Chapter 11
Larissa
Criminal Investigation Files
RealTunesStudio
I had been told to get changed for training. I had done that. I was supposed to follow him downstairs, in a strange elevator that was far too modern for this building, even more modern than conventional elevators. I had done that. I followed Miles DeLoughrey. All while my insides had been tossing and turning as if trying to fight all this.
My mother was dead because of me. My father had been one of them, and I... I would never be able to have children again.
Tears made their way up, and it felt like the tattooed knot under my breast was tightening on my skin.
Cursed. I was cursed. And I should never have come to Blairville.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Miles watching me scrutinizingly.
I still wasn’t able to say anything. His explanations had thrown me off the rails so badly, yet nothing of this was his fault. If one really thought about it, it was our fathers’ faults. It was their fault that we existed... and that our mothers no longer did.
I had always wondered how my father could have left me. Now I knew the answer. He was a heartless asshole, and I was better off without him anyway.
The elevator paused, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Lately, this always happened when there was a sudden movement. It was probably because of my new... body.
“I’m surprised Bastien makes so much time for you.” Miles snorted with a laugh, indicating that Bastien must be a very busy man.
“He’s training you all?” I spoke for the first time in two hours.
Miles looked at me again, then he grinned. “That would be wasted potential, according to Nicolaj. He only trains Adrian.”
I nodded slowly. Of course... Adrian.
“Who’s your mentor? Do you even have one?”
“Laurent,” he replied tersely. “Less pressure, less Bastien drama.”
“Bastien drama?”
“Oh, believe me, good old Bastien seems calm and collected at first glance, but he’s demanding. Just the right thing for Adrian.”
Now it made sense why Adrian had reacted so dismissively to me. He thought he was better than me.
“Is Bastien really... that good?”
Miles turned to me with a crooked grin, strands of his brown hair falling into his face, making him look even more attractive. “Trust me, little one, you don’t want to mess things up with Bastien.”
I looked at him, at a loss for words. Bastien had actually seemed calm and collected. Like a man with many secrets, a dark side. But wasn’t this whole cursed place just like that? Dark and mysterious? A treasure trove for my adrenaline-hungry brain?
“Should I be scared now?”
Miles was still grinning. “The only thing you need to have is respect. And if you’re training with him, my condolences. By the way, you’d better ask Adrian for advice.”
“No, thanks.” I snorted and turned to the glass elevator door, which was now opening.
In front of us was a corridor that looked ultra-modern, like I was on some kind of spaceship.
“What the hell is this place?”
“It’s the DeLoughreys’ underground training and research facility,” Miles said dryly, leading the way. I followed him, not without letting my curious gaze slide through the lab doors, but most of them had privacy glass.
“You have labs under your castle?” The door I had stopped in front of opened and I jumped back.
Miles laughed. “Surprised?”
I eyed the blinking sensor on the side of the door suspiciously.
“I was thinking more of something like a dungeon or a wine cellar.”
But no, the DeLoughreys naturally came up with even more expensive alternatives.
“What’s next? A movie theater?” I looked at Miles, who had stopped to watch me in amused amazement.
“Far too shabby for Nicolaj,” he remarked with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“An opera?”
“You won’t find that with Nicolaj,” he began, both hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. “We work in politics, law, in business and within units of the Secret Service. You’ll find fun elsewhere.”
“Oh, dear,” I sighed with amusement and continued to stare through the lab windows we passed. “More proof that I don’t belong here.”
Miles stopped. His laughter gave way to seriousness. “Even if you don’t want to be here, believe me, you’ll learn important things. Things essential for survival.”
“How to kill people?” I asked pointedly. “How to bring motherless children into the world?”
Miles looked tense now. He moved closer and I took a step back.
“You think I’m someone like that?” he pressed out. “Don’t you think I’ve lost a mother, too?”
I stared at him, swallowing.
Crap. He was right. I had gone too far. I’d also forgotten how skilled he must be if he’d been living here for ages, wielding knives like they were toys. Miles was twenty, like me, but he’d grown up here and was unquestionably superior to me.
He turned away from me and walked on. I kept silent, walking inconspicuously behind him, trying not to move too fast, until we entered the room at the end of the corridor.
It wasn’t a room. It was a hall full of silver and black steel exercise equipment. Things I’d seen in the gym before, but some of them were new to me. There was a huge parkour section to my right that stretched across several levels of the hall, a climbing wall that ran through the entire hall, and a few ropes hanging from the high ceiling. And then I saw that there were platforms dangling from the ceiling above us, connected... or not.
I followed Miles, and we passed huge tires lying on the floor, mats with racks for swords next to them, and there was even a shooting range.
“What the...” I blurted, but I stopped abruptly when Miles did.
I glanced at him. His face still looked tense. He stared straight ahead with a hardened expression. Curious and a little alarmed, I followed his gaze.
There was a guy standing there. It wasn’t just any guy, but the one who had been following me and Bay. The man who had been with our attacker.
