Aaron: Book Three (Scars 3) (3 page)

Where the hell
did that come from? The diary. That twisted, awful, delusional diary.

Fuck. I was
thinking like my uncle. Insanity must be hereditary. Fuck. “
Fuck!”
I
spat out.

Only then did
she turn, sitting and letting the sheet fall from her, her breasts revealed.

Her eyes
searched me‒cold and uncaring. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I
muttered, pushing away, away from her and the bed, finding my feet in a
stumble.

“What are you
doing? Where are you going?” She didn’t sound like she cared. Why didn’t she
fucking care? Then I remembered. Of course, she wouldn’t. She would never care.

“Just stay away
from me.” I lurched toward the door, grabbing onto the frame for support as I
tried to get my feet to work properly.

“Why?” she asked
simply, but not moving.

“Because you’ll
hurt me,” I managed to say. Where did that come from? “I mean I’ll hurt you.”
My voice was a slur, and it was too hard to lift my head to look at her. I
could feel her eyes on me though, weighing me down.

I had to get
away. Stumbling, I made my way down the hall to the gym, slamming the door
behind me in case she might follow. I rested my head against it as I tried to
breathe, before letting myself sink down to the ground.

They stared at
me. Out of the dark swirls of the tree that formed the mural covering the wall,
the faces all gazed at me‒resentful and seething.

‘Fuck you,” I
told them. “I beat all of you. Every single one of you are rotting in the
ground because of me.”

I shut my eyes
and lay myself down on the floor, but the world still wouldn’t stop spinning.

The phone call came at 5.05 pm. The guy
from yesterday had to die and Antony didn’t have the balls to do it. I was
expecting the call.

“I’ll take care
of it,” was all I said as Antony gave me the news and then I ended the call. If
he felt like a fucking idiot for not taking my advice, I didn’t need to hear
about it.

“Are you going
out?” Rachel had paused with the knife in her hand as she chopped up a carrot.

“Later. I’ll eat
with you first.”

She resumed
chopping. The knife was sharp but her skills weren’t up to par and the blade
sliced through her finger, blood blooming instantly. Red blood. Not black. No
flies like in my crazy dream. I stared stupidly for a moment as she gave a gasp
of pain and clutched at it.

Then I took
control and reached for her, taking her finger to inspect. “It’s just a small
wound.”

“Yeah, well it
hurts like hell. I need a‒”

Her words died
away as I lifted that finger up to my mouth and closed my lips over it, sucking
away the blood.

Her mouth opened
in surprise and her eyes showed her bewilderment for a second, before she
looked away as if embarrassed. I released her.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” she
muttered, still not looking at me. I held a towel to it until the flow eased
enough to be bandaged. She sat quietly on the bar stool on which I’d placed her
as I tended to her cut.

“You’re good at
that,” she said begrudgingly. “You should have been a doctor or something.”
Then she gave a laugh. “And here was me thinking that you only knew how to
wound.”

“I know the
human body.”

There was a
pause. “You say that like you’re not one of us.”

I met her eyes.
“Oh, I’m human all right, Rachel. I’m just not as stupid as everyone else.” I
held onto her hand gently as she kept her eyes on mine. We stayed like that for
a moment before she slowly started to pull her hand away.

“I need to get
changed. I’ve blood on my clothes.”

I released her
hand. “Sure.”

Slowly, she slid
from the bar stool. She lifted her finger. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

I watched her go
from the room before resuming her task.

We ate together
but it was mostly in silence. I cleaned the kitchen so she didn’t need to get
her bandage wet, plus, she didn’t do it as immaculately as I liked. Some
clutter was always left out, marring the perfect stone and glass. It was better
when I did it the way it was supposed to be.

After, I changed
and grabbed my keys. “I’m going now.”

She sat at the
table, reading a magazine. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”

Before her eyes
could flick back to her article, I stooped down and took hold of her chin,
tilting her head up so I could easily kiss her mouth. She tasted sweet as I
slowly plowed her mouth with my tongue. I closed my eyes, stretching on the
kiss until she made a small noise. Only then did I pull away. “I won’t be back
till late. Lock up well,” I told her gruffly as I grabbed my bag and strode
toward the door.

“I always do,” I
heard her say faintly behind me but I didn’t pause.

