26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Lucy
Ididn’t know what time it was, not that it really mattered.
I lay on Dax’s bed beside him, a pleasant soreness radiating from my core, the slick aftermath of our sex between my thighs.
I didn’t know it could feel like this. No man had ever come close to doing the kinds of things Dax did to me.
He possessed me in every sense of the word.
He dominated my body, bringing me a kind of cataclysmic pleasure I never knew possible.
However, deep-seeded guilt came creeping back up as we lay together in silence.
I didn’t recognize that my eyes had become watery until Dax’s stormy blue gaze churned with concern.
“What’s wrong, Luce?” he asked me.
My throat felt suddenly tight. A tear sprang in the corner of my eye, and I felt it roll down my cheek. Dax wiped it with the pad of his thumb before I could move.
“Nothing…” I coughed. “Nothing’s wrong and that’s the problem. I’m a terrible person. After everything that happened to Tara, after literally everything I’ve put you through,I feel so guilty for even thinking it.”
“Thinking what, Luce?” Dax’s eyes were a deep ocean of worry. He brushed another rogue tear from my cheek. “Tell me, baby.”
“It’s just…I shouldn’t feel this happy, but I am.
I’m so fucking happy, and it’s so wrong because of everything that got us right here.
The threats, the stalking–everything I’ve been through, you’ve been by my side.
And right now, it’s the best I’ve ever felt; this release, this gratification.
And I know I should be ashamed. The only reason we’re here is because of what happened to Tara and I…
I’m just so fucking selfish for it.” I stared at the mirror across the room.
“No.” His hand reached to cup my chin lightly, lifting it so my eyes met his again.
“Listen to me, Lucy. Bad things happen to good people all the time. You are a good person, and you’ve been dealt a real shit hand recently.
But that’s why it's even more important you hold onto the things that bring you happiness. Even in the most fucked up times, that’s something nobody can take away unless you let them.
You can’t lose your light–you need to let it shine as bright as you can.
” His thumb traced my lips as I blinked away another tear.
“My light?” I asked him.
He let out a brusque chuckle. “Yes, light. Luce. You’re so filled with light it damn near blinds me.
It’s so strong and radiant and fucking powerful.
You’re like the fucking sun, and every time you’re near me it feels like I can photosynthesize it.
” His eyes were so intense on mine that I wanted to shrink under the silk sheets of his bed. But then it dawned on me…
“Luce? Is that what that means? Light?” The tears I was about to cry halted as I looked at him with confusion and a touch of jest.
He gazed at me with those breathtaking eyes, his sharp features twisted in amusement. “What did you think it meant?”
I felt a little embarrassed to admit it out loud. “Honestly…I thought it was just a weird way to say my name. I thought this whole time it was some kind of a dig…” Holy shit.
“No, Luce, I would never make fun of your name. That’s what it means…Lucy means light.”
I didn’t know that, nor had I ever even considered what my name meant. It was just what my parents decided to call me. It was what I responded to. How the hell did he know something like that?
“Where did you learn that?” I asked.
His eyes shifted as he ran a finger over my bottom lip, and for some reason my question seemed to make him pause. Surely this was a reasonable question after an admission like that.
“Back in San Francisco, that morning in my house, I told you about CIPHER and what they do. I told you all the basics I thought you needed to know. But I didn’t tell you everything.
I’m sure dinner with Emile tonight gave you a hint that my connection runs a little deeper than I let on.
” His voice was gravelly. I couldn’t decipher the look in his eyes as he moved his hand from my face, down my neck to caress my shoulder.
Yeah, obviously.
This was one of the things I’d been racking over in my brain until he came in here and condemned me to hours of rapture. “I might have caught on to that…” I told him.
A glaze seemed to coat his eyes, but they remained focused on mine as he continued to speak, “My mother and father owned a deli back in New York. They worked hard, but life was really great for me as a kid. I fucking loved it there. One night, she left the deli a little early, to pick me up from my friend’s house.
On her way, she was attacked. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was raped and murdered.
She was missing for almost a week before her body was found in the Hudson. ”
Jesus Christ.
I kept my eyes locked on him, even though his gaze seemed to be on something much further away, indistinguishable in the short space between us.
He continued, “My dad was a good man, but things changed after she died. For years, I didn’t know the truth about what happened to her.
He told me she was in an accident and that was all I knew until I was a teenager and found the police reports saved on his computer.
All he wanted was to pass on the legacy of his hard work to the next generation.
Work became his only love because it was the place that reminded him of her.
He’d write these crazy letters to her and shove them behind loose bricks in the deli. He became delusional.”
My stomach clenched.
He paused as I lifted my hand to the dark curls at his temple.
I ran it through my fingers before tracing the line of his brow.
I wanted him to tell me more, but I also wanted him to take his pace.
Eventually, he said, “I was a smart kid. Too smart. And I was so angry with him for keeping me from the truth. I let that beast of fury and vengeance cultivate inside me for years.” He pulled a strand of hair from my face and twirled it around his finger, eyeing it intently as it unraveled.