Instead of his elegant coat, he was wearing a black shirt and tracksuit bottoms. At that moment, I recognized similarities to Bastien, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“You,” Miles said. His look seemed... hateful? Why? Should I be scared now?
“Do you have a problem, kid?” the man asked sternly.
I still felt uneasy at the thought that he seemed to live here too. But what did I have to fear? Wasn’t I just like him now? A criminal monster with secrets?
“You bet I have,” Miles cursed loudly and stepped closer.
I stood motionless. Waiting and watching could hardly hurt.
“Isn’t this fucking mansion big enough to keep your ass away from me?”
“No, Milliam, I’m simply fulfilling my duties.”
Milliam?
Miles seemed to be struggling for composure, as if he had issues with the guy. And I preferred to stay out of it.
“Don’t make me laugh.” Miles sounded like he was trying really hard to control himself. “Get out of here!”
“That’s not going to happen,” the man replied, unimpressed, and went to the modern weapon rack to pull a black bag out of one of the holders. He looked at me before he threw the bag, which I caught, somewhat overwhelmed.
“Follow me.”
I looked at Miles, who was staring after him motionless.
“Now,” the man called, and I reluctantly moved forward.
Should I actually follow him? Would he train me? Wasn’t Bastien supposed to do that? I wasn’t at all comfortable being confronted by this guy.
Miles grabbed my arm and I looked up at him. “You stay here.”
Then everything happened very quickly. The guy suddenly stood in front of both of us, ripped Miles’ hand off my arm and threw him against the wall. Swords clattered to the floor and Miles got to his feet to take a run-up and go for the guy. But he dodged skillfully and Miles flew into something loaded with weapons again. Cursing, Miles straightened up and lunged, pulling a knife out of nowhere.
Another shadow flitted through the hall. It was Bastien. He grabbed Miles’ wrist, stopping him before he could make a successful attack on the guy.
Someone here seemed to have serious aggression issues.
“Miles, calm down,” Bastien said sternly, yet in a calm voice, as if he were speaking to an animal.
“He’s everywhere I am, and now what he wants is her!” Miles pointed at me and I looked from the two of them to the guy who seemed to be eyeing me intensely. He looked at least fifteen years older than me.
Confused, I looked back at Bastien and Miles.
“I gave him the order.”
Miles tore himself away from Bastien, snorting in bewilderment. “How could you?!”
“After consulting with the head of the clan, I had no other choice.”
Miles looked Bastien angrily in the eye.
“You can’t control yourself,” he said, and it sounded as if that fact was a crime.
Miles snorted and looked to me. There was a lot in his gaze. Anger, regret, pity? Then he disappeared as quickly as Bastien had arrived.
Wait... Was he leaving me alone now? With Bastien and...
“I’ll take care of him,” Bastien said briefly, nodded to me and the man with a cool look, and disappeared.
Shit. They were seriously leaving me here alone with this guy. Now what? I was totally unprepared for this.
The man broke out of his stupor and went back in the direction he had come from.
Should I follow him now? Did I even want to?
I knew it wasn’t about what I wanted and that I would struggle to find my way back to the first floor from this state-of-the-art facility, so I followed him, albeit wary and prepared for anything.
The man pretended I wasn’t there, grabbed a bag that looked suspiciously like the one I was holding, and put it on a table. Then he turned to me.
My body stiffened.
Why had I been so terribly jumpy since I’d been here? What had happened to Larissa from the street? To the girl from Sacramento?
“I’m glad I have the honor of being your mentor,” he began calmly, and I couldn’t help but think of Miles’ words.
“…now what he wants is her.”
I eyed the guy suspiciously before it just burst out of me.
“What did you do with my friend?”
“Your friend?” He looked at me questioningly, but I already knew this game.
“Don’t act like that. You know her,” I continued. “The girl was with me when we first met. You and your...”
“Friend?” he chuckled. “I don’t think so. He’s dead.”
I widened my eyes.
“He didn’t follow the rules, he was too conspicuous and he...” He furrowed his eyebrows. “Assaulted a DeLoughrey.”
He meant me, without exception.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You killed the one who changed me into this monster... Didn’t you have the same thing in mind for us? Out there?”
He came a little closer, and I became uncomfortable with the conversation. He seemed to want to say something as his gaze rested on me, but he shook his head.
“You’re my student, which means it’s my responsibility to train you.”
I looked at him in astonishment.
How could he just ignore my question like that?
“Are there any talents you have?” He looked at me again as if he had meant the question seriously. “Except for photography.”
I stared at him, speechless.
Did everyone here know who I was? To be fair, I had been pretty active on social media, so it was no wonder that people like the DeLoughreys had an easy game with me.
“I don’t know. I tinker a lot.”
“Tinkering.” The guy raised an unimpressed eyebrow. He must have misunderstood me.
“On motorcycles.”
The corners of his mouth turned upward, which made me a little uneasy.
“That brings us a little closer.”
I didn’t know what he meant, so I kept quiet and waited to see what happened.
