Watch Me Glow (Six Silent Sins Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Free books

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Nathan

  Chapter 2 - Ella

  Chapter 3 - Nathan

  Chapter 4 - Nathan

  Chapter 5 - Ella

  Chapter 6 - Ella

  Chapter 7 - Ella

  Chapter 8 - Nathan

  Chapter 9 - Nathan

  Chapter 10 - Nathan

  Chapter 11 - Nathan

  Chapter 12 - Ella

  Chapter 13 - Ella

  Chapter 14 - Ella

  Chapter 15 - Nathan

  Chapter 16 - Ella

  Chapter 17 - Nathan

  Chapter 18 - Nathan

  Chapter 19 - Ella

  Chapter 20 - Nathan

  Chapter 21 - Ella

  Chapter 22 - Nathan

  Chapter 23 - Nathan

  Chapter 24 - Nathan

  Chapter 25 - Nathan

  Chapter 26 - Ella

  Chapter 27 - Nathan

  Chapter 28 - Nathan

  Chapter 29 - Ella

  Free books

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books & Upcoming Releases

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  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Elodie Colt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Warning:

  This book contains explicit sexual content and harsh language.

  Recommended age: 18+

  Cover Design: Michele Catalano

  Editing: Rainy Kaye

  Formatting & Editorial Design: Elodie Colt

  To my Dad:

  I’m sorry the year 2020 was a short one for you. I know it’s not much comfort, but at least, you didn’t have to live through Corona because I’m sure you don’t have to wear masks up there in heaven.

  (Sorry for the poor joke, but this is the only way I can cope with you being gone.)

  I’m looking forward to the day they will find a cure for cancer. Hopefully tomorrow. Do me a favor and tell God to lend scientists a hand here.

  RIP

  “Look again, kid,” Dad says in that calm, patient tone of his after I’ve argued for the third time that the red gem glittering in front of me was, for God’s sake, a damn ruby. “Pay attention to the hue. Take in the shades… What do you see?”

  I strain my eyes, holding them open until they start to water as I stare through the loupe in wearying concentration. Tilting my head slightly to the side, I try to capture the fluorescence of the tiny jewel under the UV light.

  Fancy red. No secondary hues. No impurities. Just deeply saturated, flawless red boasting a magnificence like a drop of crystallized blood. Unique. Rare. Impossible to find.

  I gasp, jerking my head up to gape at Dad. “It’s a diamond. A red diamond.”

  Flashing me a satisfied smirk, he claps my shoulder. “Well done, son.”

  For the record, the chances of finding a pure, red diamond are as likely as discovering a gold mine underneath Central Park. Not many jewelers will get to see one in their life, let alone the five-fucking-carat Vincent showed me that day. Half the size of my thumbnail but worth enough to make you a million dollars richer.

  ‘The devil is in the details’ is the incantation in this business. Uncovering the tiny, hidden parts has been bred into me ever since the word ‘gem’ made it over my pouty baby lips. Come to think of it, I blurted ‘gem-gem’ way before I said ‘Mommy,’ much to Brooke’s annoyance. Pinpoint accuracy was my everyday lesson until I mastered it to perfection. Like Sherlock showing up at a crime scene and filing away every hint in his genius head.

  I’m a genius, too. Give me three seconds with a rare stone, and I’ll tell you its crystallography, luster, luminescence, dispersion, and value.

  Give me a fleeting image of Devon, and I’ll tell you every minuscule feature of her hauntingly beautiful face.

  And the moment that image appears in my mind, my hyperresponsive brain kicks into gear, and my non-REM phase slips away to make room for brutal reality.

  I groan, the sound muffled by the cushion squishing my cheek. A hammer pounds against my temples—a painful reminder of the booze I consumed before I crashed on the living room sofa in hopes of sending myself into the afterlife.

  Mission failed.

  Wincing, I push myself up. An empty bottle topples from my hand and lands with a thud on the fluffy carpet, rolling straight into the table leg.

  “Jesus fucking Christ…”

  My tie knotting at the backside of my neck chokes my throat, and I tug at it, threads tearing as I make room to breathe. Irritated, I yank the tie over my head and toss it to the floor.

  My Brioni Vanquish II has suffered as much as I did last night. Dirt smears and drops of Single Malt stain the expensive fabric, and my white shirt is missing a button. I hiss as I flex my fingers. The knuckles on my right hand are covered in bruises. The sight triggers a flashback, and my stomach hardens.

  After my royal fuck-up with Devon yesterday, Nick stormed my apartment and put me through the wringer until I exploded and right-hooked him so hard, he staggered into the minibar. Half of the bottles crashed to the floor. Now, the usually squeaky-clean place looks like a night club after Happy Hour.

  I drop my head into my hands, a wheezing breath forcing its way through my lips. The pounding in my skull is nothing in comparison to the pain in my chest.

  ‘There was never an us,’ Devon once said to me—words that cut to my core and stayed there ever since.

