Page 42 of Hearts Held
Shit. I want to throw my fist into the concrete, but I maintain my composure. Striding toward the exit, I motion for Clint to follow me. “Where? When? Details, Clint, give me details,” I order.
He jogs behind me. “Sir, your mother found this one. She was called to the massage parlor to help a girl, but when she arrived she found her dead, ’boutthirty minutes ago or so, sir. We’ve been looking for ya, and someone saw you comes down here.” We take the vast staircase leading up to the Den.
It has been a couple weeks since the last murder, and still no clues have popped up to guide us in the direction of the killer.
As I approach my office on the third floor of the building, I find my mother already sitting in the lounge chair across from my mahogany desk.
“What happened?” I bluntly ask.
She takes a long drag of her cigarette and proceeds. “I got a call from a man saying one of our girls needed ‘assistance.’ She found out she was pregnant and was going mad over her predicament.”
“Why would they call you?” I narrow my eyes.
She blows smoke in my direction. “I don’t fucking know, maybe that was the only number they could reach? Doesn’t matter. When I arrived, the poor girl was gutted like a pig. Absolutely disgusting. Who’s gonna clean that room? It was awful.”
Her remark pisses me off but I maintain a sharp tone. “You’re more concerned about how a room is going to get cleaned than the fact someone lost their life?”
Mum rolls her eyes at me then fashions an irritated expression on her face.
My patience snaps at her idiocy. “It was our job to protect those women. That place is to give them autonomy. We’ve failedtwicenow. Those are someone’s daughters, sisters, friends, and now I must tell their poor families wefailedto do the one job we swore to do forthem.”
A short knock raps on my office door and I open it to find the chief constable. I usher him inside the office and he stands against the wall.
The chief constable was placed in his position by my father. The prior chief had a greedy hand, taking money from rival gangs, fucking our family over left and right as well as other accompanied gangs. Unfortunately, his luck ran out when Billy Kimber realized, the chief of the bobbies aided Sabini in the Epsom Road Battle of 1921.
Thecurrentchief is a former Adder. Stamped and loyal. No bullshitting around him.
“The girls were similarly gutted, though neither showed signs of sexual assault,” he says. I look up to find him wringing his handstogether.
“You think the same person did these crimes?” I ask, tapping my thumb on my desk.
“Correct. The bodies were cut in the same fashion. No murder weapon has been found, but the edges of the skin of both bodies are serrated in the same way. Not a smooth knife. Nothing was stolen from either room, no forced entry.” He lets out an exhale of frustration then leans his head against the wall, staring at the ceiling. “We have no leads, no witnesses. Like a facking ghost, Everett. A facking ghost.”
Shaking my head, I slam my fist into my desk, causing both parties to jump.
“Place patrols on the parlor. Hell, even undercover if we have to—find women to be undercover participants. This is starting to get out of hand. I refuse to have a third victim. When you find this perpetrator, you bring them tome.” Chief nods his head at me then exits the room.
I look up to find my mother staring at me with her dark, cold eyes.
“May I help you?” I ask plainly.
She shrugs her shoulders with nonchalance. “Heard your attentions have beenelsewhere.”Her eyes glare at me.
“Mother, I don’t have time for your stupidity today. What can I do to get you out of my office?” I turn my stoic face toward her.
“Youknow what all women want, Everett. I don’t want some whore coming in andruiningour enterprise just because you areentrancedby some cunt.” She proceeds to light up another cigarette.
“Thank you for your concern, Mother, but you are still receiving your weekly checks. Everyone else is receiving their weekly checks. I run this enterprise and have been for quite some time now, and business is booming. So whatever insecurities you are trying to project onto me, please let them and your entitlement fall down on their own sword. For you haven’t sacrificed enough for this family, for this country, to speak in such a manner.”
She abruptly stands. “How dare you!?I raised you, brought all you and your bastard brothers into this world.”
“Yet you never truly mothered us. Baba raised us, alongside some nannies—” I proceed while counting on my fingers “—while you shopped, hated Father. Resented pushing out children, yet still slept with him.Then danced on his grave after you were both shot at during a drive-by. I often wonder what life would be like if he’d lived and you’d died.” My words drip out like venom.
Her facial features skew and I can tell she is about to spit something awful back in my face.
Her hands ball up at her sides. “No one could ever love a piece of shit like you. The war changedyouinto thismonster. You look like a monster with all your scars.What woman would ever find that attractive? You carry your trauma around like it is some badge of honor, but it is your weakness.All you care for is yourself, the business and power. Feeling like some sort of god because you write our checks, because your bastard father left you in charge instead of Freddy or Kenneth!? You’re replaceable. All of you are! And just so you know—” Her words cease. Words she has spewed time and time again at me. The room falls to silence, as a black adder slithers across my desk. Her eyes track its movement. She never respected the snakes. She always resented them and feared them, poetically just like my father and his business.
I calmly pick up my scaly friend and it dances in my palm, its tongue occasionally sticking out toward my mother as it curls around my wrist. Sometimes the adders make their way out of their confines and venture around the city.
