Page 37 of Fractured Loyalties
“It seems crueler to send him down breathing, well, actually, itis.” I purse my lips together, thinking about the way my father doted on him and Ivy smiled up at him…
Hmm… Never mind. This’ll do.
“I’ll grab a cart.” Edward disappears into one of the many warehouse buildings my father owns. I remain where I am, staring down at the asshole who thought he might get to fuck what’s mine.
Goddamn,it makes me want to slit his fucking throat. But honestly, I don’t want to ask Edward to clean up that mess. He’s got enough on his plate.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Edward said with a wicked grin on his face as he rolled some sort of industrial wagon toward me. I step away enough for him to line it up.
I grab at Kade’s feet, and Edward stays at the head.
“How old is he?” I ask.
“Turned nineteen last month,” he answers. “Parents held him back.”
“Well, then, at least he’s not a minor.”
“Uh-huh,” Edward snorts. “Whatever helps you feel better.” He gives me a nod and we haul Kade’s body up out of the trunk, both of us struggling with the…attachments.
Kade’s head flops, his lips open, and a line of drool traces his chin. He looks like a child who fell asleep at the wrong sleepover—one that he won’t be waking up from.
“This is pretty fucked up, even for you,” Edward says as he starts to roll the cart toward the edge of the dock.
“Nah,” I say with a shrug. “Sometimes people die. It’s just the circle of life.”
“How deep,” he scoffs, shaking his head at me.
We haul him down the dock to a waiting skiff, the kind used for hauling crab traps or shuttling the desperate across rivers at midnight.
And then… Well then, we dump him in the bottom of the boat where he lands with a wet thud. The chain follows, heavy enough to make the wooden planks groan. We wind it around Kade’s middle, looping it twice, then thread the end through the handles of the concrete blocks.
It’s almost beautiful, how precise we are.
I stop at the edge of the dock and stare down into the water. The bay water is primarily black, reflecting nothing, and the surface is alive with oil rainbows and the trash that floats in from the city. I fish a cigarette out of my pocket, light it up, and step into the skiff, feeling it rock as Edward moves in ahead of me.
“You wanna say anything before we do this?” he asks as I climb in and he starts the motor. His voice is flat, unempathetic.
I shake my head as he guns the motor. “I mean, he won’t hear it anyway.”
We take the boat out twenty yards, maybe thirty, then kill the engine. For a second, the only sound is the slap of bay wateragainst the hull and the distant wail of a train no one rides anymore.
“Okay,” Edward looks over at me. “You’re positive you wanna send him to the bottom? We can still just take the shithead home.”
And risk him smiling at my little lamb again? Absolutely not.
Edward reads my silence for what it is, and then together, we haul the boat’s contents over the side. The chain goes first, a silver snake uncoiling from the ship, and then the body. There’s a brief struggle as we knock Kade over the side, and then a splash. Bubbles rise frantically as the air escapes him, and then they stop.
“God, this is fucked up,” Edward stares into the water, as if he hasn’t dismembered multiple bodies at a time for my father.
I pick up my cigarette from the bench and take a long drag. “It is what it is.”
As Edward turns the boat around and heads back to the dock, he lifts his sunglasses, his eyes meeting mine. “Anyone gonna look for that kid, beside your father?”
I blow smoke at his face. “He’s no one important aside from Robert’s monkey. A scholarship case, who jumped from school to school because of sexual assault allegations. One was with a teacher.” I shrug. “I think we did the world a favor, honestly.”
“If you call sinking teenage boys to the bottom of the bay doing the world a favor, then sure. Okay.” Edward docks the boat and then steps out, dusting off his black slacks. “You’re gonna have to go talk to your old man about this. Might want to mention the kid’s rap sheet.”
“Ha, yeah right. That probably drew my father to him,” I scoff, lifting my heel and stubbing out my cigarette. I know better than to drop it on the ground, so instead, I shove it into my pocket.
