Chapter 3
LANEY
T he first thing I looked for when I started my day was her. There’s something uncanny in her refrain. Each time I caught a glimpse, I was transported back to my secondary school self, and that fearful intrigue in me was ablaze again. If she wasn’t the girl I swore I saw at school, she was my dream girl.
It was either that or I was just excited to have another woman at the estate. Tilly was coming today, or at least I hoped so. She was often late. Being both newlywed and a new mother left her with little time for friends.
It was only me here. Well, now it's me and Kenna. Mafia women usually get married just before their eighteenth birthday; they don’t stay at home long. Father even set me up once, but it didn’t work out.
Tilly had a husband, I had her. She turned nineteen last week. The kitchen prepared a red velvet cake for tonight.
Father and I sat on a balcony overlooking the front driveway of the manor house, cappuccinos in hand—mine with chocolate sprinkles on top, his without. It became our new routine as we adjusted to the new house.
“I hope you have updated the server verification system to be processed through a VPN in the Cayman Islands and disguised the extended geo-tracking into the wider Great Tenor area to comply with new public privacy laws.” My father spoke with no glamour. Believe it or not, those are the first words he has spoken to me today. I stopped expecting a ‘good morning’ greeting when I hit puberty.
“Yup, and I installed a facial recognition system in the cameras at each estate entrance, including the West porch entryway and gates. The new hires already had their likeness scanned on intake.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Great. And the April hard driv-?”
“Already encrypted and in the Cave.”
“Good.” He nodded sharply. A copy of Troilus and Cressida lay on the table between us. Father kept up with my English teachings through Shakespeare's plays. I only really enjoyed the romantic ones, even with a tragic ending. “How far did you get?”
“I just reached Act three this morning.”
“Ah, Cressida’s exchange. It’s a terrible shame that war necessitates familial sacrifice. Know, Sunshine, that I would never trade you.”
“I know, Father.” You would rather use me. “But it seems like hearts will break regardless. I don't want Grandad's death to be just a piece in a larger war. I don’t even want the conflict. It always ends in tragedy.”
“It’ll be worth it.” He said. “We’ll get our revenge, Laney. Your grandfather’s death will not be in vain.”
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe. “That won’t make us heal faster! It’ll just make the cuts deeper. Doesn’t it hurt enough?”
He didn’t reply. It always seemed that violence and pain was something inevitable in his mind. That it simply came with the mafia territory. I never really understood why resolutions of conflict in this world had to be signed in blood rather than handwritten signatures.
“His funeral will be in four weeks.”
“Okay.” I said, nodding, but the bounce of my knee drilled a rhythm into the ground below my feet. There was something eery about this place. Its history concealed under the thick foliage of intertwining ivy vines, but while it might be covered, it wasn’t concluded.
A heavy hand fell on my knee and froze me in place. “You know you are safe here, Laney.”
“I felt safe in London.”
“To land on top, we must hide and become prepared to fight. This is a temporary base to facilitate that.”
“But what if…”
“No one knows we are here. Anonymity is the safest place of them all. Trust me, the conflict will be fought far away from you and then, you can return to your merry London life.”
I withheld a huff as I let our conversation descend into a reflective silence. We both looked ahead at the expansive forest that lined the property. The treeline was high to conceal our whereabouts and the scale of our operations here. On the rooftops, snipers were poised to anticipate the worst, and so were the multiple heavily armed bodyguards Father had recruited to follow his every move. Breakfast was their fifteen-minute break, I guess.
The Union may have perished in the fissure, crippling our operations with the absence of lucrative revenue from Karstein drugs and arms, but the Ravencroft Estate remained powerful. Our money was stamped and disturbed amongst the seediest of London pubs, clubs and casinos. To protect our assets and hide our identity during our relocation to this Hertfordshire village, the Great Tenor levy had been imposed, the tax promised protection from any threats our presence may incur.
God forbid the violence found us here.
