Page 14 of Seduce & Destroy

“I don’t understand you.” She replied.

“Laney.” I warned. “Why?”

She turned her head to the side and whispered. “You know why.”

“I don’t believe you believe it.”

She sighed and dropped down from her shoulders to lay flat on the floor. “You only wear black. You just arrived. You found her. You did i—”

I cocked my head, confused but unrelenting. “Just say it–”

“HEY,” Grant pierced our bubble, “Kenna, Laney, get up NOW!” His voice was coming closer now. Hands grabbed my waist to lift me off Laney, but I stepped from his grip.

I extended my hand to Laney, still on the floor.

After a moment's hesitation, she took it, but when she got to her feet, Grant immediately pulled her away, muttering to her, “The new recruits are not fresh bait for you to get distracted by pussy.”

That didn’t go how I intended. I only wanted her to concede that she knew I couldn’t have done it because it didn’t aligned with the image of me in her head. Not that I’d admit it, of course, but I had my reasons. I was barely here a week, if I wanted to stay longer, I needed the spotlight off me immediately.

After their exit, I needed fresh air in my lungs to replace what mixed with her breath. But before I could walk through the door to the garden it slammed shut. Beside it stood a young man in cadet uniform with hollowed cheeks and a light scruff on his chin. His face wasn’t something I recognised.

I tilted my head forward, eyebrows high. My eyes flicked from his face to his hand on my bicep, prompting to let go soon or his face will be one with the floor. I didn’t say that, though, I studied him instead.

“I did it.” He said, smug and unprovoked, before throwing my arm out of his grip. It was as if he’d lifted a boulder from his shoulders and threw it over his head.

What did he mean he did it? Did what?

He hung his head. It wasn’t an act of shame, though, it was in a thuggish kind of way that he probably thought made him look cool. When he lifted his head again, pride shone in his eyes, and he looked at me expectantly. But I didn’t know what he was so fearsomely proud of. The only significant event that happened on the estate was Edward Ravencroft’s funeral preparations and Tilly’s mu— Oh no. It.

“You did that?” My eyes wide as I clamped a hand over my mouth. It couldn’t go wrong so soon. “Here?”

Women and children must not be harmed. That was rule number one in the mafia. Everyone knew that.

When he nodded, I roughly fisted the front of his shirt to drag him out the door, away from echoing hallways and conspiratorial ears. I’d been away from my family for some time. I didn’t know his face. This was new blood, and he looked pathetic. I got in his face before throwing him to the floor.

“Why the fuck would you tell me that?” I stared at him, daring him to move. I didn’t need an answer to my question, just recognition that he sealed his own fate.

He held two angled fingers to the side of his forehead and smirked. It took everything in me not to kick him in the stomach and embed a bullet in the centre of my boot mark. But I held back. This wasn’t a life that I deserved to take.

All I did was whistle.

The man laid in the grass leaning on his elbows, looking up at me.

I held his gaze, until a group of guards ran over and asked, “Cadets, what’s the matter here?”

The corner of the man’s lips lifted. I don’t know where he got the confidence from. He doesn’t think I’d do it. Then, he’s a fool.

“This is your guy.” I said, “He killed Tilly Morden.”

It was quieter than I imagined, I thought as this man was dragged away. Justice wasn’t always ceremonious, sometimes it was just clarity. That this problem had a solution. But with that realisation came a far graver one.

Being here wasn't only about proving myself anymore, it was a matter of survival.

Chapter 5

LANEY

Just after dusk, Neenan led me into the dark dungeon. He hadn’t told me where he was taking me, but I trusted him well enough to follow his lead. The day had been a drag. Between the embarrassment of what happened in the training room and Grant’s subsequent scolding of my ‘unprofessionalism,’ all I wanted was to read my book by the fireplace. Instead, at the end of a damp underground tunnel, I found my father waiting for me, looking at a steel-reinforced door with a sullen expression.

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