Scorch (Virtues & Lies Book 2)

by Alexandra Silva

  He likes to taunt and tease. He’s the kind of guy that smiles and nods at all the shit you throw at him and then, like an overblown balloon, he bursts. You push him and he won’t stop until he’s ground you down.

  Especially when it comes to Cassie.

  “I’m sorry about what happened last night.”

  “You’re sorry?” Laughing, he gets up to make himself another coffee. “I don’t give a shit about your remorse. What’s one more grudge to all the others I already have? I won’t ever forgive you for hurting her. She will though. She’ll probably forget about it too. But I won’t.”

  “Then why are you helping me?”

  Taking his cup from the coffee machine, he shoves his fist into the pocket of his navy suit trousers. A conflicted, guilty-as-sin look crosses his face before he has a sip from the steaming cup. “Because, as scary as it is, I can’t say that I wouldn’t do the same thing if I were in your shoes. I remember what it felt like when she walked away from me. How badly I needed to go after her, and I couldn’t. The worry. The ache.” Sucking what feels like all the air from the room, he screws his eyes shut, and when he opens them again, they’re fucking blazing. “The hate. I hated her for leaving me, so much so that I had no idea what would happen when I saw her again. That’s the thing about allowing yourself to love someone that much—you’re allowing yourself to hate them too. Love and hate…sometimes they’re the same thing.”

  Quiet reigns over us, fizzing in the air. It fills the room with static and a current that gives me no other choice than to feel everything he just said. He’s right—a part of me does hate my runaway wife. No matter how much I try to tamp it down and deny it, I’m angry at her for leaving me.

  I despise her for walking away when I needed her to stay.

  “The thing is, I hurt Cassie. I should’ve told her the truth the moment I realised I couldn’t let her go. But you, you’ve done nothing wrong, Christopher. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

  “You were right. We shouldn’t have gone to that fucking party…none of this would’ve happened.”

  There’s a moment where he screws his face, like he’s trying to make sense of his thoughts or maybe trying churn them a little so they’re easier for me to digest.

  “If it hadn’t been on that night, it would’ve been on another. We underestimated them. Got too wrapped up in being good people, rather than doing what needed to be done. Your mother’s right—being the bigger and better person only gets you fucked. I’m done getting fucked. I’m over making threats and stopping myself from following through for the sake of the greater good. It’s bullshit. There is no greater good. Not worth losing Cassie over, anyway.”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  Leo smirks at that. He’s been herding and baiting me to this point. “We become bigger, badder, better monsters. Someone’s got to rule the roost; why can’t it be us?”

  “Because we’re not like them. We have rules. Do you really want all that on your shoulders? Don’t we have enough?”

  “No, we don’t. Nothing will ever be enough to make up for everything we’ve lost.” He looks down at my phone on the table. “That’s all you’re going to have of your daughter. A photo. That’s it.”

  I bite down hard on my tongue as my hands clench around the glass edge of the table. Twisting, my stomach aches as my chest tightens. “Stop.”

  “Arabella never even got to hold her.”

  “Stop.”

  “She never even had a name.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” My chair tips as I jump up, my hands so tight around the edge of the table that it feels like it might snap in my grasp.

  “Is anything ever going to be enough to make that feeling go away? To make up for all the time you’ll never get with Florence…or was it Ophelia? Will there ever be enough blood to make up for all the memories you’ll never have?”

  Standing from his seat slowly, he rounds the table, perching himself right under my glare. He just fucking stares me out like I’m not going crazy. Like I’m fucking dandy. Like my life hasn’t imploded and left me so fucking lost, I have no idea which way to fucking turn.

  “Why does being the good guy matter? All the shit we’ve done, Christopher…we’re fucking condemned anyway. If we’re going to hell, why should we care about how we get there?”

  My heart pounds so hard and fast that it punctuates the echoes of his words. Hate and revenge trump the vestiges of my conscience.

  He’s fucking right. My wife and my daughter deserve better. They deserve more from me. I vowed to love her fiercely. Relentlessly. I never promised her perfection; I vowed protection…to cherish her. To fight for her.

