SERAPHINE
I thought sitting on Leroi’s lap with my back resting on his chest would be calming. It’s anything but. Anxiety tightens the lining of my stomach, turning the omelet I just ate into lead bricks. I’m not so frightened about Leroi’s reaction. He’s a killer just like me, but I am worried he’ll think I’m damaged beyond repair.
“Seraphine.” His deep voice vibrates up and down my spine. “Nothing you could say would make me turn away from you. No matter how bad it is, I’ll still be here.”
He tightens his arms around my middle, creating a cocoon of trust. Maybe he’s right. He didn’t shoot me through the skull when I held a knife to his throat, and he didn’t even get angry when my second blade could have sliced through his shaft.
Closing my eyes, I lean back against Leroi’s strong chest and fall into a sense of calm. If I’m going to admit to what I’ve done, then facing away from Leroi is the best way to do it.
“Start where you left off,” I say. “Your driver took you to see your grandmother.”
“Alright.” I lick my lips. “Things got worse when Dad came to Nanna’s house with the same bodyguards. They took her away in one car, and I rode in the back with Dad.”
“Where was your brother?” he asks.
“Staying the night at his girlfriend’s,” I rasp.
“What did Capello say?”
“Dad told me that Mom was dead along with my real father, and that I would have to repay him for every penny he wasted thinking I was his daughter.”
Leroi’s breathing is deep and even, just like the relaxation exercise. When he doesn’t speak, I continue.
“The twins were waiting for me in the basement,” I say, my voice hitching. “They must have spent the day getting things prepared because the door had already been secured with a fingerprint lock.”
I pause, my breath mirroring Leroi’s, and try to relax in the warmth of his embrace. It’s impossible as the muscles around my lungs tighten, making it difficult to exhale.
“Was this the first time you’d met Samson and Gregor?” Leroi asks.
“Yes,” I say with a sigh. “Dad called me their little sister, but he talked about me like I was a dog that needed to be fed and watered. He said that if they couldn’t take care of their new pet, he would hand me over to someone more deserving. And then…”
Beneath me, Leroi goes perfectly still.
The words wither on my tongue and turn to ashes. I can’t talk about how they waited for Dad to leave before forcing me to strip or how Gregor mocked my body and said I wasn’t worth his time.
My head bows. “You already know the rest.”
“When did they install the chip?” Leroi asks.
“After they realized the collar wouldn’t be enough.”
“And when did they fit the collar?”
I blow out a breath and fix my gaze on the clouds, wishing I could float away like them, and hoping he won’t freak out. “The first week, I bit a chunk out of Samson’s dick. Gregor came back the next day with a collar and called me an animal, but after that Samson was never the same.”
“What do you mean?” Leroi asks.
“The bite became infected and Samson got a fever. By the time someone forced him to see the doctor, it was too late.”
“Was it amputated?”
“I think so,” I pause, lost in the memory. “Samson never pulled out his dick on me after that.”
Leroi hesitates. “What happened next?”
“They beat and starved me until I was so weak that I stopped moving. Dad eventually found out, and they offered me another way to pay him back.”
“Which was?”
“To kill three people in exchange for them freeing Nanna, Gabriel, and myself.”
“How did he expect a sixteen-year-old girl to do something so dangerous?”
“He brought in a handler to train me,” I tell him. “I didn’t want to do it, but I was so hungry and just wanted the pain and the electric shocks to end.”
Leroi’s chest deflates with a sigh. “This… handler. What did he do?”
“He made sure I was eating right and forced me to exercise. He warned the twins to back off because I needed to look pretty and healthy to be a convincing assassin.”
His body stiffens. “What else?”
I raise a shoulder. “He made me practice with syringes over and over, with my hands behind my back, tied above my head, and in all kinds of awkward positions. I had to learn human anatomy, pressure points, and where to plunge a knife.”
He relaxes as though relieved. Was he expecting worse?
“After five months, the handler said I was ready, and that’s when I got the chip.”
“So you wouldn’t escape,” he says, his voice flat. “Even though they were holding what was left of your family captive?”
My head bows, and I rest my chin on my breastbone. Of all the shit I’ve been through in the past five years, that was the worst. Until then, I was fighting to stay alive. If the police raided Dad’s house, I could explain that they were the bad guys, and I was the victim. If I’d been thinking straight, maybe I wouldn’t have been so gullible.
“It was a trick,” I tell him.
“What do you mean?”
“The first man I killed was really important. I didn’t know until afterward, when the handler left a note with his name, saying that everyone would come after my head if I ever told anyone.”
“What was his name?” I ask.
I shake my head. There’s no way a man like Leroi won’t recognize the name. Even if Dad didn’t talk about him all the time, his name was everywhere around town. The man I injected with poison owned a hotel, a casino, and a shipping company.
“Seraphine, I won’t be able to protect you unless I know who might want you dead.”
“His name was Enzo,” I rasp. “Enzo Montesano.”
Leroi stops breathing.
My stomach plummets. This is it. This is the moment Leroi decides I’m too much of a burden. He’ll cast me out without even offering me the apartment next door.
“Did you know him?”
“He was my uncle.”
The words hit like an icy fist, and I lurch forward, trying to spring out of Leroi’s lap. His arms tighten around my waist, holding me in place. I wriggle, my heart beating in triple time to Leroi’s gentle thrum, but he’s too strong.
Shit. I knew talking about the assignments would be trouble, but I never thought Leroi would be connected to anyone I killed. At any moment, he could wrap a hand around my throat and crush my windpipe, but his hold remains on my waist, gathering me back into his lap.
“You must hate me,” I whisper.
