“Okay,” she drawled. “But what does this have to do with your case—”
“I’m trying to explain,” he whispered, and was relieved when she remained quiet. “He hired men to check into our history. Our staff. Everyone from the cleaners to our administrative staff. The other day, I received the report and noticed something strange.
“It was a coincidence, and like we just agreed, they don’t exist. Birmingham, Salford, Dorset, and Notting Hill…” He sucked in a sharp breath, aware her patience was dying a quick death, yet equally as certain that he couldn’t get this out quickly. He was still dealing with the fact that a monster had been under their roof for months.
How the fuck had they been so lax?
“Those four cities were where the boys were killed. Small neighborhoods within those cities, in fact. Such a small circumference in the scheme of things, but they stood out to me because of the timing.”
“What timing?”
“Each boy was murdered when Jane was in that city, at that particular time.”
Silence.
No words were forthcoming now.
He swallowed down his shame. “It was too weird to ignore. Twice? Sure. That could be explained away. But each occasion? No. I had Vasily’s men look into her past and discovered far more than her resume and references could have ever explained.” Clenching his eyes shut, he whispered, “Can you ever forgive me, Sascha?”
“Sean… I don’t understand. You can’t be trying to tell me that Andrei’s PA is a serial killer. A child killer.”
“I wish I wasn’t. I wish I could tell you anything else, but I can’t. She was behind the deaths of those four boys, and…”
“And what?” Her tone was too serene. Far too serene. The calm before the storm.
“She’s been arrested.” He reached up and rubbed at his eyes. "Today. That was the news I received on the plane.”
“You mean to tell me that a serial killer has been under our roof, working with my husband, associating with my child, and…?” She scrambled out of bed and the light blared on the second her hand splattered against the fixing.
When he focused on her, her eyes were wild, but she was bleary because the tears in his eyes made everything a blur.
Shame like nothing he’d ever felt before swirled inside him, and when she stalked off, he didn’t even have it in him to go after her.
He was a criminologist.
Their security had been woefully lacking, and if anyone knew just how morally corrupt humans could be, it was him.
There was no excuse.
No excuse, whatsoever.
Chapter Three
“Did Sean tell you yet?”
Andrei jerked in surprise at her words. His head tilted to the side as he studied her, sitting quietly in the corner of his bedroom, tucked into one of the armchairs with a throw over her.
She probably looked as freezing cold as she felt.
So frigid that she wanted him to wrap her up in his arms, but the cold went bone deep. She felt sure that if he touched her, she’d turn to ice.
“Tell me what?” he asked carefully, shrugging out of his sweater and dumping it on the dresser beside the door.
Before he could strip down however, Sascha gritted out, “About Jane.”
He scowled at her and stacked his hands on his hips. “What about her now?”
“That she’s a serial killer.”
Laughter escaped him. “Sascha, I know you don’t like her—”
She hissed. “I’m not joking, Andrei.”
“What?” He scowled at her. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do I look like I’m amused? He just told me. The police apparently arrested her today.”
“She’s been charged? What the hell with?”
Her nostrils flared with irritation. “Aren’t you listening to me?” she half-screamed. “The child killer case he’s working on. She’s behind it.”
“No. No fucking way.”
Before she could say another word, he reared back and stormed out the way he came, and she moved to follow him. She wanted answers, otherwise she’d stay where she was. Her legs were wobbly, and she felt as frail as a colt, but she staggered after him. Whatever Andrei had to ask, she wanted to hear the answers too. She just hadn’t been capable of forming words, and knowing that her husband was as in the dark as she was soothed something inside her.
Whatever Sean had done, he’d told her first.
Told her they’d had a monster sharing the same air as them for the past…
God, when she thought about how long, she felt sick.
Curling into the throw she’d grabbed off the grand four-poster bed, she hurried after Andrei as quickly as she could. With her toes numb, it was harder than it ought to have been.
She heard the shouts before she reached the doorway, and her ever calm, ever cool husband was anything but.
A flurry of Russian hit her ears next, but Sean didn’t speak the language, or at least, not fluently, so she knew Andrei was speaking out of anger. As well as the same cocktail she felt drunk on—fear, confusion, outrage.
“Andrei, stop it!” she barked after watching him wave his arms around for a good five minutes. She’d never thought that Russian could sound anything other than sexy, but hearing the words shaped like missiles, she knew too much of a good thing did exist.
He spun around on his heel and stared at her. “I need answers.”
“You think I don’t? Shouting at him in a language we don’t understand isn’t going to help,” she hissed.
“What’s going on?”
Kurt.
She turned to look at him and realized he’d been asleep—his hair all over the place, a mass of tumbled waves that her hands itched to touch.
She wanted to fall into the shelter he represented, move away from the taint that was spreading wider and wider.
“Sean told Sascha that Jane was the child killer in his case.”
Kurt reared back, his sleepy eyes rounding in surprise. “Nein. Dass ist nicht möglich.”
Sean rasped, “Da. Möglich ist. Es ist die Wahrheit. Ich wünsche dass ich lugen wäre.”