  “Well?” he asks, pushing himself off the table as loud knocks come from the front door.

  Air pumps so hard in my lungs that it feels like acid burning through my chest. My thoughts strangle any of the light left inside me as my wife’s screams resound inside my head, wringing shudder after shudder through my body until I feel like if I don’t give in to my desire for blood…for death…violence, I might lose what’s left of me.

  “Who’re we culling?” I ask as he returns with Freddie and Casper in tow. Toby whines loudly from the door again.

  A laugh bursts from Freddie.

  “I thought he was pussying out?” Slapping Leo on the back, he walks around him to the kitchen, like he’s right at home, and does his usual thing of inspecting his surroundings.

  “Someone shut him the fuck up. He’s been doing my head in the entire drive here.”

  “Then tell me what I want to know, dick-breath.” Hopping up, Freddie sits himself on the counter facing the room.

  “Why do you care?” Casper sighs as he takes a seat at the table.

  “Because you don’t want me to know.”

  “What does he want to know?” Leo looks between them as he takes his seat again.

  They have a whole fucking conversation I can’t keep up with let alone make heads or tails of because my whole being is pulsing with fury. Regrets. Fucking memories that are the soundtrack to my own personal hell.

  I watch them as they go back and forth, their mouths morphing from scowls to smirks to laughs, their eyes narrowing and widening. But their voices are all muffled, and I can’t hear them over the screams.

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  All eyes turn to me, and I don’t know what’s worse—watching them, or them watching me. I’m a fucking mess of frayed ends and tight knots. Pounding in my aching veins, my blood feels razor-sharp.

  “Sit the fuck down, and shut the fuck up.”

  Sauntering over to the hallway, Freddie disappears out of sight. When he returns, he has his tan leather satchel in his hand. The long sleeves of his dark Henley are pushed up past his elbows, and he has that look on his face that’s somewhere between unhinged and eerily calm.

  “I have a present for you.” Sitting in one of the chairs opposite Casper, he takes his MacBook from his bag and opens it up. “Have you told him about our little adventure?”

  “Not yet,” Leo replies deadpan.

  “What’re you waiting for?”

  “What adventure?” Casper and I both ask at the same time. He looks between Leo and Freddie. “What the fuck have you two done?”

  “Can I just say that this time, it wasn’t my stupid idea.”

  “Yeah, because breaking into a high-security, white-collar prison and kidnapping one of the inmates is a fucking brilliant plan!” Leo snaps in his direction.

  “Jesus fuck! I told you not to do anything crazy.” Casper stands, heading to the freezer. “What part of under the radar don’t you understand?”

  “This is under the radar. I’m taking cash we can’t be seen to be handling and using it to its full potential in a way that it can’t be traced back to us.”

  “I told you, we need to look into all this shit before we take care of the little rat. Stay under the fucking radar.” He rummages through the freezer for a while and then looks back at Leo
. “Where’s the vodka?”

  “Gone.”

  “It would’ve been under the radar,” Freddie grumbles. “I could’ve gotten us in and out no problem. The cunt would’ve looked like he went poof into thin air. It took two days to hack into their security system, and then fucking numbers boy over there”—he nods at Leo—“decides to slip the fucking guard a wad like some fucking mobster.”

  “You did what?” Slamming the freezer shut, Casper strides over to Leo.

  My mind is spinning with all the bits and bobs of information that add up to fuck all. My mouth is getting drier, and I’m starting to smell the alcohol on me.

  “They use biometrics at this place. Even if he cut the cameras and got us in, we couldn’t get Jack out.”

  Jack.

  Ramming in my chest, my heart punches the air out of my lungs.

  “Biometrics mean we need someone in the system to open and close doors, and they need to be alive. Blood circulating. Fingers and eyes attached. The twat wanted to kidnap a guard, use the bastard, and then dispose of him.”

  “It was a solid plan. I stand by it.”

  “We can’t go around killing innocent people!” Leo spits at him.