“Is there any sport that you used to do?”
“Karate,” I said, and regretted it the next moment. It was never good to tell your enemy what you could do. I was an idiot.
“Very exemplary.” He nodded at me with a smile. It was a... friendly smile, which I hadn’t expected. “Unfortunately, I’m the wrong trainer for that. I’ll talk to Laurent and give you some regular karate lessons with him. That should be possible.”
Laurent, Miles’ trainer.
“And what am I learning from you, Mr. …DeLoughrey?” I asked carefully, because I didn’t want to question his presence, and yet it felt like I was doing just that.
“Tristan” I backed away as the man suddenly appeared in front of me. “I don’t want you to call me by my surname because that feels terribly old. I’m not that old yet, and besides, I’m...” He looked at me scrutinizingly before finishing the sentence. “Your mentor.”
I nodded quickly and said, “Of course.”
At least he hadn’t tried to kill me yet.
“Good.” He turned away from me again and hurried to the table, where he unrolled my bag. Wait, what? I looked into my hands, where I’d just been holding the heavy bag. It was gone.
“Not to mention your attention, which is in dire need of training. I’m going to have you specialize in throwing stars. Firearms training will be secondary, probably with Camille, but there’ll be time for that later. The important thing is that you have a foundation, a focus that we can build on.” He turned to me and looked me up and down. An unpleasant feeling spread through me. What was he doing? “You’re slim, almost skinny. You’ll have to start weightlifting like Miles.”
He paused, and I continued to watch him.
It was nice that he had just labeled me too skinny. Thank you, Tristan, the killer mentor.
I didn’t believe him that he didn’t know where Bay was. What I did believe was that he had killed the guy who had attacked us. The two of them hadn’t really gotten along when we first met. But that fact didn’t make it any better. He was a murderer. And I was alone with him in a training hall full of murder weapons.
“But above all, you should use your strength. With training that’s customized to you, you’ll hopefully build up more muscle mass. Otherwise, a compact handgun with a smaller grip size might be better for you to ensure a comfortable grip. I think the standard sizes are perfect for you. When choosing calibers, we’ll see which ones provide adequate recoil control for you. Until then... throwing weapons.”
I blinked because I couldn’t follow his explanations – or didn’t want to.
He actually wanted me to train with weapons. Things I had wanted to leave behind.
Tristan pointed to the bag in front of him, where throwing stars lay, their blades glinting menacingly. I immediately thought of Miles’ knives.
“Why no knives?”
Tristan sighed. “If Miles impressed you with his knife games, please keep in mind that throwing stars have an even weight distribution and are easier to handle.” He looked at me scrutinizingly. “Those ridiculous knives Milliam uses are gimmicks.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him because a man who could throw knives was still a man who could attack and defend himself.
With growing suspicion, I eyed the stars. I had never thrown anything like that before, let alone hit anything in general.
Tristan came to me, menacingly close, and I looked at him fearfully.
Come on, be Larissa Champson .
Then he held three blades out to me.
When I didn’t take them, he turned away from me and started throwing them unexpectedly in three different directions. I looked around and spotted three distant targets with a piece of metal now stuck in their centers.
I swallowed.
He held three blades out to me again.
“Your turn.”
I looked at him, then at the blades, before I laughed. “No, I don’t think this is the right sport for me.”
“You haven’t even tried.”
He was right. Only I didn’t even want to try. I wanted to get away from here. Far away from this crazy rich family who already must have taken many lives. Away from guns and murderers.
Tristan put the metal things into my hand and pointed to a target nearby, maybe ten meters away on the wall.
“I’ll never hit that.”
“I don’t expect you to. You’re not Adrian DeLoughrey.”
Jerkily, I turned and looked at Tristan challengingly. “What about him?”
“Our golden son is a natural.”
It sounded slightly snide. And of course, Adrian was a natural. Damn, Adrian seemed to have everything, to be able to do everything… There would only be one way to get better than him...
“Is there anyone better than him?” I asked, and he sighed.
“My older brother.”
“And your older brother is?” I asked curiously with a raised eyebrow.
“Bastien.”
I looked at him, confused and taken by surprise. It couldn’t be... “Then you’re Miles’...”
“Father,” he finished my sentence, his jaw working.
Miles had treated him like a dangerous stranger, not like a father... and then I realized what else that meant.
“You killed his mother,” I gasped, taking a few steps back.
He said nothing, staring into the distance. “A man does stupid things when he’s young.”
Was he trying to say that Miles had been created accidentally? Or was he trying to justify killing an innocent woman?
He stepped closer, and I stepped further back, pointing the blades at him, even though it probably wouldn’t do any good.
Fuck man, what was I doing here? Why hadn’t Miles stayed?
“Larissa, calm down. That was ages ago.”
“You killed Miles’s mother,” I repeated haltingly, filled with shock.
He looked me in the eye, his gaze distorted with pain.
“I never intended to kill your mother.”
That was the moment I dropped the blades.