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Lone killer

"He'd find me. I'd have to disappear forever. I'm not even sure that's possible these days. William wouldn't leave him until he dragged me back here." The thought of disappearing sparked a small flicker of hope in my chest. Could he do it? What about Mery-would he try to take her instead? That dispelled any hope with a cold dose of reality. But she was so much younger than me, Dad would never give up the baby, would he?

"I know a guy who can get you a fake name. Emes Falu from school, do you remember him?"

"Something like that "...

"Remember how he was always getting us fake IDs to get into clubs? Well, it's legal now. Well, not legally legal, but now he's doing big things. New names, passports, social security numbers, everything."

Rolling toward my sister, I looked her in the face. Did she really think I could just walk away? Everyone who meant anything to me was under our roof. Sure, I'd miss my friends, but I'd give them up to avoid William . My family? That was different.

"I don't think I could live without all of you."

"I'd move on after a while. We'd find a way to stay in touch and see each other." Mery pulled me tighter against her.

A sharp knock on the door made us both jump.

"Who is it?"

Edward poked his head out the door and I crawled back under the comforter. I didn't need him to see the absolute mess I was in. Fuck, I was a tall glass of delight. Terribly unsuitable for me, and I wondered if I had a bit of a crush on him because he was totally unsuitable for me. I always knew I would marry into another rich family, probably the son of a crime boss. But Edward didn't come from a wealthy family; he had come from the bottom of the business and worked his way up. In large part, he had done so by hunting people on the run or torturing others. Half bounty hunter, half intimidator. One hundred percent tall, tattooed, scruffy son of a bitch. Big hands, crystal blue eyes and a knockout body.

He'd been hanging around me more and more often for a year or two, and I'd had him on my radar for a long time for backdoor benefits, but he hadn't shown any signs of being interested when I'd subtly probed the ground. He probably had a ton of girls throwing themselves at him.

"Just me. Sorry to interrupt, but your father wants you at dinner tonight."

Mery shifted beside me as I stood motionless under the comforter, hardly daring to breathe in case I drew attention to myself.

"Don't worry, Amelia is going to take a shower and then we'll go downstairs."

As the door closed, I pulled the covers back and took a breath, ending my suffocation for the moment.

"Damn, I didn't need him to be in my room when he's like this." Cold coffees and plates of uneaten food littered the bedside tables and the room was dark, dank and musty. It wasn't at all how I used to keep the place, well, the maid did, but I'd banished her since I'd gone into despair.

"Still expecting a bit of roughness?" Mery laughed as she pulled the comforter off me and threw it on the floor before pushing me out of bed.

"It would make a good last supper, that's for sure, why is he here?"

"I think he's here to make sure you don't disappear before the wedding. It's next week."

My mouth went dry as I stared at Mery .

"A week? No, it couldn't be that fast."

Tears welled up again as Mery rounded the bed and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

" You'll be all right. We'll fix it, even if you have to go back to old school and start poisoning his food."

Like a zombie, I let him pull me into the shower, my brain had gone into protective mode.

I needed an outlet.

Quickly.

EDWARD

It was none of my business.

None of my damn business.

So why couldn't I get the state Amelia was in out of my mind? Normally she was smiling and feisty, but since Kyle had announced her engagement to William, it was as if her life had been taken from her. Who could blame her? She'd been with the Kensingtons long enough to see how she terrorized them. Murders happened far more often than expected in the Scottish crime scene, but it was rare that it was among the elite. Much more often it was people in the lower echelons of the organizations who were killed. People like me.

As I parked the car in my driveway, I waved to Amanda , my elderly next door neighbor, who opened the door and shuffled out. Sad as it was, she was the only person outside the crime scene who cared about me. I had no grandmothers or grandfathers, no parents or siblings. No aunts, no uncles, no cousins. Just me. In my job, Amanda was the only person who would notice if I disappeared.

It was a sad situation.

"Hi," she said to me as she locked the car and doors with the key fob. Could you help me for a moment?

She had been a widow for a long time and her only son was dying young and childless. I liked to tell myself that I was just being helpful, but every time she invited me in, her warmth filled that emptiness in me for a while. She wasn't my grandmother, but she seemed like it while I was with her. The little snippet of what normalcy could be was something I cherished.

"No problem, Amanda , what's on your mind today?" I followed her to her house, identical to mine in layout, but a million miles away in decor. Her house was occupied, clean and tidy, but filled to the brim with brick decorations. The walls were lined with photos from his younger years, faded with age. Smiling faces from their family life. Happier times. A pang in my chest reminded me that I lacked pictures from my childhood. If any existed, they were not in my possession. When the system moved you from house to house with a garbage bag of meager belongings, photos were not the priority. Your son's face peered out from behind the glass. If any photos of me existed, I doubted I looked happy. The closest I had ever come to happiness was when I finally bought my house, in this leafy little corner of Glasgow, miles from work and the criminal underworld that sprawled across the city.

My commute was horrendous, but I hadn't wanted a townhouse or an apartment in the city center, like most bachelors. No, I bought a family home in a suburb, surrounded by old people and young families. I dreamed of filling the house with my own family. Instead, it remained as lonely as the rest of my life, my windows a daily reminder that families were for others. Happy children riding bikes down the sidewalk, parents holding them in their arms and kissing their scraped knees. One more arrow to the soul. The closest I'd come to it were the occasional one-night stands, where I indulged in physical closeness, but had yet to find someone capable of breaking through the emotional wall.

Amanda looked at me with a soft smile as I looked at her photos. Her fingers trembled as she reached up and stroked her son's smiling face.

"Come, I made cookies."

I broke into a sweat as soon as I entered her kitchen. It was always at a pleasant temperature. He said it eased his aches and pains. I would hate to see the heating bill.

"Shall I put the tea on?"

She had already put the kettle on to boil. Asking was a mere formality. The routine was always the same: loose tea from the clipboard attached to the side of the cupboard, the overly large maroon teapot that must have made a million cups of tea over the years. Milk in the striped jug, never from the plastic bottle. Sugar in lumps, never loose.

"What do you need me to help you with today," I asked as we waited for the tea to create the brew .

"The light in the living room went out. I needed help getting the stool out of the shed and changing it."

I glared at her. She was in her seventies. She shouldn't be climbing stairs at her age.

"I'll change the lamp for you. No stool needed."

She smiled at me and put a cool hand on mine. "You're a very helpful boy. Thank you."

How he could have a cold hand in the tropical heat of the kitchen puzzled me. But I savored the brief contact, my heart aching for the moment of tenderness. Another glimpse of a life I didn't have.

"It's no trouble at all. You know I'll be happy to help you." He had nothing else to do outside of work, anyway. Sure, I could go into town and scour a bar for a warm body to warm me up for a night, but the next morning I always felt emptier than before. When the women would leave, I would realize how empty my house was.

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