Chapter 20
TROY
Hunting calms me. It reminds me of my youth.
My prey, caught in my crosshairs, walks out of his office building for the night. He occasionally looks up from his phone.
I was after a bear, but I’ll take a boar. He wasn’t directly involved in my incarceration, but he’s responsible all the same.
I let out a measured breath and then take another in, equally measured, and start the engine.
Behind my prey, there’s a man following him.
It doesn’t make me hesitate, but I note how many strides behind he is.
That must be his bodyguard. My target, smaller, skinnier than a whippet, opens the town car door and slides into the back seat.
His gaze darts about the interior, and then lands on me.
“Canary Wharf,” he barks, becoming absorbed in his phone once more.
I lock the doors.
And then I drive off, just as his bodyguard reaches the passenger-side rear door. My prey hasn’t even noticed he’s riding solo. He’s too busy with his nose in his phone.
It’s too easy.
Far too easy. I’m lucky this one didn’t need two weeks; he’s so fucking predictable.
The man who froze my family accounts, so what little family I had was left vulnerable, is within my reach.
And he has no clue who is driving him home.
I no longer worry about being recognised, given what I do for a day job.
No one knows me when I’m dressed like this, like the help.
Each one who sent me down, who was complicit in the murder of my family to line their pockets, wouldn’t know me in the street or a dark alley, never mind in their inner circle of trust, driving their cars, tending to their gardens, cooking their food, even shaving their damn faces.
No, these men never go anywhere without security, or leave their alarms unset, wouldn’t even bat an eyelid if I wiped their asses for them.
With immense wealth comes big holes in all that shiny armor.
These men rely on elite services to run their lives.
And I’m not a scared kid anymore with no connections.
I can get right under their nose, until I’m invisible, trusted, and indispensable.
No one ever sees the blade until it’s already at their throat.
Like now.
Fuck. I almost run a red light. Almost.
Stop rushing. All in good time.
I screech the car to halt, shooting a glance in the rearview mirror at my prey, who hasn’t looked up once from his screen.
When I look back ahead, a woman in a floaty dress with curly hair and an innocent face darts an anxious look my way, before cautiously, walking across the road as though I own it and she’s afraid I’ll make her pay for it.
She looks like Nell.
No…Sage with those big doe eyes, searching my soul. And the way her pink tongue darts out to wet her sweet lips. I imagine what those sweet lips would feel like, wrapped around my cock and I’m seconds away from coming undone.
This.
This is why I left that damn island.
The lights change, and I hurl the car forward. My prey chooses at that moment to look up from his emails and glance out of the window. He catches my eye in the mirror. “What...where are we? This isn’t Canary Wharf?”
No, it isn’t. We’re in a seedy part of London, heading towards a secluded spot where stolen cars are torn apart and reborn, and dead bodies wind up in the river. My prey looks worried.
He should be.
I press a button on my phone, which locks the doors and stops him from unclipping his seatbelt.
And then I take out Judgment, fresh from a spit and polish, and ready to work.
Through the mirror, my prey sees the blade and pales, like Death himself has reached up from Hell to squeeze the blood out of him.
..but not yet. The man in my car yanks at his belt, and tugs frantically at the door handle.
It won’t work. He’s not going anywhere. And suddenly, I remember why I like it when my prey suddenly realizes what’s happened.
His panic is fucking glorious.
I catch his eye again in the glass; he’s shaking, the words “Why are you doing this?” and “What are they paying you?” spill annoyingly from his lips.
Judgment was the right choice. It’s straight edged but not too sharp. It’ll give a swift, clean kill, but it’ll still hurt. And Judgment never wavers. It’s my favorite to use on traitors, liars, and those who ask too many questions in the end.
I switch on the privacy screen and turn up my music of choice; heavy metal to drown out the noise of him, and to get me in the mood. And then I pull into a deserted dock, hiding the car from the view of the road between two disused shipping containers.
