The Guru: Shadow (Dark Triad #1)

16. Deis

16

DEIS

PLAYLIST: WICKED GAME - LUSAINT

F or reasons he could not grasp, it felt like losing when he left the hospital. Loosing was something he could not stand nor deal with. She had sent him away, with all the clarity. Even threatened him. The whole night and morning had been a rollercoaster ride, which usually thrilled him sweetly to the bone. Today was different. Something about her was unpredictable, and it left him in the suspense of not holding the power, which was dangerous.

He needed to get back in control. Starting by handling the Pearson boy, because there was more to him. He was sure it had something to do with Delilah and her father, but there was a single missing piece: Emma.

How does she fit in?

The only possible way was through her father. But she knew nothing about him or what he did. So, what did they want from her? Or was she just an irrelevant bystander, caught in the middle of the fire by coincidence?

But there’s no such thing as coincidence, he told himself.

He was sure the rape had been nothing planned from her reaction to it, especially as she drove him out. Something about her was so d istant, and of course, people do go into denial or dissociate, but in the hospital, something about her was even robotic. Her facial expressions hadn’t matched her words, she was for sure occupied in her mind, but it was a mask she wore, only no one would see. And then a thought crossed his mind.

I’ll be damned.

Maybe the mask wasn’t a mask at all.

The only way to find out more was to squeeze whatever possible out of the Pearson boy and then let things play out.

“Greg, tell me he chirped like a bird?”

“Not a word. Sitting in interrogation like a fat smug-pot, I’m waiting for him to bleed out.”

“Ed, have Anderson do it, she will get every last bit of information out of him.” If she wouldn’t make him talk, no one would. “Greg, have him watched, I need you to follow Emma in the meantime, Ava and Cam are on standby. And have the others interviewed too, the fake police stunt worked awesome with Julie. I wanna know what they know.”

“On it.”

His phone vibrated.

Emma

I told you to leave

No, never, ma belle.

Her last message made him smirk.

Fuck off, classist asshole, he repeated in his mind. Such a righteous little blossom, ma belle. You’ll learn, too.

As he stepped into the diner, he saw her behind the counter. Her form from the back pressed into her uniform, aroused him. It would make a glorious play. Her, the waitress, him, the mysterious customer. And then he would have her on all the tables, on the counter, and kneeling in front of him .

“I told you to fuck off,” she hissed at him without even turning.

“Is that how you speak to customers? I might need to speak with your manager.”

“Feel free.”

Challenging as ever, Little Miss Moral.

The moment she turned around, he saw an Emma he hadn’t seen before. If he didn’t know any better, he wouldn’t have noticed any of what happened to her in the past three days. And as she passed him on her way to one of the other customers in the diner, he observed her. Her walk was light, she smiled with her mouth and eyes at the customers, and she even made a joke. Her body language was open and welcoming. Something that repulsed him as much as it impressed him. Because it was a mask. A mask so good, that no one else except him would see through it. Her extraordinary ability to deny what happened and even dissociate the emotions that came with it made him more than curious because nothing of it showed in her face.

He couldn’t help but imagine playing with her. She would be splendid at it.

“So, what do you recommend?” he asked her when she returned. Her face immediately switched. There she was again, the woman full of fierceness.

“I recommend you leave right now, or–”

“Or what? Call the cops on me again? Have me removed? Make a scene? Guess what, baby, I don’t care.”

“Maybe I will. Or I’ll tell Julie what and who you really are.”

“You won’t. Same reason you didn’t tell her about Carl.”

Her eyes flashed so strongly, piercing at him. It was exactly the reaction he wanted from her. Anger was her driver.

“Stay away from me.”

“I can make a scene, too, you know. Maybe I should tell your boss you were raped.”

“Shut up! If anyone hears!”

There it was, her weak point. Little Miss Perfect needed to have others see her in exactly the light she was staging herself in. It made so muc h fun teasing her because he was a master of that particular art. But what made him curious the most was her not showing any symptoms of what had happened.

“So, tell me, what do you recommend?”

“Here’s the menu, help yourself, and if you ever show up here again or do what I specifically told you not to, if put that word in your mouth again, I swear to the fucking god I don’t believe in, I’ll make your life hell and destroy you by all means,” she said with a hissing voice at him with eyes burning him down with fire and a tone full of disgust. With it, she turned around and went over to her coworker without another glance.

So hot, baby. So fucking hot. I’d like to strip you down and put you over the counter, only to fuck you until you scream my name.

His inner movie however was interrupted by the coworker.

“Hi,” she said, fumbling out a notepad from her belt. “Oh my goodness.” She gasped as her eyes wandered up from her notepad to him. Her cheeks blushed in a sweet pink.

“You’re Deis DeBarra.”

“I am no one and I’d like some breakfast.”

She sure would go back to Emma in the back and tell her everything about what she just saw.

“I-I’m sorry, Emma isn’t feeling so well, so I’ll take over. What can I bring you?”

Her behavior made him smirk. Still wiggling out of everything.

“A coffee and a bagel please, and here is a generous tip for silence about who was here.” He counted five hundred dollars on the counter. “To everyone, friends, other staff, customers, social, everyone.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, a bit flabbergasted and almost curtseyed.

Such pleasant obedience.

And his hunter sprang to life. Staring at her, just for the tiniest fraction of a second he wanted to…

No. Focus.

His phone vibrated.

Ed

There’s a situation with the Pearson boy

It was time to leave.

The situation, however, wasn’t just a situation.

“How the hell did he manage to pull that off?” he asked as he walked half an hour later over puddles of blood and not just four dead, but bodies slaughtered to the point of being completely unrecognizable.

“We have a copy of the feed, and it’s safe to say he was trained. We’re missing something.”

“We are. I shot him, and he just walks out of here, blood-drained, and kills four people? We need to get Emma into safety, he believes she filed it, he’ll go after her.”

“Slight problem, we don’t know where she is.”

“Kidding, right?”

“We lost her, she is good, actively tried to get rid of the tails.”

And just for a fraction, doubt crawled up on him.

Was it all a set-up? Was it a simple coincidence that she lost the tail on purpose and Pearson slaughtered four of his people to break free? And not just any people, but four highly trained watchdogs, one of them ex-Secret Service?

I don’t believe in coincidences.

“Her phone?”

“Turned off. She knew we were there, she actively got rid of the tail.”

Fuck.

“Ed, tell me what your feeling tells you.”

“You suspect her?”

“She knows how to get rid of a tail, Pearson slaughters everyone here. Then they know each other. Too many coincidences. ”

“It makes no sense to me. Her being involved. She’s driving you away, not running after you.”

“What if it’s a scheme?”

“We’d have communication.”

Would we, though?

For some reason his mind wouldn’t quieten.

“She is his daughter, Ed. What if she’s like him? What if she’s that good?”