or even just melt it a little with a smile and a wave.
It’s something more unsettling. It crackles out of the darkness, prickling my back like a low hum of an electric fence warning me not to touch it.
It glues my socks to the floor and rolls my head to the right, forcing me to make pleasantries with Priti, a girl who used to sit in front of me in math class.
She ignores my compliment about her cute shirt. “So, you and Rafe Visconti, hmm?” She wiggles her eyebrows, just in case the insinuation dripping from her tone wasn’t obvious enough. “We all saw you dancing.”
I roll my eyes. “I dance with all my friends.”
“Uh-huh, sure.”
“I’m dancing with you now, aren’t I?”
The dance floor shudders as twenty girls in heels jump to face the right wall. We put our hands out front and turn our palms up.
“You look cute together,” Priti shouts over her shoulder.
Whatever. Even if my thoughts weren’t too busy probing around in the shadows, I wouldn’t bother defending myself.
Because if I had a crush on Rafe Visconti, Lord knows the world and its wife would know about it.
We wiggle. We jump. Now we’re facing the back wall, and the nerves in my chest drop to my stomach and hum in anticipation.
Hands out front. Palms face up. The strobe light sweeps, and there he is, glaring at me again.
From this angle, the light frames his whole face. It’s only a fraction of a second, and I’d have missed it if I’d blinked. But I didn’t, and now it’s stamped onto my retinas as though I’ve been blinded by a too-bright camera flash.
Shock and something colder freezes me in place. I scan the darkness he’s disappeared back into, trying to commit the image to memory and reconcile it with that night.
But I can’t. There’s nothing familiar, nothing to grab a hold of for comfort.
Survival instinct stiffens my muscles, but it’s kicked in three years too late. I jump to the right, half a chorus too early, seeking relief.
Hands out. Palms down. No—palms across chest.
Wait. What am I doing again?
My cheeks burn and my pulse throbs as I struggle to claw back my rhythm. When we jump to face the front again, Priti’s smirk bores into my cheek. “I still can’t believe he’s Rafe and Angelo’s brother.”
My eyes slide sideways. “You know him?”
“You don’t?”
There’s no room in my brain for annoyance, so it slithers under my skin instead. How on earth does Priti know of this mysterious, terrifying third Visconti brother and I don’t? I’ve got that feeling again, the one where I can’t quite jump into the loop, and I don’t like it.
And my expression must show it because she swaps out her smirk for a frown. “Seriously? You don’t know the Boogeyman?”
Boogeyman. There’s that damn word again.
Wiggle.
Jump.
I’m dancing on muscle memory alone now, staring at the back of Priti’s head as she thrashes out the moves half a beat behind the music.
She glances over her shoulder. “Come on, Wren. You’ve never heard the legend about avoiding the Reserve after dark on a full moon? They say it’s when the Boogeyman comes out of his underground lair.” Her eyes widen in mock horror. “And he doesn’t like people being on his turf.”
Dread slows my pulse.
The Devil’s Coast is littered with lore.
The Pacific winds spread myths and legends as fast as gossip along these cliffs, and they pique my interest just as much.
They even make up the bulk of my small talk with any out-of-towner who stumbles into The Rusty Anchor on a quiet night.
Of course, I’m partial to the self-serving tales.
With elbows resting on the splintered bartop, I’ll whisper the warning of Grim Reaper Road to those with cars in the parking lot: drive too fast around the bend connecting Devil’s Hollow with Devil’s Cove, and Death himself will step out into the path of your headlights.
If I’m feeling particularly romantic, or if said out-of-towner happens to be good-looking, perhaps I’ll suggest he take a walk on the eastern side of the Devil’s Reserve, turn left at the felled oak tree, and stroll half a mile to the Bleeding Falls.
There, if he closes his eyes and listens, the blood-red cascade will whisper the name of your one true love—and would you know it, whoosh sounds like “Wren” if you concentrate hard enough.
But the Boogeyman roaming the forest during a full moon? Underground lair? The mere mention of it prickles my skin with unease. It was a full moon that night.
Death brushes past my shoulder, and I shiver.
My throat itches with the need to ask questions. Though, I have a sinking feeling I don’t want to know the answers.
We jump. The floor pushes back in protest. Palms down, palms up, palms across chest. My body aches with awareness, and this time I’m not brave enough to follow the light’s path.
Jump. Hands jut out with a tremble. Palms glisten with sweat under the disco lighting. Up, no, across—oh, to hell with this.