LEROI
Five years.
FIVE YEARS?
I’m so preoccupied with the thought of Seraphine spending half a decade in a basement that I don’t hear the gas store attendant until he shouts out my total. With a jolt, I toss my card through the barrier and let him process the payment.
When I found her, I thought she might have been there for weeks, a few months at most. I was more concerned with getting us out of the Capello mansion unharmed and then removing her collar and chip that I hadn’t dug deeper.
I can’t begin to imagine how Anton thought up a concept as twisted as a Lolita assassin. Maybe it was one of the Capellos. No wonder he kept that quiet.
Fuck.
It’s no surprise that Seraphine went on that killing spree. A psychologist I know once said that fifteen days of solitary confinement is enough to change a person’s brain function irreparably, but five years? That kind of damage would be catastrophic.
The clerk hands back my card, and I collect my purchases in a plastic bag. Seraphine complained earlier about being hungry, so I grabbed a selection of snacks in case she still wants to eat.
As I walk back to the Jeep, my mind rings with a warning Anton gave me when I took Miko under my wing. He said that sometimes the only way to save those damaged by abuse is to put them out of their misery.
With a bullet.
I didn’t like that idea then and proved Anton wrong by allowing Miko to find his own path and explore any interest he desired. Now, he’s the best damned friend a hitman could have.
Seraphine’s situation is different. I don’t know if she’s damaged beyond repair because there were extenuating circumstances. Would she have become so stab-happy if Billy Blue hadn’t snuck into her room, trying to reenact what the Capellos did to her in that basement?
Even the sanest of women would make use of a knife in self defense. Some might even describe what she did to the poker crew afterwards as a preemptive strike, but the sandwich? I can’t even tackle that kind of exercise in psychology.
I open the car door, slide into my seat to find her sitting in front, hunched over with her head bowed. A curtain of blonde hair obscures her face, even though I’m certain she’d tied it into a messy bun to dig that grave.
“Hungry?” I ask.
When she doesn’t reply, my jaw ticks. I thought she’d overcome her silent phase.
“Seraphine?”
“Drive,” she growls.
“What’s wrong?” I reach out to touch her face, but she flinches.
At her movement, I catch the sight of blood. It’s on her face, down the front of her shirt, and on her hands. It’s even streaked on the window.
I was gone for less than five minutes.
“Who did this to you?” I snarl.
She shakes her head.
“What happened?” I ask. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s not my blood.”
“Then whose?” I glance around the empty gas station.
“A man came to the window,” she says, her voice distant and flat. “He was rude.”
“He touched you?”
“I stabbed him in the eye.”
The words hit like a gut punch. “Where is he?”
“Over there.” She tilts her head toward the window.
“Where?” I snarl.
“On the ground.”
I open the door and walk around the front of the car to find a man lying wedged in the space between the passenger side and the foot of the pump.
Seraphine watches me with wide eyes, her features a blank mask. Ignoring her, I crouch by the fallen man and check his pulse. It’s weak and thready, but he’s alive. I stare down at the bleeding man, bristling at his continued presence and at the prospect of having to clean up another crime scene.
My fingers twitch toward my gun, but I’m not about to discharge it without a silencer or in a place so flammable. Instead, I reach into my pocket, extract a box cutter and slice his jugular. While he bleeds out, I call Miko.
He answers in two rings. “Hey,” Miko says with a yawn. “Is everything alright?”
“There’s a gas station at the intersection of Beaumont and Tourgis. Can you hack into its security system and wipe all evidence that I was there?”
“Did you pay for anything?” he asks.
“With a disposable card. Don’t worry about that.”
“Consider it done.”
I rise from the soon-to-be corpse, my nostrils flaring, and return to the driver’s seat. Anton’s old warning returns two-fold, confirming that Seraphine is about to become a liability I can’t afford.
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
“For what?” I start the engine and ignore the pang of guilt that rises from her flinch.
“I made another mess.”
That’s an understatement. When I cast her a sidelong glance, she’s staring up at me like a helpless little kitten. I tear my eyes off her and concentrate on the road.
Seraphine sighs, the sound so soft and forlorn that the fibers in my long-dead heart twitch back to life. She’s trouble and her reckless killing is a nuisance, but there’s a part of me that wants to wrap her in protective bandages and erase the past five years of her life.
But I can’t allow her to continue a violent spree that will lead the cops, or worse, to my door. I’m also not about to sacrifice my life to save hers.
“You can’t go around stabbing every man who shows you disrespect,” I say.
“Why not?”
My molars clench and it takes every effort not to swerve. “Because it will get you killed,” I grind out. “If the State of New Alderney doesn’t hand you a death sentence, someone else will.”
“But you killed my dad and the twins, and that man who was lying on the ground.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“So do I.”
Frustration bubbles up to the surface, building up like a pressure cooker. I’m starting to suspect that Anton’s training either failed or only went as far as how to commit murder. Maybe the Capellos originally kept her chained up in a basement because she’s a danger to herself and others. Who the hell kills eight men without a plan and stays at the scene of the crime to make a sandwich out of one of their cocks? My pent-up frustration reaches a fever pitch and explodes.
“You have no vehicle, no means of hiding your tracks. No support staff and no understanding of the consequences of your actions. It’s only a matter of time before you get caught.”
She gasps as though insulted and turns her head to stare out of the passenger-side window.
I doubt that I’ve talked any sense into her pretty little head, but I already have a plan to turn her into someone else’s problem. Like her brother’s.
We pull into my building’s parking lot and make our way back to the apartment. Instead of entering through door 101, I take her to 102.
She follows me into the empty space, her gaze wandering from left to right.
“This is the apartment next door to mine,” I tell her. “I own both units on either side of mine, plus the three below. That way, I can live in the center of town and not worry about the neighbors overhearing or seeing anything that could get us arrested.”
Her lips part, but I cut her off.
“You can stay here for as long as you like.” I gesture to the open space. “Decorate it however you want. I’ll give you a card with an allowance, you can go back to school—”
“I’m twenty-one,” she says.
“Or college,” I say, hiding my surprise. “You can start a new life here with your brother.”
She bows her head, her hands clenched into fists.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” I close the distance between us. “To be reunited with Gabriel?”
Seraphine’s chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. “You’re sending me away?”
“I’ll be right next door,” I say, not knowing why I’m appeasing this little killer. “You’re going to need space for when Gabriel returns.”
Her eyes search mine, and I can see the wheels in her mind skidding on ice toward a precipice.
Finally, she asks, “Are you making me sleep on the floor tonight?”
“You can stay in your room,” I say.
With a nod, Seraphine heads to the exit. I follow, already planning on sleeping with one eye open and a loaded gun under my pillow.
