Nick
Alec was carefully wrapping the plastic sheets around Sophie while I poked her dad’s cheek. He was a heavy bastard, and I couldn’t use the staff elevator.
“It would be easier to chop her up,” Alec mused. “Or even a clean cut down the middle.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I left her in the office for, like, three minutes.”
I slapped James’s face.
Nothing.
I slapped him harder.
Cunt.
“One minute and fifty-four seconds,” Alec said, chuckling as he reached for the rope.
“She won’t be any better, you know. Ella.”
“Rowan’s installing a discreet auto-locking cabinet. It won’t happen again. Ella saw what we’re capable of.” Alec paused. “But was it just me, or does she not care about the old man?”
I thought of my father.
“You’re not wrong. She’s had enough of this geriatric drunk,” I said, punching James in the face.
It was a direct hit to the nose. Blood spilled out, running down his face.
“So we can’t use her father as a form of punishment.”
“I doubt she’ll need that threat once you enter the scene,” I replied, watching as he parcelled Sophie like she was about to be delivered by a courier service.
“Mmm. I can’t wait to toy with my little avocado,” he snickered.
Now that I’d like to watch.
“How did you get her to come with you so quickly?”
“Police warrant card. A bit of urgency,” he grunted, as he looped the rope around again.
I wouldn’t get away with that—my tattoos made sure of it. Rowan had made the right call sending Alec. His instincts were usually accurate.
Alec hoisted Sophie’s corpse and dragged the worthless sack of shit off the bed.
I’d be hauling James up the stairs myself.
I wasn’t carrying him.
?
?
?
The house was quiet when we got back from the farm. Too quiet. My eyes flicked instinctively toward the stairs.
She was there.
In the communal room.
Rowan had briefed us on the way back, calm and precise as always.
He had the first floor. I took the second. Alec, predictably, enjoyed being on top.
We joined Rowan in the living room. He already had the drinks poured and an ashtray set out on the table, like this was any other night. Like we hadn’t just buried bodies and rewritten a woman’s life.
“Did she say anything about the bed?” Alec asked as he dropped into a chair.
Rowan turned the television off.
“Not a word,” he said. “I told her it was a guest room.” He handed me my drink. “Everything go smoothly?”
I took the beer, the cold glass grounding me, and nodded.
“Nick, delegate the collections for the week,” Rowan continued. “She has a mandatory one-week notice period. You’ll drop her off and pick her up.”
He paused, then added casually, “She might enjoy your ride.”
“I’ll take one of the cars,” I said flatly.
She wasn’t getting on my bike.
“Safety first,” Alec said with a grin. “I don’t want anything happening to my little avocado until I’ve come in her a few times.”
Rowan smirked. “You can take her to the clinic, then.”
He shot me a knowing look.
My piercings ran from the tip of my cock to my balls. He knew exactly how much condoms pissed me off.
“With pleasure,” Alec said, clearly relishing the idea.
“And what if she’s not clean?” I asked.
Alec shot me a sharp look.
“She’s a nurse,” Rowan replied, dismissive—as if nurses were immune to infection.
“You did agree to a trial run,” Alec reminded me.
I took another pull from my beer and reached for the remote, flipping the television back on.
Even as the screen filled with noise and colour, I barely registered it. I listened to them instead—every word, every plan, every stage of escalation laid out deliberately, methodically.
They did it on purpose.
Because that night, when I finally went to bed, all I could think about was her one floor below me.
Sleeping in our bed.
?
?
?
We were all in the kitchen when she came down the following morning.
She stopped in the doorway the moment she saw us.
Rowan didn’t hesitate. “This is Nick—you know what he does—and this is Alec. We all work and live together. Nick’s on the second floor. Alec’s on the third.”
Alec slid a chair out with his foot, the scrape deliberate but not aggressive. An invitation, not a command.
The green face mask was gone. The pyjamas weren’t.
Soft peach. Cartoon avocados. Completely wrong for this house.
While she was at work, Rowan and Alec would move her things. She wouldn’t be going back to that apartment. Not really. She was the first person to be installed in the communal bedroom.
Our fuck room.
I felt tension drain from my body—tension I hadn’t realised I was carrying—when her eyes finally lifted to me.
They didn’t dart away.
They lingered.
They traced the ink crawling up my neck, down my arm, across my hands. Took in the piercings without comment. No flinch. No visible recoil. Only fear.
Alec poured her coffee and set a breakfast panini on a plate, nudging it toward her like this was all perfectly normal. Like she hadn’t watched a woman die twelve hours earlier.
Everything was changing.
The house. The routine. The balance.
And I didn’t have to like it.
Or her.