  I stare at my dirty shoes, my pulse thudding in my throat as my mind wanders back to the sight that left blisters on my memory. Dark brown hair framing a heart-shaped, milky face, rosebud lips, and huge chocolate eyes. Arched eyebrows and a straight nose complete the perfection. Her slender arms and elegant legs caged me in every time we connected at the hips, and every night when I went to bed, I painted the dragonfly tattoo on her forearm in my mind.

  I carve my hands through my hair, tugging at the strands. My vacant stare falls on Devon’s Halloween costume folded over the armrest. With a painful swallow, I take it into my hands and brush over the red sequins.

  I knew something was familiar about her when I watched her yesterday at the exhibition. Every guarded glance, every flutter of her eyelashes, every graceful movement triggered something inside me I couldn’t pinpoint. If I’d just taken a few steps closer I would have heard her voice—a sharp, sexy accent ringing with her rough vocals that branded itself into my cortex ever since she whispered the first words in the darkness. If I’d just approached her, I would have recognized the scent of green tea mixed with passion fruit under a whiff of gasoline. If I’d just used my damn eyes and looked close, really close like Vincent taught me all those years ago, I would have recognized the gold chain around her neck that held my dragonfly charm.

  You fucked up, dickhead.

  A vein in my temple twitches, the sequins crunching in my fists. What the hell had I been thinking? I realized who she was before she left. She stood in the same goddamn room right when it dawned on me that I’d traced the constellation of freckles on her back with my fingers every time I made her come in the dark.

  And what did I do?

&nbs
p; Nothing.

  Not one fucking thing until she disappeared in the Manhattan traffic.

  I could have talked to her, see where it gets me. I could have accidentally bumped into her to let my phone slip into the pocket of her blazer and track it—legal or not. Hell, I could have dragged her into the elevator and hit the emergency button, trapping her until she heard me out. Maybe I hadn’t given her enough credit, and she would have been elated to finally meet me in person. Maybe she would have jumped me and begged me to fuck her against the elevator doors.

  Maybe she would have told me her fucking name.

  But I busted all maybes the moment I let my insecurities take over my actions, standing idly in the middle of the room and watching her walk away.

  I lurch to my feet. The Single Malt swirls in my brain and makes my head spin. Heat rushes up my neck, sweat breaking out from my pores as my pulse spikes. I scrunch up the costume until the sequins break and toss it to the floor. My muscles are so tense, I’m surprised the tendons in my biceps withstand the pressure as I pace the room, my shoes pounding on the polished hardwood. The mental image of Devon’s face glosses over with a haze of red. Boiling rage flares inside me until I kick the table so hard, it topples over.

  Glass breaks and vases shatter, but the destruction does nothing to calm me. My fingers twitch with the urge to fling the table against the window and smash the whole glass wall. One leap and my body would sail down twenty-two floors. A quick and easy death.

  “You’ve lost your mind, Nathan…” I mumble with a shaky breath.

  I pinch Devon’s pendant dangling over my breastbone. If I squeeze it hard enough, she might feel my pain. If I close my eyes and make a wish, she might show up again. If I hold onto the last thread of hope, the door will open and she will step in right now.

  A slam resounds, and I jerk my head to the source, my heart racing in anticipation as the door bangs against the wall.

  It’s not Devon.

  The flicker of hope drops into my stomach, morphing into a cold chunk of disappointment the second Nick barges in, nostrils flaring and steps pounding like a bull ready to charge.

  His deadly glare tells me I’m in for a counterstrike that he couldn’t wait to deliver since last night. Locking my jaw, I brace myself for his fist, but the moment it connects with my cheek, I wished I’d at least tried to deflect his punch.

  Fuck me, my little brother knows how to dish out. His daily punching bag sessions in the gym have paid off. I almost double over, but I grip the edge of the minibar at the last second.

  “Guess I deserved that,” I mutter when I find my footing again.

  “You guessed right.” His flinty eyes bore into mine. “You look like shit.”

  “I feel like shit.”

  “Good.”

  Nick shakes his hand to get rid of the pain from the punch he just delivered while I grind my jaw to test the movement. All bones still in place.

  He kicks the empty Single Malt bottle on the floor, the disbelief in his eyes hard to miss as they roam over the destruction.

  “Shit, Nathan… What the fuck is going on?”

  I tear my gaze away from him, the bruise under his eye reminding me that he’d been the casualty of my frustration last night. Walking over to the window, I try to get my thoughts in order.

  “Do you know the name of the Russian interpreter from last night?” I ask.

  He gives me a quizzical look as he heaves up the living room table and puts it back the way it was. “What?”

  “The Russian interpreter,” I repeat with an edge to my voice. “Do you know who she was?”

  “No. Why?”

  I rub a hand over my neck. “It was Devon.”

  A beat of silence follows as he tries to make sense of my words before his eyes grow wide. “Your girl from Silent Sins?”

  Yes, the one and only. My dragonfly girl.

  Unable to swallow down the lump in my throat, I nod.

  “So, that’s why you flipped out last night, almost bowling down a waitress and making one hell of a scene in the middle of the gallery.”

  I ignore his accusing tone, my eyes following a blue Toyota as I look down at the street—the same model Devon disappeared in yesterday.

