Chapter 25

Rosabel La Rouge

* Ladies’ and* Gentlemen’s Diamond Club said the red sign, with the first two words obviously added only recently—the lights on them were fresh, much more intense than the others, and put closer together because there was not enough space. The building on which the sign was mounted was pretty big—five stories tall and wide—and there were a lot of cars in front. It was almost midnight, and I’d had to drive for about four hours to get here, but I’d found the place fairly easily online when I bought the phone.

Nothing about my life right now made much sense or even felt real, but I was glad for it. I considered it a break because things were going to get real when I looked Radock Tivoux in the eye tonight and asked him where Taland was.

Oh, yes. Things were about to get very real for me soon. Goose bumps covered me completely at the thought of it. I’d been sitting in the car for a couple hours, parked two roads away just in case, but close enough that I could see the bright red light of that sign.

I’d eaten. I’d slept for seven hours. Not the best sleep, but it was sleep, nonetheless. The charm was with me and I’d renewed my own ward to remain invisible (hopefully) to the IDD teams who were searching for me. My ring was on my finger, and the bracelet around my wrist, too, covered by the sleeve of my jacket.

I was as ready as I was going to get, and if I overthought any of this for another second, I was afraid I’d never get out of that car, so I did it right away. With a deep breath and my teeth gritted, I jumped out and I kept walking until I crossed the street. Closer to the strip club. To that building.

To the Tivoux brothers.

We were in the outskirts of the city, with mostly warehouses around us, the highway not too far away. Just like Cassie said, the building was basically attached to a warehouse, but it was almost invisible against the darkness of the sky—or maybe because all the light was focused at the entrance of the club.

There were more people there than I’d have liked, but I didn’t let that stop me. I just reminded myself that I didn’t look like me, and I went ahead like I knew what I was doing, like I belonged here, like I didn’t really believe that I’d never make it out of this place alive.

At least Taylor would get her tree house while she was still a kid.

On my way out of Baltimore, I’d seen a carpenter’s shop with a big sign by the road listing all their services. Building tree houses was one of them. I gave the guy the address to Taylor’s trailer home and paid for everything. He said he’d be there the day after tomorrow. I’d have loved to see it with my own eyes, to see the look on her face when they made her her tree house, but at least I knew she’d get it. With it, she’d remember me hopefully in case I never saw her again.

After all, I was about to enter a strip club with no idea if I’d ever make it out of it in one piece.

Goddess, it’s just like walking into the Iris Roe again.

Three bouncers at the door. They looked down at my choice of clothing with a raised brow. I hadn’t bothered to change, just used the restrooms of a gas station on the way to clean myself up as well as I could.

They didn’t seem concerned about my age, though. Nobody asked for my ID.

It occurred to me that I could put a confusion spell on them, but I didn’t want to use magic if I could help it because people could see. So, I just smiled and I said my friends were waiting for me inside, and the bouncers were hesitant, but they let me through. They didn’t even search me, which was a shame, because I’d left the 44 in the car, thinking they would.

The inside of the club was incredibly loud, and all those flashing lights made me dizzy three seconds in. A long corridor took me to the main room, and I’d never been to this kind of club before, but fuck, this was intense.

It was just like Cassie said—a hybrid strip club. Strippers everywhere you looked—in cages extending from the tall ceiling, in glass boxes, some half filled with water, and on the three stages all around the large space.

The fourth corner was the bar.

People pushed me and stepped on my toes. People screamed and drank and danced like there was no tomorrow. I couldn’t tell you if they were human or Iridian, just that there was a lot of them, and it took me a good long time to get to the bar.

By the time I managed to basically fall against the side of it, I was sweating, my hair sticking to my cheeks and my shirt sticking to my back, and my palms were a slippery mess, too.

“ Are you going to order or not?!”

I looked up, still trying to catch my breath, to find a bartender was staring at me with his brows narrowed, the effect doubled because of all the piercings on the left one. He must have been waiting a minute because he seemed really impatient.

