5. Landon #2
When Zay dragged me back to the Raiders’ hideout six months ago, they made it very clear where I stood. I wasn’t family. I wasn’t even property. I was an example. They beat me until I was swallowing my blood like air. My ribs cracked like cheap china under boots and knuckles.
And through all of it, I was silent, minus the few grunts, and sharp inhales.
It was the only beating I’ve ever taken in the States that came close to what my father used to do. And even then —my father wouldn’t have stopped until I was seconds from brain dead. Those fuckers have nothing on Charlie Heart.
So yeah, this guy? This coward who leaves his wife and kids in splints when he gets bored?
He’s mine.
And he’s not walking away with his jaw intact.
Conner joins me a second later, slipping off his gloves with a snap. “That one’s newer,” he says, tapping the top of the file with his knuckle. “Still under internal review. Quiet case. DPD won’t move on it for at least three weeks.”
“Plenty of time,” I mutter, flipping it open. Inside: name, address, photos. Receipts. Patterns. A predator waiting to be caught.
“You keep feeding me scraps like this,” I say, eyes scanning the pages, “and maybe I won’t let the thing inside me out for anyone else.”
Conner’s gaze flicks to me—tired, knowing. “That’s the arrangement.”
It is.
While Conner spent his childhood studying anything with a pulse—watching how long it took before it stopped and became a corpse—I spent mine being carved into the soldier my older sister refused to become.
My father even did the demented, crack-head speech about how every dark corner of London was meant to be mine one day. All I had to do was survive long enough. Endure enough. Withstand enough to grab it with both hands.
As a kid, I believed him. And when the first shadow bloomed inside me, he nurtured it like it was his real son.
More than I ever was. By the time I was fourteen, the beast within me had spent more time in the sun than I did.
The beast was angry. Murderous. A fucking terror .
My own mother flinched when I walked into a room.
That’s something Conner and I share—mothers who didn’t know what to do with the things they helped create.
My sister was the only one who saw any good in me, even when I didn’t think good and me were compatible in the same sentence.
She escaped to the States the minute she turned sixteen, after my father had set her up to marry Emil Smirnov, a fucking animal in the drug market of the East. She left the next day and told me to come find her when I was ready. ,
I followed two years later, right after I failed to kill my father. Too afraid of what perpetual darkness would do to me, and too afraid of what the Butchers would do to me if I stayed in London any longer. But now the only person who allowed me to see any light is dead.
Now, this— this deal I made with Conner —is the only thing that calms the monster long enough to stop it from trying to kill me to be in the sun again.
The deal is, he gives me the names. The ones that slip through the cracks.
The ones with lawyers, money, connections, or shady dealings.
The ones the cops “monitor” but never touch.
And I use them to feed my beast. I protect society—clean up the filth no one else will touch. I’m basically fucking Batman, just without the whole no killing philosophy.
Because unlike him, I actually have morals, and I don’t just want to stroke my ego. And I don’t get off fighting the same three villains in a revolving door of justice. I end them. Permanently.
Conner methodically disposes of the cleaning supplies and his gloves in a black plastic bag, as he reads over the files with me.
“This is the last one for a while. ” Conner comments, tying a knot in the bag.
I look up at him, slow and calm. “You’re taking a break while you play college professor?”
Conner shakes out his blonde pin straight strands and snorts. “I am not pretending.”
I watch as Conner begins to methodically clean up his cleaning supplies, and if it weren’t for the cold vacancy behind those pale green eyes, I might even admit he’s attractive.
Hell, tomorrow when Jasmine walks into her forensics class and sees him, I bet her pupils will blow wide and her thighs will clench in that telltale way she does when someone hot walks into a room.
Conner’s been attractive since we were kids.
That hasn’t changed. Loosely curled chestnut-brown hair that always falls too perfectly over his forehead, lean build that looks deceptively soft—until you see him shirtless.
Then it’s all sharp edges and carved muscle, like someone engineered him in a lab at 2% body fat.
Harder than a fucking wall of China.
And I’d know. Because once, when I was twelve, my father drop-kicked me into it.
I clear my throat, and place the folder onto the table. “ Hey I need a favor.”
“No, you’re an arsehole.”
“Fuck off.” I snort, a small chuckle leaves my lips just as he ties the string around his tool sleeve.
“Gladly.”
“Kilgore,” I snarl. “Tomorrow Jasmine Rivera will be in your class.”
“I am not traumatizing someone because they will not fuck you, Lan.” He lazily drawls, giving me a bored look.
I roll my eyes. “It’s not that. She’s the girl I’m assigned to protect.”
Conner’s eyebrows lift a millimeter.
“She’s the reason I’ve been running around on a leash. The Raiders are breaking off from the Italians, signing a deal with the Cartel. And I’m the babysitter until that deal is solidified.”
Conner lets out a slow, unimpressed breath and goes back to sorting his kit into his larger briefcase.
“She’s sharp. Smart mouth on her,” I mutter, more to myself than to him. “Pisses me off daily. You’d hate her.”
Conner finally looks up, eyes like polished glass. He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t smirk.
“Fine,” he huffs. “I will watch her, if you leave. I need quiet to dismember this body, and your voice is fucking up the rhythm.”
I raise my hands in surrender. “Fine, just do me the favor.”
“Fine, now go. I’m not you,” he mutters, turning back to the table. “I don’t need an audience.”
I watch him for another second, then turn and head for the stairs.
“Burn those clothes,” he calls after me, just as the sound of a chainsaw rings through the room.
I nod, already knowing the drill. I slip out through the maintenance grate and emerge into a narrow alleyway off Midtown—rain-soaked, neon-lit, cluttered with late-night trash and the low murmur of a city that never gives a fuck.
My phone buzzes in my pocket the moment I hit the street.
Twelve missed messages.
Peach: Where are you
Peach: You said to wait for you, and I am BORED!
Peach: Are you dead or just being a dick?
Peach: Hello??? Earth to the worst stalker ever!
Peach: Landon, you suck!
Awe, my peach got bored without me around. I scroll down and spot the notification from the tracker.
[ALERT: Peach has exited the Haven Towers complex — 4 hours ago.]
Fucking brilliant.
I drag a hand down my face, then pocket the phone with a dry chuckle and start moving—shoulders hunched, boots splashing through puddles.
Well what’s better than feeding my beast blood. Feeding him a peach.