Satyr wanted the kill for himself. No problem. Mockerie could oblige his best employee. After all, they had a number of things in common. Not that the similarities made them friends. Mockerie didn’t believe in trusting anyone to that extent. Not since…
Giving his fingers a quick snap, he got his mind back on track. Scars. He and Satyr both bore them. Mockerie’s ran from his left eye to the corner of his mouth. He also had the remnants of a crushed left cheekbone that hadn’t healed properly. And last but not least, there was the half finger missing from the middle of his left hand.
For the sake of their individual war wounds, he was going to let Satyr have his revenge —to a point. He intended to monitor the situation closely. Melia Rose reminded him of the one person in his life who’d mattered, the only person who’d ever gotten away. He needed to rectify some portion of that situation, and Melia would serve his purpose nicely. Or so he hoped. As long as there was pain and torture involved at the end of it, he’d be satisfied.
His mind shifted sideways. He couldn’t stop it. His wife, Rowena, hadn’t died slowly enough to suit him. Had that been an act of mercy on his part, or a burst of temper that had gotten the better of him at the worst possible moment?
Difficult to say, really, although he leaned toward the temper thing. He truly couldn’t recall falling victim to a single compassionate act in his thirty-five-year lifetime.
From the porch of his ranch-style home, the desert seemed to stretch out forever. The clumps of cacti dotting the landscape fascinated him. Prickly and untouchable on the outside, lush and juicy under the surface. Especially the agave variety. Oh yeah, he did enjoy his tequila.
He spotted a rattlesnake coiled up next to a boulder in his front yard and smiled. “You and me both, my friend. Always poised and ready to strike.”
As was his habit, he’d set a framed picture of his late wife on the railing so he could stare at her. At first glance, she’d appeared angelic. Behind the facade, however, she’d been a calculating viper, more than worthy of the two shots he’d pumped into her body.
Life would be perfect if only he could put his nemesis, McCabe, in the ground with her.
McCabe had fucked him royally when he’d taken apart Owen Fixx’s branch of the business. True, Mockerie had never liked Owen, but the man had had a head for money. He’d known how to make it, and of even greater importance, how to make it grow.
“You’re a bastard, McCabe,” Mockerie growled. With his anger mounting and no live outlet for it except the snake, he whipped up his ever-present gun and drilled a hole into his late wife’s photograph.
“You started all of this, bitch. You and your treachery. I should have skinned you alive for what you did to me.”
His cell phone signaled an incoming email. Mockerie chained his seething fury, loosened his grip on the gun, and sucked air in through his teeth.
Five minutes passed before he regained control, and it was a hard fought battle at that. Only when the red haze in his head vanished completely did he pick up his phone.
He expected news from Deception Cove, or possibly an update from Satyr. He definitely didn’t anticipate the words that appeared on screen.
Are you thinking about your father, James?
Ten years ago today, you sent him to his grave.
Does the wrong of what you did haunt you, or was Rowena’s death more satisfying?
I know you’d like nothing better than to kill me, too, but I also know how and where to hide from the monster I helped to create.
Are you still a monster, James? Would you kill me if you could?
For now, I’m safe, but maybe one day we’ll both find out.
Until then, I remain,
Your most regretful mother
Chapter Seven
“The box isn’t ticking.” Not that she wanted to press her ear against it and make absolutely sure, but Melia didn’t hear anything except swamp sounds and a single passing vehicle.
Johnny shook his head. “This is a messy job of wrapping, Mel. And there’s a tag.” Leaning over the seat he opened the card. “‘Sorry for scaring you yesterday,’” he read. “It looks like an eight-year-old wrote this. Cas?”
Melia breathed out. “Is ‘sorry’ spelled with three r’s?”
“Yep.”
She relaxed. “It’s from Cas. Jesus.” She pressed a fist under her breastbone. “It’ll be toffee. Ethan makes it.”
“Melted toffee by now.”
She kneaded the hollow spot under her rib cage. “It’s the thought, Johnny. I need to check my bag. Cas likes to go through it. He’s autistic,” she said before Johnny could ask. “With the added burden of ADHD. He needs more care than I can give him, but Ethan’s stubborn in that way. He thinks a steady hand will guide Cas to a place where he can cope without a ton of meds. It’s not going to happen, but Ethan’s firm in his belief.”
Johnny started the engine, let it run for a moment while the AC kicked in. “This might not be the right time, but at some point, we need to talk about what happened, and why I did what I did to you.”
It was a knife shoved into her heart. There was understanding, yes, but it was riddled with pain and many, many scars. Melia stared at the diner rather than him and struggled to get past the worst of it. “I know why you did it. I also know doing it hurt you.”
“It damn near killed me, Mel.”
“And me.” She brought her head around. “Do you have any idea how angry I was at myself? How disgusted? Everything I’d been, suddenly I wasn’t anymore. Or thought I wasn’t. I shut down, Johnny. I had to, or give in to—I don’t know what. Clinical depression maybe. Why didn’t you tell me? Leave and pretend you hated me— ”
“I did pretend.”
“Then why didn’t you let me pretend, too? It would have been hell, but at least I’d have known I wasn’t scum.”
“McCabe and I figured it would be better if you were convinced. All the way convinced. There’d be nothing Satyr could examine for flaws, because everything on your side would be real.”
“Everything still is.” It wasn’t, of course, but she’d be damned if she was going to admit that. Not until she’d sorted through all the feelings twisting and turning inside her. And whether she should be or not, she simply wasn’t there yet.
“You need more time.” He caught hold of her hand before she could pull it away. “I get that. But you need to know I meant what I said to you before I left to meet McCabe in Atlantic City. I love you. Nothing about that has changed in the past three years.”
She didn’t move. “Let go of my hand, Johnny.”
Smiling faintly, he raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. Then he released her.
She balled her fist as he put the Explorer in gear and pulled out of the lot.
“Tell me something,” she said. “If whatever happened to make Satyr suspicious of the situation hadn’t happened, would you have carried on with the charade?”
Something flickered in his eyes. Pain? Sorrow? Regret? She couldn’t read it. “I don’t— Yes.” His features hardened. “If it would have kept you alive and safe, I’d have stayed away and let you go on believing the lie.”
It was an honest answer. Not the one she’d wanted to hear, but truthful enough that a portion of her tension faded.
Would it ever vanish completely? Unlikely. Accepting what she’d believed herself to be had left a jagged scar on her heart.
All she could do was hope she lived long enough to see if it healed.
…
There was no shotgun reception waiting for them at the Brewer house. The deep swamp setting wouldn’t have sat well with anyone Johnny knew, but then, most of the people he knew were all about street life and rats as big as raccoons. Any alligators in their lives walked on two legs.