Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
clay
My intercom crackles, and Que’s polite voice slides through the speaker. "You have company, Boss."
I was not expecting company, given that my sweet girl is cake tasting today with Bronson and Cassidy. “Who?”
“Lorna, Boss.”
I set the silver letter opener down on my desk.
Reclining in the chair, I relax backwards, looking out at the afternoon sky.
Once, it was merely sky. Now, it is the same blue as her engagement ring, a matching hue to her right eye, the primary colour of the linen my sons were first swaddled in.
Even the heavens, ancient and common, now remind me of my sweet girl and all she has given me.
Christ.
I am a man obsessed.
I answer through the desk speaker, "Let her in."
Soon, stilettos tap-tap against marble and wood. My little deer is always barefoot. It’s an unpleasant sound, the clipping, the confidence in each tap, tap, tap, jarring.
Lorna enters my office, stopping before a red wine stain on the carpet, her eyes glazing with melancholy. "You still haven’t replaced the carpet.”
“I will,” I confirm.
My curt response sets her jaw into a tight line. Her crimson lips part only to take a deep breath, flashing teeth as white as bone, as immaculate as her skin. I used to enjoy the feel of that skin once, beneath me, over me. Now, I can’t imagine wanting anyone other than my fiancé.
“I’m surprised to see you,” I admit, tone even, standing and circling my desk, pulling a chair out for her on the opposite side of the wood. “Please.” I nod at the chair. “Sit.”
“Ever the gentleman.”
“Manners are a rarity.”
She sinks into the leather chair, flattening wrinkles from her pencil skirt before crossing her thighs.
She used to be comfortable in my space, but now she sits like a tension-rope—hiding something from me.
Mimes of body language are something Jimmy Storm taught me.
When a person relaxes, they breathe easily, move smoothly, and happily level their gaze across rooms and companions. Lorna is nervous.
"I am here for Aurora,” she clarifies. Quick. Sharp. A closing gate over her heart. “She would want me to continue to look after you in this way. Using my connections and the newspaper to keep you informed. I do this for her. Not you.”
Interesting. “I accept that.”
Her manicured fingers touch the strand of pearls at her throat, a gift from me from many years ago. A pointless attempt to remind me of our time together.
"Go on." I lean back, lifting my ankle to my knee.
"I stumbled upon something yesterday.”
“Yes,” I press.
She lifts her chin as she says, “While I was going through Fawn's files in the District Media database. We also have access to closed cases, as you know.”
At the sound of my sweet girl’s name, my Butcher blood simmers, though outwardly, I don’t so much as flinch.
Lorna continues, “She has been through a lot.” I can tell her compassion is a mask for something else.
I can tell as her middle finger comes up to scratch the side of her cheek—an emblematic slip.
“I see that. Her mother’s suicide. In and out of foster care.
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even the girl who stole you from me. ”
I deadpan. “I was never yours.”
“No.” Her throat closes up with emotion, so she clears it. “But I was yours. Wasn’t I?”
“Now you’re free.” I stare at her, completely unreadable. “Why were you looking through Fawn’s files? I know everything about her.”
“I wanted to find something…” Her sad voice trails to a pause. She looks at me, genuine pain ghosting across her eyes. “Something imperfect. Something that might sway you from her. I even considered fabricating it.”
“It would not have worked.”
She nods slowly. "I must have realised that at some point. I’ve never seen you so… affected by another person before. I suppose I was miserable after that call." She examines her nails, lowering her chin, hiding her shallow breaths while assessing the red varnish. “That was cruel, even for you.”
“I was never cruel to you.”
Her eyes close. “That was cruel.”
And you’re here for vengeance? “Was the message received?” I ask, curt.
Opening her eyes, now pooling with tears, she spits out, “Yes, loud and clear.”
"Then I shan’t need to be cruel to you again, Lorna.” I pluck a tissue from the wooden holder on my desk, offering it across the polished surface. “Here.”
She takes it, sniffling. A single tear collects in the corner of her eye.
I feel nothing.
"I stumbled upon a missing person's report," she says, dabbing her lashes, delicately collecting the bead without smearing her mascara. "Her foster brothers. Two missing. One dead. That is quite a statistic, Clay. Messy, really.”
There it is.
"Hm." I stand and walk to the bar. Her eyes follow me, though I can’t see them; I can feel them. I pour her drink—a martini dry with a slice of lemon—and rejoin her.
Handing her the glass, I shadow her, waiting for the point of this conversation. Blackmail? Insight? It could go either way at this point. A woman scorned is never good to have as baggage or history.
