Three years before
The plans were all in place. I’d had to speed it up from the original set up, but it was going to work. I was to fly out to the US tomorrow, and I didn’t know how long I’d be gone for. It didn’t matter if I was here or there, Snow would be out of here and I’ll be working to bring down Clayton and the rest of them. It would take time, but I was a patient man.
But being away from her, having to separate when there was this huge divide between us made me feel physically sick, and I wouldn’t be able to fix it while I was away. I would though, in time, but the most important thing right now is getting her out of here.
I had plenty of people who owed me favors, plenty of people in higher places with worse reputations, and I’d be using every single one of those favors. I would leave no inch of this place untouched.
I look over to Adam, he shifts nervously from foot to foot, a sweat on his brow. He was just one of the many to owe me and his debt isn’t even all that high, but he was a small fish in a big pond, and far too afraid of death to say no.
That’s the thing, these men pretend they have power, they pretend they’re gods but every single one of them fear something. Find it and manipulate it. Use it against them. Adam wasn’t a terrible person, not in the grand scheme of things, he made shit decisions and worked for evil men but as a man, he was decent. I didn’t care. I wasn’t here to make friends.
“Do you have it?” I ask, leaning up against the wall to watch the staff in the kitchen making breakfast.
Adam swallows, “Yes, she’s in the car.”
“Fresh?”
He visibly shivers and looks a little pale, “Yesterday. Killed in a hit and run, she’s uh, she’s pretty banged up.”
“But she matches the description I gave you?”
Adam looks at me, and nods, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. He opens his mouth as if to say something and then closes it, but then clearly he grows a backbone and blurts, “This is wrong, fucking wrong, what if that girl had a family? You took away their closure.”
“Do I look like I give a fuck, Adam?” I cross my arms, “This is more important.”
“Than a grieving family?”
I smirk, “Have you suddenly grown some morality? Where was that the day I saw you hauling a clearly scared and reluctant girl out of her room instead of helping her?”
He pales, “You saw that?”
“I see everything.”
“It just feels wrong.”
I scoff, “Everything about this place is wrong, Adam, everything about the world is wrong. Nothing is going to change unless you do something about it. If I have to sacrifice the many for the one, I will. The difference between you and I, Adam, is that I lost my morality a long time ago. I don’t expect a redemption and I don’t expect a peaceful end. I expect nothing. And that dead girl, she’s just one piece in a bigger game.”
“You’ll get yourself killed.”
“So be it.” I glance at the clock, a quarter past seven. The rotation of the cell guards would be happening in five minutes and that was our cue. There was a particular man I’d had my eye on these past three days. Goes by the name of William and is a nasty fucker. If my sources are correct, he’d visited Isobel six times before she belonged to me, and each time he left, she wound up covered in bruises. He’d done the same thing to three other girls. He was the perfect target.
“It’s time.”
I don’t give Adam a chance to talk on it more as I head to the door that will lead me to the cells below. I make it just in time to see the night shift guards exiting and the fresh ones taking their place. William is positioned at the stairs. He sinks into the chair and pulls a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it and taking a deep drag. The smoke wafts up around his face.
He stands when he sees me, eyes widening, not in fear but in awe, “Holy shit, you’re that ghost dude!”
“I am.”
“Shit man, you’re like legendary, I’d heard they’d hired you, but I didn’t believe it. I thought you remained solo.”
“I do.”
He frowns, “But –”
“You’ve been here long?”
He grins proudly, “Six years. Good, ain’t it, all this pussy just lying around.”
I curl my lip, “That your thing, then? You like the ones who don’t get a choice.”
He shrugs, “It’s easy and it’s not like they can say no.” He laughs as if he just did something amazing, “Should try it man.”
Over his shoulder I see Adam dragging a body still in a white bag. The other guards in the cells would be busy dealing with a ‘distraction’, meaning this was my signal.
“I just want you to know,” I say to William, “When I kill you, I will enjoy it.”
He frowns, opening his mouth to say something but I’m quicker, plunging my knife into his throat.
He sputters, blood spitting from his mouth as his hands come up to grip the blade, though it’ll do nothing to help him. He hits the ground on his knees and then topples, landing face first as he bleeds out.
