And I Love You the Most (This Love Hurts 3)

I still don’t know who has Delilah. I don’t know how to get her back. But I know it’s because of myself and Marcus. It’s because I couldn’t walk away from her.

Because I brought her into something that was slowly killing me.

“What do you know? She told me Marcus wasn’t real. I asked her, and she told me it was just a name whispered by liars to hide evidence.”

“When was that?” I can’t help but to question, and her gaze narrows.

“Years ago. I told the cops there’s someone else behind those murders. It isn’t one man, and Delilah told me that years ago.”

“I don’t know about that.” I decide right then to hide behind lies. She can’t be brought into this.

“What do you know?” she asks with a look of ridicule.

“Nothing, but you need to stop this. You need to stay away and let us do our job.”

Shaking her head, she stands abruptly, anger taking over. “I can’t—”

“You need to stay far away,” I say, cutting her off, striding to the door of the hotel in an instant and opening the door as wide as it’ll go.

“I mean it, Cadence.” I warn her like I should have warned her sister, regret lacing each word, “Stay far away.”

Marcus

Fifteen years ago

Six years after abduction

They’re all pawns.

I trace over the words at the top of the page in my notebook: They’re all pawns. Writing down three more names to the list on the rightmost side of the yellowed pad with deep strokes of the blue inked pen, I pause to look at the tally.

There are three columns and over fifty names total. Three different groups of men, but all of them responsible for atrocities in the name of unity and solidarity. Everywhere I’ve gone there are always dogs like the ones I trailed today. Men, and even women, who go along with the men in power and do their bidding without question. It doesn’t take much to get them to move. A nod, a promise of ambition, and the desire for one man to have something done.

He never says how. The men in charge never give those details, and that’s why I’ve deemed the ones on the lists under the underlined names dogs. They’re owned by the men in charge, happily wagging their tails and barking orders to others as if they have any status in the pack at all. Snarling and backing the weaker ones into corners, they’re as moldable as they are feral.

The three kingpins, including Talvery, a crime family boss in this area, can’t be bent or broken. But the men beneath them could easily be swayed. Or put in a ring and made to fight one another.

I haven’t decided which is best yet. All I know is that there are plenty of pawns to play with. Plenty of them to start the game and deliver justice piece by piece.

The snap of a twig beneath heavy feet rips my gaze from the three names I’ve added. The graveyard is a scenery of grays and greens. The stones and the oak trees and the grass, long overdue for a cut, nearly hide the one I’ve been waiting for.

His name is inconsequential. What matters is the fact that his sister was a bird.

Another twig cracks under his weight as he comes into view. All of the burial plots surrounding where he stands are covered with time. The one at his feet, however, is marked by fresh blades of grass and overturned dirt.

A month has passed, but spring has only just begun. I don’t think he’s noticed me, and I stay quiet, merely observing him as I have for months. All I’ve done is watched. If Mr. Jones taught me anything at all, it’s to take it all in, every detail, and to learn the habits of whoever it is that’s selected. Mr. Jones chooses victims. I don’t lower myself to his level, and I promised myself I never would. I don’t think I’ll be seeing much of him anymore. Not after I left him the note. I’ve never seen so much damage caused by a simple letter.

Smiling at the thought, I close my notebook and take in the boy I’ve been waiting for.

Charlie, the thin boy in worn jeans and a dark hoodie stares straight ahead, seemingly at nothing. He still hasn’t dropped the flowers he brought. He does this when he works the day shift at the garage. The sun setting is the only reason he leaves. One might say he’s guilt ridden and for good reason.

He sits feet from me, but still fails to realize he’s not alone, at a grave with an inscription that reads:

When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives. ~ Lauren Eden

Although, that’s not the woman’s name carved on the tombstone.