Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Simon had not slept in days.
Not a full night, at least. His hours were consumed by meetings in dimly lit taverns, sifting through old reports, chasing whispers that led to nowhere.
But nothing drowned out the annoying voice in the back of his head that kept screaming at him. You are not doing enough.
He sat in his new study, scanning over crime reports from years ago, the ink faded now. An attack. A fire. Two deaths. No suspects.
All the reports from the same week that his parents had been killed. The same damn phrasing. The same frustrating lack of answers.
He had read these reports before, but this time, he was combing through them with new eyes, looking for the pattern he had missed.
Murders did not happen in isolation. His parents had not been struck down by some cruel twist of fate.
Someone had orchestrated it, and he just needed to find a way to connect the missing pieces.
Simon exhaled through his nose, steadying himself. It had become a routine for him all these years. Following the thinnest of trails, and just when he thought he was on the brink of something—nothing.
The only difference was that he was not going to stop now. A sharp knock interrupted his thoughts.
“Enter.”
The door creaked open, and Rowan stepped inside. He looked unimpressed as he always did when Simon was in one of his obsessive spells.
“You look like hell,” Rowan said flatly, closing the door behind him.
“Where is the bloody report?” Simon snapped, slamming a hand down on his desk. He did not have the patience to keep up with vanity under these circumstances.
“It’s right in front of you.” Rowan leaned against the doorframe with an unimpressed look. For his part, Simon did not like to be reminded of how close he was to unraveling at the seams.
So, instead, he just picked it up immediately, eyes scanning the page.
“These were all the cases from that week,” Rowan said, stepping closer. “The same week your parents were murdered. You’ve been through them a hundred times. If there was something to find, don’t you think you would have found it by now?”
“There is something,” Simon insisted, rifling through the reports. “There has to be. You do not go through the trouble of orchestrating two murders and leave nothing behind.”
“And what if this trail has gone cold?”
“Then I will set the whole damn thing on fire until I find what I need.” Simon looked up sharply.
“You need to sleep.” Rowan studied him for a long moment.
“I need to find them.”
“And after that? After you’ve found them? What then?”
“I kill them.” Simon’s jaw clenched. He had long since abandoned any notion of mercy.
He noticed his friend flinch slightly at the blunt admission, but to Simon, it was the only justice he could think worthy enough to avenge the death of his parents.
At this point, it did not feel like a confession, nor did it feel like something that warranted a second thought.
“You know what that will make you.”
“A man who finally did what the law failed to do?”
“A man who will never go back home,” Rowan corrected quietly. “Because if you go through with this, if you kill the bastard with your own hands, you will never be able to live as a duke again. You will be a fugitive, a man outside the law.”
“I cannot go back,” he said. “Not before I make them pay.”
“And what of Rachel?” Rowan let out a quiet sigh, rubbing a hand down his face. “She is your wife,” he reminded him. “What happens to her if you disappear into the night with blood on your hands?”
Simon exhaled sharply, turning away. He did not want to think about Rachel, about her face when she had stood there, waiting for him, her eyes full of questions for which he had no answers.
She would be safer without him. That was what he told himself anyway. That was what he had to believe.
“I do not care about any of that,” he lied, his voice hollow.
“No?” Rowan’s brows lifted.
Simon’s grip tightened around the edge of the desk, his knuckles going white.
His life had been shaped by vengeance, by the need to put an end to the nightmare that had started when he was a boy.
But somewhere along the way, he had started caring more about keeping Rachel safe than about his own justice.
And that was too big a distraction.
“I do not care,” he repeated, but the words rang false even to his own ears.
“You do, but you’re too damn stubborn to admit it,” Rowan muttered. “At least tell me what she said.”
“What?” Simon frowned.
“You know what I’m talking about.” Rowan shook his head. “When you left. What did she say?”
Simon paused for a moment. He had tried quite hard to wipe the moment from his memory and did not really appreciate being reminded of it by his friend.
“She wished me safe travels.”
Rowan blinked. Once. Twice. Then he exhaled, shaking his head.
“That was what she said?”
“It would appear so.”