  Pushing up my sleeves, I turn around to face Nick. “I need your help to find her.”

  “What you need is a wake-up call, brother.” He comes closer, moving into my personal space. “You’re chasing a ghost, and it’s driving you mad. Not long, and you’ll drown in your obsession. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

  He nods to the empty bottles of booze on the ground. I grind my teeth. No one knows better than me what Nick went through before he met Janice, but what I’m dealing with here is an entirely different matter.

  My lips flatten into a line. “Devon isn’t a ghost. She’s real. I saw her. I just need to find her.”

  He pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head as if I were a lost cause.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Help me, Nick. Please.”

  His gaze flicks up to me, and he sighs, his eyes softening.

  “Okay.”

  ~~~

  After taking a much-needed shower and consuming a bottle of water to wash down my hangover, I join Nick in the living room where he has made himself comfortable on the sofa.

  Grabbing my laptop from the table, I hand it to him. “Show me the recordings from yesterday.”

  “And what do you hope to find?” he asks as he logs into the gallery’s camera feed.

  Anything that might lead me to her.

  “I don’t know.”

  I stare at the screen as Nick speeds up the recording, my gaze flicking between six different feeds. Shortly before the last guests have arrived, a dark-haired beauty enters the gallery and my heart lodges in my throat at the mere sight of her.

  “Freeze,” I order, and Nick hits a key to pause the clip.

  A shaky breath trembles over my lips. Her green-blue dragonfly tattoo is visible as she lifts her left hand to tug a strand of hair behind her ear. A wing of the dragonfly charm peeks out from underneath her blouse, held by a gold chain around her neck. I lean over Nick’s shoulder, itching to trace a finger over her image.

  ‘What do you wear for work?’ I’d asked her when we first met.

  ‘Cookie pants.’

  She probably mostly works from home as a translator, snuggling on a couch in cozy pants with a laptop in her lap and a bowl of cookies within reach. The thought plasters a stupid grin on my face.

  “Do you want me to print this out so you’ve got a picture to jerk off to?” Nick grumbles when I stare holes at the screen with my mouth agape.

  I clear my throat, backing away. “Who hired her?”

  “Valerie.”

  Shit. Valerie quit yesterday. Another sweet girl who broke under Brooke Crawford’s dictatorship.

  I pull my phone from my pocket and drop it into his lap. “Give me Valerie’s private number.”

  His look of annoyance tells me what he thinks of me bossing him around, but he grabs his phone and scrolls through his contacts. My foot taps on the ground as I wait for him to punch in the number. When he’s done, I take my phone from his hands and connect the call. Twelve rings later, I give up with a huff.

  “She’s not picking up.”

  “Let’s check the guest list.”

  Nick opens a document, and I lean closer again to scan the list of names.

  “Shit,” he curses after a moment. “Valerie didn’t update the list. There’s still the name of the old interpreter on it.”

  He points to an unfamiliar name at the bottom. Initially, Abram Orlov was hired for the job, but he had an accident shortly before the exhibition. It was only at the last minute that Valerie found a replacement. Alas, the girl forgot to update the damn guest list.

  Maybe Brooke had a good reason to fire her.

  I push away from the sofa, tapping my phone against my chin while I pace my room. Think, Nathan. The
re has to be a way.

  “Her payment,” I say. “Where did we transfer the money to?”

  “We paid her in cash.”

  “Then check the press releases,” I say at last. “National Jeweler Magazine, Jewelry Artist, Ornament, The Times… Whatever you can find.”

  He turns his head, cocking an eyebrow at me. “And how the hell is that supposed to help?”

  No idea, but I’ll leave no stone unturned.

  “Just do it.”

  While Nick attacks Google, I put my phone to my ear to call Brooke. She picks up on the last ring—as usual when my name pops up on her screen.

  “Nathan,” she says in surprise. “I’m currently having a beauty treatment, so unless this is about—”

  “Do you know the name of the Russian interpreter from last night?” I cut right in, not in the mood for her antics.

  “Excuse me?”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose, already regretting that I’ve even asked. Why do I always have to repeat that fucking question? Do I speak Chinese?

  “The Russian interpreter from yesterday,” I say, slower this time. “Do you know who she was?”

  “Nathan.” Her reprimanding tone grates on my ears. “I think you’re mistaking me for my assistant. I pay people to know these things.”

  Yeah, and they all take to their heels sooner or later.

  “Got it. Thanks.”

  I end the call before she can reply and dial another number.

  “Susan’s Treasures, hello?” comes Susan’s friendly voice over the speaker—the complete opposite of Brooke’s annoying barks.

  “Hey, it’s Nathan.”

  “Nathan, my boy! What can I do for you?”

  “I need to ask you something. Do you happen to know the name of the Russian interpreter from last night?”

  “Oh, you mean the stunning lady with the dark hair?”

  The one and only.

  “Yes,” I say. “You stood close to her. Did you talk to her… maybe?”

  “I’m afraid, no. Why are you asking?”

  Disappointment hunches my shoulders. “Long story, but thanks anyway. Talk to you soon, Susan.”