Sighing, I plop down in one of the armchairs beside my newest corpse. Kicking my feet up on the glass coffee table, I prop my hands behind my head and let it loll back. The smell of death is hot as it permeates the air, shifting drastically from the damp sheen of sex that existed when I showed up.
“Right. Well, if you’d bothered to stop and ask questions before coming in guns blazing, you’d have learned I was using Isaiah.”
“Quite well, I’d say. How lucky for you that your reconnaissance allows for such liberties.”
“We can’t all be assassins. So little would actually get solved.”
Smoothing my palms over my thighs, I resist the urge to mention it was his encouragement that kept me in the field in the first place. Without him, I’d probably have been happy enough running The Flaming Chariot.
Maybe it wouldn’t have satisfied me, but I was never really given the chance to see, either.
“Nothing to solve, Alistair. Dad’s dead, Tom Primrose is responsible. At this point, an investigation isn’t going to change anything.”
Unbuttoning his shirt, he shrugs out of it, walking to a Victorian-style wardrobe in the corner of the room. He pulls it open and slips a crisp white dress shirt from its hanger, looking over at me.
“Don’t you want to know why?”
“No,” I say, my eyes flicking to Isaiah’s body. “My priority is justice, and a prison sentence is more than these people deserve.”
Alistair exhales long and slow, leaving the top two buttons of his shirt open. His leather necklace peeks out, reminding me of why I came here in the first place.
“Speaking of explanations… were you ever going to tell me that my beach house is still Mileena’s property?”
Sinking into his desk chair, he pulls the straps of his suspenders up, forehead creasing in surprise. “Mileena? Your mum?”
“She showed up last night, so I’m regressing.”
“She showed up?” Swearing again, he adjusts his cuff links in short, jerky motions. A button pops off in his haste, and he clenches his jaw, staring at the surface of his oak desk. “She wasn’t supposed to make bloody contact.”
My muscles tense up, like they’ve been injected with silicone and are rejecting the addition. “Pardon?” A stiff laugh works past my lips, and I touch my fingers to them, trying to tamp down the anger boiling in my throat. “Did you… did you know she was around?”
He stills, his Adam’s apple bobbing on a swallow. Steepling his hands together on the desk, he meets my gaze head-on, unflinching despite the resentment rife in his blue eyes. They’re suddenly heavy, laden with one of the only emotions I’ve ever seen him expel: regret.
“Your… Mileena contacted me not long after Dad’s death. She’s, ah…” He reaches up, scratching the back of his neck. “She’s the one who gave me the list.”
“Bollocks. How in the bloody hell would she have gotten a hold of that? She would’ve had to have seen him before…”
My heart drops to the pit of my stomach like a concrete balloon. A numbing sensation washes over me, and my vision slackens as I surrender to the struggle.
The struggle to piece together this convoluted puzzle, which just yesterday seemed to only involve my father and a corrupt businessman.
“I’m just the messenger.” Alistair holds his hands up, shrugging, and my hand twitches, itching to put a bullet between his smug fucking teeth.
Just the messenger is an awfully convenient way of absolving yourself of any wrongdoing, which is something my brother excels at. Getting other people to take the fall for his messes.
Suspicion curls like smoke in my chest, filling the cavity and threatening to suffocate me. I push to a standing position, eyes narrowed, and he just stares back.
Unblinking and unbothered, as if my entire world hasn’t been flipped on its axis and then turned back around all in the last twenty-four hours.
“How long have you been working with her?”
“I’m not—”
“How. Long.” It doesn’t come out as a question the second time.
Alistair sighs. “Nine years. She said the list just showed up in her mail one day.”
Hollow amusement rises like a tide, pushing through my lungs in the form of a breathless chuckle. Shaking my head, I reach for my Glock, sliding it out of my jacket slowly as I approach his desk.
He slips a thumb beneath his suspender strap, a neutral expression on his face. It irritates me even more that his regret seems to have been short lived, and there’s not even an ounce of fear to make up for it.
Pushing my tongue into my cheek, I lift the gun and point it at him.
“Have you even spoken to her?” he asks in a practiced, monotone voice. “Listened to her story?”
“I’m not interested in entertaining the ramblings of a liar. That includes yours.”
My wrist cocks back, and the barrel of the gun flies through the air, whipping across his nose. The familiar, deliriously sickening crack of bone echoes in the air, and his hands fly to cover—or maybe protect from another blow.
Blood trickles out from between his fingers, and satisfaction settles in my gut.
But it’s the empty kind that only leaves you wanting more, and since I’m not actually interested in killing the bloke, I turn on my heel and leave. For the first time ever, I don’t stick around to clean up the mess for him.
Shortly after, I find myself staring at the gate to Primrose Manor. Not directly in front of it, since the bald security guard watches my every move like a bloody hawk, but on the road just beyond the stone property wall.
Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I reach into the center console and pull out the list Alistair gave me weeks ago. Every name is crossed off except Tom’s, which is written in thick, bold ink and circled in red.
Then I dig even deeper into the console, unlatching a secret compartment at the bottom. The Polaroid is warped and coffee-stained, but I studied it so many times as a child that I know every single detail anyway.
A beach day with my mum and dad, behind the very house I’ve been staying in. The one that apparently still belongs to her. My father’s unsettled, having launched himself into the frame so he could make it before the self-timer went off, and my mum’s arms are wrapped around me.
The picture of innocence. Of love and warmth and happiness, even though it’s arguable that we were never close to that. How can you be, when your foundation is built on secrets and deceit?
Besides, the next day, she was gone. Shattering whatever illusion of normalcy I’d been able to concoct despite my father’s career and leaving me to deal with the consequences.
Scoffing, I toss the photograph to the side; it flutters to the floor of the passenger seat, face up so Mileena’s haunted eyes continue staring at me.
Yes, I lied to Lenny when I said I hadn’t kept anything.
But I also lied to her about my feelings. I’ve been lying, and I suppose that makes me no better than the rest of my family, except that there’s still a chance for her to escape.
After she finds out what I’ve done, she’ll likely be dying to.
No pun intended.
A presence at the back bumper of my vehicle snags my attention, and I put my hand on the pistol in the passenger seat, ready to once again shoot first and ask questions never.