His clothes peel away from his skin as he tosses them into the plastic bag. I could start cleaning this place; I would if it were anyone else doing the killing. As I said, Aiden is the best in the business; he’ll have left no trace of himself behind. I can just torch this place after I sort out the drain when he’s washed away the blood from his body.
“Did you bring the lemons?” he calls out from the bathroom.
Stepping inside, I hold up the bag of sliced lemons, tossing it at him and watching him squeeze the juice over his hands, arms, and hair. The scent of decay will be stripped from his pores, a trick AJ taught me when I began this line of work. Death clings to a person, but with the right tools and techniques, it can be erased completely. The last thing you want after a job is to go home stinking like a cadaver.
By the time he jumps out of the shower, the entire house stinks of bleach, lemons, and Zoflora—just because.
“Drain’s done,” he calls out from the bedroom, emergingin a pair of grey joggers and a black t-shirt, his damp hair slicked back neatly. Not so much as a drop of water drips onto the hardwood floor. His runners are wrapped in plastic—something I realise I should have done before coming in here in the first place. It would save me having to burn them to get rid of the evidence.
As I rise from the floor, where I’ve been searching for Aiden’s hair or any other sign of his presence, my back cracks, and my knees groan in protest. “Now we can burn it.” Tossing the bleach soaked rag on the floor next to the body at the foot of the stairs, I grab the matches from my pocket and strike one, igniting the cloth.
“See,” Aiden smirks as we step out of the house. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Tell that to my back.” I groan, feeling the ache intensify with each step.
He chuckles lowly, checking his phone as we climb into the car. “What fresh hell is this?”
“What?”
He sighs, the back of his head thumps against the headrest. “Katie’s sister is staying for dinner; apparently she’s not the only one.”
“You don’t get on?”
“I can take her or leave her on the best of days,” he mutters as I start the engine. Leaning down, he peels the plastic away from his shoes and tosses it into the back seat to dispose of later.
Ah, I see what this is.
He despises Katie’s attention being on anyone but him. The fact that he must share her for a few hours is going to crawl up his arse and burrow into his gut until he can’t stand itanymore. “Hate that for you,” I smirk, driving away from the house, seeing light tendrils of smoke seeping from the windows.
“For us,” he counters.
“Excuse me?”
Aiden turns to me, beaming. “You’re coming with me.”
36
KATIE
Robbie is reclining on the sofa with more pillows than I can count. His torso is covered in so much gauze and plasters of every size that he looks like a patchwork quilt.
He is, I’ve noticed, remarkably easy to care for. Something tells me that his brother would not be as good of a patient.
Scott comes and goes with his shifts at work; he is sure to pack on the PDA every chance he gets. I can’t blame him. If Aiden had been attacked like Robbie was, I’d never let him out of my sight.
“How are they even related?” Becky jokes, noticing the stark contrast in Robbie’s golden retriever personality to Aiden’s German Shepherd.
“Hey, my man can be cute and squishy too,” I protest. Well, maybe not squishy; he has nothing to squish, but I think he’s adorable.
“Your man probably feasts on the souls of the damned,” Maria cackles, pouring herself a generous glass of red wine. I’ve no idea how she drinks that stuff. Ican’t stand it.
“It’s good roughage, shut up,” Strutting out of the kitchen to check on Robbie again, I’m pleasantly surprised to see him decent.
I may or may not have walked in on Scott giving him a sneaky handy earlier. I’m too mortified to ever mention it again, so I’m pretending nothing happened.
“How’s the pain?” I ask, lifting his empty bowl and glass from the floor.
“I’m delightfully sedated, it’s glorious,” he offers me a boyish grin. “Thank you, for all of this. You don’t have to—”
