Page 36 of Jett

“HEY,” RAINE SAYS, SLIDINGup to the bar beside me.

“Hey.” I stare into my bottle of Jack because it fucking hurts to look at her. It hurts to be so close and unable to touch her.

“Do you have a minute?”

“That depends on what you need a minute for.” I finally glance at her face and sigh as I gesture to the hall behind us. “You wanna come in my office?”

Her brows pinch together and the corners of her lips twitch like she’s fighting a smile. “I ... yeah. Let’s talk, in your office.”

I nod and set my drink on the bar. Sliding off the stool, I follow as she walks down the empty hall. She waits at my door, like a polite little schoolgirl. I bet her teachers longed to bend that tight arse over their knees.

I open the door and gesture for her to go first. She enters the room, but she doesn’t sit on the couch along the wall. She stands by my desk, biting her bottom lip, as if she’s in trouble with the headmaster.

“Oh, this came for you earlier. I signed for it at the gate.”

I glance at the square box on my desk. “What the hell were you doin’ at the gate? Lockdown means no one leaves this building.”

“Would you relax? I went to give Crazy and Killer refreshments.”

“Come a-fuckin’-gain?”

She shrugs her small shoulders, but at least her expression is contrite. “Well, those boys have been working really hard to get back into your good graces.”

“Those boys fucked the only chance I had of getting my wife back!”

She blinks and her throat bobs as she swallows. I scrub my hands down over my face, let out a long breath and stare at the ceiling, trying to find a calm I haven’t felt since Raine began working for me. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “It’s okay. I can’t even imagine how much stress you’re under right now. I’m sorry about Mia. I really am.”

I nod and we stare at each other for a long time, me on one side of my desk, her on the other. Whether it’s my wife, my marriage, or a fucking cherrywood desk, it feels like there’s always something keeping me from her.

I glance at the box. There’s a courier label but no sender information. Dread worms its way through my gut. “You signed for this at the gate?”

“Yeah—”

“When?”

“Um, right before you guys came back. I was in the booth with Killer when ... Jett? Is something wrong?”

Her words barely register as I grab the knife from my belt and pull it from the sheath, driving it into the flimsy cardboard. The smell hits me first. Copper. Meat, raw and fresh, but with the faint odour of something sour that turns my stomach. I shove at the plastic wrap inside, fear and certainty eating away at my insides.

No! No, no, no.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Finally, I pull back the plastic.Hair. Long dark hair I spent a fortune on every month. Hair I used to grip in my hands as I fucked her. Those chestnut strands are no longer soft, but tacky with blood as I reach in and move them off her face. Her mouth is slackened as if in sleep, her eyes closed, and her long black lashes fan her cheeks. Her expression is peaceful, but I know her death was not.

“Jett? Are you okay?”

A single fly buzzes against the raw flesh where her neck used to be. The sound is so loud in my ears, so deafening as I struggle to breathe through my emotions. Tears well in my eyes. “Fuck!” I roar.

Raine steps closer.

“Don’t,” I whisper, but it’s too late. Her eyes widen in shock as she peers into the box and then she runs into my bathroom and hurls her guts into the toilet bowl while I’m still standing here, staring at the severed head of my dead wife.

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