  “Innocent? The motherfucker took a twenty-grand bribe. How is he innocent?”

  “You’re insanely unreasonable sometimes. Not everything is black and white. We all know about the murky grey area—look at us.”

  “Yeah, look at us. We’re real good people,” Freddie smarts, his fingers racing over his keyboard.

  Sometimes I ask myself whether he really is that much of an arsehole, or whether he acts like it so that we don’t see how much all this has impacted him.

  Turning his laptop to face me, he looks up at Leo with an antagonising grin and sings, “If you’re fucked up and you know it, clap your hands…”

  “You’re a moron,” Leo hisses, at the same time as Casper growls, “Fuck my life. You’re such a clown.”

  “Because I don’t lie to myself?” Freddie chuckles. “Yeah, sure. I’m not the only one that’s done shit. He fucking put a bullet in some cunt’s brain; you…you…you’re just fucking nasty. What you did to that bloke…and you!” Scooting his chair closer to my end of the table, he levels his stare back at Leo. “You fucking went to town on your cousin, and now you’re the one that wants to finish the job yourself. I’d be happy to let another inmate do it. But not you. No, you want the honours. So, who’s the most fucked out of all of us?”

  “He deserves it,” Leo snarls with contempt punctuating his every word. “If I could, I’d deliver him to hell myself, and I’d throw him into the fire for eternity. Since I can’t do that, it’s only fair I send him on his way.”

  Eyes flitting to mine, he widens them in question.

  “A wound for a wound.”

  “A life for a life,” I add.

  “It’s the Christian thing to do.” Leo stands, heading into the kitchen. He brings back a pitcher of water with fruit floating around in and glasses.

  “Fucking hell, you can tell she’s made herself right at home,” Casper laughs, pouring himself a drink.

  “Yeah, she has.” Leo’s demeanour changes completely. It lightens and a lopsided grin cuts his face.

  I can’t help but be fucking jealous of him and Cassie. Of all this. They have each other; everything that happened made them stronger. It pushed them together when it tore my family apart. Me, my wife…our child.

  Silence fills the room, and like he knows where my thoughts are going, Freddie says, “I swear the Christian thing is to turn the other cheek. Give them your front when they’ve already stabbed you in the back?”

  “No.” Shaking his head, Casper tops up his glass. “That’s the stupid thing to do. New Testament. I’m all for the old. Sodom and Gomorrah that shit.”

  “Burn it all to fuck.” Leo takes his seat once more. “Look, we paid the guy to get the cunt banged up enough to end up in hospital so we can finish him off.”

  Casper looks at me, and with a shrug, he says, “It’s a solid plan.”

  “And I’m the fucked up one. Sheesh…” Freddie pauses, looking at the water jug with a scowl. “Anyway, look at this. I’ve been keeping an eye on a few things. Mainly trying to make sure Arabella isn’t in trouble…”

  Pain slices through my chest and courses through my veins until it’s cutting all the way up and down my body, searing through my limbs.

  Why did he have to say her name?

  Freddie never refers to her by her name. It’s always one of the nicknames he purposefully comes up with to annoy her.

  Fixing on the screen, my eyes blur with the grainy image of my girl. She’s not limping anymore, but she’s still walking with a slight wobble.

  My anger roars inside me, and I can’t fucking breathe. I’m trying so hard to remain stoic, but fuck. Fuck! This is the first time I’ve laid eyes on her in almost four months.

  Four fucking months.

  Maybe Leo’s right. Maybe all this fucking pain isn’t just anger and regret. It’s not all blame. Maybe some of it is hate. And God, that makes me even more enraged with myself because I have no fucking right to hate her. Not after everything that’s happened.

  “What’s she doing there?” I snap as I take stock of where she is. “It’s a fucking whore house.”

  “Private club,” Freddie corrects.

  “Same fucking thing!” I can’t watch as she walks up the Chelsea townhouse steps and straightens her spine, like she’s gathering courage or whatever the fuck she needs to ring the doorbell.