“No anger?” Rowan pressed. “No questions, no demands? Instead, she just wished you safe travels. My word, the both of you might as well both be insane. What sort of wife does not even ask her husband to stay at the very least? Are you certain that there was no attempt to stop you?”
“I already said as much,” Simon replied, irked. It had been hard enough to leave her; he did not wish to dwell on what was going through her head when he did. “What else was there to do?”
“You could have stayed,” Rowan pointed out as if it were rather obvious. “I do not think it would have made any difference to the investigation.”
“There is no use dwelling over what could have happened,” Simon asserted. “All that matters is that I am here now.”
Rowan exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “I cannot tell if that is impressive or devastating.”
“It does not matter.” Simon wanted nothing more than to move on from the topic. It was only a distraction and nothing else.
“You say that, but you have not stopped thinking about it,” Rowan remarked.
“I left because I had to,” Simon asserted for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
“You left your wife and your peace to wound yourself like this and isolate yourself on the brink of madness. You are a fool.”
“Then let me be one in peace,” Simon replied tartly. He had little use for his friend’s judgment.
“You don’t want peace.” Rowan exhaled, shaking his head. “You want punishment.”
“And what would you know of it?” Simon snapped, his patience fraying.
“More than you think,” Rowan noted. “You believe that once this is done, you will finally be free, but we both know that is a lie.”
“I will be free once I get my revenge,” Simon muttered. “Then it will be over.”
“You mean then you will be satisfied?”
“Yes.”
“You are lying.” Rowan barked out a laugh. “It is ironic, actually. She let you leave, but you cannot do the same.”
“You need to let this go,” Simon warned, but Rowan was not one to listen.
“Tell me, Simon, what is the first thing you think of when you wake up? Is it vengeance?”
Simon said nothing. For the longest time, it was that he wanted to avenge his parents’ deaths, but now, it was different.
“Or is it her?”
Rowan took his friend’s silence for a confirmation, and rightfully so.
“You are chasing ghosts, Simon. And if you are not careful, you will become one yourself,” he said, a hint of warning in his voice.
“I have no intention of dying before this is done,” Simon asserted.
“I was not talking about death.”
Rowan did not wait for a response. He grabbed his coat and made for the door.
“Tomorrow,” he said before leaving. “We will have a name. I shall make sure of that.”
The cemetery was quiet at this hour.
A light mist clung to the ground, and the path was uneven beneath Simon’s boots. His coat was damp at the hem, but he barely felt the chill.
He had not come here in years. Not since the funeral.
Even then, he had not lingered. He had not spoken. He had not allowed himself the weakness of grief.
But tonight, his legs had dragged him over. Where else was he supposed to go? He had already left his own home behind.
The moonlight was just enough for him to read his father’s name, which was etched into the stone. And beside him, his mother. Unchanged for many years.
Simon exhaled, his breath curling in the cold air. “It has been a long time.”
No one answered. Of course, no one would.
He let out a breath and took a slow step closer, running a hand over the surface of the stone.
“I am not sure why I came,” he admitted, tilting his head back to the sky, which looked just as gloomy as he felt. “Perhaps I am tired.”
“Rowan thinks I am losing myself.” A bitter chuckle escaped him, and his grip on the edge of the gravestone tightened. “He thinks I am chasing ghosts.”
“But I am not chasing ghosts. I am chasing the bastard who put you in the ground.”
Simon knew that he would appear like a true madman should someone spot him talking to graves, but he did not particularly care. It felt cathartic to do this, if anything.
“It has been years.” His voice grew rougher. “I do not know what you would say to me if you could. Would you be proud that I never stopped looking? Or would you be ashamed that I could not let go?”
He swallowed hard. They were questions that he had thought of far more times than what should be considered normal. For once, he wanted them to answer back to him.
“You were good people. You deserved better,” He glanced down at his hands, flexing them slowly. “But I have never been good.”
His father’s words echoed back from a time long past. A man who lets vengeance consume him is already dead. Perhaps that is why Rowan’s observation had been so hard-hitting.
“I am not a ghost,” he whispered. “But I will not rest until they are in the ground beside you.”
It did not matter what Rowan thought or what Rachel did. He had made a promise years ago, and he was not going to step back from it now.