The defiant
idiot had done me a favor. His hiding place was a lot closer to my home than
his own house, so it meant the drive wasn’t as long. It was a hunting cabin and
that meant that there would be weapons there. It had been in his family for
generations. He was from one of those waspish families that thought they owned
the world and everyone owed them just because they had money. Well, they used
to have money. This favored son had wasted everything in bad business deals and
an opulent lifestyle of drugs and women while his prim wife and children sat in
oblivion in their gated community. For their sake, they better hope that this
guy had life insurance.

I’d set up a
motion sensor in the cabin as a precaution and it had been activated some hours
earlier which meant I knew exactly where he would be. He should have gotten on
a plane, but he was so arrogant that he didn’t think screwing over Antony
should mean that his perfect existence should end. He probably thought that he
would come up with the money that he owed at some stage and all would be
forgiven.

He was so very
wrong.

I accessed the
camera on my phone. He was there and pacing. He knew things were bad but he
hadn’t done anything to fix them. His wife was some blue blood type. He could
have begged the money from her family, but he had too much pride for that.
Pride was a bad thing. Instead I guessed he was trying to wheel and deal
himself out of everything. He was on the phone but I hadn’t bothered to install
a microphone so I didn’t know what he was saying. His hand shook as he drank
and smoked, one after the other.

I had parked a
small distance away so I would be beneath the cover of the trees. It was only
after I was completely convinced that he was all alone did I make a move. The
structure of the cabin was fairly simple. There was a front door and a back
door and several windows. The simple thing to do would be to jam all the exit
points and then set fire to it, but this guy had fucked with Luca’s family and
a message needed to be sent‒a message that was bloody and cruel, and I
was the guy to do it.

Luca had called
me earlier. He knew about this mess, just like he knew about everything, and he
gave explicit instructions that his brother wouldn’t like or approve of. I
would follow them perfectly. Antony was my friend, but Luca was a psychopath.
Luca I respected. Not feared, because I feared nothing, but I knew how his mind
worked and I agreed with it.

I got in while
he was in the toilet, probably pissing himself in fear. I made swift work of
the locks and walked in the front door. It was child’s play really, and for an
instant, I almost felt sorry for how pathetic he was, but I got over that
quickly.

I settled myself
in the arm chair and waited. A bottle of whiskey sat on the table. It was half
full. The asshole should have finished it. Maybe I’d let him, if I was feeling
generous.

The toilet
flushed and I heard running water as he washed his hands. I rested my gun
against my thigh so he could see it when he came out and wouldn’t try one last
act of bravado. I didn’t need anything more to aggravate the pain in my leg.
The doctors had said that I should use a crutch when I walked, but that would
make me look weak and I couldn’t have that. Instead I ran on it every single
day.

Sometimes, I
could feel Rachel watching me as I walked. I didn’t even try to disguise the
limp in front of her. I got hurt rescuing her and then she’d left me alone to
die. That should make up for everything. That should have put us on an even
playing field, but somehow it didn’t, and now every time I felt the pain shoot
through me, it was only her that I could think of and concentrate on.

The door opened.
The asshole didn’t take a single precaution. His arrogance just got him killed.
His shotgun lay leaning up against the wall where he’d left it and he should
have taken it with him. His eyes shot up to me and then flicked over to it. His
chest moved up and down as he got over the shock and sweat covered his
forehead. I knew that feeling‒fear. I had never felt it with the
intensity of when I was a child, but I’d never forgotten it. It was imprinted
in my mind‒the waiting, the not knowing, as I heard my father’s boots on
the porch and I wondered what would be my punishment and if I were to die. My
mother’s eyes were wide with fear as she stood frozen to her spot. “Run,” she
rasped. “You should run.”

That’s when I
got over the fear, pushed it down, lifted my chin. “I ain’t no fucking pussy,”
I told her.

She flinched at
my swearing. I never swore at her, and in that moment I felt like laughing at
her idea of manners when she was about to stand there and let her son be hung
or beaten or starved for days in the dark. How could she stick by her Christian
ideals when what was about to take place would be an abomination?

I let my mind
return to the man in front of me. His mouth opened and then closed and then it
opened again but this time it became a nervous smile. “I reached out to his
people, to Antony.   I made an offer. I’ve got some of the money and he’s
accepted. Didn’t he tell you?” As I stared hard at him, his eyes widened. “Call
him,” he said desperately. “Call him now.”

