Golden Burn (Songs of Crime #1)

8. Odin

8

Odin

‘Made of Stone’ - Matt Corby

“ C ould’ve been worse,” Ford assures me as we clean up the kitchen. “She could have actually tried to hurt you.”

Dom’s face is grim, disappointed. “She’s not going to be comfortable if you look at her like she’s the devil in this situation.”

“She is,” I mumble, unhappy with how the two of them are working against me.

“She is not, and you know it.”

My shoulders drop, the tight coil in my stomach whenever Harriet is near unraveling like a yo-yo. “I see Gregory every time she looks at me. I thought I had better control over it,” I admit. Dom’s expression softens.

Ford finishes putting the dishes back in the cupboards and walks over to my side. “We know. We get it. But unfortunately, you’re going to have to find a way. ”

“The only way this relationship can be fostered is through communication,” Dom says.

“I’m not telling her.”

Dom watches me, thinking. “I know. At least, not yet.”

“I’ll talk to her. But I’m not talking about that.”

“Fine. We’ll see you in the morning. Call me if there are any issues.” Ford grabs the pile of coats near the door, slips his on, then helps Dom to put on the other. His hands linger near Dom’s shoulders, forcing the controlled lawyer’s lips to twitch.

“The cameras are on, and the alerts have been linked to all our phones,” Dom informs me.

“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

Dom and Ford open the front doorway and exit down the stairs. I feel the loss of their presence instantly. It worsens when the darkness begins to swallow them, and in the last remnants of light, I see Ford reach for Dom’s hand.

They need a break. Some time away from me.

Unfortunately, I need them now more than ever. Because this kidnapping and keeping business is fucking ruining my head.

“How is she faring?” Cerbera asks, sounding downright excited.

My jaw hardens, teeth practically grinding. It’s too early in the morning for this type of conversation. “Like anyone would.” Angry, scared, like a chimpanzee trapped in a cage.

“When’s the wedding taking place?” I despise the tone of his voice; the authority he assumes he has that leaks through the metal in my hand.

“Less than a month. ”

“My family would be very excited to host it.”

“I’m sure.” Fuck that .

“I’ll send you some options. It would reflect greatly on the Bolt group if the wedding took place in Harriet’s ancestors’ country.” I hate even more how her name sounds in his mouth. His detachment from her makes it sound like she’s an object in his eyes. I suppose I haven’t treated her any better. He continues, “Loyalty is bought through family, you know.”

“No, it’s not.” I sit up in the chair, my patience at its wit’s end. “Send me the details and I’ll let you know if they are suitable. But just to clarify, since it’s clear you can’t read, the wedding destination was never a part of the contract.”

Cerbera chuckles, amused. “I know, Odin. I know.” My hands form fists at the nickname Gregory Lombardo created to taunt me. The one that I accepted as my own when my real name made me feel like a fraud, a ghost. A nickname which would never exist if the fucking Lombardos didn’t. “I’m simply giving you an option that would be silly to refuse.”

“We’ll see.”

“I hope you enjoyed your Indian,” Cerbera says, his voice suddenly dropping an octave.

My chest hollows, my blood turns ice cold. He’s been following us. I knew it.

He laughs softly, making me see red. I hang up the phone and miraculously resist the temptation to throw it across the room. We have to be more careful. More cameras. More travel. Keep moving.

How did I think this was ever going to be a good idea? I should have stuck to my original plan and spent the rest of my life hunting down everyone with Lombardo blood running through their veins.

I groan, knowing I have one sleeping in a room on the opposite end of the house.

“What did I do?”

“You exist.”

I know I shouldn’t have said it. I didn’t even mean it in the context she thinks. But the moment is gone, and I created the outcome. I distract myself by updating Dom.

Odin: We’re being watched.

Dom: We suspected as much. I can have everything organized to leave in an hour.

Odin: We can leave tomorrow. Rushing off now will just give a bad impression.

Ford: You’re right. Let him think we’re confident. Better than if he thinks we’re chickens.

Dom: Also, thought you should see this.

A video pops up just after the messages. It’s the camera feed from inside the middle of the house. It shows Dr. Lewis tip-toeing around—despite it being three in the morning—searching for something. My guess is the car keys. She opens draws and cupboards for twenty minutes, being meticulous to make sure she keeps quiet. I can attest to her efforts that it was successful. I didn’t hear a thing. And since I didn’t get an alert, Dom must have been watching the cameras at the time and interrupted the notification. My sleeping habits are atrocious enough, his are significantly worse. Ford must not have tired him out as much as he’d hoped. I’ll be looking forward to dangling that in front of him later.

