The Beginning of Connie and Isaac: Blue Butterfly Series (The Blue Butterfly Book 3) (12 page)

SHE WAS QUIET
beside me throughout our journey, her face to the window or her head back and her eyes closed every time I glanced her way. I knew she was still pissed with me. I sighed in irritation for the millionth time. I should never have grown as close to her as I did. She didn’t understand how things worked, how sex was just a release, and in a way that was my fault; she was just a kid after all, and I’d failed to explain how things were between us. Yes, she’d had to grow up quickly in the previous four months but still, what the hell did she expect me to do, struggle with blue balls for the next eighteen months? Yeah, not a chance.

“I wish you would tell me what you’re thinking,” I said gently, my pussying around her angering me, but I was desperate for some conversation. Since she’d seen her father’s name on the paper, she hadn’t uttered one word. When I’d fetched her from her room at 5a.m. that morning, she had been sitting, ready and waiting on her bed with a determination that, quite frankly, worried me. She wasn’t allowing herself to be honest and accepting, and that gave way for trouble. I couldn’t afford for her to get sentimental during the job or this could go horrifically wrong.

She glanced at me but remained silent. She needed to find some strength or this was going to be a disaster. Going against all I had told myself through our journey, I reached under my seat and pulled out the other brown envelope, the printout of what Devlin, my secondary in West, had been feverishly working on overnight for me. Devlin was a Godsend, least of all because his latest screw was the secondary to Joel, and Devlin had been craftily fucking all of East’s secrets out of the stupid bitch. I couldn’t fault him, really. A good shag and inside information; he was a sly fucker. But luckily, a sly fucker who showed me his loyalty over and over again.

She frowned but took the papers from me. My stomach lurched but I hoped it did what was needed. My mouth dried as she slowly pulled them from the envelope and started reading. I couldn’t understand my reactions to her. I had never before cared about any fucker, especially a woman, but every single time I was near her my cock was hard and my heart was soft. Fucking hell. I was screwed.

I sighed again at my own thoughts but Shadow must have thought it was in sympathy for her because her first gasp and the way she looked at me with tears in her eyes made my fucking stomach vault.

“Keep reading,” I commanded, trying to be hard because pity and softness were the last things she needed.

“I don’t understand,” she said quietly as I pulled onto the street of her
former
home and parked a few doors away. A shiver trapped me in a moment of viciousness when I realised exactly four months ago I had parked in the very same spot and changed Shadow’s future, and not for the better. And now she sat beside me a killer, a Phantom.

“He… my Daddy is… a human trafficker.” She shook her head, denying what was written in front of her.

“Well, technically, he’s a slave auctioneer. But yeah, he’s a trafficker.”

I couldn’t help but pity her. My father was no better than hers but I had grown up knowing exactly what he was. Shadow had had a childhood, a happy one, but to find out it had all been a lie, and the parent you loved and looked up to was just a lowlife prick must have been shattering.

“Since I was three,” she mumbled. Her head shook slightly as she carried on reading, her eyes furiously moving across the four sheets of paper as she meticulously read every single word.

She finally lifted her gaze, her eyes unfocussed as they looked to the greying clouds above us. “I always wondered how they could afford such luxuries on a cop’s wage.” She sighed. “Yet my mother has no idea.”

“Apparently,” I mumbled in reply as I squinted at a figure walking up the road. Her head was down as she dragged her body along. But it was her long black hair shielding her face that caused my heart to stutter and the pit of my stomach to growl nervously.
Shit. Fucking shit!
Stealthily, I hit the door lock button with my elbow.

“Thirty eight girls. Thirty - eight - fucking - girls. How the fuck…? What kind of… evil, vile, twisted bastard…” A growl resonated from her and I stared at her in surprise. I had expected her to deny it, or at the very least have a fucking breakdown, but instead she seemed to change before my very eyes. Her body stiffened, and her chest heaved with each of her deep pulls of air. Her eyes glazed over and her jaw clenched. Her bright blue eyes transformed to icy grey as a malevolence seeped from her.

