Colour Series Box Set (105 page)

“We have an invitation to a government gala evening, I think we should attend, its important.” I try sounding nice, I try so hard.

“Fine, get your fuck-toy to put it in my calendar.” No resistance, no fight just yes. Maybe nice is the answer. She’s distracted by something I can see it, she is focused so deeply on the screen in front of her.

“Does it, I mean she, bother you?” I cannot help myself. She stands up so she is looking right at me.

“I shared an office with Callum since I was fifteen, your brother fucked every single assistant he had at that desk and he didn’t care if is I saw it or not, so no it doesn’t
bother
me in the least, Harmon. I am used to it. I will say, next time, use a condom because that whore has fucked almost every manager from the first floor up, you might get something nasty.” The sneer on her face tells me she is enjoying this little moment of cattiness, maybe she’s a little jealous after all. She is jealous, that must be it. She is jealous because I haven’t flirted with her.

“As long as we are good, we do have a company to run together.” I get the death glare before she walks back out of the office.

“Fuuuuuuuuck” I yell aloud into the empty room. I hate her.

The phone is going again, that man is relentless.

What doesn’t kill me,

might make me kill you.

THE FOUL DISPLAY OF
public fucking in my office churned my stomach more than I will ever admit to that man. He’s invading every aspect of my life and I feel a festering hate and a need to murder someone creeping back in. I try to remember that there would be consequence I even try to find one but I can’t. He’s like a wart on my happiness and I need to find out what he wants from me and get rid of him. For good. He tries so hard to be nice to me, I see that underlying malice. He needs me for something and I’m not going to give him anything—ever. I have no idea what Callum was thinking bringing him here, but I don’t actually care at all. I leave the office and his smug face to go and oversee a shipment of explosives and munitions that is being sent to North Africa, war is such a lucrative business. This container is the exact reason our President is buttering us up, these under the table deals are all politically fuelled and if we are on his side we are not against him. The foolish man thinks we are loyal—loyalty is for family and no one else. I am loyal to no one, but I favour those with the finance and influence to benefit me.

I can’t push the dull ache of missing Mathew away, it still hurts. I miss him, I miss the rules and the loneliness cuts me deeper every single night that I lie there staring at the ceiling wishing for him to come back. I have even gone into my Dad’s things and started going through his work load, I think I might be better suited to that family business than this one. Tonight, I’m going to make my first kill since Eiran and I feel the adrenaline already, I need to be who I am, and that’s a killer. The very idea of blood has me more excited than it should, I always believed I was not a killer at heart, but that my father loved to make me do it. It is in my veins, my very essence is murder, and he was right, walking away is never an option. I was born into this world, I will exit it and pay the price for what I do. I’m a murderer, but I have something my family didn’t give me. Rules. I will not kill just anyone. I have a heart and I intend to look after it.

Standing in the wind watching the container being packed, I start to roll through the files for tonight’s kill. This one caught my eye, the images made me feel and if I am going to kill I will feel it. A father, an abuser, selling his babies on the internet, a rapist. His wife has caught him and doesn’t want to wait for justice that may not come, she’s buying justice. My knife will judge him very harshly.

“We are ready to close it up, boss lady?” One of the loaders yells over to me. I nod and the container doors swing closed. I lock them myself and place numbered bullet seals through the latches.

“Get it to the stacks, here are the papers.” I hand the forged documents to the truck driver’s assistant and send them on their way.

I don’t do back to the office, I just email Harmon the details of the shipment from my phone, I can’t be asked to see him twice in one day. The images from this morning still have my stomach turning. I’m still using my father’s car since I left mine to be stolen and I have no desire to shop for a new one. His work kit is still in the back even though he hardly killed anyone the last few years. I have double and triple checked it and added my knives to it. The cleaning team knows that they are on call tonight and I need this.

I drive to the beach nearest to where my target lives to wait for the cover of darkness. I park my car and sit on the bonnet to watch the sun go down over the ocean in front of me. My hair blows around my neck in the wind and I can smell the salt in the air, I close my eyes and breathe it in. I wish for it to be the mountain air and that I was back in Clarens with Mathew. My heart misses him so much. I can see his face in my dreams, feel my fingers in his hair and I can always smell him even though he is gone. Memories are interrupted by my phone ringing and I have the urge to hurl it into the ocean in front of me, but I hang onto it just in case Mathew wants to find me again. I hope. I know it’s futile but I do.

The call is from Solly the man I have tasked with finding Harm’s motives, I need to see his contract with Callum. Also they keep an eye on what he is up to. I don’t trust the idiot at all.

“Talk to me,” I answer the man in the hope he has news for me.

“I will have a copy of the amendment to you tonight.” Oh he is good.

“How did you get it?” I dare asking.

“He seems to have upset one of the girls in the office today, I asked them before, but they were all mute. This afternoon she sent me a message to collect it after hours from her home for a fee.” I laugh out loud, he really must be a shit lay. It can only be the whore from this morning.

“Pay her and tell her I will oversee her transfer to another department so she can be far from Harmon.” I give him instructions.

“I was just going to kill her, boss?” So honest and efficient.

“Fine, it’s cheaper, but I need clean up tonight too.” I admire his work ethic.

