Protector's Claim

by Airicka Phoenix

  Jameson answered promptly.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  The butler, who had served my father before continuing with me, paused. The sliver of empty air raised little prickles along the nape of my neck. It toyed with the unease already hot in my stomach. If Marcella was in her room, Jameson would have just said, even if she was on the floor. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t dealt with in the past.

  “Where is she?”

  He cleared his throat, a discreet hmm-hmm. “Sir, I regret to inform you that Mrs. Thornton passed this afternoon. The paramedics—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Leather shifted beneath my stiffening frame. “What happened?”

  “There was an accident, sir. Mrs. Thornton was found in her quarters. The paramedics ruled it an overdose, sir. I was under the impression someone would be in contact with you.”

  “What are you telling me, Jameson?” I barked. “Marcella’s dead?”

  Another waver of resistance.

  “Yes sir, I’m sorry.”

  Something had to be done. I was almost certain of it. People needed to be called, arrangements made. The police would no doubt need to talk to me at some point, like I didn’t have enough on my plate. It was just like her to make my life harder. She couldn’t even die quietly.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  What a nightmare. And to think, I’d woken up that morning feeling like nothing could possibly go wrong. My weeks of planning had finally come to order, I had men ready to follow every detail to the letter, I was going to have the thing I’d been patiently waiting for by the end of day.

  Well, I got Gabrielle, and even that had gone to shit. I lost her. I was at risk of losing my reputation. I lost my Kincaid connections, successfully losing my Prime Minister seat. Now, I had to explain to the world how my idiot wife had a drug problem and I did nothing to help her because I hadn’t given a shit. Playing ignorance wouldn’t help. I would need to find answers.

  “Sir?”

  Jameson’s voice interrupted my thoughts, reminding me he was still on the phone.

  “I’ll handle it,” I muttered and hit the end button.

  Bruce would handle it. He would know what to do with this mess. Aside from the personal matters that would need to be dealt with, there were legal issues, not to mention the media to contend with. They would want to know why Marcella wasn’t taken to get help. More importantly, why I wasn’t with her during her time of death, especially when it came out that I wasn’t at work, but at an underground dungeon I doubted those vultures would understand.

  I tapped a finger on the screen thoughtfully, leaving smudges in the process. I glowered at my own reflection snarling back at me.

  This is your fault, I wanted to snap at it. Despite all my meticulous planning, I had lost focus of what needed to be done. For six years, all I had wanted was her. I let myself become consumed by the prospect, by the fantasy of her soft, unblemished skin littered in bruises and leaking wounds. I wanted so badly to be the one to mar her, to destroy her the way she destroyed my life, the way she stole my dignity, my pride. From the very moment she came wailing into my life, I had to restrain myself not to smother her with a pillow and toss her lifeless carcass into the trash. She’d been such a useless child, a scrawny, mousy thing with big eyes and the power to tear my kingdom to the ground. Her true purpose never came into light until the day I dragged her to her knees, my hand twisted in her hair. Something in that moment had sent a whip of flames snapping inside me. The sight of her tear stained eyes, the perfect, red handprint on her cheek, the blood on her lips, it had been all I could do to keep from taking what I wanted, from forcing myself on her the way she’d forced herself on me.

  I should have. Her age had stopped me then, a random bout of morals I regretted almost immediately. I told myself there was only two more years between right and prison and I could wait that.

  Clearly a mistake.

  First chance she got, the bitch betrayed me. She took it upon herself to once again take a mallet to my world. The shattered shards lay at my feet, a testament to my weakness, my damn mercy. Father always warned me about having a bleeding heart. There was no room for softness, for love. That was for children and morons. He would have been so disappointed if he hadn’t wrecked his car driving to the hotel with his mistress in the passenger seat. The official report was a cut gas line. She hadn’t lived either, which hadn’t been part of the plan, but fortunate, especially since Father had left nearly thirty percent of everything to her in his will. Fifty went to me as his sole heir. Thirty went to Mother, or would have if she hadn’t had that tragic accident tumbling down the stairs.

