“They deserved a whole lot fucking worse, Elaine. They’re lucky I didn’t have more time.”
I held her close, savoring the touch of her body against mine. She was tiny, pressing hard to my chest, and I loved feeling her like that, so trusting of me. I don’t know how long we were standing there, but the sky was turning pink to dusk outside when she pulled away from me. Her eyes were puffy but every bit as stunning, and her smile was delicate in the most gorgeous of ways.
I told her how I’d tracked them down at the golf course and accosted them at hole four. I told her how they knew exactly what I was taking revenge for, but all the while I was finishing up gathering our things ready to go.
“I’d have killed Lionel myself if I could,” she told me, and the flash of hate and hurt in her eyes showed me just how true that was. “Honestly, Lucian. I’d have killed him myself.”
I was very glad to have delivered her wish by my hands.
Her mind seemed to click back onto our own situation as I gathered the rest of our suitcases.
“Your photo is all over the news. There’s a hotline wanting information.”
I knew we were fucked. She didn’t need to tell me. We just had to pray that we could make it through the hours to get to the airport tomorrow. It’s not as though we could even check into a hotel for the night with one of my other fake IDs. We were too recognizable with that photo all over the news alongside Elaine Constantine’s.
I got the suitcases ready to go, positioned at the bottom of the stairs. She told me how she’d packed everything she could see we’d need, and how I should check it to be sure, but I shook my head at her.
“Whatever you’ve packed will be fine.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Getting out of here is our biggest hurdle,” I told her between loading up the suitcases into the trunk of the car. “But hiding isn’t going to be all that easy. People will be screaming out for our blood, on both sides of the family divide.”
“I know,” she said, then took another deep breath. “My mom will find out about my uncle. She won’t let it go easily. He’s a Constantine and she’ll want answers about why he’s dead.”
“I set it up to look like Colonel Hardwick shot Lionel. She won’t be out for his blood for very long though, since he’s already dead. I made sure it looked like he killed himself after murdering your uncle. Only that won’t wash. Not for long. Not for the people who know us.”
“Hopefully they’ll never know it was you. Not ever.”
“There’s that beautiful optimism again.” I shrugged. “Your mom should have listened to you when you were a little girl begging for her care and protection. She’d have probably killed your sick fucking uncle herself.”
Elaine said something that shocked me right to the fucking core.
“Not so sure about that.”
“Not so sure about what?” I pushed, helping her out to the passenger seat of the car. “That your mother wouldn’t want to kill a man that was setting you up for abuse?”
She shrugged. “Just not sure she really ever loved me enough that she would have turned against him.”
If I had a heart, it would have broken to see the pain on her face. My doll truly believed that she was unloved by everyone. Only it wasn’t just that. It was the twiddle of her fingers in front of her again that spoke words she’d never say. The way they were twisting, hurting. The way she was clearly so broken inside.
My doll really believed she was worthless.
Only she wasn’t worthless.
She was worth everything in my whole fucking world.
“I really am going to make them all pay,” I told her, and my voice was a ripple of well-deserved hate for those disgusting pricks.
“Thank you,” she said, and there was the young Elaine again, staring over at me with a smile.
It was all I could take. I grabbed her hard and strong before I lowered her down to her seat, showing her my full depth of emotion before letting go of her enough to belt her in, trying to show her everything she deserved and had never had. Protection and love. I’d give her both until my very last breath.
Unfortunately, that last breath might not be all that long coming.
I was still holding her tight when my cell sounded out again, three times straight in a row before I broke away to pick it up from the dashboard.
Trenton Alto.
My resident fixer and my personal Judas. My right-hand man was a long way from being my right-hand right about now, but still, he was trying.
I managed to answer his call on his fourth attempt, grunting out a yeah, what?
“Yeah, what the holy living fuck are you doing?” he said. “Did you just fucking kill Lionel fucking Constantine on Hanborough Park Golf Course? People are saying it was some Hardwick guy, but you were there too, weren’t you?”
“What do you think? Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
He cursed at me.
“Fuck you, Morelli. You’d better be glad it is my fucking business, or you’d be up to your neck already.” He paused. “You’re fucked. The cards are all falling down. The Power Brothers have someone on their way already. Warren, a guy with a scar down his face.”
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” I scoffed. “I’ve got a handle on that one.”
“But you haven’t got a handle on anything, have you?” he said, and his voice got lower. “Because if you’re in Bishop’s Landing, and I suspect you are, you’d better get the fuck out of there right fucking now.”
My blood froze.
“You’re there now, aren’t you?” he said. “You may think it’s a private refuge, Lucian, but you’re wrong. People know it’s out there. People know it’s where you go.”
“People?” I asked him. “Who do you mean by people? I still don’t know how the hell the Power Brothers ever found out about this place, so who the hell else are you meaning?”
“I mean your father,” he told me. “And believe me, Lucian, he’s after you. He knows you’ve fucked up and gone after the Constantines. He thinks you’ve killed Lionel and taken Elaine, or even worse than that…he thinks you’ve kept her. For you. The cleanup team are on their way, right fucking now.”
I knew Trenton was breaking every rule of self-preservation and common sense he had in his head.
There was no way he should be warning me. No way he should have ever tried to save my ass from my own undoing.
I stayed on the call long enough to give him a response.
One single phrase.
“Thank you.”
I rarely said it, rarely felt it, rarely considered anyone worthy.
He confirmed what I already knew would be the only route ahead for him.
“This is it for us,” he said. “From this moment on, I’m on team Morelli. They’ll take my life if I’m not. They’ll take Lucinda’s life, too. If they tell me to come for you, I’ll be coming for you.”
Lucinda was his little baby girl. Four years old.
“I know,” I told him.
“Goodbye, Lucian,” he said.
And then he hung up.
Chapter Nine