Chapter Twenty-One Blue
Chapter Twenty-One
Blue
The sound of running water from Saylor’s bathroom tells me she’s trying to wash away what happened in the basement. I stand
outside her door for a full minute, listening to the rhythm of her movements through the heavy wood. Toothbrush against porcelain.
Faucet turning on and off. The soft thud of a glass being set down with more force than necessary. She’s angry at herself,
which is exactly what I expected and precisely what I need to address before it festers into something that drives her away
from what we both want.
But fuck, the way she threw up and ran—that’s on me. I’ve been killing people for so long I forgot what it looks like to someone
who hasn’t had their soul scraped hollow by necessity. Peter would probably haunt my ass for even letting her near Julian,
let alone handing her a blade and saying “have at it.” What kind of friend puts his best mate’s daughter in a basement with
a tied-up psychopath and expects her to carve him up like Sunday dinner?
The truth is, watching her try to work up the nerve to slide steel into Julian’s throat did something twisted to my insides.
Part of me wanted her to do it—wanted to see that spark of darkness catch fire that I know lives in her. But a bigger part
wanted to shield her from ever having to cross that line. Peter raised her to sing jazz and worry about rent money, not to
develop a taste for arterial spray.
I knock gently. “Saylor?”
“Go away.” It’s muffled but clear enough to hear the embarrassment threading through the words. “I’m busy contemplating my
complete failure as a human being.”
“You’re not a failure.”
“I threw up on your basement floor and then ran away like a child.” The bathroom door falls opens and I hear her footsteps
crossing the room. “I’m pretty sure that qualifies as failing.”
When she appears in the doorframe, she’s got a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, foam dotting her lips, and somehow she still manages to look like something worth burning cities for.
“Throwing up just means you’re still human,” I say, leaning against the doorframe. “First time I killed someone, I puked for
an hour and then couldn’t eat meat for a week. Perfectly normal response to crossing that particular line.”
She removes the toothbrush long enough to glare at me. “Yeah, well, most people don’t have their first kill watched by someone
who’s apparently a professional at it.”
“Most people don’t have a very good reason to want someone dead. You do.” I watch her face carefully. “And you got what you
wanted. Julian’s dead by your hand.”
“Did I?” She disappears back into the bathroom, and I hear more aggressive tooth brushing. “Because from where I’m standing,
that wasn’t supposed to happen by accident. It’s not how I pictured it at all.”
Christ, I’m not used to this—giving pep talks to someone who’s upset about how their first kill went down. In my world, people
either kill or get killed. There’s no middle ground, no hand-holding through the emotional aftermath. But here I am, trying
to figure out how to comfort someone who accomplished exactly what she wanted, just not how she expected.
When she emerges again, her mouth is clean but her entire being is thunderous. She’s working herself into a spiral, and I
know from experience that spirals lead nowhere good.
“Walk with me,” I say, stepping back to give her space.
“I don’t want to walk anywhere. I want to hide in this room until everyone forgets I exist.”
“Hiding never solved anything. Trust me, I’ve tried.” I straighten my cuff links, a gesture that’s become automatic when I’m
trying to appear calm. “Besides, there’s something I want to show you. Something that might help you understand me better.”
“If it’s another dead body, I’ll probably faint.”
“Something alive for a change. Revolutionary concept, I know.”
Saylor considers this, her fingers worrying the fabric at her waist. “Will you answer questions while we walk? Honest answers,
not your usual cryptic bullshit?”
“Depends how uncomfortable the questions make me feel. But I’ll try.”
“Fine.” She grabs a black cardigan from the wardrobe. “But if I start crying or throwing up again, you’re obligated to pretend
it didn’t happen.”
“Deal.”
We make our way downstairs, and I can feel the tension radiating from her with each step. She’s building walls again, protecting
herself from what she sees as weakness. The Saylor who asked me to teach her killing has retreated behind the Saylor who thinks
she’s not strong enough for this world.
Both versions are wrong about what strength actually is. But maybe that’s my fault for throwing her into the deep end without
teaching her how to swim first.
As we approach the front entrance, Hans appears around the corner of the house, dragging Julian’s body wrapped in black plastic.
Julian Crow, making his final exit from Maison Rouge.
Saylor stops dead, her eyes tracking Hans’s progress across the garden path.