  Mother had always been so clumsy.

  But with all of them gone, and no siblings to compete against, I became the only living Thornton before the age of eighteen. The youngest heir and the wealthiest.

  It was perfect. Life had been perfect. I had the wealth and power to do anything I wanted. No one could stop me.

  Then I made the mistake of getting married.

  At the time, it had seemed like a sound idea. I needed an heir and I needed a woman, someone not too bright, but money hungry enough to keep her mouth shut, and beautiful enough to make me the envy of every man in the room. Marcella had been the smart choice, a washed up junkie model with depression and an eating disorder. Gorgeous and just broken enough to make living with her bearable. I allowed her the luxury of sustaining her habits while she ... who the fuck knew what she gave me. Two mindless idiots for children and a constant black smear on my family name. I had clearly been conned.

  Bruce’s office, a jutting blade of steel and glass, rolled into view as Ansel took the final turn. Each plate gleamed with a fierce and aggressive sheen. It almost hurt to look directly at.

  Like the building and its outer polish, Bruce Paxton was every bit the sight in his five-thousand-dollar suit, watch, haircut, and smile. It was evident to see where my money was going.

  “David.” Bruce extended his hand.

  I accepted and let him guide me into his office. The door was shut behind us and we made our way to the massive, oak desk silhouetted in the sharp spill of sunlight from the enormous window behind it.

  The place smelled of dust and old papers with hints of wood polish and expensive cologne. It was a comforting smell, a lot like my own office.

  I sat while he veered off towards the drink cart. Two tumblers of scotch were brought back. One was placed in front of me. The other was carried with him to his side of the desk. He sat with a gratified exhale.

  “What can I help you with?”

  “Marcella’s dead.”

  The crystal goblet he’d lifted to his lips stilled. His eyes over the rim went wide.

  “What?” The glass was set down with an audible clink. “How? What happened?”

  I took my own drink and claimed a sip, needing it to help me steel my nerves.

  “OD’d,” I muttered into the amber liquid. I swallowed and kept the cup in my hands as I sat back. “She’d always had a problem.”

  “Christ.” He dropped back as well. “Jesus, David, I’m so sorry.”

  I waved the unnecessary sympathies aside. “I wasn’t home when it happened. I’m assuming they took her wherever they take bodies.”

  “The morgue, I’m thinking.”

  I shrugged.

  “Should ... do you need me to call someone, or...?”

  He was watching me as if expecting me to fall apart. I guessed that normal people would have. The woman had been my wife for the last thirty-seven fucking years. Three and a half fucking decades. I probably should have cared even slightly. Instead, all I felt was relief, like a child waiting for an elderly parent to finally die and free them of the burden. That was, after all, what Marcella had been, a chain, a noose that kept tightening around my neck with every passing year. Her insufferable whining, her overdramatic bullshit, Christ, if she hadn’t done it herself, I probably wo
uld have killed her myself. I would have sooner if the husband wasn’t the first person they suspected when whores went missing. Ending her miserable life was the smartest thing she’d ever accomplished on her own. At least she got it right, which was a surprise in itself. The bitch couldn’t even wipe her own ass after a shit without falling apart and me finding her huddled by the toilet, shit running down her legs. I was supposed to believe she had depression and anxiety, made up diagnoses to pacify weak minded women into believing it wasn’t all in their heads, but it kept her happily medicated and kept me from having to deal with her.

  None of that mattered now.

  “I need you to put a gag order together.”

  Bruce blinked. “A ... gag order? I thought it was an overdose—”

  “Not for her.” I took a larger sip of my drink. “I may have done something.”

  I told him everything. Even being my lawyer for nearly ten years, I had never divulged my personal life to him, my secrets, but the time for that was at an end. If he was to represent me properly, he needed to know the truth.