My prey is still pleading when I slash the seatbelt off him, and drag him out of the car by his hair. He doesn’t try to put up a fight. Pathetic.
I hum along to the heavy metal playing as I drag my victim, the man who made sure I wasn’t around to protect her, all the way to the container entrance.
In the middle of the container, dramatically lit with a work light, is a chair with restraints. It took a time to build and haul it out here, but the look on Alistair Godwin’s face, the banker who took everything we owned and gave it to Lovett, all tied up in a pretty fucking bow, is priceless.
I’m not going to interrogate him. He’s already dead. All this is just for effect because when I slice the bastard’s throat, I want him to see the real me.
“What is this? What are you doing?” he begs as I pull him toward the chair, crying like a baby, still trying to loosen the grip I’ve got on his scalp.
When he’s seated and strapped in, I bend down and murmur near his ear:
“It’s time for your final appointment, Alistair.”
It’s less an interrogation these days, more torture, as my thirst for blood has sharpened. And I really draw it out, enjoying the way every cut and every slice brings back my control.
Then I slit his throat.
Blood arcs, spraying across my chest, hands, and face.
And just like that, the tension breaks.
It always ends like this, an acute but quiet release as though I’ve opened a valve I didn’t know I was holding shut, bleeding out the rage and the rot that’s been living under my skin so long.
And then a smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.
It feels so alien and unnatural that I let out a soft chuckle.
Goddam, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to laugh.
As I close my eyes and listen to the crash of the music, I can hear the rush of blood in my ears, and the slow and steady beat of my own damn heart.
It’s jarring, reminding me I’m still a part of this world even though I do everything I can to forget.
One day, I’ll silence that too.
But not today.
I’ve got a long way to go before I can rest.
At least, I’m staying away from her. I almost killed her in the lake. I promised myself that if I took it too far, I would stay away. She’s not Nell. She’s not the person I thought she was. She’s not manipulating me for her father.
Granted, she did have a vial of poison on her, but even if her father gave that to her, she wouldn’t use it.
I see her now. Nell wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.
And neither would Sage. She’s too oblivious, completely and utterly helpless at the best of times, like one of those doe-eyed fawns stumbling through the woods.
She has no idea what she’s doing. I don’t even care that she stole one of my razors.
Another dry laugh escapes me, lighter and unexpected.
Mercy. Let her keep it. She can’t hurt me with my own fucking razor, and I’d rather she were armed.
I clamp my mouth down and get back to work, methodically, clearing the blood away. Ironically, I have a contract with Lovett for this kind of disposal under a shell company that would never trace back to me. He has no idea who I am, which makes it beautifully fitting.
It satisfies some dark part of my soul. The man who arranged my family’s murder gets to clean up the mess I make of his friends through that vile pet food company of his.
Sage doesn’t know how much of a twisted fuck her father is. Christ, she’s an absolute nightmare. I’ll give her that.
When I get outside, there’s a missed call from Mundel. He answers on the tenth ring.
“I’m not sure what you want me to do about this…wedding.”
And just like that, the annoyance is back. “Plan for it, like I asked.”
“I’m an ex-con, not an event planner.”
“Then hire one.” My tone is irritated, and I don’t bother to hide it.
“Are you really going through with it?”
“A deal is a deal. I always keep my word.”
“She’ll run screaming when she finds out what you really are.”
She won’t. She’ll be gone by the time this is over.
“Is that a threat, Mundel?”
“No, it’s a reminder that you promised me blood in the fucking streets of Fleet. This is not a fairytale and you’re not bloody Prince Charming, either. You’re a con just like me under that shiny suit.”
“Have you finished?”
He grunts, so I take that as a yes. “There’s another package to be picked up by Lovett.”
“Where?”
I hesitate to tell him the shipping container’s coordinates. Mundel is too emotional. His getting sloppy is not what I need right now. But we’ve both come too far to start distrusting each other, and I need him.
I have no one else.
Not anymore.
The only one I care about who isn’t dead, won’t even acknowledge I exist.