Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mace
“Come here, Baby girl.” I sit in the armchair of our hotel suite and reach out a hand.
Autumn is wrapped up in a fluffy robe, but she’s chilled. Her teeth are chattering. It’s not cold in the room. In fact, it’s too warm. I turned up the heat as soon as we got here, but even after giving her a hot bath, she’s still trembling.
After lifting her onto my lap, I wrap a blanket around her and hug her against me. Maybe it would be better to strip her out of the robe and spoon her in bed under the covers. She couldn’t possibly continue to shiver with my body heat there.
“I can’t stop shaking,” she mutters.
“I know, sweetheart. Take some deep breaths.”
She inhales deeply and lets it out, but it’s going to take a lot more of those to dampen her panic. “You’re certain no one can trace you back to Frank?”
“Positive.” I rub her arm. “We’re good at what we do.”
“And you’re sure he’s dead?”
“Very dead, Baby girl. He had an unfortunate car accident. The entire vehicle went up in flames. All they found was a charred body. If only he hadn’t been driving with such a high blood-alcohol level.”
She looks at me. “You staged all of that?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
The truth is, we never even used a weapon, which was incredibly convenient because it kept the neighbors near the safehouse from hearing a gunshot.
I was glad Autumn and Addison were in the soundproofed safe room. They won’t have to hear Samson begging us to spare his life in their nightmares.
I’m certainly not suggesting they won’t have nightmares. I suspect they both will, but at least they never saw what we did to Samson in the basement, the cleanup that ensued, or how we managed to set up the untimely demise the cops discovered.
Thank goodness we had a cleanup crew available a few hours away.
They cleared out every shred of evidence that Samson was surveilling the Burke home.
It’s tidier this way. Man got drunk and slammed his car into a propane tank at the edge of someone’s property in a remote area.
The explosion and fire will have destroyed any evidence that Samson wasn’t alive before the “accident.”
He had been drunk, though. We poured the alcohol down his throat for over an hour before letting him finally take his last breath. We even taunted him, painting a picture of what the cops would find when they arrived on the scene of his terrible car crash.
I’ve seen men cry. I’ve seen them beg. I’ve seen them piss themselves. Samson’s final hour included all three of these things in extremes.
I’m a cold-hearted fucker, but I’m unapologetic when it comes to assholes like Frank Samson. The bastard fucking killed my mentor because he was a greedy fuck who dug his own grave, starting when he began to treat his wife like shit and then slapped her around.
May he rot in hell.
“Daddy?” Autumn’s soft voice pulls me out of my musings.
“I’m here, Baby girl.”
“Are you?” She cups my face.
“Yes, sweetheart. I’ll always be here. By your side.”
“I’m worried about going to the house tomorrow.”
“I know you are, Baby, but I’ll be with you the entire time. It will be good for you to pick what you want to have shipped to Seattle and get some closure.”
We’ve already discussed what will happen to her father’s body.
It was his wish to be cremated, so that’s already in the works.
We’ll honor his desire for his ashes to be scattered at sea in a few months.
He didn’t want a huge, sad funeral, and Autumn isn’t up for hosting a memorial, so that’s on hold for now, too.
The truth is that we’re waiting for a police report and a death certificate before anything else.
Luckily, Bryant has connections at the police station.
He managed to get an official report backdated, indicating the police were called to the scene and found no evidence of foul play.
The official cause of death is listed as a heart attack.
I hate that my friend was murdered, and most people will never know this truth. But I’ll sleep easier knowing his killer can’t cause harm to anyone ever again, so I can live with the cover-up that wipes the slate clean.
I’m not surprised when Autumn starts crying. She’s exhausted and has been through more in the past week than most people endure in a lifetime. She needs to purge the icky feelings, and crying is the best way to do so.
Spanking would probably help, too, but I’d rather not pile more emotions on her tonight. Impact play can wait until we get home.
Right now, what my girl needs is for me to hold her and comfort her, and that’s exactly what I plan to do.