Page 82 of Passion and Payback

“Yeah, it’s kind of bullshit if you ask me.”

He laughed. The sound was out of place in the grisly environment, yet perfect because I’d always loved it. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. Probably just...don’t let it consume you, would be my advice.”

I stared at Damon’s body in silence, wondering if I was ever going to feel anything close to remorse or horror at what I’d done. Instead, I was left with that same feeling of pleasure, even pride, for what I had accomplished. Something inside me was soothed by the sight of his mangled throat, of the lifelessness in his body.

“We need to get out of here,” Kai said quietly. “I need to wipe down the front doorknob. Are you sure there was nothing else you touched?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, but...what are you doing?”

I walked over to the corpse and crouched just like Kai had earlier. Damon’s expression had collapsed from its terror andagony, making his dead face look more confused than anything else. Then again, maybe he had been confused, wondering how it could have happened to him, how his night had gone from expected pleasure to an unexpected, brutal end. I liked the idea and hoped he was just as puzzled as he had been scared. And that he’d known he would never hurt another person again, and that karma might not be a driving force in the universe, but the rage and pain of someone he’d violated could fill in just fine.

“Two down,” I told him, hoping that wherever in hell he was, he was suffering.

KAI

“Hi there, this is Rebecca Steiner with your six o’clock news,” the news anchor said in a perky voice that clashed horribly with the picture of Damon beside her head. “An update on the story of a local lawyer’s brutal murder last week. Authorities still haven’t released information, though an insider tells us they haven’t made much headway in discovering who might have killed Damon Price. Lifelong friends, Callum [Last Name] and [Second Guy] have both expressed their outrage.”

The camera cut to Callum, whose boyish face looked far more serious than I’d seen in other interviews. “We know his line of work often meant he had to step on people’s toes, but we can’t imagine what would push someone to do something like this. It’s our sincere hope the Port Dale police department is able to find the person responsible for this crime and allow us to have a measure of peace when his killer is brought to justice.”

“Do you know who could have done this?” a reporter off-screen asked, pushing a small mic toward him.

“We’ve shared everything relevant with the police, but I can’t imagine who would want to do something like this. Damon was a good man, and while he might have been good at his job, hedidn’t deserve this,” Callum said, and the poster boy for smiling and waving was gone. Even I believed the grief behind his angry expression. “And we ask that everyone respect the families in these trying times while we mourn our friend.”

“Let’s hope that justice is served,” the reporter said before it cut back to the station, where the anchor smiled and moved on to the next topic.

“Right,” I snorted, ending the feed and setting my phone down. “Because anyone’s going to buy that a corporate lawyer isn’t a giant scumbag.”

Clem purred in my lap as if agreeing with me. I didn’t know for sure if Hunter had been keeping up with the news, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I knew he’d been busy doing more research, but so far, he’d come up with no plans. And I hoped that whatever he drummed up next didn’t involve putting him in harm’s way again.

Honestly, it was tricky to know what was going on in his head lately. He had been quiet since we’d left Damon’s house, having cleaned up what little evidence there was, including footprints in the shrubs. Not that I blamed him for that. Even if he wasn’t haunted by what he’d done, taking a life so willfully was still bound to weigh on his mind. At times, you wouldn’t even know he’d done something like that, but there were other times he was a million miles away mentally.

He had yet to talk to me about what happened, and I was leaving it up to him to broach the subject. I figured he would eventually want to talk about what he’d done and how it went down, but it had been over a week, and I was wondering if he would ever bring it up. It wasn’t like he could casually talk about it with anyone else—at least, I hoped that was the case.

It was definitely on my mind, not just because things hadn’t gone according to plan. That alone was concerning because they’d gone wrong when Hunter’s emotions had gotten thebetter of him. If he hadn’t managed to get the jump on Damon, the entire situation could have gone differently. I’d tried to make that point to Hunter, but he brushed me off, saying things had worked out.

I had to give him credit, though. The attack had been clean, or as clean as a bloody murder could be. Damon had probably only had a moment to realize what was going to happen before the blade had been driven into his head. If it were anyone else but him, I might have felt bad for how he died. From what Hunter had told me, the guy had some sort of brain damage from the first blow. Though not enough that he didn’t recognize who Hunter was.

And wasn’t that an interesting little tidbit? I knew it was about revenge, but Hunter had gone out of his way to make sure Damon knew who he was before he’d finished the job. It was a reminder that the Hunter I’d known my whole life was gone, replaced by a Hunter who was still a sweetheart, cared for those closest to him, believed in justice, and tried to brighten other people’s days even when he was feeling down.

But there was another him, and that other version would never go away. There was always going to be that part of him that had discovered how sharp its teeth and claws were. Perhaps when all this was over, he would be able to send that part to sleep deep inside again. Or perhaps it might stick around for the rest of his life, always behind his smile.

“You’d probably read me the riot act if you could,” I told the picture of Lucas and sighed. “But you know how he is when his mind is set on something. The combined forces of heaven and hell can’t change his mind.”

That wasn’t entirely fair, and I could picture Lucas pointing that out. He’d always been a pretty fair-minded guy, but he’d pin someone to the wall if they tried to get away from responsibility. He and I knew I could have probably talked Hunter out of thewhole thing. That was easier said than done, and it probably would have led to a meltdown on his part.

“Tell the truth,” I told myself with a sigh. “You want these bastards dead and buried, just like he does.”

Except in my case, I wanted them dead, but without putting Hunter through the ordeal of doing it himself. Of course, I hadn’t said that to him because he seemed intent on doing it himself, which I couldn’t blame him for. Yet any chance of keeping his hands clean was long gone. He had killed Damon without hesitation, and to his credit, he had done a pretty neat job.

“If we end up in the same place,” I told the picture. “Feel free to give me hell, alright? I know this probably wasn’t the smartest decision, but maybe it’s the only way for him to find peace after everything that happened to you two. Or maybe I’m just making excuses to make myself feel better about it.”

Excusing myself for my actions wasn’t something I liked to do, but it was hard not to feel like shit about the whole situation. I should have stepped up at some point to try to be the one who did the killing. It might have counted as ‘stealing’ in Hunter’s eyes, but I was uncomfortable with him being a killer. A fully justified one, but a killer all the same.

The sound of the apartment door ended my conversation with a dead man. I didn’t hear the locks, which had started when we returned from Damon’s. There were changes in him that were signs of something going on internally. He clearly felt more secure here, so maybe having one part of his revenge in hand wasn’t bad.

“Hey,” I called as I heard him passing the door.

---