  “Jesus Christ, David!” My lawyer scrubbed a palm over his face, hard enough to leave red welts rising up beneath his skin. “Is this a joke?” He lowered his hand and stared across the wide surface at me. “You’re pulling my leg.”

  I shook my head. “No, I can assure you I’m not.” I finished my drink and set the glass down. “Never been so serious.”

  “Let me get this straight, you want me to get Gabrielle back from a place that you forcibly kidnapped her to, after killing her bodyguard and you want to make sure all the business just goes away.”

  When said like that, I almost doubted it, but I hadn’t come that far to fail now.

  “If you can’t do it...”

  “David, you killed a man, you kidnapped a woman, put her in a dungeon, threatened to rape and torture her ... oh, and she’s your daughter!”

  “She’s not my daughter.”

  The very thought left a sick, coppery taste in my mouth.

  “You signed the birth certificate,” he reminded me. “For the last twenty-two years, you’ve been telling everyone she’s your flesh and blood.” He gouged the tips of his fingers into the bit of skin between his eyebrows. “There is no way to spin this that won’t have people yelling molestation and child abuse.”

  “The bitch signed a contract!” My voice rose with my rage.

  “There isn’t a judge on the planet who will side with you on that, David. Not if they want to remain a judge. Her becoming your whore in exchange for the chance to go to school is not going to win you any favors either. If anything, you’re looking at ten years easy.”

  “For what?” I roared.

  “You killed a man!” he shot back. “Jesus Christ, David! What the fuck are you doing?”

  “They’re never going to find the body,” I stated, dismissing his dramatics. “I hired professionals.”

  “Oh, well!” He laughed, the sound irritatingly brittle. “Why didn’t you just say so? That makes everything just dandy.”

  I hated sarcasm. It was such a commoner behavior.

  “Will you calm down,” I muttered. “This is what I pay you for. Handle it.”

  “Handle helping you fuck your daughter. Okay then.” He was panting heavily, his whole body vibrating beneath the suit I paid for. “Well, regardless, we need to go to the authorities. You need to turn yourself in. We’ll think of a defense, stress, maybe. A crime of passion. Insanity. I don’t know, but we’re going to nip this before it gets out of hand. Turning yourself in may make the judge look favorably on the situation. I’ll...”

  I tuned him out, his idea to have me arrested was ridiculous. I was David Thornton. I created laws. I made kings. I wasn’t about to have my name synonymous with the trash of society, nor was I about to take the blame for this, especially when I had done nothing wrong. This was all on Gabrielle and Kieran. They brought me to this point. They made me bring out a side of myself that I fought daily to pacify.

  The cold, slimy sensation started in the pit of my stomach, the oily feeling of fear and annoyance. Coming to Bruce had clearly been a bad idea. I should have dealt with the matter myself. He was just one more person who knew my secret. That made him dangerous. I couldn’t have that. It ... he needed to be dealt with before he could tell anyone. Then I needed another word with Rutherford and Kieran. There were too many loose ends I needed to fix.

  I pushed to my feet, studying the approaching night outside the window behind him. Most of the light was nearly all gone. In their place was a scattering of life far below, too far for anyone to notice us on the very top floor.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  I sidestepped the desk and moved closer to examine the single layer of glass separating us from the brutal plummeting.

  Behind me, I heard Bruce scramble to his feet and moving to see what had captured my attention.

  It was unfortunate, really. I had always really liked Bruce. He’d won many of my corporate battles and clearly had a good, moral backbone. It was difficult to find a lawyer with a conscious.

  “David.” He placed a warm, caring hand on my arm. “I will take care of this, okay? I’ll do my best to get you the least amount of—”

  For a man his size, it barely took more than a shove to send him through the pane. The cacophony of shattering glass accompanied his scream, his open-mouthed expression of horror, one working to mask the other. The shards glittered in the void, the endless vacuum of space between earth and sky, surrounding him in a shower of diamonds while his fingers snatched at air.