I have five minutes to work out the rest of the plan. Leaving him where he lays, I head to Adam and then pass him, forcing myself into Isobel’s room. The lock breaks and the door slams against the wall, hard enough to leave a dent in it.
She screams, throwing herself up but then settles when she sees me, eyes narrowing. I hadn’t seen her since that night and while she appears better, she’s covered in bruises and bandages.
“Isobel.”
“Get the fuck out.”
I slide my hand into my pocket, fingers wrapping around the syringe. I don’t pull it out yet as I take slow steps towards her.
“Snow.”
“Don’t call me that!” She screeches, limping away, “I hate you!”
“This is for you,” I tell her, ignoring the vitriol and how it burns, “All of this is for you, please understand.”
She tries to run, but I’m quicker since she’s injured, and before she can escape I have her pinned to the bed, my body weight holding her down.
I ignore my own aches and pains, they weren’t important.
“I’m sorry.”
She freezes, those icy blue eyes looking up at me but there is no warmth, “I do not forgive you,” she spits, and her eyes widen as I plunge the syringe into her arm, injecting the sedative.
“I will never forgive you, Hunter,” she slurs, the drug already taking hold. “Never. If we ever… if ever…meet,” she stutters her words, “If we ever meet again, I will kill you.”
“I love you, baby,” I kiss her mouth, “I love you.”
She slips into unconsciousness, going limp beneath me. I lift her into my arms, holding her to my chest. It would be a while before we were joined again so I just take a minute. I kiss her head, inhaling the scent of her before I pass her over to Adam who’s waiting in the door.
“How long will she be out?”
“A few hours. Take her to my car, keep her warm. I’ll be out in a moment.”
Adam nods, taking her from me and I watch as he carries her out of the cells. I grab the body and pull it into her now vacant room, careful as I place her on the bed and remove the bag. Her black hair limply falls over the pillow and whatever accident she was in makes it nearly impossible to tell any feature apart. Calming myself, I roll my neck and then my shoulders before I head back out into the hall, leaving the door open and roar. I hold the bloodied blade, William now dead, the pool of blood continuing to grow.
One second. Two.
Seven guards sprint from behind me, two more from the house. They all freeze when they see the scene before them.
“What the fuck!?” One bellows.
“Oh shit,” another says, “That’s his girl.”
Clayton appears next, looking first to the body and then to me, and then to the open door. “What’s going on here?”
“She’s dead, sir,” one of the guards answers, “Beaten.”
My chest heaves and anger coats my tongue. “You killed him?” Clayton asks me, jerking his head at William.
I curl my lip. Clayton comes down the stairs, stepping through the blood but not giving the body even a second glance. He heads to Isobel’s cell and disappears inside. When he comes back out, there’s a slight smirk to his mouth, just a small tilt of the lips that gives away his obvious satisfaction that the woman I cared for so deeply was now dead. I doubt he even looked at her properly, he saw the black hair and that was it, that was enough.
“He did it? Killed her?”
I nod once.
“Clean it up,” Clayton dismisses the guards, “Hunter, bury your woman, you have a plane to catch.”
Just like that.
It was that easy down here to take a life, to get rid of a body. There were no questions. No one cared.
It was sickening but it worked in my favor. The guards give me a wide berth as I head back into the room and gather up the body. She was far too stiff to be freshly dead and the markings on her looked old, but he didn’t care enough to pick up on these details. If he had, he would have realized it was a lie. I keep a hold on her, no one stops me, no one even dares, not as I take her up and trail blood through the house. The sun blinds me as I head out into the yard where I find Adam’s car and my own parked side by side. I place the body in Adam’s knowing Isobel was in mine.
“Take her back,” I say quietly to him, taking the keys he hands me.
He nods, “Good luck.” It’s the last thing he says before he climbs into his car and drives away.
Isobel is cushioned in the back seat, her head resting on some pillows and a blanket covering her from the cold. She looks as if she’s sleeping, a deep, peaceful rest. I knew better.
With a sigh, I punch in the address I’d found earlier into the sat nav and get moving. It was an hour drive from here and I couldn’t be late.