Chapter 5
LANEY
J ust after dusk, Neenan led me into the dark dungeon. He hadn’t told me where he was taking me, but I trusted him well enough to follow his lead. The day had been a drag. Between the embarrassment of what happened in the training room and Grant’s subsequent scolding of my ‘unprofessionalism,’ all I wanted was to read my book by the fireplace. Instead, at the end of a damp underground tunnel, I found my father waiting for me, looking at a steel-reinforced door with a sullen expression.
“Father?”
“Good of you to join us for the occasion,” he spoke in an intensity of which I was not accustomed and too tired to interrogate. His eyes glued hungrily at the door. “Open it.”
An enforcer that I hadn’t noticed in the corner stepped out from the shadows and spun the wheel to open the metal door.
I looked at Neenan, uncertain. He gave me a weak smile before turning on his heel and disappearing into the shadows.
The smell made me recoil, but the sight of the man filled my mouth with bile and every bit of fatigue evaporated.
Blood ran from his eyes, fingers were severed, and the missing chair leg was wedged in his forearm, the blood of the wound pooled underneath him. We’re not the first to step in it either.
The guard walked to the table beside the bloodied man, just out of reach his him, and deposited a glistening machete on it. The dim light caught on the edge of the blade so that it shined in his eyes. He flinched.
Behind me, my father nudged me further into the room.
“Have you been a good boy?” Father gave his head a rough shove, one that the man struggled to recoil from, but when he lifted his head, I was struck by recognition—not by his face but by his uniform. Son of a bitch.
What internal crime could warrant such an extreme retaliation? Our vetting process was watertight, I personally oversaw it as such. Morale was good with the upcoming war, and while yes, tension was high this past week, it wasn’t enough to incite violence. I knew that there hadn’t been any reported physical altercations for months. No new people had arrived recently, the gates hadn’t even moved.
The gates hadn’t moved.
Father saw the moment it clicked in my head, a smirk spreading across his face.
Tears pricked my eyes, and I strained to not let a single one fall. “Which one?” I pushed out between shaky breaths.
“Straighten your back.”
“Which.” I grit. “One.” The fact that there were two disgusted me. I kept my eyes on the disgraced guard.
Father said nothing.
Drawing in a large breath, I pushed down my tears and replaced it with anger.
“Who?” I seethed.
“Till-”
Before he could finish, I threw a leg into the man’s stomach. He blubbered up a mixture of excess saliva and blood, but I hit him again. And again. And again, until Father pulled me off, grabbing my wrist.
“Enough of this nonsense, Laney.” He said. “End it. Avenge her.”
I looked him in the eye but spoke to my father, “Did he really do it?”
His hand pulled my arm back, and then I felt the cool of metal on my skin, the warmth of the leather handle. “Are you questioning me?”
I stayed silent. He was a cold leader, a colder father. To end a man’s life was easy for him. I preferred eternal suffering to death. More satisfying.
“Relax your shoulders. Feet apart.” He instructed close to my ear, while wrapping my fingers tightly on the leather and raising my arm to point at the man’s brow level. I caught his gaze as he scanned me, up and down. A smirk formed on his face. We couldn’t have that now, could we?
I drove the knife in his right shoulder. “That’s for Tilly.”
Then, I twisted the blade and pulled it out, aiming for his left shoulder. “That’s for her daughter.”
Next, I dug it into his legs.
Right. For her husband. Left. Her family.
I stepped closer to him, away from my father, and lowered the machete to be level with his dick and stabbed down hard . “That’s for the disrespect.” I spat with anger.
I turned back to Father to catch a glean to his eyes.
He’s enjoying this. “Kill him, Sunshine.”
The knife fell into his chest and clattered to the floor as I rushed out the room. A loud bang sounded. Certain death.
☆
Only one person was on my mind as I ran from the dungeon. I threaded red stained hands through the knotted ends of my hair, tugging and pulling the fingers through it. My scalp flamed at the strain, but it was no match for the pain that leaked out my heart, like vital blood that left the man’s chest before he could take his final breath. No, I took it from him.
Luckily, Neenan wasn’t hard to find.
“Can we talk?” I said, wringing my hands together.
“Uhh, Laney, now is not a great time; we have a cadet missing and–”
“I know. I know. Please.” I gave him my most enormous Bambi eyes.
If he was confused, he didn’t show it, just guided me to take a seat. He sat across from me on the long tables of the mess hall, eyes intensely trained on me and my fidgeting hands, expectant. But I wasn’t going to divulge anything unless he asked. I just needed his presence.
His shoulders fell. “What did you do?”
“What did I do? Why do you think I did something?”
“Because you’ve been evading me like the fucking plague for the last couple weeks, and now you just ran up to me frazzled and with a desperate look on your face. What happened?”
Tilly’s murderer came from within our ranks. Who knows which other cadets he tainted. What seeds he sowed? I looked around all the guards and soldiers and cadets that milled around the place, having their own thoughts, their conversations, conspiracies. They could all be infected.
The concern must be written across my face because Neenan grabbed my shaking hands, capturing them in his warmth. “Laney…”
I closed my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Neenan pleaded.
My knee began bouncing causing the table to shake. I couldn’t think.