My phone was
silenced, but I knew full well that there were at least a dozen missed calls
all from one number.

“I’m afraid
matters have been removed from Antony’s control,” I told him coolly. “Why don’t
you come and sit down.” I nodded toward the couch.

He moved slowly.
“I can fix this.” To his credit, his voice didn’t shake even though his hands
did.

“It’s too late.”

“Please, I have
a wife and kids.”

I nearly laughed
at that, but I kept my face still. “I know. I’ve actually met your wife.”

His body
straightened with alarm. “Don’t hurt her,” he begged. “She doesn’t know about
any of this. It isn’t her fault. She’s a good woman. She‒”

“Actually, she’s
kind of a stuck up twat,” I interrupted. “Even you must know that. So stiff and
prim and proper. No wonder you took up with other women. Especially the ones
that you had to pay. That way you can control them. Control their pretense of
love and have them make you feel like you’re the best lover in the world. Isn’t
that right?”

Confusion
flooded his face and I decided to enlighten him.

“She’s the kind
of girl that you marry, but you want the dirty kind, the whore, the one you
fuck anyway you like. She’s the kind that has sex with gloves on in case she
has to actually touch your pathetic little cock. Isn’t that right?”

He didn’t know
what to say.

“Don’t worry. I
get it. Women are confusing. They say one thing and mean another.” I leaned
forward as if confessing something. “I’ve got one of them. She’s so
beautiful‒nearly flawless, but she’s got a dark side. One day I’m
probably going to wake up with a knife to my throat.” It was okay to say this;
he’d be dead soon. I shrugged. “I guess it’s my fault though. She just wants to
be loved. They all do.”

“I love my
wife,” he blurted out.

“Relax, buddy.
I’m not here to moralize and tell you how to treat women. God knows, I’ve made
plenty of mistakes myself in that department. Hey, you want another drink?”

He nodded, his
mouth open, his eyes not blinking.

“Go on then.
Pour yourself one.”

He did, with
shaking hands, before sitting back where I had told him, and sucking on that
glass like it was life itself. After he finished it, I let him pour another
while I leaned back in the armchair.

“You see, the
thing about Rachel is…that she isn’t Rachel. She’s no one, not really. She’s a
fucking ghost. She’s pulls in people around her. Like when I first met her, she
had a bunch of friends and a boyfriend, but none of them knew her. Not really.
They thought they did, but she just upped and left with no more contact.” I
shook my head. “People love her. They don’t know it, but they do. They’re drawn
to her, probably ‘cos she’s so pretty. She makes you want to own her; to have
her. But you can’t. Not really. Just when you think you have the upper hand,
she blindsides you. You can’t trust her either. You don’t know if what she
tells you is the truth or if it’s a lie. That’s not her fault though. It’s how she
was brought up. She’s a survivor, and she doesn’t have to be anymore because
she’s with me and I will fucking dissect anyone who ever hurts her.” I let out
a laugh. A crazy laugh. “But that’s the problem because she thinks I’m her
enemy and that she has to constantly fight against me.” I shrugged again.
“What’s a guy to do in that situation?”

He was staring
at me like I was a complete nut job. I grinned at him. “Thanks for listening.
Any advice?”

He shook his
head hesitantly.

“Okay. Good.” I
raised the gun and blew a hole through his forehead. Blood and brain spread on
the wall behind him and his body slumped to one side as his dead eyes stared.
He got off easy. I’d still use him to send a message though. His heart would be
delivered to his business partner so that there was no confusion around the
fact that they now worked solely for Luca. That guy got off easy. He was in on
the theft as well, but we needed one of them alive to run things at their end
and the business partner would be the easiest to control.

As I slid my
phone off silent, it rang. “Hey, Antony.”

“Aaron. Where
the hell have you been?” His voice was panicked.

“I’m doing my
job.”

I heard him
breathing unevenly. “There’s been a change of plans. You don’t have to
k‒”

“Too late. Luca
stepped in.”

Silence, then,
“What the fuck did you just say?”

“It’s for the
best. I’ll call you when I get back.” I ended the call. Let him rage. Let him
take it up with Luca. I had work to do.

Cutting out his
heart was easy. Dad had taught me early on how to kill animals and slice them
up. This wasn’t that different. I wondered what the headlines would be.
Satanism? Witchcraft? Or just one crazy motherfucker.