The video keeps playing. Harriet has given up her search for the keys. She sits on the lounge for another ten minutes with her head in her hands. It’s a sad image. An image worthy of enough weight to have sympathy stirring in my chest. I know what it’s like to feel nothing. To be as dead inside as the bodies buried beneath a cemetery and still have your heart beating, keeping you alive, drawing out the days when it would be better if they ended all together.

It wavers and then retreats when Etta stands, heads back to the kitchen and finds the biggest knife possible to take back to her room.

Odin: Can we put a lock on the outside of the door?

Dom: No. That’s distrustful. She’s not going to hurt any of us unless provoked.

Ford: Odin, that’s on you. Be a nice pirate. Not a haven’t-been-happy-in-years pirate.

Odin: I’m cutting your wages.

Ford: I’m screwing your accountant.

Dom: Go make her breakfast. Include the mangoes.

Odin: I’m not her personal chef .

Groaning, I put my phone away and head out into the house proper. It’s just past eight, and the sun is pooling through the windows, illuminating the space in a crisp orange hue. Outside, the world looks like a winter fairytale, a far cry from the nightmare happening inside. Harriet is nowhere to be seen, and after searching the kitchen, no evidence of her escapade was left for me to find.

As much as Dom’s advice frustrates me, I know he’s right. But I’m not making the food for her, I’m making it for myself.

Taking a few ingredients out of the fridge, I get them in order to start making some eggs, bacon, and potatoes. I’ll leave the mangoes for her to get herself. She’ll know it’s an easy ploy to gain her trust.

As I’m readying the coffee machine, grief taps against my skull, wanting to show me an image that has gone fuzzy around the edges. I’m too weak to ignore it.

Gen sits across from me at a cafe in Australia; her blonde hair shines like gold and her brown eyes ripple like melted chocolate. “Breakfast and lunch combined. I’m a fan!” she says as she shoves the huge breakfast burger in her mouth. I start to laugh as the yolk from the egg explodes and dribbles down her chin. “What’s so funny?”

I reach across the table and wipe her face with a napkin. She grins like a fool as she takes another bite, and the barbeque sauce gets on her nose.

“You’re terrible,” I say, smiling.

“You love me.”

The coffee machine squealing to life knocks me out of the memory and into the bleak and barren present. Grief laughs quietly as I shake it off and distract myself by frying some food.

Snow drifts like icing sugar onto the fields behind the house. Through the window at the back of the kitchen, I can see the lights on in Dom’s and Ford’s cottage. I’m sure they’re enjoying being alone for the first time in weeks. I take my phone out of my pocket and send a text.

Odin: You two lie low. I’ve got everything covered.

Dom: You sure?

Odin: Positive.

Dom: Call me if you need a rescue.

Ford: Or don’t.

Everything is cooked and set on the island within half an hour. No signs of my bride to be. I ponder if I should wake her up. I dismiss the thought instantly. I’m not her fucking maid.

More time passes, an hour maybe. I’ve kept busy replying to emails on my phone. But now I’m getting frustrated. I heat my plate up and eat while I continue to wait.

Dom: How is everything?

Odin: She’s still asleep.

Ford: Have you seen Juniper? She probably needs to piss and eat.

Ford has a point. I completely forgot about the dog. As if on cue, I hear a soft whimper coming from the hallway. As I make my way toward the door, the cries grow louder.

Aware that it could be some sort of trap, I open the door, my forearm raised to block any potential weapons from hitting me.

The only thing to come barreling out is Juniper. She jumps up, placing her paws on my chest, and whimpers as she licks my chin.

“Down,” I demand. She responds, dropping to her legs. I shoo her out the door and toward where bowls of food and water wait for her. She happily leaves to go investigate.

I return my attention to the room and find it empty. The bed cover is down, the sheets rumpled as if she fell out and stumbled away. The knife, though, is still missing. The bathroom door is closed, but I can hear the shower running.

“Dr. Lewis?”

No response.

Either she can’t hear me, she’s ignoring me, or she’s dead.

I hadn’t really considered she’d hurt herself.

Great.

“Harriet?” I try again. No answer.

I stalk toward the bathroom, my system bubbling with annoyance. I try to twist the handle, but it resists my attempts to open it.

“Dr. Lewis!” I call, banging my fist on the door. “You’ve got three seconds to be decent before I’m coming—”

The door opens before I can knock again, and Dr. Lewis launches at me dressed in pink silk pajamas with the butcher’s knife clasped in her hand.