I pushed myself up as far as I could and said, “I’m looking for Radock Tivoux.”

He pointed at his ears to say that he couldn’t hear me, and of course he couldn’t—the music in this place could wake the dead without the need for a necromancy spell at all.

So, I tried again, this time screaming at the top of my lungs, “ Radock Tivoux! I’m looking for Radock Tivoux!”

Something flashed in his eyes when he heard the name, but it was gone too soon, and it could have also been a trick of the lights. So many lights…

“Nope.” The bartender shook his head. “Don’t know who that is.”

I read the words on his lips because I couldn’t hear his voice at all.

Even so, my instincts said that he was lying, so I tried again.

“Can you just tell someone that Rosabel is here?!” I shouted. “ Rosabel — that’s me !”

He’d know. I was sure Radock would know even if I didn’t say my last name for fear someone might recognize it—I was the fucking winner of the Iris Roe.

But again, the guy shook his head and shrugged, and turned his back to me.

“ Hey!” I shouted, but he simply pushed one of the other bartenders that was in the middle of the long counter toward me and began to take orders from people on the other side.

Cursing under my breath, I debated going over there again and making him tell me why he was running from me. All I wanted was to talk to Radock—why was that such a big deal?

But I knew that I couldn’t cause a scene, not here. If they kicked me out right now, how the hell would I find the Tivoux brothers?

“Can I get you anything?”

Again, those same words, except these were said from very close to me—the waiter with a big tray in his hands, full of empty glasses.

“Do you know Radock Tivoux?”

“What?” He brought his ear closer.

“Radock Tivoux? Or Seth, or Kaid—do you know them?” I said in his ear.

But he shook his head. “No clue who that is. Are you gonna get a drink? You can’t stay here without a drink.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He didn’t look like he was lying at all—or like he planned to ask for my ID. “Get me a beer and a bottle of water—that okay?”

He nodded, gave me a thumbs up, and walked away.

Closing my eyes, I tried to get my thoughts in order, but it was impossible. The beat of the music was in my head and I couldn’t fucking think straight.

The waiter came back soon, at least. I drank a quarter of the cold beer he brought me before I almost threw up. Thank goddess for that bottle of water to keep me company.

The bartender with the brow piercings was still there, throwing me looks any time he thought I wasn’t watching, and that’s why I decided to wait for him to finish his shift. I’d wait outside, and then we could talk, he and I. Because I knew it in my bones that he knew Radock, and if he knew Radock, he’d know where I could find him.

What else was there left for me to do, anyway?

I leaned there against the counter, and I watched the people having a good time, dancing like I’d never danced before, so close together that the concept of personal space didn’t apply to this place at all. Then I watched the women dancing in the cages, wearing gorgeous lingerie full of glitter and feathers and rhinestones and sequins. The two in the glass boxes half filled with water had red wigs and purple bras that looked like shells, just like Ariel.

The moving lights in blue and green and pink and yellow gave everything such an intense vibe, and I couldn’t look away from the women dancing on the stages for the next ten minutes or so without even noticing what the hell I was doing. They were that good.

So when I remembered myself and turned to make sure the bartender was still there, my breath caught in my throat and every muscle in my body froze in place.

The bartender was there, all right, but there was somebody else sitting across from him on the other side of the bar, too.

Seth Tivoux was watching me with an arched brow and a glass of whiskey in his hand as he rested his elbows on the bar top, completely at ease.

The next moment, a bunch of people stopped between us and took him out of my sight—drunk men and women trying to get a drink, and I was thankful for them. They gave me a much needed moment to breathe in, close my eyes, get my shit together as fast as possible.

Then I stepped away from the bar until Seth was in my line of vision again.

He was talking to a woman sitting on the stool next to him. Smiling at her. Putting his hand over her naked shoulder. Goddess, he looked so much like Taland. You could tell that all of them were related with a single look. None had Taland’s charisma, but Seth was only a couple of years older than him, and though he kept his hair shorter, their faces, their eyes were incredibly similar.

