I don’t understand it. How she’s so squarely taken the blame on her shoulders for something that no one in their right mind would say is her fault.
Checking once again she’s sleeping, I pull out my phone. The revelation about the uploaded video had taken a half hour of coaxing to extract.
My mind shies away as I think back to the party. Think of how I forced my way into the bathroom, so angry because the girl I was fixated on wouldn’t succumb to my charms. Refusing to listen. Refusing to accept her answer.
And he punished her. Formyactions.
First, I’m going to make sure Em’s safe from him and from his threats.
Second, I’m going to kill him for what he’s done to her.
That starts with the video that’s already gone online. I don’t care if no one can identify her; no one gets to look at Em without her express permission.
No one.
Once I find it, I might engineer a little surprise for anyone who tries to download it. A nice wee add-on to make the site owners hustle to take it down and scour their site for any re-emergence.
Getting something off the internet might be like playing whack-a-mole but I’m a patient guy. Single-minded when I need to be. It’s also a welcome distraction from examining my behaviour—coincidentally one of my least favourite activities.
Except I can’t find it.
A load of clips that’ll send my antiviral software into a tailspin show in response to my search but not the snippet Em saw of herself.
I might be terrible at searching or Braxen is playing games. More than most, I know how dangerous it can be to release footage onto the internet. There could be a million hidden signals showing anyone who cared to look long enough exactly where and when the images were taken. No matter how carefully each shot is cropped, there’s always identifying information about exactly who is onscreen.
With Em’s anxiety at sky-high levels, I can’t imagine this is an explanation that’ll go over well with her.
‘Couldn’t find it,’ doesn’t have the same ring of reassurance as, ‘I found it, took it down, and wiped it off the face of the world.’
Moving carefully so my shift in weight doesn’t disturb her, I manoeuvre off the bed and glide through the connecting door to the garage. Her broken phone is in my glove box—swiped from the school carpark so I could buy an exact replacement—and I take it out, snatching a bag of tricks from the back seat.
My hands shake as I pull it apart. I flex my fingers, really stretching them out, and try again but I have to push back from the bench before I cause more damage.
I feel so much rage it exhausts me.
If the man responsible for causing Em’s pain was in front of me, I’d tear him apart, drink his blood and spit it back into his neck.
“You’re worthless, Caylon.”
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Once, I told Em I could help her with anything. If she wanted to kill a guy, I could arrange it.
And I could. If it was some street trash who hurt her, I’d gladly do it myself. I would wear gloves to make it last longer, so I didn’t hurt myself too quickly, before I had the chance to knock out every tooth, break every bone I could, extract a screaming apology ten times over before his torn and bloodied body gave out.
I want to do that so badly.
Just leave right now, sprint across the city, scale his fence, breach his security, and punch him, kick him, beat him black and blue and bloody. Punch him until the bones in my hand snap in two, splinter into fragments. Kick him until my feet are worn down to stumps. Bite him until there’re more teeth lodged in his chewed remains than are left in my gums.
Beat him. Main him. Tie his broken remains to the bumper of my car and drive the breadth of the country.
I want to kill him with my fists. And again with a baseball bat. By shooting him everywhere but his vital organs and watching him bleed out. Dousing him with kerosene and setting him alight, then digging his blackened heart out of his body with my fingers while he’s still roasting. Stabbing him until I can drink his blood. Drowning him, holding his head under water. Maybe letting him up for a deep breath when he thinks he’s at his last just to feel the joy of his frantic struggles again as he nears his end.
I want to do it all. To save her. To send a warning. To pay the fucking fucker back for what he did to her. To work out my anger so when I sit down to process a stupid fucking phone my fucking hands don’t shake with untapped fucking rage.
Stefan would help me destroy almost anyone in the country. There are even members of the syndicate he’d toss my way for free.
Not Braxen.
He’s connected. He’s protected. A ‘legitimate’ businessman who doesn’t mind how dirty his cash gets as long as it keeps multiplying. He’s bankrolled half a dozen large syndicate projects. Stefan probably has him tapped for a dozen more.