“Dax…I don’t even know what to say. That’s fucking horrible,” I said, my voice was full of emotion. The thought of a young version of him, lost after his mother was murdered squeezed my heart in a cruel grip.
“Yeah. It was pretty fucking shitty. I knew my dad wanted me to take over the deli, but I didn’t care.
He begged me to hold onto everything they built together.
It was his dream, though. Not mine. I needed more.
The moment I got into NYU, I packed my shit.
” He swallowed, his gaze as foggy as the bay I now called home.
“I scraped together some cash and moved into the cheapest place I could find, which is how I ended up living with Emile, Clay, and Tony.”
Tony. For some reason the way he said that name gave me chills. It was the same person Emile mentioned earlier when we were by the fireplace.
“One night, Tony and I drank so much we were spinning. I told him about what happened to my mom. What I wanted to do to the fucker who killed her. Of course, I had no clue who that was since they’d never found her murderer.
Only DNA evidence led them to know about the nature of her assault.
” His hand trailed behind my back, and despite the warmth between us, there was a coolness beneath his touch.
“Tony was a puzzle master, he could hack into anything, knew his way around the dark web. He knew all the right places to look.” Dax swallowed, his gaze hardening.
“I still don’t know how he did it, but he was able to figure out who killed her.
A dirty cop who had a string of similar atrocities that the police department was covering up for him.
And what could we do about it? Obviously we couldn’t go to the cops.
” He let out a sharp laugh. “But I had to do something. Tony helped me. It took us months of planning, but I made sure that fucker finally got what he deserved.”
A chill ran up my spine, and I’m pretty sure Dax noticed because he gave me a soft squeeze on my side and started drawing comforting circles around my back.
“Disposing of him wasn’t enough though. The department hid the truth from the public for years. They protected a monster. After he was dead, we exposed a plethora of other shit they were hiding from the public.” Dax continued to trace lines along my back as I processed what he said.
“When you say disposed…?” My heart was rapping against my ribcage.
Dax’s face was solemn. “I tried to tell you, Luce. I’m not a good man.
I’ve done a lot of unspeakable things, but I can’t say I regret what I did to him.
The problem is it didn’t stop there. Tony and I realized what we achieved, that we could do again.
We could strike it rich by targeting large companies with shady ethics, and we could justify it by helping people. ”
Fuck. I’d had an inkling about the kinds of things Dax was truly capable of but hearing him admit it out loud was the confirmation I needed.
Yet for some reason, despite the fact he just admitted to murder, I wasn’t scared of him.
Regardless of everything he was saying, I knew there was good in Dax.
I’d seen it firsthand. I’d seen it in the fierce way he protected me, and in his willingness to give me help when he owed me nothing.
Call me fucking crazy, but I trusted this man with my life.
“So, what happened after?” I asked.
Dax huffed out a long breath. “We realized if we wanted to really give it a go, we needed more than just us. Emile was already developing his first app, and he was an expert in tracking. Clay’s security business was at the startup stage but building the kind of manpower we needed.
We approached them, and they agreed. That’s how CIPHER was born.
We chased the high. Retribution. Power. And for years, it worked. ”
Dax ran his hand up and down my bare thigh, the movement sending a shiver up my leg.
I knew there was more, but I waited for him to keep talking.
I could tell this wasn’t something he was used to reliving.
“We made so much money. We justified it because we were saving people from horrible fates. Three years ago, we went to Miami to take down a corporate CFO guy at a big tech company who found a little side hustle in human trafficking. We’d fronted a meeting with him under the guise of an insider-trading deal worth millions.
” Dax took another pregnant pause. “He was well-prepared. We were able to take them down, but Tony got caught in the crossfire. He was killed. That same night, my father took his own life.”
My skin went cold. I twisted around so I could lean up on my elbow to meet Dax’s face. His expression was carefully constructed. My heart ached in a slow pattern. He’d seen so much loss–far more than I could possibly relate to.
“It was my fault they died. In all that time, when I thought I was saving the world, it had only been for my own advantage. I couldn’t keep pretending I was doing it for anything besides my thirst for revenge.
I was addicted to the power. I let it consume me.
And when it was done, I had nothing left but darkness.
I’ve spent all this time running away from it…
” He took a deep breath. "Until I met you. You’re the light I never thought I’d find, Lucy. ”
His words sank in. I finally understood what he meant. What he’d really been saying every single time he called me Luce. He was giving me a glimpse into who he really was, and why he felt the need to protect me. It was rooted far deeper than I could’ve ever imagined, ingrained in his soul.
I leaned down and his eyes closed as I pressed my lips to his in a soft kiss. He swooped an arm back around me, pulling me tight against his chest.
“There’s a lot more to you than darkness, Dax. What happened to them wasn’t your fault, and you can’t let the past define you. You don’t have to hide from yourself to be a good man.”
Dax pursed his lips. “I’m not sure if that’s something I’m capable of,” he mumbled. “But keep filling me with that light of yours and I might believe you.”