Eyes that were on me once more, and I could have sworn that he saw right through me—for a second.

Then he arched a brow and looked down at the woman he was talking to again.

What the…

The charm.

My own thoughts came to a halt when I remembered that I was wearing a different face—Seth didn’t fucking recognize me. That’s why he wasn’t coming closer or shooting me in the head from where he was sitting or something. He didn’t know it was me!

Slowly, I took Taland’s charm out of my pocket. He said his mother had made all his brothers charms like that, so Seth would recognize it. I really, really hoped he would.

When he looked at me again, I raised the charm in front of me and held it between my thumb and index finger so he could see it.

He did.

The way his face changed so suddenly, I was tempted to turn around and run away. The feeling only intensified when he, without ever looking away from me, said something to the woman sitting next to him, and stood up.

Goddess, he was bigger than I remembered—or maybe it was just my fear talking? But he recognized the charm, and whether he knew it was me or not didn’t matter because he nodded his head to the other side of the club, toward the dance floor and the main stage, and then he disappeared so fast I had to push people out of my way almost violently just to keep up.

My hands were in my pockets. I held onto the charm tightly in one hand and played with my ring in the other as I followed Seth across the wide space. But it was so crowded and dark where the moving lights didn’t hit, that when he disappeared behind a door that was as black as the wall, I almost missed it.

Two men stood to the sides of it, and I realized their beers hadn’t been touched. They were just holding the bottles in their hands as they looked around. Guards . They weren’t customers come to hang out—they were guards, and when I was close enough so they could see me, they analyzed every inch of me before I’d even stopped in front of them. I thought they were going to stop me, ask my name or what the hell I was doing here, but then the one on the right leaned in and pushed the near-invisible door open.

Behind it was darkness, only darkness. The lights of the club didn’t reach there, but that’s where Seth had gone, and that’s where I needed to go as well.

Remember what you’re doing this for , I told myself to help me push this fear back. But even though I continued to walk right into that darkness, my hands shook and my heart galloped in my chest and I couldn’t fill my lungs with enough air.

Then the door behind me closed, and the music of the club cut off by half, as if I’d been transported outside. The sound of footsteps was perfectly clear coming from ahead, but the only thing I could make out with my eyes was a dim yellow light possibly over twenty feet away.

Keep going, keep going, maybe Taland is in there somewhere, I chanted, and with my teeth gritted I made it to a small area with a table full of car magazines piled up at the edges—like a waiting room. The walls were yellow, with a painting of a blue flower in the middle of the longest one on the right, and on the other side was a door, open just a crack. I went through it, slowly, all the while reminding myself to breathe.

This corridor was a lot longer, and there were smaller lamps dotting the white walls on the sides every few feet. I couldn’t see the other end, but I heard the steady footsteps just fine. I followed them for what felt like hours but must have been minutes. I went down a set of concrete stairs and through a wide door made of metal. It led me to a large room that reminded me so much of that basement where I’d been chained before that I almost screamed.

Cold. Dark. Thick concrete walls. Lockers and cabinets, tables scattered all over, weapons—guns and knives and throwing stars here and there like they were fucking toys to play with—and furniture, too, to the right. A carpet and two big sofas made of black leather, a large TV screen right there on the floor, with piles of what could have been CD cases all around it. Two Play Stations, books, magazines…

And behind the biggest sofa was a wide desk like the one my grandmother had in her office, fancy and shiny and carved to perfection, except the color of my grandmother’s desk was a cherry red, and this one was a deep grey that almost looked black.

Radock Tivoux sat behind it with his crossed legs resting on the corner, and his fingers laced together as he watched me with a small smile on his face.

“What do we have here?” said a voice from the other side of the room—Kaid Tivoux with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall, watching me.

“She has Taland’s charm.”

Seth was standing somewhere behind me to the left of the entrance door, and I hadn’t even seen him.

“She told Gerald that she was Rosabel, and she was looking for you , brother,” Seth continued. I imagined he was talking to the eldest because I couldn’t look away from him myself as I slowly stepped to the side, closer to the door again, until I had all three in my line of vision.