Whatever the hell he’d said, it didn’t bode well from the look Kurt aimed her way. He curved an arm around her shoulder, and pushed her toward the bed where Sean was sitting, his back to the headboard, his knees high, his arms over the joints where she could see he was wringing his hands.
Sean was the epitome of power. At least, in her mind. To see him so diminished hurt something inside her.
He was ashamed, and he wore it like a true sinner. Like he was the killer.
A breath whooshed from between her lips. “Explain,” she demanded, her tone less frigid in the face of his shame.
“Was she targeting Tin?” Kurt asked, and though his voice was calm, she felt the way his body vibrated as he posed the question. It satisfied something inside her.
She wasn’t alone in this.
“Maybe. It depends on her end game. He’s too young to be of interest to her just yet.”
Just yet.
Two words, two innocuous words, and yet they were some of the most terrifying terms she’d ever heard.
Nausea swirled inside her, making her fear she was about to puke on the very expensive rug beneath her feet.
This had to be one of the most surreal moments of her life.
Was it a dream?
She could only hope so, hell, pray so.
“What do you mean?”
Sean didn’t look at her, just kept his eyes focused on his hands. “Four was her target demographic.”
“You make it sound like an audience she was trying to hit,” she hissed.
He didn’t flinch at her words, instead, in a monotone that made her head ache, stated, “Four was an important number to her.”
“Why?”
“She was four when her parents were killed in a car crash. Four when she was put into foster care where she was molested by her foster father. S
he had a child at nineteen, and that child died of meningitis—at four.”
“And what? That twisted her to the point she started killing other kids?” Sascha screamed. “Who the fuck does that?”
“Someone who’s psychologically and emotionally damaged,” Kurt rasped, tightening his hold on her, but she didn’t want to be held. She understood Andrei’s need to throw his arms around. Except burning off the excess fury made her feel like an explosion was imminent. If she didn’t keep these emotions contained, she was sure she’d burst.
“How do you know any of this?” Sascha addressed Sean. “I mean, you’ve been with us for the past few days, and the report came to you—” She curled her fingernails into her palms. “How long have you been keeping this from us?”
“I’m a profiler, Sascha. It’s my job to figure out why people do the fucked up shit they do.” He blew out a breath. “I didn’t want to say anything until the police investigated my findings. When they arrested her today, I knew that I was right. They had a case.”
“This can’t be real,” she whispered. “I mean, if I suspend reality, I can almost come to terms with the fact she’s a nutcase. It’s not like I liked her. But she barely glanced at Tin. Never talked to him, hardly recognized his existence. And no, I’m not fucking complaining about that… just trying to make sense out of the impossible.”
Sean grunted and the bones of his knuckles strained as he balled his hands into tight fists. “Without access to her, I have no true answers.”
“Why the fuck haven’t you flown back to deal with the investigation?” Andrei snarled.
“I’ve been thrown off the case,” Sean admitted. “Too close to her.”
“Who’s on it in your stead?”
“Dr. Medcalfe.”
Kurt gasped. “She hates you. She won’t tell you shit.”
“She might once she realizes what Jane did.”
“What did she do?” Sascha inquired, panic soaring through her. Was she missing something?
“Infiltrated our home, of course,” Sean stated grimly. “It’s beyond personal now.”
“It can’t be her. It just can’t be.” Her voice was a whisper as her mind whirred. “You came to us in Glasgow after that boy was killed. She worked for us then.”
“The boy was local to her. Notting Hill. She lives there.” He blew out a shaky breath. “Medcalfe might take pity on me and let me see her report, but I have no answers, nothing save for what Vasily’s men dug up. And half of that isn’t permissible in court.”
“None of it will be permissible in court,” Andrei grated out. “You know they won’t have discovered any of this information through any legal channels.”
For the first time in their relationship, she was grateful as fuck that her grandfather-in-law was in the mafia.
Thanking God for the wily old bastard, she demanded, “Why was she working for Andrei?”
Sean shrugged. “From what I know of her, she’s precise, incredibly so. To the point of OCD. She’s calm, resolute, and neat as a pin. I have no doubt that she was there to make sure I wasn’t close to determining exactly who the killer was.”
“I-I thought it would be a man. They’re always sick perverts who—”
“Not in this case. You said it yourself that day you saw the whiteboards in my office. The children were dressed, used as props even. Preserved.”
And that did it.
She couldn’t hold it in anymore.
With the word ‘preserved’ ricocheting in her skull, she dashed to the bathroom and puked up everything she’d eaten at supper.
And when that still wasn’t enough, she puked up the entirety of her stomach contents.
❖
“What happened last night?”
Sean cut Sawyer a glance. “You heard and didn’t come in?”
“Devon finally cracked this matrix system that’s been bugging him.” He shrugged. “It was either disrupt him and potentially put a halt to something we’ve been working on for weeks, something that would speed up our stay here, or come and see what you guys were bickering about.”
A huff escaped Sean at that trite declaration. “If only we had been bickering.”
Sawyer scowled at him over the table.