My eyes trained on Kenna. Her chest heaved as she came up to the front steps of the estate, an entrance she was not supposed to use, and evaded my sightline. The next thing we could hear was a banging on the door. Sir Waite was stationed at the front of the house, a bold move for the new girl—until I listened to her pleading.
“A body…blood everywhere…” She managed to say between huffs, “God, there was so much blood. Oh my god…” It’s difficult to piece together her exact words, but I sat up to hear better anyway.
My father was already out of his chair, leaning too far over the balcony.
Kenna kept rattling off details to the stern man. In between the loud thumps of my escalated heartbeat, I caught snippets of her words, “...laid between leaves…first, fruit juice…then…hole…” She stabbed her finger to her chest, demonstrating. “And her hair…”
“Her?” Forrester interrupted.
“...it was red.”
My heart stalled and skipped a beat.
☆
“Laney!”
It was like the last week hadn’t happened and I was stuck in a loop. Once again Neenan chased after me as I ran from him in tears. But this time I ran toward the barrack’s med bay instead of hiding myself.
“I want to see her!” I screamed, throat hoarse. By the fourth corridor that led to rooms I didn’t recognise, I grew frustrated as Neenan strayed uselessly behind me. “Take me to her, please, please.”
Stopping abruptly, I swung round clawing at his chest. “Let me see her. I want to see her.”
He opened his mouth, but it wasn’t his voice that spoke the next words.
“That’s not a good idea.” Grant’s ashen face rounded a corner.
I must be close.
Tears welled. “She was my family first!”
Neenan stood before me avoiding my eyes, while Grant shifted his weight from foot to foot as he watched me with caution. “Please,” I whispered.
With a tight smile, Grant stepped forward. “I can’t let you see her.” He said as he lifted a hand to halt my impending words. “Her injuries are…just… remember Tilly as the bright girl that she was, and not…”
At his proximity, I could see the goosebumps rise on his brown skin. Whatever he saw it was chilling. I grimaced. Sometimes saying less created the darker image in my mind. Remember my friend, he was saying, and … not her buckled body.
I wanted to run to her, if only to get mental picture out of my head. Grant’s sudden appearance meant that she was near. I could find her, I knew it, but both men packed enough muscle between them to restrain me with ease.
I exhaled heavily. “Who did this?”
“The culprit is unknown, but I assure you we will find him.”
“Like you found my grandfather’s killer?” I replied. My hope had been dwindling by the day. It was a known fact that crimes not solved within the first forty-eight hours were most likely to go cold.
That wouldn’t be our legacy. It couldn’t be.
I shook my head and nodded and then, glanced up at Neenan, his saddened expression mirroring a more muted version of mine. “Why,” I stumbled. “Why her?” Tears began to burn their path down my cheeks. “Not her. Never her.”
“I don’t know, Laney.”
She had no part in this operation, she chose to be a homemaker, a mother and wife. A soft home for her family to grow, a haven from the taint of bloodshed. Wasn’t it inscribed in the mafia oath that women and innocents wouldn’t be harmed? She was meant to be safe.
“Let me,” I stood taller, confident. “Let me, at least, say goodbye… please.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t let you do that.” Grant said, and with a weak smile on his lips stepped backward in the direction he came from.
“ Please.” I halfway whined, tears dripping on the concrete.
He simply shook his head and left me there.
My tightened posture deflated, and I bent through my knees to fall to the floor. But before I hit the floor, a hand grabbed my arm. The grip was softer than I would expect from either man. I turned sharply to look at who was holding me, and I paused. Suddenly, the hand on my arm felt warm, and I felt myself relax a little, a kind reprieve from the tension of this week.
“Laney,” she said softly, herself appearing shaken as her voice cracked. “I heard she was your friend.”
God swallow me whole.
Without warning, I folded my arms around Kenna’s shoulders, seeking comfort. I nestled in further, placing my face neatly into the curve where her neck and shoulder met. The smell of old fruit juice clung to her. She might not remember me, but I know her, and I took advantage of it. I’m not strong enough to jog her memory—not even strong enough to correct her.