The three Tivoux brothers, the same men who’d chained me and tortured me just weeks ago. Those same men.

Then Seth stepped in front of me. “Where’s the charm?”

I swallowed hard, leaning back just a bit. I wanted to jump away, but I didn’t want to show them what I really felt right now. If they saw my fear, it was as good as over. I needed to keep a mask on my face now more than ever.

And I did.

Raising my hand, I showed him the charm that Taland had left me, and Seth smiled. Then, just like I expected, he grabbed it from my fingers lightning fast, as if he was afraid that I wouldn’t let him take it.

I did. Right now, I needed their cooperation, and if giving them that charm was what it took to convince them I wasn’t here to attack or something, so be it.

Seth stepped back and grinned.

“Oh, what a lucky night,” said Kaid as he slowly came closer, hands still in his pockets.

“And where, pray tell, dearest Rosabel, did you get that?”

This from Radock who had also stood up and was coming around his desk, watching me with a gleaming in his eyes now that he could see my real face.

“Taland gave it to me.”

A pause. They held their breath for a split second, then Radock raised his brow. “Taland gave it to you,” he repeated, emphasizing that second word as if he wanted to make sure that he’d heard right.

Sweat on the palms of my hands. “Yes, Taland gave it to me.”

Radock slowly moved toward the TV, then turned back again, a hand in the pocket of his pants, the other around his chin. Goddess, he looked so much like Taland—the way he moved, the way he spun around even, as strange as it sounds.

“So that implies Taland was with you,” he said.

“He was. We’ve been together since Tuesday, and he disappeared Thursday morning. He left me the charm and he disappeared.” I forced myself to look him in the eye no matter how scared I was. “I’m here to look for him.”

But a bad feeling had already settled in my gut because obviously Taland wasn’t here. He wasn’t with his brothers; if he had been, he’d have come out by now. He’d be in the shadows, at least, and I kept looking, but the shadows of this room were all empty.

Taland wasn’t here.

“As an IDD agent?” Kaid said, grinning like he knew the secrets of the whole universe.

“I’m not an agent anymore—you know this.” He laughed, throwing his head back, and his brothers joined him, but I added, “Cassie already told you.”

Their laughter stopped abruptly.

“ Ooh, the little birdie has claws,” Seth then said, raising his hooked fingers to tease me. I ignored him as best as I could.

“The little birdie thinks she’s tough,” said Kaid, and I wanted to say, why don’t you try me, but I clamped my mouth shut. Not only because there were three of them and only one of me, but because I really was hoping for their cooperation. Stranger things had happened. I was still alive—that was as strange as strange gets.

“We might have heard news,” Radock said, and he wasn’t smiling. “Of course, we cannot be certain—you could be on a mission right now.”

“I’m not.” He fucking knew this. “I’m not on a mission—I’m a fugitive.”

“Oh, but we had no idea you were on a mission in that school, either—and you were merely a child then,” Radock said. “I believe the Council capable of all kinds of things if they can use their own children when it suits their needs.”

“What—like you used Taland?”

Fuck, Rora…

I bit my tongue, but it was too late. The way Radock’s smile dropped made it perfectly clear that he was going to kill me—or try. He most definitely would.

“Look, I just want to talk to Taland. We were in the safe house near Dackston, and he just disappeared. I need to know where he is.”

Too late, too late, too late…

“You know, I always knew Taland was weak. I just didn’t know how deeply rooted his weakness was,” Radock said, and he slowly came closer to us, while Seth and Kaid stepped back to give him space.

Then he was right in front of me.

I knew I should have kept my mouth shut—since the beginning, but especially now. But there was just something that went on inside me when he talked about Taland like that. Some instinct I didn’t even know I had that reared its ugly head and filled me with rage until I saw red.

“Taland is not weak,” I said. “He’s stronger than all of you combined.”

The younger brothers laughed. Radock barely smiled. “So, he really was with you when he was taken.”

