I LEAVE THE COUNCIL BUILDING, heading towards my Chrysler idling by the curb. Even now, amid a busy weekday, my soldiers are stationed in the vicinity. Across the road at a coffee shop. On the rooftop. I’m a target, but that has always been the case, and it barely concerns me… usually.
But now I have Fawn.
A wave of blunt pain spindles through my chest.
Now, my concern is for the sweet girl who I have taken as my own. If something were to happen to me, an occupational hazard I was somewhat at peace with, who would take care of her? Who will teach her about her worth? Hold her accountable for her actions? Touch that smooth skin that prickles with soft blonde hairs? Play with her body? Shower her with attention? And the way she looked at Kelly and Stone. Madonna Mia. It is like a screwdriver to my guts as she is mourning her baby, quietly yearning to be a mother again—someday at least. I never wanted to be a father, but I won’t deny her a damn thing. So, who will put that baby in her stomach? No one else will, because even in death, she’ll be mine. Maybe I should visit a sperm bank… What a fucking absurd thought, given where my focus should be. Death has never been a fear. Now, I fear losing her, which can only happen in death.
My little deer.
My sweet girl.
She has worn down a part of this stone façade, inserting herself through the formations of my armour. It wasn’t another stone that wore me down. It was the persistence of a little flower that wormed its way through the gaps.
Que opens the passenger door seconds before I reach the vehicle. I duck under the roofline and slide along the leather upholstery to the opposite window. Staring at the city, beating with life, I prepare myself to switch roles, prepare for another dark inquisition.
We head towards the docks, and the closer we roll, the denser a dark-grey haze from the bushfires gathers around the vehicle. I pull out my handset, and my eyes sail to the app for my home security system before I ignore the impulse to check on her, opening the text message from Vinny instead. It says: “We have the arsonist at the warehouse.”
We park outside the warehouse, and as I step from the car, two black vehicles file into the parking lot—my soldiers.
This part of the dock glows in an orange hue, being so close to the flames that ash falls onto my black suit like a dusty downpour. I peer out across an angry black ocean that would usually be littered with residents, boats, and fishermen but is now ominous as the shadowy clouds gather along the surface.
Vinny appears in the doorway to the warehouse, so I smooth down my tie and stride to meet him.
“What does our arsonist have to say for himself?’ I ask, passing him, absently noting a strange grin on his lips. I head towards the back room where I know our guest will be waiting.
Vinny falls into step beside me. “Herself, Boss.”
I abruptly still, understanding his ridiculous boyish grin. “What?”
“She’s a girl, alright,” he states, smiling wider, which can only mean—“Attractive, too. I have got nothing out of her yet. We were waiting for you. I don’t feel comfortable hitting her, which left me a little fucked with what to do.”
“I see.” My forehead tightens as I continue at a steady pace to the end of the cavernous warehouse. The rap of shoes hitting the decades-old, creaky floorboards echo behind me as my employees join us inside.
Entering the room, I nod polite acknowledgements to Vinny’s team and somewhat ignore the young girl sitting on a foldout chair with a wet gag in her mouth. Her fingers are entwined, the pink-tipped nails folding over her knuckles like delicate claws. Her wrists are bound with a three-stitch rope and fastened to a rail beneath the seat. She mumbles something around the white cloth between her lips.
I come to a stop a few metres from her and clasp my hands in front of me. Contemplating this situation.
Pretty blue eyes widen with my towering presence. I drag my gaze over her, measuring this girl up. Brand new white converse sneakers. Faded designer jeans. I tilt my head, observing the facets in her studded earrings as they flash a kaleidoscope of colours beneath the industrial warehouse lighting. Diamonds. Not my product, but good quality.
A thin film of perspiration collects on her forehead. I frown at a small chaffing burn on her knee peeking out from between ripped denim, where she has obviously tripped, but she is otherwise unharmed.
As I stare at this misguided rich girl, Vinny leans into my ear, offering the rundown on her. “Her name is Kaya Lovit.” My brows pinch with recollection. That explains the diamonds, the styled, long brown hair, and the healthy physique. “Yes, Boss, as in Lovit Industries. She’s the youngest of the offspring. Nineteen. We got reports from witnesses that saw her in the area before the blaze, and Constable Jarvis gave us everything the police had. She did it alright, Boss.”
