Chapter Seven
In which Kai discovers that manipulating someone else into finding the person he killed is exhausting.
Kai / “Wallace…”
Well, that’s some shite timing right there.
What the feck is Grayson doing here? The island is the Lord's territory; parents either dinna want to know what happens here or have no interest.
Locking my paperwork in the desk drawer, I stretch, enjoying the creak of muscle and joints. And the fact that Luna can’t take her eyes off me.
Someone pounds on the door. Right on time, I think.
“Wallace! Pull your dick out of the girl and open the door.” It’s Marcus.
“Go into the bathroom,” I tell Luna, “lock the door until I come get you.” She nods, behaving for once.
Marcus pounds on the door again, hard enough to make the frame shake. “Fucking relax,” I snarl, opening the door. His gaze goes over my shoulder, looking for Luna, no doubt. The Lords rarely keep a girl after playing the Dark Games with them. Their curiosity about her is not good, but she must stay here with me. “What’s going on?”
“Have you seen Deacon? His father’s here and he’s taking the piss out of Richard because Deacon’s nowhere to be found.”
“Not since last night when we kicked off the hunt,” I shrug. “You checked all the usual spots he uses to sleep and sober up?”
“Yes,” Marcus frowns, “no sign.”
“Let’s get security to start a search,” I sigh, grabbing a T-shirt and pulling it on. “The island’s not that big. I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Give the girl a rest and come right now,” he says crossly. “This is important.”
“You know we’re going to find him still drunk as fuck, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s likely,” he agrees. “Hurry up. I’m not going to be the only one dragging my ass through the woods looking for him.”
Shutting the door in his face, I tap on the one to the bathroom. Luna flings it open, her worried face examining mine. “Do they know?”
“He’s just now declared missing,” I say. “Relax. I’m engaging the biometric locks. No one can enter aside from me. Keep quiet. Don’t answer the door for anyone, do you understand?”
“I may hate your guts, but you’re my best bet right now,” Luna says ruefully. “I’ll be quiet.” She’s taken advantage of her moment alone to find one of my sweaters to wear, and it’s a shame. Her perfect, perky breasts are finer to watch than the World Cup. However, keeping her covered right now is a good idea.
“Wait!”
I need to get downstairs and deal with this mess. “Aye, lass?”
“Is Wallace your first name or your last?” Luna tucks her hands into my sweater sleeves, shifting anxiously.
“That’s your question?” I ask, amused. “Not about your safety or what happens next. You’re wanting clarification on my name?”
“It’s better than calling you Sir, believe me,” she says, narrowing her eyes.
“Aye, I’m sure. But you’re going to call me Sir anyway.” Her look of fury as I close the door makes me laugh for the first time since I came to this fecking island.
“Hello, son, good to see you again.” Grayson holds out his hand and I squeeze it just slightly harder than I should, jerking him toward me a step. He looks displeased for an instant before his expression returns to its usual smug state. I hate this motherfecker and him calling me “son” is forcing me to use all my considerable self-control to keep from stabbing him in the throat.
“You as well, Grayson. Are you here for a bit of a day trip? Missing your sons, perhaps?” I’m using my most irritating upper-crust drawl, and he smiles.
“Ah, some papers to sign, the usual,” he says, waving one manicured hand. “I understand last night’s games were… well-attended?”
Grayson Armstrong was already a multi-millionaire before he decided to go into the party drug trade. I could have tolerated that. However, he then decided that compounding a nerve gas that could kill thousands was a sound business model. Unfortunately, he’s right. But that will end soon, along with his and his remaining son’s useless existence.
“Quite a party,” I agree, expressionless. “I’m on my way to search for Deacon. He didn’t get the message you were stopping by?”
“I don’t know.” His affable, blandly handsome face twists for a moment, allowing his true nature to surface and the result is profoundly unpleasant. “But do tell him to get back to the house if he doesn’t want me to cut him out of my will. I’m on a schedule here.”
“Deacon can’t be far,” I shrug. “He was rather hammered last night. Probably sleeping it off.” I nod and leave the room before I have to spend another second with that well-dressed piece of shite. You can dress a man in the most expensive business wear, but if he’s a bag of shite, he’s still a bag of shite in a Tom Ford suit.
I pause for a second to look up at my suite’s windows to see Luna there, one hand pressed against the glass. Shaking my head warningly, I glance around to make sure no one saw the exchange.
“How did you get that girl to want you so much? I mean, you ran her down in the forest waving that baseball bat of yours. Does she have a chase kink? Did you fuck her right there in the dirt, Wallace?”
Feckin’ Enzo. He strolls over, wearing nothing but a taunting grin and basketball shorts.
“It’s not my dick size,” I say dryly, “she wants to live. That can make a girl mighty affectionate.”
“I knew you had a tiny one!” Enzo crows, laughing uncontrollably.
“Yeah. That’s it,” I say. “Richard and Marcus took the back part of the island. I’ll go south, you go north.”
“What if I want to go south?” Enzo asks.
Jesus Christ, this arsehole makes me homicidal. “What are you, fucking six? Go south then!”
He tilts his head, considering me. “You’re cranky for a guy who got laid last night.”
“Well, you’ve managed to kill my buzz, so thanks for that.” I look pointedly to the south. “I’m heading out.”
“Ah, ah!” Enzo starts jogging in that direction. “I’m taking south. You go north.”
Deacon’s body lies rotting in the south end of the forest. I knew that Enzo, who has the intellect and uncontrollable childishness of a first grader, would insist on picking whatever location I seemed to want. Shaking my head, I head north, which was always the plan. That manky prick will be the one to find the corpse.
I stroll around the beach on the north end of the island until I get the call. “Deacon’s dead,” Enzo blurts before I can speak. “He’s in a clearing about half a mile in, I nearly stepped on him.”
For a guy who enjoys breaking bones, he sounds mighty upset. Maybe he’s confronting his own mortality? The Lords are blessed with a complete lack of human decency and a highly elevated level of entitlement. Realizing that he’s not immortal is shaking Enzo up.
Good.
Now to pretend I give a shite about Deacon’s death. “Call Leo. Drop a pin on your phone so he can find you. I’ll send in some men to carry the body back. Can you see what happened?”
“Yeah, he was strangled with his own fucking whip.,” Enzo snarls, “it’s pretty goddamn clear.”
“Who could get the drop on Deacon?” I muse, strolling along the trail. “And with the whip? Where were Brennan and the second guy?”
“I was beating the shit out of Brennan,” he says. “We can track back on the surveillance to see who encountered Denton.”
“That’s the other guy’s name?” I ask. “He looked too scared to be here. I expected him to climb a tree and hide there for the rest of the night. But let’s rule him out.”
“Fuuuuck, I’m not going to be the one to tell Richard his brother’s dead,” he groans. “Get your ass here.”
Smiling malevolently, I say, “Richard’s going to be there any minute. I’m on the other side of the island. Suck it up. One of our own is dead.”
“Yeah…”
“See you back at the house.” I hang up, my grin stretching to feral proportions. I briefly despised myself last night for not feeling anything when I stood over Deacon’s dead body. Now, I feel satisfaction. He was going to hurt my Luna, kill her most likely because he couldn’t handle a woman calling him a little bitch.
Nice to know I can still feel something. Feck, this assignment has gone on too long.