6. What’s a Little Murder Between Brothers?
WHAT’S A LITTLE MURDER BETWEEN brOTHERS?
Flynn
A shadow haunts the roof terrace as I hop from the neighbor’s house to Lachlan’s. I whip around to find my brother waiting in the dark, the vines that climb the wall behind him creeping out, black tendrils in the night.
He brings his drink to his lips, the moonlight bouncing off the diamond pattern of the whiskey tumbler and dancing over his black suit jacket. He always seems so put together, so measured and meticulous. But I know my brother and he’s looking for a fight.
“Where have you been?” he demands.
I tilt my head, my hair falling over my eye. “You know you can turn the whole lawyer thing off, right? You don’t have to be like this all the time.”
His gaze rolls to me. Unamused.
I shrug. “I had things to do.” Things like following Hazel to and from work so I could make sure she got home safe.
I may have hung around a little longer than necessary after that because Hazel’s become my new favorite TV channel.
I could spend all day watching her dance around the house.
If she’d have let me keep the cameras on, I could have done just that, but I’ve decided to respect her wishes and turn them off. For now.
Lachlan puts his glass down on the filigreed metal table. “Care to be more specific?”
I slide my hands into my pockets. “I got a job,” I say, which is true. I had some time to kill while Hazel was at work, so I visited an old friend.
“You don’t need a job.” Also true. Our parents left us both enough money to never have to work a day in our lives. It’s part of the reason Lachlan managed to get custody of me after they died even though he was only nineteen.
“I need the access the job will give me.”
His gaze flicks up to me. “Claren?”
I dip my head.
Lachlan stands up. Spears his fingers through his dark hair. “I don’t like this.”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t like anything.”
The switch in him comes hard and fast, all of that tightly contained fight snapping like elastic as he slams me against the glass doors.
I keep my hands in my pockets, letting him pin me there with his forearm across my collarbones as his chest heaves.
“You need to take this more seriously,” he bites out.
I run my tongue along the inside of my teeth. “Been hunting lately?”
The arm against my chest presses harder and I ignore the urge to cough.
Lachlan likes to pretend no one knows about his little vigilante side gig but my big brother’s more like me than he cares to admit.
Personally, I’d argue he’s a whole shade darker because he’s not lacking those pesky social emotions like guilt and empathy.
No, he knows exactly what he’s doing when he goes out at night to finish the job the prosecutors can’t.
“Little hard to hunt when I have the SPD breathing down my neck,” he growls, his breath hot on my face in the night chill.
Ah, so that’s why he’s so on edge.
Stop provoking, Lach, Flynny.
“How handy you have a sociopath in your own backyard then.”
Lachlan’s hold loosens, the edge to his mien melting away as pity creeps in. “You’re nothing like the men I hunt, Flynn.”
“If you say so.” Sometimes I believe Lach when he says things like that.
I know, on a fundamental level, that I have no desire to hurt anyone the way Hope was hurt.
But I also know that I’m not like other people.
That closing my hands around someone’s neck is as easy to me as breathing. And a hell of a lot more thrilling.
Lachlan straightens out his sleeves and I watch, fascinated, as he tucks all that frustration back in a steel box. I imagine it locked away inside his head, all his demons fighting to get out. It must be exhausting.
“What’s your plan for the senator?”
“Still in progress.” I take my phone out of my pocket and turn on the cameras, just for a brief second, to check Hazel’s still safe at home. She’s sitting on the couch, her legs tucked up looking fucking adorable. I smile then force myself to be a good boy and close the feed.
When I look up, Lachlan’s eyes are narrowed on me. “You’re distracted.”
“I can multitask.”
“Can you?” He raises a brow. “You’re getting obsessed Flynn, but the second we deal with Claren you need to get on a plane out of here.”
“So keen to get rid of me so soon?”
“Enough with the jokes.” Lachlan snatches my phone, and my body reacts. I’ve got him pinned against the wall between one blink and the next, my hand around his throat.
“Give it back.”
Lachlan just holds my stare, that goddamn big brother look on his face. “Do. Not. Drag. An. Innocent. Girl. Into. This. Mess.” He taps my phone, making it light up, and the screen reflects, clear as day, in the dark glass doors behind him.
Fuck. He saw Hazel. My grip on his throat tightens and I fight the urge to scratch my own brother’s eyes out just for looking at my girl. That would definitely fall on the “not okay” end of Hope’s sociopath scale.
“I have it under control,” I say.
“Uh huh, sure.” He holds my phone out to me and I take it, letting go of his throat at the same time.
He straightens out his collar. “Tell me the plan with Claren.”
I slide my phone into my pocket and stare up at the sky. Clouds block out all the stars tonight but it’s better than the view I got between the bars of my cell.
“He’s clean,” I say on a sigh. “So clean he’s practically shiny.” It was easy finding dirt on my previous kills, a little stalking here, a little digging there and I knew where all the bodies were buried. Literally. But Claren has so much security I can’t even get close.
“You could just kill him without the evidence.”
“No. He’d die a hero, a victim. The world needs to know he’s the villain.” Fuck knows what that makes me, but I refuse to let Claren’s crimes stay buried.
“What if there’s nothing to find?”
“There will be.” No one commits just one crime, and no politician is that clean. I’d put my inheritance on Christian Claren hiding so many skeletons that his whole house would rattle if you shook it.
Lachlan picks up his glass off the garden table, holding it down by his side as he crosses to the patio doors. “I’ll talk to my contacts. See if anyone can point us in the right direction.”
I dip my head in thanks.
Lachlan slides the door open but stops before stepping inside.
When he looks back at me, his face is shadowed, guarded in that way it always gets when he’s not quite sure how far I’m going to go.
What lines I’m going to cross. But that’s the thing about sociopathy, to me, there are no lines.
I rely on people like Hope to tell me what’s right and wrong and, well, Hope’s been gone for five years now.
I raise my brows. “Just say what you want to say, Lach.”
“The girl. I don’t know who she is to you but don’t do anything Hope wouldn’t want you to.”
Fire hits my sternum, his words striking a sharp emotion I can’t identify. It burns hot for one second before fading away and leaving a sour twist to my stomach. Trust Lachlan to say the one thing that might actually make me reflect on my own actions.
He disappears inside but I stay out on the terrace. I step onto the round metal table and pull myself up to stand on the edge of the wall, looking down at the street below. The police car is still parked out front but they’re watching the door not the roof.
I imagine stepping off the edge. Not because I have any desire to end my life but because I somehow instinctively know that for however long that fall lasted, the constant pressure in my head would dissipate.
My entire life, I’ve been chasing the quiet. Doing dangerous and reckless things just to feel that release. Nothing else ever worked. Until Hazel.
I don’t want to let her go. But I also don’t want to hurt her.
And the one thing Hope would never forgive me for is putting an innocent woman in danger.