Then she spotted her. Mae.

A strange long whimper rang out in the quietness of the car. I thought she’d try to get to her, but instead her hand clawed at me, desperate for my own hand as her sweaty palm sought mine. I grabbed her hand and held it tightly, trying to give her comfort and strength as she started to weep.

“Oh… I…” Her head shook as tears scurried down her cheeks. “My beautiful sister,” she cried out with a deep wail. “Isaac… I… Mae… Mae…” she whispered randomly, unable to put together words in her grief.

“She’s doing okay,” I whispered back as I leaned forward and softly kissed her forehead, once again hating that I needed to soothe her distress. This girl was going to be my death warrant.

She looked at me, and for the first time ever my heart clenched with hatred for not only my father, but for myself. Shadow, out of everything, missed her twin like someone had cut her in half, which theoretically, they had. “You’ve been watching her?”

“Well, not really but I’ve made sure I’ve been up-to-date with her life.” Catching her chin in my thumb and forefinger, I directed her sad gaze to me. I needed her to shift back to a Phantom, and quickly, when I saw her father’s car crawl up the road towards us. “Your father is the reason you now belong to Frederik.”

She froze, her eyes narrowing, and the hatred that fuelled her stare made my heart beat a little quicker. “What do you mean?”

Sighing, I blew out a long breath. “He owed money. Lots and lots of money. To my father. You and your sister were to be killed in debt of that. But because I… didn’t follow that through and took you, saving Mae, my father now calls for your father’s death.”

We weren’t ever given details of a kill, but I’d managed to piece together certain things, and after Devlin had done his work it had all come together.

Slowly, she turned her head and watched her father pull into his driveway. She watched in silence when he climbed from his car and smiled towards Mae who slowly walked up the drive. He said something to her and she shook her head, her sad gaze shifting to the ground. I’d seen the flyers and the desperate television appeals they had done when Shadow had left with me, and I knew that Mae was the backbone of those appeals. It was like her father really wasn’t bothered. He’d carried on doing business as usual. The heartless bastard. Her mother had gone off the rails slightly, from what I’d managed to find out. She’d started to drink heavily and would take off for days at a time. But then again, I supposed the family home was no longer a close family unit since Shadow had gone. I blinked to myself, wondering how much pain a parent went through. I supposed the not knowing was the hardest thing. I made a mental note to finalise their grief for Shadow’s sake.

Graham slid his arm around Mae’s shoulder and pulled her to his chest, consoling her when it was obvious she was upset.

Another snarl tore from Shadow. “How dare he touch her? How dare he taint her in his sickness!”

I couldn’t help but slyly smile. She was like a hungry dog with the scent of a rabbit. The energy and loathing emanating from her made me euphoric. It seemed all my hard work had finally trickled into her soul.

Three hours later, when darkness descended and the house lights extinguished, I turned to Shadow who hummed vigorously beside me. “Are you ready to do this?”

She chuckled and the sound made my skin freeze. “Oh yeah.” She nodded slowly as her teeth clenched with hatred. “Oh yes.”

Giving her a nod and praying, I released the door locks. She dipped for the small black bag beneath her seat, tore the balaclava over her head and stepped from the car.

Pulling my own headpiece down, I climbed out of the car and ran behind her as she rushed across the road. She scoffed when she entered the key code for the large gates. “Stupid bastard should have changed them,” she whispered.

I didn’t reply. Instead I allowed her precedence. She needed to lead this and for the one and only time, I would be her second.

She ran around the edge of the bordering wall and ducked beside his car, then without waiting for me to do or say anything, she climbed underneath. Her hand appeared from underneath and I handed her the cutters. Within seconds she had cut his brake cable and slid back out.

We ran back down the driveway, and as we reached the gates, she turned around. Sadness poured from her. I could physically feel her sorrow as she stared up at one of the bedroom windows. “Goodnight, my beautiful Mae,” she whispered. “I love you. Be happy.”

Then she turned back round, gave me a firm nod, and we left.

And she never returned.