He stood, suddenly dropping my hands onto the table. It forced my eyes open to see Neenan round the table in record time. Grabbing my elbow, he took me to a backroom just inside the main house. It looked like it was once a utility room, now it held collapsed cardboard boxes, save for a rickety chair in the corner. That’s where Neenan forced my shoulder down to sit.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I replied too fast, avoiding his eyes as he knelt in front of me. “Everything. It’s been a long week.”
“It’s been bloody chaos, I agree.” Neenan was the son of Forrester Waite, best friend to my grandfather, and we grew up beside each other. He was promoted to my personal security after my engagement fell through, not that I went out a lot. He was probably the only man that I trusted. I hoped he knew that.
I whispered, biting my cuticles, “I stabbed someone.”
“Stabbed?!” He all but shouted.
I shut my eyes and shoved his hands from my knees as I anticipated a dreaded knock at the door. “Shut the fuck up,” I whisper-yelled, “What if someone heard?”
He cocked his head. “You do remember that you’re a Ravencroft, right?”
“Yes, and?”
“Who? Who did you kill?”
“I said ‘stabbed’, not ‘killed’.”
“Is this ‘someone’ still breathing?”
I swallowed the rock in my throat. “No…”
“Then, you killed someone.”
I took a deep breath. My heart rate skyrocketed as I am faced with the truth that I wished to evade if I just didn’t say it aloud. “I k—...” I stammered. “I kil—k-k–killed someone.”
God, it’s like it’s your first time.” He rolled his eyes.
All the air left my lungs as if he’d punched me in the stomach. “It is.” I hissed. Regret washed over me. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Fucking men, no grace or fucks given.
His jaw dropped.
“And not only that, no, I killed him.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. “Who?”
“ Him.” I pleaded with my eyes so that I didn’t have to say the words myself.
“Him?” He said, then immediately after, like a curtain falling it dawned on his face. The cadet wasn’t missing after all. “Oh.” He avoided my gaze.
“Father forced me. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I swear” A pendulum swung in my head, swirling and mixing thoughts. None coherent. I tried my hardest not to get tearful. And failed. “ I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
It played in a loop, but for each iteration I became more lost in who it was meant for. Was it for the poor girl who will never see baby girl grow up? Or was it for the disgraced soldier who will never redeem the soul he blackened? Or was it for the girl who took a life for the momentary justice that faded as soon as it came?
I was no better than either of them. I murdered a murderer and lost myself in the process. The old Laney and post-kill Laney were inconsolable. I had to be different now, but how could I?
I tried to push through the pain. “What is his name?” I asked, but it came out choked as my throat constricted.
“ Was.” Neenan replied, placing a hand on my knee again. “The sooner you understand that the sooner you can accept it. His name was Dylan. He wa–”
“Fuck.” Lifting my knees to the seat, I leaned my forehead onto them wishing beyond anything that I could just shrink and let out a groan.
“Did he really murder Tilly?”
I nodded, letting the tears drag paths down my cheeks.
“ Shit. ” Neenan moved so that his arms folded around me and with it, the painful edge of anxiety and grief washed away.
Moments went by like this, and I swear I almost fell asleep with my head on his shoulder. This shitshow week had been a mental load that I would very much like to bring to a cliff and throw over the edge. Or myself.
Eventually, I built up the energy to open my eyes, blinking against the sting of tears.
A voice rumbled below me. “You done drooling on me?”
I stuttered a laugh. “No, not yet,” and tugged him closer.
As time elapsed, I felt Neenan become increasingly antsy, jittery. The bounce in his knee jostled me gently to the point that I knew he was itching to say something. His bouncing escalated to rhythmic tapping of his finger on the wood of the bench that we shared.
“What?” I leaned back in annoyed question.
“What’s going on between you and Kenna?” He said, seeming suddenly shy in his approach.
“Nothing.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Sure.”
“No, really. The time you saw us together, she’d been there for two minutes. Tops.”
“And the grinding on the training mat?”
I shrugged. “A scenario.”
“A scenario,” he deadpanned.
“A scenario. Yes.”
“If you weren’t interrupted, would the scenario have led to sex?”
I gasped. “No! Get your head out the gutter, it wasn’t like that.”
“Sure, looked like it.”
“Well, looks are deceptive. It was hand-to-hand combat. You have to get close to your partner.”
“Close, yes. Pressed down under them, no. And hey, it’s okay, Kenna’s hot. A little reckless but you should have a little danger in your life, but don’t trust her.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m the daughter of a mafia boss.” And I was smart.
“Yes, and? You’ve left the compound for like a total of four weeks of your life.”
“Wha–” I attempted to interrupt.
“Total.”
I grew angry and pushed Neenan away from me. “Okay, fine, I may be sheltered, but I’m always in danger.” Then lowered my voice. “We all are.”
Silence passed between us. This week had been an unrelenting grievance for this family and organisation, the scale of the attack was unprecedented in my lifetime. And there was a threat banging on a pan in the back of all our heads, building like a migraine to incapacitate us. They just hadn’t revealed themselves yet.
In a quiet wisp of breath, Neenan conceded. “Especially now.”
“You think they really did it?”
“Who?”
“Rivals? Suppliers?” Karsteins. There was a desperate hope that maybe my sheltered lifestyle could remain in its cocoon, but the foreboding fog had begun to settle across the Ravencroft Estate. The writing plastered on the wall.
He gave me a sad smile. “I hope not.”
Father said we went underground. But he lied.
We were lying in wait.