Interesting.
“Bored with shopping?” I ask, a grin tugging at the corner of my lips while her eyes seem to search for something within mine. As though I’m under interrogation, as well. Vinny rounds the girl and removes her gag, gently so.
She shakes the sensation away, releasing a little cough and working her jaw in circles. She jumps straight in with, “What are you going to do, Mayor Butcher? You can’t dispose of me. People will look for me if I go missing, and I’m sure my dad will have Stormy River raked for my body. You’ll go to jail.”
“Which is where you belong,” I state plainly.
“You can talk.”
I like her.
This is an interesting development. I smile, amusement floating through me. “You have me surprised. I’m very rarely surprised. But I’m far more disappointed in you than surprised by you. You see, the people I typically have bound to a chair don’t have silver spoons up their arses. They are struggling. Their poverty makes them weak. Stupid. What’s your excuse for burning down homes and threatening lives, Kaya?”
She locks her jaw, tight-lipped, seemingly withholding something while her narrowed blue eyes attempt to defy her transparency. “Just like you said.” She shrugs, but it’s a bullshit gesture because her chest has picked up pace—she cares. “I’m bored with shopping.”
Not convinced, I study her face for any tells. Then drag my gaze down her body, halted by a thin necklace hanging between her breasts. I walk towards her. She shrinks back in her chair, even as her pretty, blue eyes narrow and follow my movements. She’s playing at being tough, but not very well.
I hook the shiny silver chain with my finger and pull the pendant from between her cleavage. I display the piece on the pad of my fingers, smiling as I read, “Princess.”
“Well,” I say smoothly. “Are you going to tell me the truth, girl? Or am I going to have to get it out of you?”
She speaks through clenched teeth. “I have told you the truth. I’m bored. Like you don’t know the truth already.”
I drop the pendant, the slinky chain falling back between the mounds of her chest. Turning my back to her, I hear her gasp at the abrupt action, at the dismissal. I walk to Vinny’s side. “Go to her father and tell him he’ll need to pay the damages to homes and keep—’
“No!” she cuts in.
I smile at Vinny, who grins in return. Slowly, I turn to face her again. “What is it, Kaya?”
She leans forward. “I’ll pay it back.”
“It’s millions of dollars.”
“I’ll”—she reaches for a plan—“I’ll work for you.”
I laugh. “Whatever could you offer me?”
“I’m smart.”
“So am I. Look, Kaya, your father has plenty of money. Just let him save you from this mess your boredom has gotten you into. You might not get any prison time at all. It all matters little to me.”
“I don’t understand. You’re serious?” Her brows weave in, and I don’t quite understand her question, her apparent confusion over the situation, but I don’t show that fact. “You seriously don’t know? Fuck. Don’t involve my father.”
“Why?” I ask. Heavy waves outside the warehouse walls beat through the following seconds of silence. A small smile creeps across my lips as I say, “Princess.”
She sneers at me, realising I knew her father was her weakness all along, but alas, what I don’t know is why the hell she thought I was playing at my inquiries.
The petite brunette shakes her head in a way that shows her stupidity taking root inside her young brain. She looks at her bound wrists, muttering, “They blackmailed me into starting the fire.”
“Speak up, girl. I can’t hear you.”
She peers up from her clasped fingers, meeting my unaffected gaze. Within her blue eyes she portrays less fear than men have drowning in theirs given a shared situation. “You won’t bring my dad into this, then?”
“You are in no place to make demands.”
“Please.”
I level her with my gaze. “I will consider it.”
She sighs. “He has some… tax issues. I can’t believe you don’t know… This bitch from the news was going to go public with it. He’d do time. We’d go broke. He won’t handle prison; he’s too old now.”
I stare, deadpan. “Keep going.”
“That’s it.” Kaya looks around, her gaze coasting between Vinny and me. “That’s all there is to say. I did it to keep the stuff about my dad out of the press.”
