Page 33 of Dark Christmas
“Yeah,” I say, thinking back to how hard I crashed. “Considering.” I poke at the last bit of sausage on my plate. “I can’t remember the last time I slept past 8 a.m. Baker’s hours start at the crack of dawn.”
He gives me a small smile. “Sounds rough.”
“Brutal,” I say with a dramatic eye roll. “But, yeah, this is the first time in forever I’ve slept this late.”
I sit back, feeling a little more awake, when it suddenly hits me—I need to call Claire. I open my mouth to bring it up, but before I can even get the words out, Melor says, “You should call her.”
Damn, how does he read my mind like that?
I blink, surprised. “Yeah, I really should.”
“Finish your breakfast first. Get your bearings. You’ve been through a lot.”
I again glance over at the spot where the body was, my eyes lingering on the clean floor. “What’s going to happen to him?”
Melor smirks a little like he’s amused. “Whatever was going to happen already happened.”
“No, I mean the body. What are those guys going to do with it?”
His expression shifts, a little more serious now, but still casual. “You don’t need to worry about that, Amelia.”
I lean forward, not letting it go. “No. I’m a part of this now, right? Your world? I want to know how it works. I’m not going to be some clueless girl sitting in the dark while all this goes down around me.”
He studies me for a second then nods like he respects the pushback.
“Alright,” he says, leaning against the counter again. “There are a few ways they handle something like this. Sometimes they’ll dump the body somewhere remote, burn it, and make sure there’s nothing left to identify. Other times, they’ll bury it deep—far enough out of sight that no one stumbles on it. And then there’s the more creative approaches: acid, industrial tools, weighing it down and dropping it in water.”
I swallow, feeling the weight of every option he’s laid out, each one more horrifying than the last.“Okay, then. Good to know.”
"These men are pros," Melor continues. "They’ve probably got a place where they dissolve the body down to nothing, leaving no trace behind."
I flinch at the thought of a person just vanishing like that, erased from existence.
He catches my reaction, his brow knitting slightly. “Sorry,” he says, a little softer. “Didn’t mean to be so direct.”
“No, that’s what I wanted,” I reply quickly. I asked for the truth, and now I’ve got it. I glance down at my empty plate and mutter, “Glad I ate first, though.”
He chuckles, but it seems forced. “I’m going to do my best to make sure you never see anything like that again. I promise you.”
I look up at him, appreciating the sentiment, but a part of me wonders if he can really pull that off. No amount of promises can wipe that away. Still, I nod and offer a small, “Thanks.”
But my mind doesn’t stay on the violence for long; it drifts right back to Claire. What the hell am I going to tell her?Hey, bestie, don’t freak out, but Mr. Sexy Accountant turned out to be a Russian mobster who killed a dude after we had sex last night. I’m hiding out with him, so you need to cover my shifts, k?
Melor studies me for a second. “What’s on your mind?”
“Claire,” I admit. “I have no idea how I’m going to explain this to her without sounding like a complete maniac.”
He nods, thinking for a moment, then his face brightens with an idea. “Tell her I invited you on a trip for Thanksgiving. something spontaneous, and you said yes.”
I raise an eyebrow. “She’d never buy it. She’s known me since I was a kid. Besides, she knows I’d never leave her during our busiest time of the year for some dude I just met. No offense.”
He chuckles, making that low, rumbling sound that gets under my skin in all the right ways. “None taken.”
I think for another minute, then snap my fingers. “I think I’ve got an idea that would work. There’s a pastry class in LA I’ve been dying to take but they never have openings. I can tell her I got in on a last-minute cancellation.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Melor agrees.
I slip off the stool and call Claire, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue, especially as her excitement grows. “Oh my God, that’s awesome Am! You’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. It’ll help the business for sure.”