Seduce & Destroy

Prologue

LANEY

Two weeks before…

“I t’s not blood, it’s wine.” I said while I stood staring at the red puddle at my feet, holding the neck of the bottle. Liquid dripped from the shattered glass body and stained my hands a crimson not unlike that which rapidly coursed through my veins.

Father said nothing from his position in the doorway.

I wanted to beg. These bottles were old. It’s not my fault.

But he just stood there. The guilt was seating at me the longer he stayed silent.

“I can explain—”

“Your grandfather is missing,” he finally said.

My head shot up to meet his gaze, but his eyes were unseeing, staring right through me. Or rather, down at the puddle by my feet, I slowly realised, not at me at all.

“He didn’t make his weekly check-in.”

It wasn’t a surprise. In his latest years, Edward Ravencroft redacted his life to show only the parts that made up a strong leader. Nothing of his kind heart or filial love that I knew him for. Between weekly check-ins and operational briefs, he led the Ravencroft Estate from afar and hid his face in a remote cabin up North with a cloak of shame. Alone. While I knew that the Ravencrofts ruled from a gilded cage, I didn’t know why our family was such a burden to him.

As Father puffed out his chest, his eyes caught the light. They were glistening, but not in a sympathetic way, I realised. It was pride. “If someone is after him, we must be vigilant and potentially go incognito. Until we locate him, I’ll be stepping up as interim figurehead of the Ravencroft Estate.”

No, no, no. Please, no. The leash around my neck tightened.

In my anxious state, I’d ripped a nail from my forefinger, it stung. “Father, I’m sure he’s okay. He’s resilient enough, he could’ve—”

“In twenty-five years, that man hasn’t broken contact once. I’d assume the worst if I were you.” He didn’t even appear saddened.

“That’s your father!”

“And that’s why we need strong leadership to efficiently channel our energies to find him.”

“You can’t just replace him!” I whispered, bitter. He couldn’t be gone. He was the backbone of syndicate operations, distance never seemed as far with him in charge. But Father was no longer in the doorway to hear my protest. “We’ll find him.” I told myself.

I lived similarly to my grandfather, but I didn’t take the same comfort out of it as him. Instead, I was under strict curfews, awaiting the time when Father would finally see that I could step foot on the concrete pavements of London and not set the world on fire. He would love to see the streets ablaze. I did not doubt it, but he wouldn’t allow me to be burned by the flames.

Loneliness clung to me harder than the leash Father held me on. But alas, that was the life of a mafia princess. Until I proved to him that I was capable of this lifestyle, I had to suck it up and hope that someday the mean streets of this city would meet me.

My gaze returned to the pool of red at my feet. A maid walked past the door, finding me alone staring at the stain. “The wine will soak in the wood, darling.” She said, softly.

I breathed a sigh of relief. That’ll tidy itself up then.

“No!” My eyes snapped open at her tone. “Clean it up now, it’ll stain!”

“Oh-oh!” I fumbled. “Okay.” My clumsy hands found a tablecloth to fashion as a cleaning rag and repeatedly dabbed at the liquid. It wasn’t pretty. I was smearing the wine more than I was cleaning it up. All I wanted was a nice glass of wine to fill the void in my stomach that the pills helped fill in my head. Anxiety induced a pounding migraine, and soon, my energy level fell to zero.

When I eventually lifted most of the liquid from the floor, I called the only person who could get me out of my head. My one friend. My cousin. And by that time, I was close to tears.

The phone rang three tones before she picked up. I sighed as soon as I heard her voice. “Laney? Oh my god...” Her voice was thick with tension. “Is it true? I just heard the guardsmen chatter, I didn’t think—”

“It’s true.” I nodded though she couldn’t see me.

“I’m so sorry this is happening.”

No proper response came to mind. I couldn’t accept her commiserations right now, accepting the situation was the furthest thing from my mind. I needed a plan. Something to look forward to before I melted in a puddle like the wine that seeped into the cracks of the hardwood floor. But it was fear that overruled my thoughts.

“It’s so much worse than I imagined. I’m panicking!” I said. I could tell it wasn’t what she was expecting, but God, it was honest.

“What?” She asked, anxiety filtering into her voice. “What happened?”

“With Grandfather’s disappearance, father promoted himself.” It poured out of me. If he was taking this as an opportunity to escalate operations, especially to the point of outgrowing our home, and it meant only one thing. “I’m scared he will move us away.”

“No way! London is your home and business! Your father can’t just–”

“Tilly, I don’t want to move away from the city. I can’t stand the quiet.”