“I don’t,” he murmurs, his breath feathering my ear. “It’s not your fault. Capello and his sons risked your life by sending you to him as an assassin.”
“But he was your uncle.”
“Who would never have gotten into that position if he didn’t mess with an underage girl,” he growls. “Were you hurt?”
I gulp, and it feels like swallowing lead. “N-not really.”
“What does that mean?”
“He died. Killing him means that nothing he did to me counted.”
I’m still trembling when his grip loosens. Leroi is right about his uncle and all the others I killed. They deserved to die because they were predators. I should apologize for his loss, but I’m not sorry.
“Are you still going to help me?” I ask, my words halting.
“Yes.”
“Why, when I killed your uncle?”
Leroi sighs. “I can overlook a whole lot of shit. Rape isn’t one of them. Messing with underage girls is unforgivable. You cleansed the world of one more monster.”
“But the handler said that Enzo Montesano’s men would be looking for me.” I trail off, letting him fill in the gaps.
“Everyone thought he died of a heart attack. There was no mention of a girl.”
“I injected him with poison and smothered him with a pillow.”
Leroi pauses. “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you?”
“Not any more than the others.”
“There were others.”
My breath shallows, and shame settles in my stomach like a stone. After that night, I was trapped. The twins told me I was the most wanted person in New Alderney and I had to keep killing if I wanted their protection.
“Every few months, they’d send me to kill some man. I had to memorize his face and the pictures of his associates. They didn’t even free Gabriel because now I owed them for protecting me from Enzo Montesano’s sons.”
“Shit,” he hisses.
“I’m glad they’re dead, but I wish I was the one who had killed them.”
“Yeah.” He tightens his arms around me. “So do I. That’s why I plan on helping you take down every guard who worked with Capello to destroy your family.”
My eyelids flutter shut, and I melt against his broad chest. For the first time since I arrived in Leroi’s apartment, I feel a sense of peace and hope. Peace, knowing that Leroi will help me slay my demons. Hope at the thought he might help me to be normal, like him.
I’ve never felt so at ease with a man, but I’m not stupid. Men are as changeable as the weather. One moment, you’re basking in the sunshine of their love, thinking it’s going to be warm forever, then it only takes one dark cloud or a gust of wind can ruin things forever. In the space of twenty-four hours, I went from being Dad’s sweet princess to the chew toy of his psychopathic twins.
Leroi’s generosity has an expiry date. I have to make sure to leave him or kill him before he changes his mind. Because he eventually will. I can’t really trust anyone.
“You did well this morning,” he whispers against my ear. “And your rewards are mounting up.”
His words don’t spark any kind of excitement. My eyes open, and I gaze around the rooftop garden, the flowers I once thought vibrant, now dull. All this talk about my past has left me wrung out and drained.
The only way to feel right again is to spill blood.
“Can I see the pictures you gathered of the guards?” I ask.
Leroi helps me to my feet and guides me to a wooden bench where he takes out his phone. With a few taps, he brings up the photos.
The first few faces are unfamiliar and not the ones that haunt my dreams. I’m about to lose hope of ever finding those bastards when I meet a pair of cornflower-blue eyes set within cruel, angular features. They belong to a blond man I last saw lying on the floor of Dad’s office with his throat slit.
“That’s him,” I whisper.
Leroi pauses. “Who?”
“Dad says he was my real father.”
“Raphael Orlando?”
“I only knew him as Raphael,” I mutter. “He was our guard, but he never talked to me.”
Leroi doesn’t speak, instead he lets me stare at the photo for as long as I want. Raphael looks nothing like me, apart from the hair and eyes. Dad was dark-haired with green eyes. He always said I got my looks from Mom, but now, I’m not so sure.
“Do you think he knew?” I ask.
“Your mother certainly did,” Leroi says.
I tear my gaze off Raphael’s picture to meet Leroi’s deep brown eyes. “What makes you think that?”
“Raphael is the name of an archangel, as is Gabriel, and your name is suspiciously close to the word seraphim. The affair probably started before your brother was born.”
My jaw clenches. I had thought the same during my darkest days, when I lay starving and shivering, cursing everyone for my predicament. How could Dad punish Mom’s infidelity when he already had a wife and family?
“Do you think she told Raphael?” I ask.
“It would have been obvious,” Leroi says, mirroring my thoughts. “All of Capello’s children were dark-haired and green-eyed. Raphael probably kept his distance because he suspected you were his.”
I nod, my throat constricting. So, it wasn’t just one father figure who rejected me, but two. Raphael could have taken us and ran but he chose to stay and was killed for it.
“How was any of this my fault?”
“It wasn’t,” he replies.
The backs of my eyes burn. Not with grief or unshed tears, but with the pit of resentment that’s simmered in my veins since my life turned to shit.
“They were selfish,” I rasp.
Mom and Raphael risked everything for their affair, and now they’re dead. Dead and gone, like the girl I used to be. Raphael had to have known Dad was a monster, but I can’t believe they ignored the risks that came with crossing him.
I swipe past Raphael’s picture to another photo I don’t recognize, but stop at the next. Dark brown eyes stare out from craggy features that have haunted my nightmares since the beginning of my imprisonment.
“You recognize him?” Leroi asks.
“He’s the one who wrapped his hands around Mom’s throat,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Julio Catania,” Leroi replies. “He’s still alive and still living in New Alderney.”
“Let’s go after him now.” I move to get up, but he wraps his large hand around mine.
Leroi exhales. “He’s not going anywhere, and we still have to search through the rest of the photos.”
I give him a sharp nod, my fingers itching to draw blood.
Finally, we’re making some progress.