“Fuck,” Vinny bites out, knowing what I know, but I need to hear it from her and not jump to conclusions.
“Who blackmailed you?”
“I don’t know her… A lady.”
Irritation rolls up my back, hitting my ears, burning them. “What did she look like, girl?”
“Red hair. Stuck up. She never said her name.”
Lorna.
Vinny scoffs, saying, “Why would she want to start a fire in the boss’s city?”
“I don’t fucking know. I thought he was behind it the whole time…” Her eyes bounce around my tight face, searching for a hint of the truth she believes I’m withholding. “Aren’t you? I mean, you got a lot more attention after the fire, District Daddy.”
‘Vinny, stay.’ I nod at Vinny’s associates. “You take the girl home.” I walk to the warehouse window, taking in the wild ocean sprawling beyond the glass. The thick smoke from the bushfires hazing the horizon, making the stretch of coastline nothing more than a grey abyss.
Fucking Lorna.
She’s taken this campaign to another level with this one. Risked lives. I knew her morals were rickety, and I’ve never denied mine are, too, but I have held on to the last slither of humanity in this business of mine, in me, that we—I—don’t hurt innocent civilians.
I retrieve my phone from my pocket, calling her cell. It rings several times and then she picks up, her voice breathy as she says, “Lord Mayor, what an honour.”
I cut to the chase. “I have the girl,” I state monotone, and where her deep, husky cadence used to stir my cock, knowing what the lips that produce that sound can do to it, I feel nothing at all. This relationship is over.
She isn’t pleased by the end of our conversation, leaving me with a “Fuck you” after I suggest we re-evaluate our relationship. That it has been beneficial, suitable, and appropriate, but has run its course entirely.
All the while, I think about a far sweeter cadence, a soft voice that murmured, “Will you ever belong to me?” Outwardly the reason to end this sporadic engagement with Lorna is the fire, the lies, the arrogance, but stoked low beneath those situational facts is a little deer who wants all of me for herself.
I slide my phone back into my pocket, turning to find myself alone with my capo. His face tells me he’s not sure that was in my best interests, as if I don’t already know this. ‘I know.’
‘This is why I’m single, Boss.’ He smirks, though something in his expression betrays that display and I wonder what it is. Perhaps he’s concerned about her leaking information to the news.
‘She won’t do anything too stupid. I’ll have my wife smooth things over with her,’ I assure his silent protest. The distance between us creates an echo every time we speak, so I walk to meet him in the empty room. ‘They are very close.’
He nods, knowing the dynamic between my wife and my lover—ex-lover. ‘Feminists.’
‘Indeed.’ I stop in front of him and reach into my pocket to retrieve my tin. He flinches before realising that I’m drawing a cigar and not my Glock.
‘Jesus, Boss!’ He rubs his chest. ‘You ask me to stay back, and then you act all shady,’ he states, and I chuckle.
‘Shady?’ I contemplate his misused word. Not shady… peculiar, yes, given I just released young Kaya with a slap on the hand and cut ties with a dangerously powerful women who is respectfully a large part of my campaign. I had no choice. ‘Tell me—’ I light my cigar, sucking the tension-releasing essence into my lungs and speaking around my exhale. ‘In all the years I have known you, you have never had a relationship. Was there ever a girl for you?’
He sighs. I hand him the tin and watch him light his own. As the cogs in his head churn, he smokes it. ‘Well, there was a girl. Yeah. In Timor. I met her when I was serving. She was the most beautiful islander-looking girl. No English at all. Thank fuck. She had no idea how dumb I was.’
I laugh once. ‘Did you ask her to marry you, and then she said no?’
He shakes his head. ‘She said yes, and then she took a bullet to the back.’
My smile falls, and I have no further words for him. There is nothing to say to a man in his position; any small phrases of sympathy would be an insult to his experience.
We smoke our cigars in comfortable melancholic silence. I drop the roach and blunt it out with my shoe.
Looking at my capo, I nod my condolences, grip his shoulder and squeeze before heading out of the cavernous space, even more driven to get back to my little deer.