They were seated in the small breakfast room, a room painted a bright sunny yellow, the color enhanced by the two walls of windows. Everything was antique. From the table itself to the chairs, the cutlery was silver and had small decorative touches on the stems that were worn with age but were still bright with luster. The plates were delicate bone china and were adorned with hand-painted flowers that made Sean, who’d grown up around ‘delicate fripperies’ as his mother had called crap like this, hope he wasn’t about to turn into a klutz.
This place was light, airy… everything he wasn’t.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Of his brothers, Sawyer was the man who liked prevarication the least. So, he told him.
Everything.
Every fucking last thing. Even the shit he didn’t understand himself, he laid it on the line and when he finished, when he could finally drag his shame-filled eyes to his brother, he saw Sawyer was eating his breakfast.
Eating.
His.
Breakfast.
“How can you eat?” Sean rasped.
Sawyer shrugged. “Not eaten since dinner and I’ve been up all night. I’m hungry.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
Sawyer dropped his knife, forked up a mushroom, and waving it at Sean, asked, “Did you invite Jane into our house?”
He frowned. “Of course not.”
“Did Andrei? I mean, he hired her, but you know he only worked on recommendations…”
“Don’t do this, Sawyer. Don’t justify something that’s impossible to justify.”
Another shrug. “You’re determined to be a martyr. I’m not going to try and talk you out of it. Sure, be pissed. I know I am. We were used—”
“To get to me.”
Sawyer shook his head. “I don’t think so. What was her endgame?”
“Fuck if I know, but why come into our world if she wasn’t interested in cozying up to me? Trying to make sure I wasn’t close to catching her?”
“Seems feckin’ weird as shit to me,” Sawyer stated after a few seconds. “And look at it this way, you could have been practicing as a shrink and could have enticed some loon into our world. Nowhere’s safe unless you’re locked up in a padded cell.”
“You’re making me feel a thousand times better,” Sean drawled, having to hide a grin despite himself. “Padded cell? Fuck, Sawyer.”
“What?” the braw Scot demanded. “It’s the truth. Remember that time Devon had a stalker? The man never leaves his feckin’ room and he got himself a stalker. Now, that has to be a record. But still, crazy attracts crazy and as normal as we are when it boils down to it, we’re crazy.
“Devon’s a mad genius, Kurt isn’t far off with his fucking nutty writing habits. Then there’s Andrei who comes from a background where murder is just fun and games, and there’s me. There’s a reason I understand Devon, Sean,” he said pointedly, eying Sean until he had his full focus. “I’m halfway to madness myself and only you four fuckwits have kept me on the straight and narrow.”
“Sascha did that—”
“Not until she came to us. Before that, it was you. All of you. I was a bad kid,” Sawyer admitted. “Reckless because I was bored. Nobody understood how feckin’ bored I was because, how could they? Then Devon came along, and feck,” he sighed, “it was such a relief. Such a relief to speak to someone on my level. I felt like shite. My ma and da, they love me, I know they dae. They half-killed themselves to give me the best that they could, but it wasn’t enough for my brain.” He tapped his temple. “Until Devon, I was going mad. Who kens where I’d be if it weren’t for him? And as for the rest of ye, well, you kept me sane when he drove me to the brink with all his shite.”
When Sean made to s
peak, Sawyer shook his head and stated, “Now, sure, that bitch is mad. Sick and fucked in the head, but you can’t help what she did. Do I like the fact she might have been sizing my boy up? Nope.” The ‘p’ popped as he said the word. “Am I happy that all of us have been so fucking remiss in the security around the only two people who matter to us? I sure as shit am not. But we’ve been stupid. We are stupid. In things like life.” He sighed. “I hate to say it, Sean, but we are. We weren’t built for this world. None of us were.”
“You can’t say that, Sawyer. If anyone knows the fucked-up shit that can happen, it’s me. I’ve worked around it long enough—”
“Sure, but it’s a game, isn’t it, lad? You do it for the puzzle. For the riddle.” Sawyer cocked a brow at him. “Don’t be lying to me about that. I know you too well for you to be bullshitting me.”
Sean closed his eyes. “You know that’s true.”
“Exactly. You don’t do it for the prestige or to help save people, even if the latter is more rewarding than the former. You do it to stop the boredom. And that’s okay, mon. That’s more than okay because it stops you from going nuts and, in the meantime, you put bad bastards away and you keep people safe from those who’d try to hurt them.
“But you’re not perfect. We don’t expect you to be. Sometimes, you’re a man and you’re stupid. Just like I am. Just like we all are. Do I hate myself for that? Aye. I dae. I fucking loathe that my head’s so up with the goddamn fairies that I failed to protect the two people who have my heart. But that’s who I am, who we are, and we need to address that.”
“Vasily warned me about threats before,” Andrei rasped, making Sean jerk as his brother slouched into the room, his eyes tired, his face worn as he slumped in his seat. “Said we weren’t taking enough care.”
“He’s said the same to me,” Sean admitted.
“So, we’re stupid, but we’re not fucking hopeless,” Sawyer muttered as he grabbed his cup of tea and took a deep sip. “We do what rich folk do—we throw money at the situation.”
Sean scowled. “How the hell can money help?”
“We get some fancy security company to do the things that we forget to do.”
Sean: Quintessence The Sequel: Part IV Page 5