The weight of darkness, p.1
The Weight of Darkness, page 1
The Weight of Darkness
Carly Claire
Copyright © 2024 by Carly Claire, Black Rain Press.
Cover Design by Kirsty Still, The Pretty Little Design Co.
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
1. Remy
2. Claire
3. Remy
4. Claire
5. Remy
6. Claire
7. Remy
8. Claire
9. Remy
10. Claire
11. Remy
12. Claire
13. Claire
14. Remy
15. Remy
16. Claire
17. Remy
18. Claire
19. Remy
20. Claire
21. Remy
22. Claire
23. Remy
24. Claire
25. Remy
26. Claire
27. Claire
28. Remy
29. Claire
30. Claire
31. Remy
32. Claire
33. Remy
34. Claire
35. Remy
36. Claire
37. Remy
38. Claire
39. Claire
40. Remy
41. Claire
42. Remy
43. Claire
44. Claire
45. Remy
46. Claire
47. Remy
48. Claire
49. Claire
Join the Coven!
Dedication
To the petty little bitch inside each of us who wishes it was perfectly acceptable to go around stabbing people who truly deserve it.
Society may frown upon it, but I understand you.
Content Advisory
If you read the first book (and I am assuming you did) you'll know this series was designed to take you deeper and darker with each installation. The Weight of Darkness deals heavily with the effects of trauma, many of which are mental. To that end, it's not as emotionally heavy as A Taste of Darkness, but it is still intense. Please be mindful of your own mental health and read the trigger warnings. Some of the themes that may be upsetting include, but are not limited to:
Trauma Processing
Anxiety
Birth Control Tampering
Torture
Human Trafficking
Poisoning
And a Cliff Hanger Ending that will give you a book hangover.
You've been warned.
Chapter one
Remy
Sex isn’t the only thing worth living for. There’s also honor. Some people would even say love, though I’m not one of them. Don’t get me wrong; I love my sister. But if I ever grow tired of waking up every day spinning wheels, she wouldn’t be enough to make me stay. Maybe that sounds awful—she means everything to me, but some days my everything seems so small in the grand scheme of the greater world.
Rhea told me she loves Claire like family, and she proved that point pretty well when she thought I had done something to harm her best friend. I should have known then that she was serious, that her best friend was firmly off limits. But I was already in too deep with Claire to walk away, and when I got her to safety, it was like something in me decided that my job was to protect her.
I’m trying. In the only way I know how, I’m trying. And not only has it not helped, but I’m also pretty sure it’s only made things worse. Judging by the way Claire hightailed it out of the guest house, I’d say she’s ashamed. The question is, of what? Of me? Of killing someone who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as us, as her?
I shouldn’t let it bother me. She just needs time to adjust; everything has happened so fast that she’s in a freefall. I’m sure that time will help her start to process things, but I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to accept the darkness that forged me. I hadn’t exactly planned on letting her in, but Jovich opened that door when he betrayed me. I could have denied it all, told her that Jovich had done it because he wanted the money, and pretended I wasn’t involved in the world that tried to consume her. But Claire is smart, and if I denied it, it wouldn’t exactly give me an opportunity to protect her or Rhea. There’s no way she’d be able to reconcile what comes next if she thought I was truly innocent—which, to be fair, she hasn’t ever seemed to think.
From the beginning, something about Claire has entranced me. She was a bright spot in my darkness, and I found myself drawn to her light. But now I’m worried that light may have burned out… or worse, maybe I snuffed it myself.
I stand and dress, looking past the blood that’s dried on my flesh, russet against my skin. And it’s all over my skin… she painted me with the blood of her tormentor. Something about it feels fucking addictive… like she baptized me in it and I’ve been born again with the purpose of existing for her. I can already feel my cock tightening again at the memory and the evidence of long strokes she left on me.
I’ve never relished the killing part, but watching her take back her power was so fucking sexy I’m not sure I can ever kill someone without getting hard again. I groan, restless with thoughts of her, and pick up my phone.
I’ve already replaced Jovich’s speed dial, so when I press the number, it rings once before Dimitri answers.
“Remy?”
“Giante’s gone.” I say, cutting right to the chase. “The place is ready to be cleaned up.”
“I’m on it.” Dimitri answers without a second of hesitation. “And the other one?”
The other one.
The one still tied up in my basement.
Davos’ son.
My fucking half-brother.
It’s more than I want to consider, but I can’t deny it. Davos was friends with my father for a long time. I have seen and dealt with a lot of nasty shit, but to think that my mother would have had any willful involvement with such a monster is nearly impossible to stomach. Even worse is the possibility that she hadn’t been a willing participant in whatever hellish union resulted in Wes’ life.