I stepped closer because I suddenly developed a death wish. “Taken where? By whom?” Taken —who had taken him? I’d have heard, damn it—I’d have heard!

Unless he was taken outside of that safe house…

“Please, just tell me where he is.”

Radock was silent for a while as he looked down at me.

“No.”

If he’d slapped me, it would have surprised me less.

“You barge in here and you make demands, little bird, but you don’t have a clue who you’re dealing with.”

Tears pricked the back of my eyes. “I do know who I’m dealing with. But I couldn’t care less if you’re criminals or rebels or Selem or whatever the fuck your name is—I just want to find Taland. If he was taken, tell me by whom.”

Good thing I managed to stop myself from grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him until the answer fell out of his lips.

But when Radock smiled this time, it reminded me of snakes. Big snakes that could devour you in a single bite.

Slowly, I took a step back.

“So, you not only betrayed my brother, but my brother then betrayed me for you.” He came closer, and I held my ground.

“He didn’t—” betray you, I was going to say because I thought he was talking about Taland telling me those things or giving me his charm.

I was wrong.

“Did you know that he was the one to call Madeline Rogan to come and rescue you when you were chained in our basement?”

My ears whistled. My mind blanked out instantly.

“What?” Because I couldn’t have possibly heard him right.

“That’s right, he did. Then he disappears into the Iris Roe—with you. Then he disappears again, and I am still surprised that it was with you. I really ought to learn by now.” Before I knew it, his fingertips were under my chin, and he raised my head slowly, his dark eyes analyzing every feature on my face. “I am constantly tempted to think you put a spell on him or something. Did you?”

I jerked my head back and stepped away so I could breathe easier. “Please, just tell me where he is.” He knew. He said when he was taken —he knew someone had taken Taland, and I needed to know who and where, and I needed to fucking run all the way to him.

“And if I don’t?” he mocked me, and I couldn’t just slap the shit out of him the way I wanted to. I couldn’t set him on fire with a spell right now, either.

“If you tell me where he is, I’ll tell you who sent me to his school.” At this point I couldn’t have cared less about telling anybody anything they wanted to fucking know because it hurt everywhere and I needed to find Taland, ask him if this was true. Ask if he had really called my grandmother when they chained me to that basement. Ask him if he had lost his fucking mind completely!

Goddess, that man. That man was going to be the death of me for real.

Except Radock didn’t want to negotiate. I gathered that when he was suddenly in front of me again, and his hand was around my neck, long fingers squeezing tightly.

“How about you tell me anyway.”

It wasn’t a question. I grabbed him by the forearm and my magic was already reacting. My ring was on my finger and my bracelet around my wrist, and I decided I was going to make it out of here alive one way or the other. I was going to find Taland because he had a question to answer me—the most important question, perhaps, of my whole life right now. Is it true? Did you call my grandmother? Did you tell her where to find me? Did you-did-you-did you?!

Goddess, I had to know. I simply had to know.

“They told me you got your magic back. I saw that little video of yours, too. Was it a trick, or did it really work?” Radock said, slowly bringing his face closer to mine. I was holding myself back, teeth gritted, thinking, don’t attack yet, because I still hoped they would tell me. I still fucking hoped.

“She was Mud. That much we saw. She was Mud for real,” said Seth before I’d realized that he and Kaid had both moved behind me, one on each side, waiting.

“But you lied and said you weren’t. I was told that they made you say it,” Radock continued. “And I would like to know for certain. So, I’ll tell you where my little brother is, birdie, if you agree to a lien ad liem.”

I tried to shake my head, but it hurt to move when he squeezed me like that. “I don’t—” know what that is, I was going to say, except he squeezed harder and I started choking.

“It’s just a little face to face, if you will. An old spell, but one that requires cooperation between the spellcaster and its subject.” He was so close to me now that I saw every color of his eyes, every wrinkle on his skin. Goddess, it was so hard to hold my magic back, to not attack him right now. “A spell that will allow only the truth to come out of your lips. What do you say, Rosabel La Rouge? Can you commit to that, or I should I just kill you right here and now, and save myself the headache?”

