Before
LYNX
She leaves the private room reserved for grieving families with her hair a mess, and the boy lurking behind her.
One step.
Another.
Floorboards creak under her weight and she glances both ways before her eyes finally find mine.
Right across the hall, the empty kitchen at my back.
There’s a red mark along her throat.
The boy is glaring at me, and he hovers behind her, protective. His mother would be proud.
I smile at him, then shift my focus to the girl.
“Did you have fun?” I ask my niece softly.
She lifts her chin in defiance but I see her fingers curl, as much as they can with two in a splint on her left hand.
“Is it over?” She asks it with no remorse.
The funeral is a formality, so I don’t blame her for the indifferent disrespect. She didn’t know the man; a tycoon with so much blow in his system when he died, he could’ve fed a small village with the cash it was worth.
I always knew, too, it was a risk coming here, never mind the fact Virginia is mine. The Learys always overstep. But I knew Cassia would be along too, forever Hawthorn’s jewel and nightmare.
She’s very good at being both to every man she meets.
For her sake, or maybe out of spite, I left the other boy at home.
“It’s over for him.” I hold out a hand for my niece, my palm upturned. “Not for you.”
The boy behind her stiffens. He is barely taller than her, but that will change. Sixteen isn’t done growing, is it?
She glances at my hand, where my arm is extended into the hall.
In front of him, she won’t want to take it.
She narrows her eyes and looks down at her shiny black shoes, her black trousers not funeral attire, but simply her usual clothes.
Without taking my offering, she turns to look over her shoulder.
The boy’s eyes, blue and dangerous, don’t leave mine, however. If he only knew just how much he will come to loathe me.
“I’ll catch up with you later.” She lies to him, and he must know it, because the burial is done, and we’re all here waiting for the handwringing to finish, too.
A muscle in his lean jaw clenches. He says, “No.”
And I wonder if Hawthorn Leary has ever broken his fingers.
“I didn’t ask.” Lydia’s spine is straight and she forces him to look at her with the power in her words alone.
His dark brows knit together. “He’s the one, isn’t he?”
I’m impressed he keeps his voice calm as he glances at her splinted hand. He knows.
Did she tell him, or is he getting the same treatment?
I hope he experiences worse than she does.
Cassia deserves to watch the filthy maggot suffer.
“I’ll find you—”
“You won’t,” he interrupts her.
I know more than most she hates to be cut off. And so it is then she turns to me and takes my hand with her right one.
I close my fingers softly around her bones and tug her gently closer.
He watches her like a wolf.
I want to snap his neck.
“Come along, Lydia,” I say to her as I press her to my side. There’s no trembling in her body. Not yet. “We have work to do.”