Page 89 of Scorching Sienna

To think that I could have ended this all that night. My knife that slipped into the target that brought me to that club could easily have finished this bastard in the same way. He would not have hurt my rainbow the way he has. Instead, I had pushed him away from Sienna as he had stumbled drunkenly towards her just outside the ladies, almost laying his hand on her. Ironically, it was the moment we all met in person. My obsession formed that night, as did his.

George worked for a large insurance firm, investigating insurance fraud claims. Lowrens Briar was amongst the cases he workedon, and George’s evidence played a huge role in putting Lowrens behind bars.

He was supposed to testify in that trial but was murdered shortly before. His file on the case had been posted to the courthouse the day before his death, almost as if he knew what was to come. I suspect Lowrens went to George's house to look for the evidence and destroy it. When he found George and no file, he took his anger out on the man he saw asresponsible for his future situation.

He fled, but not before taking a trophy, one which explained his desire to find Sienna all these years later.

I approach the wall closest to me, it and the whole other wall in this room, which would typically be a dining room, filled withpictures—pictures of Sienna.

The one that catches my eye is of a younger version of my girl, but with a red thumbprint covering one corner. I would hazard a guess that it was George's blood.

I pull the picture from the pin securing it in the wall, the paper tearing easily due to the state of it. Folded and unfolded so many times, the detail is faded in the folds, and the edges are frayed. A picture that tells the whole story.

And then it clicks. His obsession didn’t form in club Nero’s. No, it started long before that. Probably when he took this photo from George's place and then when he sat in prison for five years. Folding and unfolding it. Looking at the girl in it. Alone at night, day in, day out, with nothing much to think of but this photo. I could see how it could lodge itself into one's brain, deep where the wiring short circuits. Where madness sits waiting for an idea to latch onto. His latched onto the wrong woman. My woman.

The photo was the perfect fuel for an obsession. It captured Sienna smiling, her wavy hair blowing in the wind—perfect, angelic, innocent. Perhaps he thought she would be his salvation. The light to his dark. Fortunately, there can only be one monster basking in her glow: me.

The following picture, and the start of the timeline after he came out of prison, is of Sienna and Gloria climbing out of the convertible inNero’s parking lot. There are more from that night of Sienna in the club, and you can see the photos become progressively more blurry the more alcohol he consumes. By the time he tried to approach her, I was in the picture, unknowingly foiling whatever he had planned for her that night.

The photos after that span the last couple of months, cataloging Sienna in every element of her life. At the bookstore. At the grocerystore. Outside on her porch. Watering her plants.

There are even pictures of me.

“Fuck!” Kai, who is standing behind me, jumps in fright. The silence in the room is eerie, and my sudden outburst scares the living daylights out of him.

I was so busy watching Siennathat I missed the man watching us. Even Bob did. But I can see why. Before I brought him in, the photos were amateur. At some point, after I met Sienna at Mike's Gym, the pictures developed an air of professionalism. Someone else had entered the game. Someone attached to me. And someone who had used Lowrens’ obsession with Sienna against me. Manipulating him. Providing him with the tools and opportunities, like this fucking house, like the purse episode at The Barcelona, all to pursue his thirst for Sienna.

Guilt envelopes me, and I allow it to. This is what I was looking for. It was an emotion I could quickly and easily turn to anger. Convert to rage.

“What was here?” I ask when I reach a patch of empty wall, the little holes in the plaster clearly indicating that photos were once there.

Gavin hands me an envelope.

“I removed them.” When I open the envelope, I see why, and I see red. These are the ones from Lady Chatman’s.

Sienna and I.

Lowrens and Sienna.

Intimate and horrific moments captured in high-definition prints.

I close the envelope, the feelings inside me bubbling and swirling, my stomach getting that same feeling I always get before a kill. Coiling tightly as if the contents want to escape, caused by the adrenaline pumping through me.

“The other thing is in there.”

Gavin points to a door on the right, his eyes filled with apprehension.

The red glow of light that peeks under the edge of the doorframe matches the color of my anger.

When I push the door open, the pure horror behind his intentions for Sienna comes crashing down on me. This was a sexual torture room. While I had rooms with a similar hue and theme atSin, this one holds a different intention.

Mine are for mutual pleasure. This one is for individual pleasure. And I can guess which party in the Lowrens Sienna duo was on the receiving end of the pain. The photos in the envelope in my hand had already whispered about the roles each would play.

“Get someone over here and pack it all up. I want it erected exactly as it is here, in one of the shipping containers.”

Gavin takes his phone out, and I can already hear him making the arrangements as I exit the room.

I pull out my phone, dialling the number of the man who will help me exact my revenge.

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