Page 88 of Beautiful Scars

“Another smoke?” Derek suggests.

Aye. I need another one before I go back in. He was quick—too quick. I’m in no rush to find out what state they’re in.

Another smoke. Maybe several.

***

It’s 4am by the time I park outside my house.

It didn’t take as long as I expected because there weretwodead bodies. Far easier than dealing with one corpse and a broken mind—which is Cole’s standard. I guess she wasn’t that good a fuck.

Derek says he’s going off the rails.

I don’t fucking know.

Ten years ago he wouldn’t have done this. He’d havethreatenedto mess up the girlfriend, the wife, the daughter, but only until we got the information we needed. Then I’d have killed the hypothetical-John and taken the girl home with the fear of death hanging over her head if she ever opened her mouth.

And they never did open their mouths. They were always in some way involved in this life and knew the rules.

It was messier then, granted, but it wasn’t half as murky as the way he’s going about things now.

I slam the car door shut and promise myself I’m not going to think about it anymore. I wasn’t lying when I told Cole I had bigger problems. The situation with Dimitri is just another thing I’ll add to my long list.

And right at the top of that list is the girl fast asleep in my guest bedroom.

I close the front door quietly and go straight to the kitchen, putting my keys down on the counter. The place is a bit of a shithole because my darling Meisie and her new bestie Sarah haven’t yet learned the art of tidying up after themselves.

The cleaner will fix it in the morning though.

I check the fridge for something easy to eat, and then I think better of it.

I don’t feel like eating. I feel like breaking something.

There’s an extension on the back of the house filled with weight benches and a few punching bags, so I go upstairs to change out of my blood-stained suit, fully intending on spending the next hour burning through testosterone.

But I don’t get further than Meisie’s bedroom.

I’m only checking to make sure she’s not having another nightmare. They come in the early hours of the morning, most days. Sometimes I sleep in my own bed, because honestly it’s impossible to get a decent night’s kip when she’s kicking and shouting out in her sleep. But I always set the alarm for 4am, and I go into her room and watch Netflix until she wakes up.

I’ve never watched so much shite TV in my life.

So I check on her.

I don’t make it three steps into her bedroom before I see there was no need.

“You didn’t come home last night,” she states.

She’s sitting up in bed, the TV muted on some American housewife show.

“Did you miss me?”

“Like a rusty nail in the foot,” she shoots back.

I smile at her. After two weeks, you think she’d be scraping the barrel to find new ways to tell me she hates me, but my Meisie has a way with her tongue that I can only admire.

“Keep going, princess,” I tell her as I undo my buttons. One of these drawers is full of gym stuff, so I might as well change while I chat. “I’ll give you something to make that rusty nail look like a day out at Disneyland.”

“You’d enjoy that wouldn’t you, sick bastard.”