Colour Series Box Set (101 page)

The darkest night is ignorance.

THE FIRST VULTURE
has landed on the carcass of my brother’s death. A strange Italian man spitting nonsense about avenging his brother and stolen fortunes. My mind is not on his ranting broken English because it is on the pictures of her that I just slid into my drawer before he came in. I’m filled with a jealous fire like no other at the fact she has left me here with this fucking responsibility to run off with a man who has no place in her life. The man drones on and then he says it.

“The little whore, he gave his fortune to her. It took me too long to find it, but he gave it to his wife’s child. He never could never let go of Ellia even after he killed her.” Bitter resentment pours from him as he huffs on about it. I’m pretty sure Callum killed his brother but I paid little attention to my brother back then, it was only later that I started watching very carefully.

“I’m still convinced her father murdered my brother, when I find him, he’s going to pay. Then I’m coming for this company, boy. I want my brother’s fortune and it’s here somewhere, I know it now.” He’s going to be a pain in my ass I just know it, but he might just have what I need to bring her home. It had never crossed my mind to be honest but Rowan is her father and she would come home for him, or his funeral.

“I can send you right to Rowan if you like. He is of no consequence in my life.” He really isn’t other than it might bring her home where I can get to her, it won’t be hard once she is here, guilt is a magical thing when used properly.

The man’s eyes light up and he looks at me in disbelief as I jot down the name of the wine estate. “You know he’s there?” he looks confused.

“This man has hidden in plain sight for years, he never leaves the estate anymore. He is old and tired. Don’t underestimate him though.” I can see the change in him as he realises how close he is to getting what he has obviously been searching a long time for.

“He is an assassin, no?” The man questions.

“Was an assassin, it seems his daughter is the killer now and he makes average quality wine and wallows in it and his heartache.” My mind is buzzing, this will surely bring her running home. I let it slip very quietly to my half-sister Amya where she was and that she didn’t want to be found. My sister seems to have decided to return to fairest cape now that Callum is gone. Not that I care, I never met her before his funeral and I am not going to let her get what’s mine. No, fuck it, things need to start moving forward now. I have given Avery more than enough time, four months is long enough to run from your responsibilities now my
lost girl
needs to come home where she belongs.

Three days later her father had a bullet between his eyes. It was almost too perfect—the assassin assassinated in his home. The clock is ticking down to the minute she comes racing back here, I can already see her sitting in that sad little graveyard mourning. Her place is here with the broken and the damned. With me. In my bed and my future. It is
my
fucking time now.

SHE RETURNED, JUST AS
I knew she would, but with him by her side and she cried this time. Broken shattered sobs as her father was laid beside her mother. I watch her cling to the man beside her as she cries, that twinge of jealousy rises within me. I should be holding her. He kisses her on the cheek and wipes her tears away. She never cried for Callum, not a single tear. I know because neither did I. I don’t feel what others do when someone dies. My whole family died when I was just a boy and that many deaths changes how you feel things, it switches it off. I thought she was like me, but the person kneeling on the ground falling to pieces is nothing like me at all. Amya and Robin are here again, my sister weeps for her friend and her husband holds her close. These people put great effort into pretending they are normal. I was never normal, my school councillor said I lacked empathy, I don’t lack it, I just don’t need it. This time there is no food or wine after, there are four bottles of whiskey and glasses on a table and there is silence. No one talks or laughs or reminisces about Rowan, I didn’t know the man, but I do know that they have no idea how to feel about his death.

Avery slams a glass down on the glass table top and the noise startles everyone. “Well he’s with my mother now so the fucking sadness that has consumed this place my whole life can finally end. He’s with his love at last,” she says with a shaky voice as her hand squeezes his. Amya wipes a tear away before she slams her glass down.

“He loved you, Avery and he never knew what to do with that. He’s with his love now.” I’m confused by the sentimentality of it all to be honest the man was devoid of emotion in my dealings with him. Robin follows suit, with glass slamming and memories.

“I knew every inch of his body and heart. He’s with his love now.” God what the hell? They make it sound like some insane Romeo and Juliet tale of being together after they are dead and gone. Who was this woman, even the vulture was on about this woman and her haunting his brother from her grave, did she have a magical pussy or something? This infernal need to be attached to someone forever defies my logical brain. His grave stone puzzled the shit out of me too, his name was bold on the top and just a number was etched below it three ones and the words. Sometimes we have to die to live. The more time I spend in their company, the more delusional it all seems to me. I see her get up and go to the kitchen and he stays, deep in conversation with Amya and I take the opportunity to go and get something else to drink. She’s leaning against the counter with her eyes closed just breathing in and out the corporate diva lost and in her place a girl in black jeans and sneakers. My formidable opponent is fucked.

“Hey,” I say softly so I don’t frighten her. “Can we talk?”

“Sure, I guess we can.” She swallows the tears that were right there a second ago.

“It can wait if you don’t want to talk to me.” Personable I remind myself. Fuck people are hard work.

“No it’s okay, Harmon. What do you need?” You pregnant and back at work, but I cannot say that out loud.

