I blow out a slow breath. “He said if he was meant to be the heir then he’ll do it his way, and if he didn’t, once Dad was dead, he’d run the whole thing into the ground. It’s Dad’sbiggest fear: to have the Blackwood name become meaningless. He agreed but told me on the side that he planned to convince Max to backtrack eventually, it would become tiresome hunting criminals. We had to create a whole new agreement with law enforcement just to find out who was worthy to kill. That’s how we met Drago. Dad knew him, however he did I’m not sure, but he said we could partner up with him to use his connections. But that meant adding more names to the payroll, harder work. It created a lot of tension for a while.”
“So, how did it fizzle out?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I enlisted in the army for the year. It was too tense every day, I couldn’t live with that. So I ran. When I came back, everything seemed fine. They were working together properly again, so it was obvious they’d sorted it out. Drago sorted out the connection with the justice system, Max had formed a rapport with them, and they gave us names of criminals released early or found not guilty when the evidence clearly showed otherwise. The money was rolling in. I guessed that’s what placated Dad. As long as the money’s there, I suppose he doesn’t much care how it comes in. So, I joined the fun.”
“It doesn’t bother you,” she says, “the killing?”
I twist my snakebite in between my teeth. “Not the criminals.”
“There are others?”
I look out my window, wondering how quickly I can get back home and not have to rip open my body and bare myself to this girl.
“I have these little… side quests.” I nod my head downwards, gesturing to where my stab wound was. “Those don’t necessarily involve guys who deserve to die.”
“Whose? Drago’s?”
I nod. “It was one of the prices to pay. Max had been doing them while I was away, but… it affected him more. He was struggling to live with the guilt. So I stepped up. Dad gives me jobs too, sometimes, now he knows what I’m… capable of. But mostly it’s Drago.”
“Why? Just for extra money?”
“Yes.” I huff a resigned sigh. “He gets what he wants. He only trusts me to accomplish certain things, as does Dad. I’m efficient, tidy, quick.”
“But it bothers you? Killing innocent people?”
I press my lips into a thin line. I think I can get us home in the next five minutes. I press harder on the gas. “I wouldn’t say it bothers me… I don’t know.”
“I wouldn’t say it bothers you either, considering all the death tattoos.”
I look over at her. I remember now the argument in the garage during one of her first days here. A lifetime ago. Hooked up to an IV pole, looking pathetic and tiny. She told me I get the tattoos for every murder I commit to basically brag about them. I know that’s what the rumour is, and I don’t care. Makes people less likely to fuck with me.
“I don’t get them to celebrate my homicidal achievements, Elodie.”
“So, why do you get them?”
I glance down at my arm stretched out to the steering wheel. I can barely see them through the smears of mud and grime and the lack of light but I see them enough as it is.
“To remind me who I am. What I am. I don’t get them when I kill the people who deserve to die. I get them when I kill the people who don’t.”
A thick silence falls over us as she contemplates this.
“So you never forget…” she says, so quietly it seems like it’s more to herself.
I finally see the turning for my house. “Don’t start seeing me as some nice guy with a conscience. Because I’m not.” It comes out harsher than I intended, but I already feel naked and too exposed.
“I don’t see you as that.” She scoffs. “But then, I also don’t see you as the ruthless, heartless killer I did a few moments ago.”
“Well, then you’re stupid.”
I can hear the smile in her voice as she says, “Don’t worry, Caden, I won’t tell anyone you have a heart in that cold, black soul of yours.”
I pull up outside the house. “Good. Because you’d be lying.”
CHAPTER 51
CADEN
Fiz is still where we left him. As is Bob. Sarge comes pattering over to me and I give him a scratch between the ears. To my irritation, he goes to Elodie after and she tentatively strokes him too. Guess they’re besties now. Great.