“I will factor that in to my plans.” He hangs up, not one for small talk, but I trust him, he has been on my father’s payroll for years so he is loyal to me and not O’Reilly International. He’s one of
mine.

I’m in a hurry to get this done now so I can go home and read all about what it is Harmon is really doing here. I drive with the setting sun beside me up the coast to the affluent area where I will find daddy of the year. The surge of emotion is new to me and it’s making this so much better than I ever had expected it to be. I know the man is home alone, I have the alarm codes and getting in and out is easy.

I’m in the house in no time at all, I can see him but he can’t see me. He sits at his computer watching kiddie porn and drinking from a cheap brandy bottle. He is big and physically subduing him will be a challenge but I’m prepared. He gets up to take a piss, I notice he has no bottoms on, just the T-shirt. How disgusting. While he empties his bladder, I pour a little mixer in his drink and go into the next room to prepare for his departure from this life. I can feel the minutes counting down every time I hear the bottle bang back down on the table soon he will be ready for me. I wait just a few more minutes.

“Excuse me?” I call from behind him and he falls off the chair turning around to see me. I go stand over his body, cocking my head so I can look into his eyes I shake my head.

“Who are you?” he sputters out the words slurred and forced, the drugs claiming him.

“The Hummingbird.” He looks confused.

“Hmm.” He tries to lift himself off the floor and I take the moment to show him my knife. I slice off his exposed dick in a swift movement and drop it on the floor beside him. His screams are garbled and he tries to escape, worming around in his own blood.

“You shouldn’t have used that on your kids,” I say, my foot now on his forehead. The pool of blood is magnificent, I watch it getting bigger as he gets weaker and weaker. The crimson victory is painting a beautiful picture on the floor his hands are grabbing at his bloodied crotch and just before he passes out and can’t feel anything anymore. I stand over his sick, sad pathetic body and slice his throat from one side to the other. No one has the ability to fuck us up quite like our parents and I feel like this is my way of fixing things. I wipe my knife clean on his T-shirt and go back into his spare room to pack my things and text the cleaners.

Crocodile farm. Male 100kg plus. I made a mess, sorry boys.

A few years ago my father bought the croc farm near the estate, it was a failing tourist attraction and the trade in skins and meat was lucrative so it was a good buy and a very convenient way to dispose of people. I get in the car and drive off into the night. No one’s going to be sorry he’s gone and that makes me feel good about it. I dial Mathew from the car. I know he won’t answer, if he even still has that number but I leave a voice message.

“Hi, it’s me. I did something tonight . . . I killed a man. I did it to save his children before it was too late for them. I miss you. I need the rules. You love me, I know you do. Come back. Please come back.”

I hang up before he can hear my tears. I cry all the way home.

SOLLY IS WAITING FOR
me in the driveway just outside the main gate to the estate, I stop next to his car and wind my window down. He hands me a memory stick and shakes his head. “She dead?” I ask just to make sure I don’t need to call HR in the morning.

“Going to the crocs with your guy as we speak.” He starts his car. “Avery, you need to deal with that.” He points to the stick in my hand. “And fast.” He sounds concerned and I feel the thick lead weight of dread as I swallow and nod.

“I’ll handle it.” I close my window and we drive on in opposite directions. I’m anxious to see what’s on the drive but I need to wash the blood and the filth of the day off of me first. Once the car is in the garage and I have left my bags and bloodied clothing in the office, I run myself a bath. Now the memories of the tub are bittersweet and as I submerge myself completely under the water. I remember Mathew and what he taught me, I feel that the need to fight is about to become over powering. I sit up breaking the surface and breathing in, I miss him and that emptiness alone suffocates me some days, but it also drives me to live so I can find that feeling again. I dry off and slip into a tank top and yoga pants before I settle in front of my laptop,
mine
is secure and separate from O’Reilly International network. I plug in the usb and wait for it to open. I’m not a lawyer and the legal jargon is confusing but I get the jist of it and the more I read. I feel the bile coming up my throat, I gag and try to keep the sickness from escaping but I can’t.
How could Callum do this to me? Why would he do it?
My fragile heart breaks as the betrayal sinks in and I digest the truth. I was just a way for him to get the one thing he needed but couldn’t do himself. I feel hatred boiling up inside me, I
feel
it in every crevice of my soul. I know in all of this Mathew knew about this secret, he didn’t tell me and that slaughters any bit of humanity I had. I learned from him that I need to fight, I don’t need anything else. I will not give birth to another generation, I have said since I killed for the first time that this would all end with me—I am the last black hole heart. There will be no more.
I need a lawyer to translate all this shit, and I need Amya to see it too, because she’s getting this company and I know she won’t want it.

There is almost no one I can trust, but Mathew said I could trust Owen, I just don’t know now if I believe it, because he lied to me by leaving. His departure was a lie, he knew about this somehow, Callum must have told him. Callum lied to me and my father my whole life. I’m pretty sure this was his plan from the day he came home. He wanted to steal me to give him the heir that his poisonous wife wouldn’t. Well I learned something from your story Callum, Shannon was right. I feel as if my whole life was a violation, I know my father didn’t know about this because he was too busy being sad to notice his friend stealing his child. Callum manipulated us both, he was a living lie.