“Do you regret it?”
She’s quiet for a long moment, watching Hans disappear behind a grove of apple trees. “No. But I’m not sure how I feel about
it. And I hate that I’m not sure.”
“Uncertainty means you’re not a psychopath. Most people would feel conflicted after their first kill, even when it’s justified.”
“How do you do it?” The question comes out softer than her previous words. “How do you just . . . end someone and then go
about your day like nothing happened?”
The honest answer? Years of practice and a conscience that’s been scraped raw by doing what needs to be done. But she doesn’t
need to hear that.
“You learn to compartmentalize. Put the violence in a box, lock it away until you need it again.” The morning light filters
through trees, casting everything in dappled shadows. “The trick is remembering why you’re doing it. Julian deserved what
he got. Your father didn’t.”
“That’s very philosophical for a murder.”
“Killing without philosophy is just butchery. I prefer to think of myself as more selective than that.”
Despite everything, her mouth twitches with what might be amusement. “Selective assassination. That’s definitely going in
my vocabulary.”
The path winds between sculptures that weren’t designed to soothe—stone angels with faces twisted in grief, fountains where
water pours from stone hearts. Dark as hell, which suits my mood most days.
“These are cheerful,” Saylor observes, pausing beside an angel whose hands are pressed to her face in a gesture of absolute
despair.
“What can I say? I’m not really a garden-gnomes-and-happy-little-fountains kind of guy.” I lead her past the fountain.
We move through the manicured sections into older territory, where pines spread their branches overhead and the forest floor
is alive with mushrooms pushing up through the damp earth, slugs trailing silver across fallen logs, and moths fluttering
between patches of shadow. Stone monuments emerge from the undergrowth like forgotten memories—weathered headstones and mausoleums
that tell stories of lives cut short.
“Is this a cemetery?” Saylor asks, running her fingers along a headstone decorated with carved roses.
“Memorial garden. For people who needed to be remembered.” I pause beside a monument topped with a stone raven. “Not all of
them are buried here, but they all deserved acknowledgment.”
“People you killed?”
“People who died because of choices I made.” The distinction matters, although I’m not sure I can explain why. “Some were
bastards who had it coming. Others were just in the wrong place when everything went to hell.”
The weight of those deaths sits heavy in my chest—especially the innocent ones. The witnesses who saw too much, the bystanders
caught in crossfire, the people who died because I wasn’t smart enough or fast enough to save them. Each headstone in this
garden represents a life that ended because of me, and some nights that knowledge feels like drowning.
Saylor traces the carved letters of a name I can’t quite make out from this angle. “Do you regret any of them?”
“Every single innocent.” The admission comes out rough. “The guilty ones? No. The world’s better without them breathing. But
the others . . .” I trail off, thinking about Peter and how his death still haunts me. “Those are the ones that follow you
home.”
The path curves ahead toward a structure I haven’t shown anyone in years. The greenhouse rises from the garden like something
conjured from shadow and light—all glass and twisted iron that catches the morning sun and throws it back in fractured rainbows.
Through the glass, I can see what five years and an obscene amount of money bought me. Orchids that shouldn’t exist climb
steel supports, their colors bordering on unnatural. Trees heavy with fruit that looks wrong—silver where it should be red,
gold where it should be green. Vines wrap around columns in patterns that took three years to train properly.
And everywhere, absolutely everywhere, are roses. Roses in every color imaginable and several that shouldn’t be possible.
Blood-red roses the size of dinner plates, white roses so pure they seem to glow, black roses that absorb light rather than
reflect it. Some climb the walls in cascading waterfalls of petals; others emerge from carefully tended beds in perfect geometric
patterns.
In the heart of the greenhouse, a gazebo built from living trees creates a perfect circle of green walls and a flowering roof.
The branches have been trained and woven together over years of careful tending, creating a structure that’s both architectural
and organic. Roses climb every surface, their blooms creating a canopy of color overhead, while the floor is carpeted in moss,
thick like nature’s own velvet.
“How is this possible?” Saylor breathes.
“Money, patience, and a very talented botanist who doesn’t ask questions about my other hobbies.” I push open the greenhouse
door, and the scent of growing things washes over us in waves. “Welcome to the one place on the estate where nothing dies
unless it’s supposed to.”