I had never heard of a spell like that—or if I did, I couldn’t think straight, not when I could barely breathe. And my instincts, my magic insisted that I unleash it right now, either through the ring or the bracelet—it didn’t matter.

But the truth was that I was not going to leave this room without finding out where Taland was, and who cared what kind of spell Radock put on me if at the end of it he told me what I needed to know?

This was the price he wanted me to pay, and I would pay it gladly. I had nothing to hide anymore, did I? For once in my life, I had nothing to fucking hide from these people, and that was more freeing than anything.

“Yes,” I choked, and his fingers around me loosened.

Radock was surprised. “Yes?”

“Do your spell. Go ahead.” My hands were already around his forearm, and this time when I pushed him away, he let me. He stepped back, eyes wide and lips parted like he really was that shocked .

“Are you sure about this, l—” Seth started, but Kaid smacked him on the head. At least that’s what it sounded like, though they were behind me and I couldn’t see them. Couldn’t look away from Radock who was still barely two feet away.

They were all deadly, the Tivoux brothers, but right now Radock was the biggest threat, as well as the guy who called the shots, the only one who could tell me where Taland was.

“I’m sure,” I said, never once breaking eye contact with him. “Do whatever spell you want to do. I’ll tell you what you want to know, and then you’ll tell me where Taland is.”

The smile stretched on his face slowly, and this time even a snake couldn’t compare.

“You’ve changed,” he whispered, like he was almost fascinated by the fact.

“Just do your fucking spell,” I spit because time was ticking. He’d said Taland was taken , and now my mind was already imagining all kinds of scenarios, because taken meant he didn’t go willingly. And if someone took him by force…

Is it the IDD? Is it O’Bryan’s team? Is it Hill? Is it Madeline?

Fuck, my head was spinning so fast…

“Very well.” Radock waved a hand up.

Suddenly Seth went to his desk and dragged back a chair that had been to its side. The sound of it felt like nails being dragged down the inside of my skull slowly.

“Sit down, relax. This one is a bit on the longer side.”

Radock was unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt, folding them up, and Kaid put both his hands on my shoulders from behind, then pushed me down onto the chair that Seth had positioned by my legs.

I sat even though my magic raged and my thoughts nearly burst my head open.

“And then you’ll tell me where Taland is.”

Radock finished folding up his sleeves. “Then I’ll tell you where Taland is.”

I didn’t know him well enough to know if he was lying to me or not, but it didn’t matter. Unfortunately for me, this was the only chance I had, the fastest way to find Taland. I’d do whatever it took, no questions asked, even though Seth and Kaid had both come around me now, closer to their brother, and they were looking at me with those awful smiles that were so much like Taland’s but completely different, too.

Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it, just run, the voices in my head insisted.

Except if I ran now and somehow managed to get away, how was I going to find Taland?

I stayed put. I breathed in deeply. I looked Radock Tivoux in the eye and realized he could very well do a spell to paralyze me—or maybe they knew one to kill me on the spot, to just stop my heart from beating. People seemed to know all kinds of spells that I spent my whole life believing didn’t even exist—like this lien ad liem spell he claimed would only let me speak truths. A truth spell.

I wondered, does the IDD even know this exists?

Then I laughed at myself for being so silly, for asking such silly questions.

Of course, the IDD knows and of course, they use them and of course, they are bad, bad, bad . I just hadn’t been exposed to the level of bad they really were before my team leader was ordered to kill me on the job.

“I’m afraid this requires eye contact, and your complete willingness to submit.”

I blinked, only to realize that my eyes had been closed as I battled those voices in my head, my fucking demons. Radock was squatting in front of me, looking up at me with that wondrous smile on his face still.

“Are you, Miss La Rouge?” he said, and he was openly mocking me. “Are you willing to submit to me?”

No, no, NO! “Yes.”

“Good,” said Radock. “The worst of it will be over in no time.” And he began to whisper.