“I know Laney, I–” A distant cry sounded in the call's background. It was piercing but, in a way gentle. “Sorry. I swear that girl can sense something is up before I can. Georgia…” She cooed to her nine-month-old daughter. The ink on her marriage certificate barely dried before she announced her pregnancy, and with the baby, her priorities changed. “I hope they find him soon. I can’t– We can’t have more stressors in our family. I won’t regret bringing a child into this world.”

I hadn’t seen her in so long, I needed a friend. “If he moves us,” I began. “Can… can you come visit me? I know you have a baby and a husband now, and things are different, but–”

“Laney, Laney, yes,” she said. “I’d love a weekend where it’s just us girls. Georgia is amazing, but I need a break too. I’ll be there, promise.”

I lifted a finger on my left hand. “My pinky is up.”

“So is mine,” she replied.

“Promise.” We said in unison, our signature. Soon after, she hung up. Something about her husband needing her or something. I could cry.

Tilly was three years younger than me and had it all.

I was twenty-two and didn’t even have a key to the front door.

I’d only known independence once. It was brief and according to my father, not to be repeated.

Every Christmas, I used to wish to go to school.

And each year, Father gave me books instead to develop my intellect, he used to say. Grandfather would look into the fire every time I’d ask. My father taught me to read prose before navigating a proper conversation, claiming that words on a page could be the windows of my life. But books could never replace the desire for connection. I could feel it in my bones, even though I couldn’t articulate it to him, something was missing from my upbringing.

Then, a mysterious present appeared under the tree that wasn’t neatly rectangular. It was soft, and when I opened it, I cried. I tore the paper away to reveal a tartan skirt, a blazer and a tie. Tucked in the breast pocket of the blazer was a note for January enrolment to St James’s Academy.

Signed, Grandad xx

I ran into his arms. That day was one of the few days when I saw him smile.

Please, be okay granddaddy. I vowed it to be true.

Two weeks later, with a skip in my step, I walked the corridors of a real-life school. Too soon, I discovered that the hollow in my chest wasn’t going to be filled by simply being around people but by getting close to them.

My gleeful smile wasn’t welcomed by many. It turned out that spending my entire life under the thumb of a criminal father and a rotating door of staff hadn’t equipped me with great social skills. My father thought it was depression; I thought it was circumstance. My overeagerness to learn and unearned confidence designated my social status as weird, so quickly I resigned to the outskirts of social circles, merely an observer.

There was a girl, though. A little older, a little taller, and stunning.

She made it all worth it.

I only saw her between classes, looking almost ethereal in her confident stride. Her hair was the darkest brown I’d ever seen, catching the wind with each step she took. I admired her like a girl did her mother in later years. It wasn’t a crush but an attraction I’d never felt. She was everything I wanted to be and everything I feared I would never be. My heart ran marathons in her sightline, but despite my fear, I always wished her eyes would find me as mine did hers, but they never did.

I dropped out on my birthday—also, the anniversary of my mother’s passing. No one noticed my absence as I hid in the girls' bathroom. My face stared back at me in the mirror as I passed the morning in the science block toilets, sitting in a stall with the door open. It was quiet, and the motion sensor lights blinked off. I was truly alone. The crushing weight of loneliness felt like a fracture of the brain as tears poured down my cheeks.

I felt a presence that I knew was the girl. Would she finally look at me? Talk to me? Like me?

I stood and walked out of the stall, my vision clouded by tears, but no one was there. With a sigh, I hunched over a sink. The crush of solitude began anew when I felt something behind my back. A hand placed softly in the centre of my back, its thumb repeatedly combing the fabric of my sweater. It was the first touch I felt in years.

I didn’t look up, it was still dark, but I knew it was her.

The girl.

It was just a feeling, but the way that I had built up the affection of this girl in my head was so immense that, compared to little else I had experienced, it was inherent. My crying eased. But this tenderness quickly turned sour.

“Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin,” she whispered.

What a strange thing to say! I had thought, but a tear had run down my cheek at that moment, and I was pulled out of my pity with want to impress her. Abruptly, I straightened my back and wiped my face with my hand, triggering the overhead lights to come on, and the room revealed as empty.

A teacher found me crying soon after and assured me that no one was there– that no one fit her description that went to St James’s, she said. Hallucinations, they said. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with prescription drugs, Father said.

Little did he know.

His black boots came into view again bringing me back to the present moment.

“Oh, and one last thing. We will be moving operations to a remote location. Say goodbye to London, Laney, and say hello to a new life in Great Tenor.”

No!

But Great Tenor? I wasn’t sure where I’d heard that before.

“Please, Father, we’re inconspicuous enough here.”

He walked out before I could finish my rebuttal.

So, I continued to dream of that girl.

Sometimes, I wondered if that was all she ever was.

And now, I would be the furthest away from her that I’d ever been.