Tilly Morden was not only my dearest family, but also my closest family outside Grandfather. My world was devoid of colour without them.
My heartbeat erratically and for a moment, I didn't even feel Kenna’s arms circle around my waist, but when it finally registered, I shivered and cried harder.
“I’m sorry,” I retracted, dropped my arms and faced in the direction of my bedroom. Leading a sheltered life meant that I didn’t know intimacy like most my age, and while Kenna didn’t feel foreign to me, her touch did. Isolation was the only thing I knew to be safe.
I sniffled and started on the path back to solitude. Everyone was leaving me. I couldn’t help but feel like it was personal.
“Please don’t,” she said, and I paused. “I don’t want to be alone.”
She came to stand beside me, and we walked back into the main house together. Words were hard to find. There was so much to be said in moments like these but also nothing at all. For now, I wanted to just feel. I wasn’t sure there was a guidebook on losing your cousin and grandfather within a week anyway.
It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t right. It just was, and I had no control over any of it. What if tomorrow another body shows up? This couldn’t become a routine. But there were holes in the story that were yet to be filled that I needed to reclaim even an inch of sanity. “You found her, right?”
“Yeah,” Kenna slowly nodded. “I can’t unsee it. She was perfectly still, laying among the leaves. Beautiful even.”
“Vibrant hair, piercing blue eyes.” I smiled.
When we got to my bedroom door, she opened it for me. “But she was pale and…” Her face soured, “... leaking .”
A shudder racked my body.
“It was horrific.” I wanted her to stop and go on at the same time. My poor friend. I need you.
“You shouldn’t have seen that through the gates, whoever brought her here to display is sickening.”
Her eyebrows scrunched. “Through the gates? No, Laney, she was inside the estate.”
“Inside?”
“About five feet from the fencing beyond the treeline, it was loo-”
Tears ceased as I processed this confusing information. It made no sense. I had motion capture-triggered alerts set up to notify me any time there was activity by the fencing. “Inside the gates.” Oh my god. I ran from my room to the office upstairs.
Kenna walked into the office moments after I did and sat to watch my every move, seemingly transfixed and curious. She said nothing.
“No one used those gates for days; we’re on lockdown.” I explained, turning on the PC. In moments, I disabled the locks on the computer and decrypted the files that hold the security footage.
Neenan came to the door after I found the correct tapes. He didn’t seem to bat an eye at the fact that Kenna was sitting there, and I pleaded with him to come right up to me to look at the screen. Reaching over my shoulder, he changed the playback speed to double time. And as I thought, the gates didn’t move.
Grant soon joined us and looked over my shoulder as I played and replayed the tapes. The only movements in the last three days were a black truck carrying in the new cadets, Kenna running to the gate each morning, and hourly guard checks, but none ventured into the brush.
Except one girl. In tight spandex. This morning.
Neenan and I looked up at Kenna at the same time.
“How fresh was the blood found on Tilly?” Neenan approached Kenna, towering over her form as she was seated.
“Uhh, her blood was mixed with fruit juice, but the body couldn’t have been there more than twenty-four hours.” I assessed her. Her shoulders were pushed back, her leather jacket sat atop her relaxed form. Eyes sympathetic. Breaths measured. She was the picture of confidence, but the elevated pitch of her voice as she ran to the door this morning was etched in my mind. “Her body was cooling but not all the way cold yet.”
There wasn’t enough time. Not a speck of blood was on her—no fruit juice.
Grant reached over me to pause the footage. “There.” He rested a finger on the screen. Without lifting his gaze from the screen, he asked, “Was she on the Eastern on Western side of the road?”
“East.” Kenna said.
“Five feet from the fence.” I whispered.
He toggled the arrow buttons skipping a second ahead and a second back. It wasn’t until the fourth comparison that I spotted it. The dark blur. One second it was there and the next second it was gone. A jump cut.
“Enhance it.”
My eyes fell to read the timestamp. 2:34 AM.
The entrance log was verified, and other camera angles confirmed what I feared.
The gates hadn’t moved.