  Betrayal.

  It radiated around him in a perfect halo of disbelief, a laughable waste of time even as he began to plummet.

  He hit the pavement before the shower of glass did. His whole body burst upon contact. I could hear the sickening crunch of bones and the splatter of meat, then the screams of those below as they came to realize what had come inches from dropping on their heads.

  Their panic and chaos stabbed at my amusement, coaxing a laugh I hadn’t felt in a damn long time. I hated that I’d allowed myself to forget how good the little things felt. It was a shame, really. I used to love laughing.

  Unfortunately, this was neither the time, nor the place. My humor in Bruce’s untimely demise would have to wait until I could properly enjoy it.

  I stepped away from the jagged hole, away from the crisp snap of autumn now tinged with the coppery after taste of blood and picked my way to the desk. My empty glass winked at me, enticing me to have another drink before I left, but there was no time for that. I had roughly fifteen minutes before the cops made it through the traffic to the building, then another fifteen before they determined which floor and room Bruce had come from. That left me thirty minutes to erase all evidence of my presence there and leave.

  Nevertheless, I took the glass. I tested its weight in my hand, the coolness of it. The rigid patterns along the sides cut into my thumb.

  All that money and the bastard couldn’t even afford real crystal.

  From my pocket, I removed a handkerchief and wiped all traces of my touch and the stray droplets of scotch from the bottom. I returned the glass to the cart and placed it with the others. As an afterthought, I carried the bottle back to the desk, using the scrap of fabric to shield my fingerprints. I set it down next to Bruce’s cup, but not until I’d refilled it just enough to make it appear as though he’d made his decision to jump midway through his drink.

  Outside, the wail of sirens approaching from a great distance hurried my progress. I scrubbed the armrest and the knob on the door as I left.

  Ansel was waiting by the car when I reached the underground parking garage. He said nothing when he opened the backdoor and waited for me to get in.

  I paused just long enough to shrug my coat off. I shook it once to free the sleeves from creasing before draping the heavy material over my arm.

  I eyed the man before me as I did, determining the likelihood of him keeping
his mouth shut if questioned. Bought loyalty was a tricky matter. It could easily be swayed, especially when faced with authority. A shame, really. I was nearly certain he had a family and children.

  “Home, Ansel, please.”

  Wide shoulders straightened. “Sir.”

  I climbed into the back, fingers digging into the pocket of my coat for my phone. I was already listening to ringing when he closed the door behind me.

  “Wilkens.”

  I watched Ansel climb in behind the wheel. The folds of skin at the back of his head forming what looked like a pair of lips.

  “I have a job for you,” I told the man on the phone. “I need it handled immediately.”

  “Name?”

  “I will text you the information.”

  As I disconnected the call, it dawned on me that I probably should have saved myself the headache by having Bruce handled as well. Then I wouldn’t have had to put a contract on Ansel. It certainly would have made my life easier, but I couldn’t trust that Bruce wouldn’t have taken it upon himself to call the police the second I’d left his office; he’d always been irritatingly honest for a lawyer. So, in retrospect, he had no one to blame but himself for being dead.

  I texted Ansel’s name and description to Wilkens. I included the place he would be in the next twenty minutes, and the best time to come around.

  As an afterthought, I included a cleanup job for Bruce. I realized it was too late to possibly make a difference, but these were professionals who staged crime scenes and concealed bodies for a living. This was their job.

  I hit send and put my phone away.

  There was a cruiser in front of my house when we drew up to the manor. The lights on top were off, but the sight of it after murdering someone wasn’t exactly comforting. I had to assure myself that there was no way they could have found me already while I climbed from the backseat.

  The officer, a scrawny kid with a tangle of brown hair and honest to God pimples was in my foyer, looking flushed and mildly starstruck in his admiring of Cordelia. I wondered if he wasn’t straight out of the academy for the way he kept gulping down spit like some horny teenager meeting his favorite centerfold.