Page 100 of Nocturne

The anger, which only burned and hissed on my account all my life, sizzled my veins for Ara. What if she had gone into her kid’s room and saw a man lurking outside his window? The bastard would have left her rattled enough to cry. Or worse, kill her.

Why is he here? What did he want from her? If he wants to harm her, why did he not? With what the kid said, it seemed like he had plenty of an opportunity to do so.

“Nico,” I call.

He steps out of the shadows he’d been blending into along the side of the house.

“Open it.” I nudge it toward him.

Someone was trained enough to slip from under Nico. Trained enough for me not to notice them lurking around. This would have been interesting if it did not involve the woman sleeping upstairs.

I inhale a puff and blow out the smoke, not letting my eyes stray away from where I could sense the coward looking. He is trained and careful enough to move around without being detected by my guard. He has the advantage of the land. I’m sure he has it all scoured, knowing where to hide and where to step. He has an advantage here. The neighbourhood is filled with attached houses; any noise would awaken the residents. Cause a mess.

“Boss,”

Nico holds the contents out to me. Inside the box, laid on a wrapped cloth, is a paper folded in half. Clutching my cigarette in my hand, I hold it to light.

Stay away from her.

Hmm.

I look down to see the picture of a corpse whose body is nothing but mangled flesh except for his face. It was kept recognisable for a reason.

“He was the one of those fucks who chased the girls. I let him go to send his boss a message.”

I nod at Nico’s words. Someone needed to go quack to their boss that the consequence of looking at those girls was nothing short of death. Looks like someone finished off the last one who chased my pretty little siren. And he sent me a gift of neatly severed fingers in the box with a single threat.

The air of mystery surrounding Ara is thickening every day. She is surrounded by things that would bring chaos to my doorstep, and I am not someone who bows out of a fight. Not when it comes to the things I’ve claimed as mine.

This man, whoever he is, thinks he has a claim on her. He is ballsy enough to send out a threat tome, of all people. He must know I don’t play. He must know what I am, what I’m capable of, and still chose to seek me out and warn me, thinking he has an advantage.

Why? Did Ara promise herself to him? Was he perhaps an old lover? Someone from the place she fled from? Is he the man she is running from?

She needs to move. Someplace I can keep an eye on, where there’s no question about how many guards I appoint or how hard I fuck her. The kid involved in this fuckery is the only thing stopping me from dragging her out of this place—kicking and screaming.

I take the note, hold it in front of me and light it with my cigarette until it turns into ash in my palm. A silent ‘Fuck you’ to the asshole who still is looking at us. He thinks he can lay a claim on what’s mine? He thinks he can keep on living after what he did?

I’m beyond pissed that some low-life fucker thinks he can take her. I broke every single bone of the bastard, Leo, who hurt her. I skinned and set Burke on fire because he touched her and caused her pain. I dumped the ones who bullied her in a vat of acid. I thought I knew satisfaction when I heard their screams. But they wouldn’t be as sweet as the ones when I rip the innards of this asshole right in front of Ara’s eyes.

Then she would be left with no mistake who she belongs to.

Twenty-Eight

Ara

“I’m sorry,what?”

I wince at Harley’s tone. Her jacket—the whole reason she came here—lies forgotten as she stares at me, eyes wide in utter shock. I haven’t heard her voice this loud before, but I guess we’ve given her a damn good reason to lose her composure.

Beside me, Ivy hides her laughter behind her coffee cup. I roll my eyes.Great.Now it’s funny. It wasn’t funny when she was squeaking and trying to blend into the shipping container walls. I guess she, like me, developed the habit of finding humour in absurdly dangerous situations.

Harley starts counting on her fingers.

“Let me see if I got this straight. First, you go to Roarfort to explore some abandoned mansion and—oh, surprise—you findcorpses.”

I wince, and Ivy’s cheeks flush as she nods.

“Then you shoot the ‘boss’ and, instead of, I don’t know, running, you start crying.” Harley’s eyebrow arches higher.

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