She barrels out faster than I anticipated, bare feet slapping on the floor, the knife aiming straight for my neck. I grab her wrist carrying the knife, and hold it steady. I could put a stop to this very quickly, but I want to see what she’ll do. She gives a frustrated grunt and starts pushing against me. I move with her momentum, taking small steps until my calves hit the bed.

“Fuck you!” Harriet screams.

“That’s not very nice.”

She pounds her free hand against my chest, her fist connecting with my sternum like a drum. When I remain unaffected, she gives me another shove and I fall backward onto the bed, dragging her with me by the wrist I still have in my grip.

Harriet yelps as she lands on top of me, her knee falling precariously close to my groin.

I lift my head from the bed and find her wide blue eyes. Her anger subsides as she tries to catalog the fact that we are front to front, body to body. Her shoulders shake with a shiver.

I have to resist my own reaction. She’s heavy but soft above me. Her body naturally curving alongside mine. Her breasts press into my chest and my free hand rests lightly on her hip. Our thighs are tangled together, and it is not even remotely unpleasant.

There’s a rush of desire that zips under my skin, warming my blood. The spark of a flint before a fire. The knife dangles above my neck, and unfortunately, I find it oddly attractive to see she knows how to hold it and where to aim.

“Satisfied?” I ask.

“Hardly,” she pants. “I thought I might cut you, at least.”

“You tried your best.”

She scowls. “Don’t patronize me.” She jerks her hand, still wielding the knife. I take it from her and throw it off the bed, releasing her wrist. She straddles my hips, her legs tightening around me. I’m so distracted by the sensation that I miss how her hand flies through the air, outside of my periphery. Her palm connects with my cheek, her slap well placed and well pressured. The sound of skin connecting to skin echoes in my ears.

I grab her wrist, hold it tight. Preventing her from trying again.

Harriet breathes heavily, a sense of shock evident in her eyes.

I remain still as the sting flares and subsides.

The sensation rears up a dormant memory of a tougher hand, a harder slap, and an overwhelming sense of shame and visceral anger. I suppress it to the back of my mind, where I keep everything to do with my father locked tight and hidden in the dark.

Several seconds pass as we stare each other down.

I release her wrist slowly, everything about my silence conveying a warning that if she tries again, I might not be so kind.

She lifts her chest, sits up straight, but remains straddling my thighs.

“Look at that. You decided to fight and ended up on my lap all on your own,” I say, sliding my hands up and under my head so I’m resting comfortably beneath her. She balks at my display of ease. Then she realizes the inappropriateness of her position and jumps like a frightened cat off my lower body.

She finds her balance, pressed up against the bathroom wall. As far away from me as she can get.

“If you want to be mad at someone. Be angry at your family. They are the reason you and I have been thrust together.”

She scoffs and folds her arms across her chest. “And why should I believe what you say about them?”

“Because I have no reason to lie,” I say and sit up, resting my hands behind my back to lean on.

“Why don’t you just go to the police or the FBI? Why are you doing this yourself?”

I can’t help but laugh at her naivety. “You really think that’s how the world works? You know better than that, Dr. Lewis. It’s a shit fight through and through.” She doesn’t say anything. Just rakes her intelligent gaze over me. If only she knew how much she radiates her father’s wildness in this moment.

I head toward the door, content to leave her behind to stew, when her voice strikes between my shoulder blades. “I have one more question.” I turn and lean against the doorway with my hands in my pockets and nod for her to continue.

She breathes deeply through her nose before she asks, “Did you really have to kill him?”

Even now, with him dead and gone, fury still simmers in my stomach over the ease with which he died. “The better question would be, did I really have to kill him so quickly ? Because believe me, Dr. Lewis. I would have made him suffer much worse if you hadn’t been standing behind me.”

She stares me down from across the room like a lioness sizing up a kill. Her nostrils flare just the slightest, her hands crumpling into fists against her stomach.

In the periphery of my good eye, I see a flash of silver. I pick up the knife left discarded on the floor. “How about I put this back?” I grab the handle of the door and pull it behind me, but before I close it, I offer some advice. “Next time, hide under the bed and swipe at my ankles. You’ll have more of a chance of cutting me.”

She shrugs. “Or I could hang from the ceiling and slice your neck from above. ”

A chuckle rises up my throat, but I shove it down. I try not to dissect the way Harriet’s eyes flash with something other than hatred, and instead, concentrate on keeping her pacified.

“Now that would be impressive,” I admit, and close the door.