Three, Two, One (321)

“It makes perfect sense, Mr. Ark. Because so many couples have asked for you now, I can no longer refuse them.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Children, Ark.” He says it like I’m one of them. “I’m a matchmaker for families who want to have a child, but are not able to conceive.” He waves both hands down his front as if the fake clerical clothing and white collar legitimize his role as cult leader, polygamist, and baby-seller.

“You want me to get your sister-wives pregnant?” I’m stunned. So stunned I laugh. “And in exchange you’ll tell me which family you sold my best friend’s kid to four years ago?” I cross the room and grab him by the throat, pushing him back and slamming him up against the thick glass that separates us from the club below.

His hands claw at his neck as I choke the breath out of him. The thumping of the bass against the window is the same as my thumping heart. “I’m gonna forget you just said that. I’m gonna forget you just asked me to fuck your whores so you can sell my children. I’m gonna forget that you exist, you piece-of-shit pervert. And I suggest you do the same. Stay out of my business. Stay away from JD. And stay away from me. Because the next time I see your face, I’m gonna blow it off your goddamned head.”

I squeeze his pulsing jugular until his eyes bulge and he goes unconscious. And then I let him slump to the floor.

“Fuck you,” I say. And then I spit on him, turn, and walk back down the stairs. No one pays any attention to me as I make my way back down to the dance floor. It takes me a few minutes to find JD, and that’s long enough for Gabriel to wake up from his very non-erotic asphyxiation, but no warning alarms go off. The music still bumps, the dancers continue their routines, the drinks never stop flowing.

“JD,” I call out at the top of my voice. But it’s so loud he doesn’t hear me until I’m practically right on top of him. “Dude, we’re out of here. If cyber girl here wants to play, we’re gonna do it outside.”

I roll the conversation upstairs in my head as JD explains the turn of events to whats-her-face. Do I tell JD? Do I tell JD that this freak said his kid might be alive and all I have to do is get some girls pregnant and he can have that information?

Why the fuck would I do that? Seriously. So we can trade places? So I can spend the rest of my life searching for the children who were stolen from me?

And what are the chances this guy is even telling the truth?

No. It’s far more likely that Father Freak is full of shit. Everyone knows JD’s kid is gone. He talked about it for years. This asshole wandered in to something, put two and two together, and then made his move to get me involved in his procreation fetish.

I’m not buying it. He yanked my chain pretty hard upstairs, but the longer I think about it, the less likely it seems.

It’s bullshit, Ark, my inner voice says. Stay the course.

I came to Denver for a reason, and this asshole is not going to derail me now.

I can’t believe they’d leave me alone in here. If it wasn’t so stupid, it might be cute. I mean, I just confessed to Ark that I’m a reporter and everything about that guy says newsworthy secrets.

After waiting thirty minutes—just enough time to be sure they won’t come back and check up on me—I head straight to his unlocked office. The first thing I see is the garment bag, still hanging on his suit rack. Zipped and unused. God, it feels like a lifetime ago that he bought me that outfit with the intention of taking me on a date.

I walk over to it and feel the bag. It’s not some cheap plastic, it’s more like the kind of bag you’d use over and over again. It’s got some boutique store name on it that I’ve never heard of, so it must be local.

He’s got a suit coat hanging behind the garment bag and a few of those blue ties dangling down as well. I’ve never seen him wear a proper suit, so I stop and picture it for a second.

Ark is fucking hot.

JD is hot too, but in a dangerous way, like he used to be the all-American hero, but then life shit on him and now he’s irreversibly damaged. The hot you feel between your legs when those blue eyes stare at you and you can’t look away. The hot that sends a chill up your spine when he takes off his shirt and those muscles ripple and stretch because they say, I’ll leave bruises before I’m done, so make sure you know what you’re getting into. The hot you desire, because he’s so full of testosterone, everything about him screams lust.

Ark is hot in a very different way. Like he’s got all these compartments and he only lets you open one of them at a time. But you know, if you could just open two or three at once, you’d find something amazing. He’s the kind of hot that only comes in movies filmed in the dead of winter when everything is cold. Where the government is corrupt, the city is dirty, the characters shady, and the sex is nothing but a way to forget the fucked-upness of life.

Both of them come with warning signs, and if I was smart, I’d get the hell away from them before the shit gets complicated.

But I can’t. For so many reasons, I can’t.

I owe Janine. If she’s dead like Ark says JD’s girl is, then I need to know. Her story needs to be told. And if her baby is alive, then that baby needs to come home. That baby deserves to know who her family is. Needs to know that once upon a time her mother was so much more than what she ended up being.

I owe her.

I sit down at Ark’s desk and shake the mouse so the monitor comes on. And nope. Not locked. Which, if I was a suspicious bitch, I’d take as a signal that he knows I’m going to snoop tonight and there won’t be a single file on here with anything useful.