“Cassandra!” The disapproval in my mother’s tone is blatant, as my words and actions go against everything she’s taught me.
Well, she wasn’t the one with the gun to her head. Was she?
I’ve avoided putting myself right back in that dark tunnel, but now that I’m here faced with m
y father and the shock muted in my system…
“I told you, a job went wrong,” he barks, “you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”
“I wasn’t safe yesterday, though, was I?”
“Cass…” Leo pulls me back to his side, as if that’s meant to pacify me.
“Don’t Cass me, you blew a man’s brains out, the same man who was so close to blowing mine, and somehow, there’s no one knocking on our door. Everything is back to normal.”
“Enough.” Mum shouts and for the first time I see her composure slip.
“Have you found him?” Leo asks my dad before I can get another word out.
“No. I have Samson on it around the clock, but his accounts haven’t been touched. The house is empty.”
“It’s time to burn it down.”
“Leo,” My father’s voice is coated in warning and it makes me bristle.
“I told you before, he doesn’t care about anything else.”
It’s impossible to make heads or tails of their conversation when I have no clue what they’re talking about. “Who doesn’t care?”
“Somethings are better off left in the dark.” My mum answers, and anger boils inside me at her words as she tries to pry me away from the conversation.
“If that’s the case, then they should’ve left me in that tunnel.” Yanking away from her, I stand beside Leo. “Is it too much to ask that you tell me why it was me they were after? There were hundreds of other girls at that party, so why me, Dad?”
“Because you’re the only one of those girls that could deliver the message.”
“What message?” My yell echoes around us and when it stops, my father takes a step towards me. I think he’s going to say something, but he just looks at me for a quiet second before turning his back and disappearing down the hall to his office.
“Don’t just walk away!” I bellow, following him, but before I make it past the kitchen Leo is grabbing me by the arm and dragging me towards the back of the house.
He goes through the kitchen, dumping the drinks and pastries on the kitchen table.
“Let go of me! He can’t expect me to be okay with his half answers.”
Moving like he’s walked these halls hundreds of times, he yanks the door to the garden open and slams it behind us and then he’s walking me across the expansive lawn towards the end of the garden.
“Have you forgotten what Kit looks like? Have you forgotten what happened to you yesterday?”
Going back to that dark and sooty tunnel, my heart starts racing and I’m not far from hyperventilating, and then I remember the unrecognisable man in the bed. The beeping, whizzing and whirring of the machines keeping him alive.
“Do you want to end up like him?”
“No.” I murmur. “I want to know why me?”
“Because the best way to get to a man is by touching the people he cares about.” Cupping my jaw with desperate force, his lips press so tight to mine that I feel the contour of his teeth behind them.
“We care, so let us do what it takes to keep you safe.” His fingers pull and wind around the strands at my nape and then his lips are opening up, his teeth roughly nipping and scraping at my lips. Lifting me onto my tiptoes, my neck strains with the deadweight of my body.
“I. Just. Want. To. Keep. You. Safe.” He utters gruffly and deeply between hard kisses.