I’ve suspected since the day of her death that it hadn’t been the cancer that killed her. We’d barely even wrapped our heads around the fact that she was sick before she died, and neither Rhea nor I were allowed to see her body. She was cremated the same day she passed. I blinked, and in the next instant, they were saying my father was picking up her ashes. I never raised my suspicions with my sister because I didn’t want her any more involved in our fucked-up family than she already is by virtue of her birth, so I let her believe the lie she’d been fed. I was already trapped in the life they had chosen for me, and if the illusion of compliance keeps Rhea safe, it’s a small price to pay.
I played the part of a dutiful son, a soldier in this war, for months before I saw the opportunity to take something from them. It was small, a test to see if anyone noticed. They didn’t, so I took more. I forged transactions here and there and even intercepted a few of their auctions, having their ‘cargo’ shipped to secure locations under aliases of other buyers. Dimitri had dutifully helped me set free three different women in the past two years, something that we stopped as soon as Jovich started poking around. Three is not even a ripple in the shark-infested water. We’d have kept going if we could.
I suppose killing my own wife was a step too far. That’s what put them on my radar… my father.
With both Jovich and my father gone, I could have gone back to infiltrating the company and freeing more women from the sudden bonds of slavery. But Jovich messed everything up by involving Claire, and now Davos is a very real threat. There’s no world where he doesn’t come for her, or at least send his minions after her. And there’s no world in which I let him get away with hurting her again.
Fortunately, I have a bargaining chip in my basement.
“Boudreaux?” Dimitri says, and I realize I still haven’t answered him.
“Nothing yet.” I say, scrubbing a hand over my face. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
Dimitri hangs up and I take my time dressing, sure to give enough time between Claire’s departure and mine. I don’t care if Rhea catches us together. She surely suspected that something was going on between Claire and I after I’d put her best friend up in my bed to heal and all but refused to leave her alone. But I can’t have my sister poking her head around in the guesthouse, so I’ll attempt discretion.
The house is quiet as I trudge up the stairs, and when I pass the girls’ rooms, not a sound comes from either of them. A strip of light illuminates the space under Claire’s door, where Rhea’s is dark. I can’t help but wonder what she is doing. Staring at the ceiling awash in regret? Crying softly into her pillow? Scrolling silently through her phone looking for a distraction?
No, I forgot she doesn’t have her phone. I’ll have a new one ordered for her. And this time, I’ll make sure the GPS is on her phone… just in case.
She’s been in my bed the last day, and though I’d slept in the chair to give her space, I’ll miss her presence, watching her chest rise and fall, knowing that she’s safe. I have the camera, but it’s only good as long as I can stay awake to watch her from it. Before I could hear her every breath.
After I shut my door, I wait behind it a moment in case she comes to join me. But Claire was pretty deliberate when she left me, so I shou
I strip down and throw my clothes in a trash bag under the sink, careful not to mix them with my laundry where Elaine would see the blood-soaked garments and likely have some questions that would be tough to answer. I’ll have to make sure Claire does the same.
As I languish under the spray of the shower, I think of her wild eyes, the palpable mix of fear and excitement when she’d thrown herself at me.
We’ve been playing push and pull all week, and finally, she gave in to the mutual desire. It was absolutely worth the wait, worth the back and forth we went through to get to that moment, but I can’t fight the slightest disappointment trying to close around me. She deserves better than what I gave her—more than a hasty hook up in the guest house. I want to take my time with her, explore every inch of what she has to offer, taste every drop of her arousal, feel every gasp against my neck when I push into her deeper and deeper.
The look in her eyes as I’d driven her to the edge had been one of freedom, of ecstasy. Though she could feel herself falling, she hadn’t been scared in the moment. It’s not the fall that’s frightening—it’s what comes when you land, whether in a heap or on your feet knowing the impact will shatter you.
I know, no matter how scared she may have been, no matter how weary her soul was after the kidnapping, that whether I’d meant to or not, I pulled Claire into my world.
Some people live in the light, afraid to step out of the space that it covers. Others thrive in the dark. It’s clear to see that she’s had a taste of the darkness, but is a single taste enough?
The selfish part of me hopes not.
I’ve had a taste of her, and I know that it won’t be enough.
I want more.
Chapter two
Claire
I watch, holding a stale breath in my lungs, as the shadow passes my door and carries on down the hall. After a moment, Remy’s door shuts quietly, and I let go of the breath that was caught in my lungs.
I feel strange, and I’m not even sure why. From my brain attempting to process everything that’s happened since… well, since that night at the Piazza? From Remy’s touch, his kiss that left my lips feeling swollen and tingling? From the murder I just committed? Or maybe it’s more physical than any of that. Maybe I simply hit my head and am just now feeling the effects? Maybe it’s a lingering side-effect of whatever Mack shot into my veins to subdue me when Jovich abandoned me to monsters?
