Page 58 of Firethorne
“Lysander did fuck all to help you, and do you want to know why? Because he doesn’t have a clue what our father does for a living. He has no idea what happens behind that fucked up curtain in Firethorne Manor. The curtain my father likes to hide behind. Lysander spends his days in his studio, pretending to be an artist, trying to fill the emotional void his daddy left him with when he told him he didn’t love him and called him a failure. And when he’s not painting his shitty landscapes, he’s in the nearest town, fucking his way through every barmaid, shop girl, anything with a pulse, actually. He’s not fussy.”
“I don’t believe you,” she replied with scorn in her voice.
“I don’t give a fuck whether you believe me or not, but I’ve got no reason to lie. He wasn’t trusted with the family business like I was. I was fourteen when my father showed me what it was all about.” Her eyes went wide. “That’s right. He might be a failure, but he was still the golden boy. The one he wanted to protect. And me? Iwasthe bastard. You’re right about that part. I was the one he thought had the balls to take over from him when he died. The dark one, quiet, trustworthy, with an edge he could manipulate... or so he thought.”
“And you took the reins so well,” she snarled.
“I took fuck all. Those reins are ready to be cut, the chains broken. Not everything is black and white, Maya. And that’s where I live, deep inside the murky grey shitstorm we call life. Being a shadow. Keeping secrets, twisting lies. He trusts me, and I’ve worked for over a decade to make that happen, to maintain it. You can’t fuck up hell unless you take a trip there. I’m a trojan horse. Only, I don’t need to enter my Troy, I play in the devil’s lair every fucking day.”
“If that’s the case, why haven’t you stopped him already?” she asked, with a furrowed brow, judgment and condemnation clear on her face.
“I’m working on it.”
“But it’s not enough. And why haven’t you stopped men like The Butcher? Because he’s still out there, preying on innocent victims.”
“Because Rome wasn’t built in a day, Maya.” I threw my head back, trying to calm myself. “Rome wasn’t built in a fucking day, and neither was my organisation. I live in the real world, not some fucking Hollywood movie. You don’t go in all guns blazing, take these people out and everything stops. It takes time. Work. Strategy. It takes patience. My father has bosses. The butcher has contacts, a network. If I take them out, I don’t get any higher up the chain. The bosses, the really evil fuckers, they’ll just move on and find others to run their business. And then what’s the point of any of this? That won’t stop them. Trust me when I say, I know what I’m doing.”
“If you know what you’re doing, why didn’t you get me out sooner? I could’ve been taken at any minute.”
“I told you, on the night of the party, after you ran away that I’d drive you to the fucking station. But you wouldn’t listen, would you?”
“I didn’t trust you. I still don’t trust you. You think you’re in control, but you’re not.”
“Do you want to know exactly what I did? Do you?” I knew I’d lost it now. But I couldn’t help myself.
“Apart from send me shitty little messages? No, I don’t know.” She folded her arms over her chest. “So, go on. Tell me. What exactly did you do?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maya
His nostrils flared as he panted and stared back at me. I knew I was getting to him, challenging him like this. Proving him wrong. Tarnishing the saviour complex he seemed to think he had and exposing him for what he really was.
After a beat, he strode towards the kitchen, and I heard him open the fridge door. Then he strolled back out again, twisting the cap off a plastic water bottle and taking a swig. I think he’d have poured himself a large shot of whisky if he could, but there were no glass bottles in this apartment. There was no glass at all, not even to pour a drink into. Everything was plastic or shatterproof so it couldn’t be used as a weapon or to cause harm. He said this place was to protect me, but it was set up to protect himself from me fighting back.
My eyes tracked him as he marched back over to the sofas and sat down opposite me. He placed the bottle on the table between us and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, wringing his hands together. His black hair fell over hiseyes, shielding him. But when he spoke, his deep voice felt like a knife cutting through my soul.
“I’ve been working to avoid this, to protect you from all this even when you were nothing but a rumour I heard whispered in the hallway. A name written on a contract. Just black ink staring right back at me. Maya Cole. The next victim.”
I felt sick, and he glanced up at me, making me realise I must’ve made a sound to show this, despite myself.
“So, I did what I do with every girl that’s passed through that house,” he went on. “I researched you. Found out where you lived, where you studied.”
“Do you have many girls coming through the house?”
“A few,” he answered, without really answering.
I wanted numbers, but when I pushed him, asking, “Did you save all of them?” he shook his head regretfully.
“Most of them. Not all. But the ones we got out are living new lives now. Sometimes, things happen that are... out of our hands. We’re working undercover, so it doesn’t always go to plan. We try our best.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed everything he was saying, but at the same time, I dreaded to think of any other girls that’d been at that house. Girls that it hadn’t worked out for. But I also picked up on one other thing he’d said.
“We?” I asked. “You said ‘we try our best’. Who else is working with you?”
He took a moment, probably to think about how best to respond. Then he said, “I have a friend called Trent who works alongside me. Also a few contacts that I can trust, but I’ll get back to that later. It’s not important.”
It was to me.
