Page 13 of His Pretty Little Duet

I lean across the desk and retrieve a photo of the girl from when she was approximately my nieces’ age, four or so, towards me. I scan the image of her tiny frame, shoulders curled in on herself, making her body smaller than it should be.

A memory from long ago, its recall strange, flashes behind my eyes. It hasn't accosted me in many years. I guess this young girl reminds me of her, of someone who once haunted me. I touch the time-healed scar on my collarbone, now tattooed with vines. As I raise my whiskey to my lips, the fumes somewhat draw me from that reverie.

When I really study Fawn's young face, she doesn't bear any resemblance to the face that now blurs around the edges with that dissolving memory. I shut that bullshit right down before giving it any more attention.

I focus on Fawn's dual-coloured irises—sceptical.

Me too, my girl. Me too.

I sip my whiskey.

He continues talking as I study this tiny girl, who may be the key to hunting down the man we have been searching for since he organised the attack on my sister-in-law. My brother deserves his revenge.

But then, Fawn wandered through my gates. I sneer at the name. "Hippy type,"Marius said. Goddamn mother named her sweet baby girllittle deer.

Well, this little deer strolled right into the mouth of the wolf. A pretty slice of bait with Dustin's blood. Not enough to bring him out of hiding as he cares more about himself than his fourdaughters—five now. But alas... a baby is growing in her young womb. If that child is a boy—Dustin's heir—I think we may have ourselves bait that is too appealing for him to pass up, too important, forcing him out of the shadows, where my brother can finally cut him from ball-sack to skull.

“There are recordings too,” Marius says, interrupting my thoughts. He slides a USB drive towards me. "Recordings from statements by the police. It seems her mother shot herself while the girl was at home. I haven’t watched the footage.”

Her mother shot herself.

Her father is absent.

I can use this.

Use her neglect to my advantage. “Anything from the past twelve months?” I ask.

He shrugs nervously. “I haven't got to them yet."

“I will look them over,” I state, placing the photo on the desk and leaning back with my whiskey in hand, the idea of keeping her close, flirting with my mind.

He looks at me strangely, and I return his gaze with a smile, the kind that is calm but not kind. “There are hours and hours of footage,” he presses, sipping his drink, feigning enjoyment with a hum as the liquor probably scorches his untrained throat. “I am more than happy to?—"

“I need it done soon. The girl is living in my house. I won't be letting her out of my sight, but I need to know everything about her. So, I’ll work through half. You work through the other. How does that sound?" It wasn't a question, and he knows that. I eye the extensive file.

We need to be sure of her intentions.

Suspicion is the pillar of control. The thing that keeps me several steps ahead. After Jimmy’s execution, my team spent months going through his affairs. We found files of operations I had no part in. No knowledge of. No control of. Humantrafficking. A weapons deal with Indonesia, managed by Fawn's long-lost father. We took Dustin’s warehouse and gained control of the operation, but it was a shitshow, and we have been trying to keep our relationship with thePremansolid, which is why I will be entertaining them this week... but I feel their alliances are with him. Suspect they are safe-housing him in Jakarta right now.

This girl could be working for them...

A distraction and a burden.

Finally,in Jimmy’s suite, the suite I now occupy, I found documentation outlining a self-funded and managed facility for lung cancer research. It appears our Jimmy had stage three Adenocarcinoma.

I sip the whiskey, the scent and taste somewhat a reminder of him. A man I have both affection for and imagine digging up and slaughtering all over again.

I remember how eager he was to go down fighting, classy, and proud to the moment my little brother drove his nose bone into his brain. He was never going to let a common nuisance such as cancer bring him to his knees. Then comes the images of my brother tied to a chair, blood streaming down his face, the talons of betrayal wrapping around his eyes.

Ignoring the images and the man in front of me now flicking through Fawn's stack of documents, I open my laptop and insert the USB drive, intent on sourcing information about her foster family, the people around her, anyone who could be traced back to an association with my syndicate.

Within a few moments, I’m staring at her—at Fawn. At a recording from a witness room, the view of her tiny frame, maybe ten, captured from a camera opposite and above her. She fidgets with the long ends of her hair, and even in the sepia-toned footage, it still looks like snow—so light it’s almost white.

The officer opposite her tilts his head, pen braced and ready against a notebook. “Where were you when the gun went off?" When she doesn't reply, he tries again, "Fawn?” She looks up from her hair. “Where were you, sweetheart?” he repeats.

"With my mum," she whispers. “With the butterfly."

He leans back in his chair as he says, “The butterfly? And where is the butterfly kept?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Is it in your room?”

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