There’s a cautious knock on the door and I replace Rosa in her chair before going to answer it. Stefan waits outside, face impossible to read.
I’m so shocked to see my boss on the doorstep, I freeze.
“Aren’t you going to let me in?”
“Sorry.” I stand aside, moving as a barrier between him and Rosa, then pointing him towards the bedroom.
Zach turns up a moment later, Caylon in tow.
“You called Stefan?”
“Who the fuck else is going to deal with a body on short notice?” Caylon asks, nodding to Rosa while Zach turns a furious stare on her. God knows why. “Are you going to show us or leave us to stumble over the corpse by ourselves?”
I lead the way through to the bedroom, hanging near the doorway while the other two join Stefan in examining the scene. Caylon raises his eyebrows at our boss, who nods. At the permission, he crosses to the sheet and lifts the edge.
“Any idea where his clothes are?”
“By the bed.” I nod in the direction, and he moves around, picking up the jeans to dig into the pockets, withdrawing a slim wallet. “There should be a phone somewhere.”
Shit.
I angle my way towards its resting place on the floor. The place it fell when I broke free. I pick it up, swiping, but the screen’s locked. I toss it to Caylon.
“Thanks.” He retreats to the other room and Stefan follows to make a phone call, leaving me and Zach with the body.
Zach stares at the chair with one tie still hanging from the arm, the other on the floor nearby. Stares at the discarded belt, excess to requirements since mine is fastened around my waist.
His gaze travels from the body to the bed, then back to the body. “Thought I was into some weird shit.”
“You are into some weird shit. This was perfectly normal until the hired help turned out to be a gigantic psycho.”
Zach nudges one of the snapped ties with his toe. “Perfectly normal,” he repeats in a flat voice.
“Maybe I meant, it was consensual.”
He nods, pursing his lips. “Got a lot of bindings for something consensual.”
The air of judgement burns me. Of all the people in my life, the one with the loosest grip on normality shouldn’t be sticking his nose in the air like he’s any better.
“Is there a fucking problem?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Zach shakes his head, hands on hips, staring at the corpse. “Maybe that we finally cleared up the loose ends from a murderlast night, and you thought we should get started on another straight away.”
“Fuck you.” I storm over, poking my finger into his chest with such aggression that he appears taken aback. “That was your perfectly avoidable mess that we all got dragged into. You could’ve talked Lily down and instead you shot our friend. This guy?” I point to the mess on the floor that used to be human. “He was going to kill us. This was one hundred and ten fucking percent in self-defence so if you want to complain and spout your bullshit, find another place to do it because if you don’t want to help me after everything I’ve done over the years for you, then we’re fucking done!”
I back away, breathing heavy, annoyed I’m in here shouting when my girl sits alone and hurt in the other room.
And I might have killed Andy, but I don’t feel bad about it. My emotions aren’t in the same maelstrom they were following Robbie, always on edge, panic gripping me at a moment’s notice.
Perhaps time will change that, but I don’t think so. This man’s death means nothing to me because the alternative was Rosa. I could kill a million men every day and never have a speck on my conscience if I were killing them to protect her.
As I stare at Zach, my posture changes.
Maybe this is how he felt, shooting Robbie because it was what Lily needed from him. Taking vengeance to release the girl he loved from her obsessive agenda, even if he didn’t know he loved Lily back then.
Or he was just being the loose fucking cannon he specialises in being.
Caylon clears his throat in the doorway, his eyes flicking from one of us to the other, like a bored observer watching tennis. “Don’t know why you’re all shouting. This is a dead guy that nobody gives a shit about. Cleaning him up will be a piece of piss.”