  “Don’t be judgy and forthright, it’s rude. Besides, we’re members so…yeah. Brick—” He lifts a palm in the air. “—glasshouse.” Clapping hands, he makes a throaty explosion sound.

  God, I want to pummel him into silence.

  Thundering in my chest, my heart is about ready to explode as I take in the skintight dress she’s wearing, the straps so thin you can barely make them out with the shitty quality of the picture. Her breasts are so fucking pushed up they look ready to spill.

  What the fuck is she doing?

  She’s always been petite with generous assets, but she looks so thin that she might snap even with the gentlest of touches.

  “Bella’s been going there every night,” Leo says, eyes focusing on his glass of water. “That’s what we’ve been doing the last few nights. Keeping a close eye on her. Trying to figure out what she’s doing.”

  Before I can stop myself, I’m pacing in front of the table, watching as she disappears into one of the most prestigious private members’ club in London.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You going in there like a bull in a fucking china shop isn’t an option.”

  “She’s my fucking wife!”

  “Calm the fuck down.” Freddie sits up in his seat, like he’s ready to jump to action if I lose my shit completely.

  “Calm down? Calm the fuck down?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She sat at the bar pretty much all night. She didn’t move once. She barely had anything to drink, and it was water.” Meeting my gaze, Leo blows out a long breath. “She’s waiting for something. For someone. I don’t know…all I can say is that no one sits at a bar for that long without a reason.”

  Freddie starts clicking again, and little by little the picture gets lighter with the break of dawn and sunrise. People coming and going, until it’s so bright that the white petals of the flowers in the window boxes look like thin confetti in the breeze.

  The black door opens, and there’s a pause. It looks like the picture freezes, but the timer on the corner of the screen keeps going. Ticking. Counting every goddamn second she’s in there, until she finally steps out.

  “At least you can see she’s safe.”

  “Did you know about this?” Turning to Casper, I watch the way he’s looking at the screen. His jaw is tight and his nostrils flared.

  “Fuck no,” he grits. Looking over at Leo, he narrows his eyes, and I s
wear he’s about ready to throttle him. “You said you were looking. You told me you had no idea where she was.”

  “He didn’t. I found her. She’s more slippery than a wet fish. Like she knows I’m keeping tabs.” Freddie stops the video and pulls up another.

  It’s exactly the same, except she’s wearing a different dress. Her walk is steadier, and this time she doesn’t stop before she rings the bell. Before she reaches the top step, the door opens for her, and she walks straight in.

  What is she doing there?

  My brain feels fried, my thoughts rampaging inside my head in a violent stampede. It’s so loud that with my blood rushing in my ears, I can’t hear what Freddie’s saying. His lips are moving, but he’s on mute.

  I’m hurt and overwhelmed. Fury is clawing and biting at my insides. I don’t know how to come back from my trance. I don’t know how to shake it off.

  That’s my wife. How can I not know what she’s doing? How she is. What she’s feeling. Who she’s waiting on… It sure as fuck isn’t me.

  “Christopher? Christopher!”

  Looking over at Leo, I try to focus.

  “There’s a list of members that’s off the books, if you know what I mean? Freddie and I managed to work that out. And whatever she’s doing there…it’s got everything to do with that list.”

  His words are an ice deluge over my senses because it screams danger.

  “We need to figure out what it is, and we need to do it before she gets herself in trouble.”

  “Unless she’s there for the atmospheric drink, she’s found something.” Freddie pulls up a blurry photo of a list. Pointing at the illegible writing, he growls in frustration. “We’ve tried running it through a fuck tonne of programmes to make the picture quality better, but it’s not working. The focus is fucked.”

  “Who gave it to you?”

  Looking between the three of us, he shifts in his seat. Before he opens his mouth, I can already tell I’m not going to like his answer.

  “Well?” Casper presses.

  “The cloud.” He answers with a shrug.

  “The cloud?”

  “What the fuck have you done, Fred?” Rounding the table to where I’m standing, Casper looks closer at the screen.