She takes the glass, red nails curling around the stem, and stares into the liquor, her escape and salvation, as she says, "Does she know?" Lorna's whisper fills the room, a daring and sassy thing just like she is.
I leave her side, returning to my seat opposite her, giving her space to continue. "Does she know what?"
"That you killed them?” Our eyes snap together and hold. Such a statement is a punch to any normal man—to me, her knowledge of this, her questioning, is a mere disappointment. “The two that are missing?” she goes on. “Landon and… Jake, I think it was."
I watch her sip her martini, humming. I made it perfect for her. "The words have never been spoken,” I admit, “but my little deer is no fool. And what of the report, Lorna?”
She sets the glass down. “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why did you kill them?”
I recall the day I murdered the two boys who took turns raping my little deer in a basement. Recall every second of her pretty little revenge at my hands.
“Did they hurt her?” she presses. “Rape her?”
Now, how do you know that?
“She was pregnant when she came to you.” She takes another sip of her martini. “It was one of theirs, wasn’t it? Her foster brothers’?”
The thing about loyalty is that it is black and white. You’re either loyal or you are not.
I click my tongue. "The report, Lorna?”
A bead of sweat cuts a path between her breasts.
Yet, my office is not hot. "Thirteen months since they filed it,” she finally says.
“Both boys are wards of the state—nobody gave a damn.
Perfunctory investigation. Case closed. Cold.
" She shrugs one shoulder, her eyes never leaving mine. "Thought you should know."
"Thank you for telling me."
I rise to my full height, taking my time to smooth down my tie and summon a smile, soft, charming, even.
Walking around my desk, I gently hold my hand towards her. She takes it like it’s a diamond ring, hesitantly rising to her full height. Her eyes hold mine, lips coming close enough that her breath warms my face.
What were you thinking, Lorna?
Coming here with these… questions.
Her perfume invades my senses—floral and clove. I glide my hand up from hers, whispering my fingertips up her arm, feeling goosebumps erupt beneath my touch. She moans, her eyelids fluttering closed.
I massage the side of her neck possessively, causing her head to roll and whimpers of delight to part her lips. My thumb presses against her pulse—a frantic drumbeat.
Racing.
Nervous.
Why?
I lower my lips to hers.
“Clay,” she breathes.
And as I prepare to kiss her, I drive the letter opener through her throat with such force it carves vertebrae.
As her eyes snap open, I swallow her gasp, not with a kiss but as a way to muffle her—the house is busy this time of day.
I suck the cries and whimpers from her. Her left carotid erupts with a hot arterial spray I encourage by pulsing my other fist around her neck.
I twist the blade, widening the wound, and break away from her mouth.
My darkness feeds on the moment. I keep a hold of Lorna’s throat, containing her swaying form.
“C-Clay.” She claws at my forearm, slashing her desperation into me. "Clay.”
“My mother told me to make the tough calls,” I say to her. Watching crimson bubble from her lips as she tries to form my name, I soften my gaze. “It’ll be over soon.”
Red tendrils creep into her hazel eyes, eyes that bulge with terror, pain, and—adoration. Even as her lungs fill with blood, she worships me. For the man I am to her. As if being butchered in my arms is the great love and tragedy she always craved. A grand conclusion.
Her legs give out.
I pull her to my chest, holding her flush against me, cupping the back of her hair, fingers feeding into her red hair.
I whisper to her as she fades. "Shh. Let go. That’s a good girl. It’ll be peaceful soon.”
Her body twitches against mine—a final, intimate moment. Her blood soaks through my suit, ruining the thousand-dollar cotton. I think of the files she accessed. The questions she asked. The information she was gathering.
Too many.
Too obvious.
Madonna mia.
I carry her to the spot by the window where sunlight drills across the wine stain she eagerly drew attention to. I place her there gently, arranging her limbs with care.
The carpet will need replacing.
The expected knock comes precisely on time, the camera in here already giving notes to the only man with access to it—Que. Que and John enter with their equipment and cleaning supplies, faces professionally blank.
Respectful, Se.
We respect the dead.
"Stormy River?" John asks, unfolding a body bag.
I strip methodically, handing over my ruined clothes to Que—shirt, pants, shoes. An adept sequence. So familiar, it' s automatic. "South bank. She once said she loved the view there."
Que nods. "Very good, Boss."
As I walk naked to my bedroom, to the shower, I know the room will be stripped back to rafters and concrete by morning, ready for a full renovation.
This is what a domesticated Don looks like, with his renovations, home extensions, late-night feeds, and group chats. Like a man with so much more to lose, and a ruthless need to protect it. As I said to Bolton, ‘Imagine the depths of Hell I would plunge for her.’