Whatever ‘it’ is, it feels like a finger dusting my spine, eyes trained on the back of my neck, the distinct feeling of being exposed, vulnerable. My shoulders itch, tense with something I can’t name. I’m not sure what scares me the most… the fact that I have it in me to do something so heinous, or the fact that I actually liked it?
Because if I’m honest with myself, I did like it.
Killing Eric gave me a catharsis of sorts. Remy saw it firsthand when I threw myself at him, drunk on the adrenaline because I hadn’t even had the decency to pretend that I was horrified with what I did. I mean, I am horrified, but I'm sure it didn't look like I was. What kind of person commits murder and then throws themself at their accomplice like a sex-starved whore? Surely only the most perverse, wicked people to walk the earth would do something so awful.
I’ve known I’m damaged goods for years. As a child who seemed to connect with multiple families but never got adopted, I’d simply come to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me. It had become more and more evident with time, and I thought it had reached its pinnacle when I was subjected to the Giante’s house. They seemed to despise me more than anyone I’d ever met, and I’d eventually just assumed I was the problem. When he hurt me, he even said that I was. I thought I could solve it with a handful of pills and a knife, but that clearly didn’t resolve anything. In my recovery, I started to believe that maybe I wasn’t broken, but part of a broken system.
Meeting Rhea my freshman year had been a confirmation of as much. She’s allowed me to live these last three years as if I’m vindicated, as if I’m normal and whole and worthy. Just being a part of her light had me believing that I wasn’t the darkness, the pain, the thing that made people not love me. And maybe I’m not entirely to blame. Clearly, Eric Giante was no saint. But maybe I’m more of a sinner than I ever realized. Maybe I am every bit as fucked up and disgusting as him. I certainly feel like I am.
The rain has picked up again, falling faster now. I close my eyes and lay flat on my back, drawing the blanket over me and trying to force all thoughts of anything other than the sound of comfort out of my mind. I cast out the blood, the pain, the fear, and the anger to empty my mind, refusing to focus on what I’ve just done or what’s been done to me.
When I was a kid, I used to lay in bed during thunderstorms, listening to the howling wind outside and just imagine the rain busting a window and flooding in. It would carry my bed away on a swell of it, taking me away to a world that was brighter, kinder, better. When I became Eric’s victim, the dreams had shifted so that when it stormed, it wasn’t rain that fell. And it wasn’t rain that broke through the window and washed me away… it was blood.
Maybe I’ve always been sick, and the things that I lived through have just triggered it.
I lay there for hours until the dark recedes, and the sun rises weakly in the sky. I don’t sleep, don’t close my eyes. I just stare at the white planks of wood over my head and try to make myself number than I already am.
When the clouds part enough for the sun to rise, I still haven’t slept, and I still can’t get a hold of myself. My brain keeps repeating the same thoughts in a loop, louder and louder, until they’re echoing through my skull with the blood pulsing in my temples.
I sit up so fast my stomach churns at the pain that surges through me, a searing burn as my broken skin stretches too far.
I clutch my abdomen as I cross to the bag I left behind when I tried to go home. I feel like my insides are falling out, so maybe I think doing so will help hold me together a little while longer. I’m errantly grateful that I didn’t take any of my belongings when I left. My phone was taken from me when Mack first snatched me out of the back of the car, and I sure as hell am not going back there to look for it. If I had taken all of my luggage with me, I wouldn’t have anything now.
It's a small comfort to have my own stuff as I rustle through my bag in search of the bottle of ibuprofen that I always keep with me, my hands running over clothes and socks, the paperback and e-reader I brought.
The package that my hand closes upon first isn’t a bottle of ibuprofen. It’s a blister pack of medication, and the moment I touch it, cold realization spills through me. I snatch the birth control out of my bag with my heart in my throat and count the pills that are still sealed versus how many are gone.
How long was I gone? How long have I been in Remy’s room flitting between consciousness and sleep? When did I take the pill last?
I suck air through my nose in a desperate attempt to calm the rising tidal wave of fear that’s nestling in me.
Count the days, Claire.
Two pills short. I missed two days’ worth of doses.
Sleeping with Remy without proper protection was stupid. We’d both been caught up in the moment of passion and it certainly hadn’t been planned, but it was stupid, nonetheless.
Think, Claire. Google what to do.
Except, you can’t, because you still don’t have a phone.
“Okay.” I don’t even realize I say it out loud until I notice how calm my voice actually sounds. “It’s fine. You had this happen once before. Take two and get back on track.”
I pop the pills out of their pack and swallow them immediately, as if that will make any difference in the grand scheme of things. “You’ll be okay, Claire.” I say, though I’m not sure if I’m talking to myself or the girl in the mirror. Because either way, we don’t seem to be the same person anymore.
I repeat those words as I twist the ibuprofen cap in my hand. I also have melatonin I brought to adjust to the time difference, though I’d forgotten to use it. I dump a little pile of them into the mix and toss back a few of those, too.