“I’m going to be honest, Avery, I haven’t a clue what I’m doing and I need you to come back and help me. The company needs you, I know it is what Callum and your father wanted for you.” Play the guilt card.

“My father and Callum may have wanted it but they never gave a shit what I wanted Harmon. I’m staying, Mat and I will stay on the estate and I will help you where I can, but I’m not going back to that life.” Oh but you are little lost girl.

“Please think about it, Avery. It would have hurt Callum so much to see it all falling apart.” I try to get her to feel that emotional connection, she needs to feel guilty for letting him down. He had high hopes for her and I’m going to make her think she has failed.

“It isn’t hard, Harmon, most of it runs itself.” She counters me again.

“Please, just a few hours a week until I know what’s going on?” I try to sound desperate, I know what’s going on in fact I have things under control. Sneaky Sam has been a busy boy.

“I’ll ask Mat,” she says before leaving the kitchen and going back to them.
Ask Mat?
What has happened to her? What has he done? I stay inside for a long time to try and calm the anger and irritation, I need this to be easy not hard. Mat has got to go. She has nothing to lose if I fail, but I am not going back to what I was before, this the chance I waited all my life for and I am not about to let the doctor ruin it. Him and I need to have a little talk before I leave today, he needs to get out of my way.

The pain that is in your heart right now? Imagine you can reach it

by touching it in someone else with the intent to heal it.

We are all connected.

RULES, THOSE THINGS THAT
have consequences if I didn’t follow them. And for the first time in my life, I had strict boundaries and all I wanted was to rebel and break them all. The first time I got punished for breaking Mathew’s rules, I wanted to run away. I felt like a scorned child. Then I realised I had never felt that—not once in my life. If I didn’t like the rules, I broke them or made my own and no one ever called me out or punished me. No one had loved me enough to stop me from destroying myself. As long as I didn’t feel anything, they were happy to let me raise hell. But with Mat, at first it was horrific. I broke the rules a thousand times before I learned that his harshness was out of love. At first, he was so hard on me, but as I slowly learned to follow the rules, things changed and his punishment became guidance. I thought about my actions and their consequences something I had never done, I never took a minute to think about what my actions did to others. I was a selfish little bitch.

That first time, Mathew took me over his knee and smacked my backside till it burned. I cried, I broke, I hated him and I loved him and everything between. When he was done and my skin burned like fire he put me on the bed and made love to me, not soft love. He fucked me so I could feel the punishment, my ass in the air and my hands in his death grip behind my back. Not the worst punishment I suffered, but this was the day the dam wall broke and I stopped being that girl and worked very single minute on being this woman. He had to break me to heal me, he explained it after, after I was better. Now punishments are few and far between and mostly they end in rough sex and both of us feeling satisfied and loved. Mathew tries to tell me that this is just a season he isn’t my forever that he is just here to show me how to live and love. The rules were simple, yet I still failed often. My own stubborn nature and the fact I never had to follow rules before saw me punished often. Simple rules, keep our small home tidy. Be waiting for him when he got home, clean showered and well groomed. Walk the dog, learn to cook—that one I’ve earned a free pass on because I just cannot get it right. Go to bed with him every night, not before him, not after him, with him.

I got lost in a book one night, sucked away to another world, I didn’t notice him get up and go to bed. I felt sick, the fear of being punished made it hard to swallow as I put the book away. My hands trembled and my knees felt weak as I padded down the small passage to our room. Too afraid to stop and pee, I crept quietly into the room, the darkness here is not like the city, it is pitch black. I could feel my heart racing and I hoped he couldn’t hear it, and that I didn’t wake him. I would still be punished in the morning, which would be worse because I would never sleep. my breath catches in my dry throat as he flicks on the light next to the bed and walks towards me. He’s naked except for his boxer shorts and even in my fear, I appreciate the man I get to see. He sits down on the end of the bed his angry eyes burn holes in my fragile heart. I lurch forward to put my arms around him and apologise, but he shoves me away before I get close. Stumbling over my own feet, I fall down and land between his. My tears fall on the floor and I know he’s disappointed in me. He lifts me up by my ponytail, my stinging scalp makes me cry more.

“When do you go to bed, Avery?” He asks me, calm but angry at my disregard for his rules.

“When you do.” I answer sniffing away my tears, if I don’t answer this will be ten times worse.

“Come, angel, let me take you to bed.” He tugs my hair so have to follow him. But it’s not our soft warm bed he takes me to. No, I spend the night in the small hall closet, too tiny to sit down so I have to stand all night. Alone in the pitch black darkness, I’m sure this is how a coffin must feel inside. The claustrophobic space made me cry, scream and beg as terror controlled me. Anger poured out with every curse. How dare he lock me away! I have handled having my ass smacked raw or standing in a corner for hours not allowed to even look around. Humiliated and treated like the child I never got to be, but this was too much. It was too much because I was alone and not with him. I didn’t fall in love fast, or at first sight. I feel in love alone in a dark closet. As he had broken me down to nothing and let me rebuild myself better, I had slowly fallen in love with him. I had not even realised it while it happened, but alone in that dark closet I learned my lesson and I learned what love is. I loved him, even if he didn’t love me back and that terrified me.