Colour Series Box Set (88 page)

His hand grips my throat and I am fighting for air again. “What’s wrong Shannon? I am not ready to even begin to start answering that question so you can sit here and stew over it. I am not prepared to deal with you yet. But when I am you will know
all
about it.
Princess.
You and your poisonous lies can wait until I am ready.” His venomous words and crushing grip make me twitch with fear. “You don’t get to go anywhere, you stay here. I will be back when I am ready to face you.
I haven’t decided what to do with you yet! Shannon, cancer fucking cancer, you cowardly whore!
” He slaps my cheek and it stings with the pain of the truth.

He lets me go and the air burns as I suck it down in gulps trying to stay conscious. He walks back out of the door and I hear it locking from the outside, I am too far up for there to be another way out. I am alone, all alone again only this time I am sure I will die and no one will look for me.

I sink to the floor and allow myself to cry, I cry because no one else will cry when he kills me. I know he will kill me slowly a little every day until I cannot fight his cruel torture and I give up. I know the monster I married.

I LEAVE SHANNON LOCKED in my apartment, I am not ready to face what we are. We were always going to be our own destruction.

I drive down the beach front soaking in the feeling of being home, I can’t get rid of the hurt I feel. I hurt for Lauri, for Rowan and I hurt because I wanted her to love me enough not to kill me. I fucking love her. I wanted that back just once in my miserable life.

This pain is not worth the small amount of love I felt from her, and now I question those feelings. She is a master manipulator and she has fooled me into believing in the unattainable illusion of love and family. I was always broken never whole, but this has obliterated me. Nothing can fix me now, nothing can stop me from wanting revenge either. I have a deep burning desire to make her suffer the horrors of hell.

I let the anger fester in me as I blare my radio all the way back to Rowan’s home. It makes me remember his melancholy music choices and Lauri dancing to them in the kitchen while she cooked for us. She was part of my life for such a short time yet she ignited hope in me that never existed before. Shannon has murdered that hope. We don’t get to hope, we take hope and we kill it.

The sun is setting by the time I get to the winding dirt road that leads to the house. I wonder what the evenings are like for him with a little girl in the house, am I intruding on their dinner? I park my car in what was always my spot and knock on the door. I wait for an answer, I wait longer… I knock again. The door swings open giving me a fright and I am greeted by those monstrously mismatched eyes and sweet smile. I instantly want to grab her and take her away from here, away from all the darkness surrounding this place. I feel the need to save her, protect her and teach her. She stands there in her hello kitty pj’s when Morgan comes charging behind her, “You cannot just open the door Avery, it’s not safe.”

She looks flustered and blushes when her eyes meet mine, she is also in her pj’s a clingy pink tank top and short shorts. Who the hell is this woman and why is she here? And why can’t I take my eyes off of her?

“It is too safe, look it’s uncle Callum.” Her little voice argues back and she takes hold of my hand in her tiny one. I step into the house, behind this little person. I have never had anything much to do with children, I am not sure I ever wanted to before right now. Avery’s dark hair is braided neatly and she smells sweetly of strawberries. Not real fruits, she smells like cartoon strawberries or strawberry cool-aid. Morgan waits for me to pass and walks behind us.

“Dad, Dad, Dad, Daaaaad! Uncle Callum came back, he came back.” Avery yells her shrill voice could pierce an eardrum and she bounces enthusiastically at my return. She turns around and gives me a scowl before she asks “Where’s the beautiful lady? Did you kill her also?” I laugh if only she knew how much I wanted to. “No, she is resting we travelled very far to get here.”  I pat her on the shoulder as Rowan emerges from his office, his eyes are circled by the darkness of sleepless nights and a broken heart. His handsome features are fading. We are getting old.

Rowan smiles at his little girl’s genuine concern for Shannon before he looks around for Morgan.

“Morg’s. Callum and I will be in my office if you need me. Missy over here needs to get ready for bed, please.”  He speaks to her like she is family, like she belongs. No one has felt more foreign and out of place to me than her.

“Daaaaaaaad that’s not fair. I want to visit too.” Avery lets out a whiny sigh and eyes me with help me written all over her sweet face. I want to melt, to cave in and give her anything she wants, but Rowans scowl tell me I dare not get involved.

“I will visit tomorrow again, while the sun is up. I promise. Go on to bed with Morgan I need to talk to your dad.” I bend down so I am talking at her level.

“Okay. Night dad.” She huffs a little upset but follows her nanny reluctantly down the hallway.

Rowan walks to the kitchen and fills two glasses with scotch, some things don’t change. The amber liquid fills the heavy lead crystal glasses that I know Lauri bought for him. The kitchen is clean and empty as if no one has used it. The way it was before Lauri, stagnant and unused.

He slides the glass to my side of the island and walks towards his office door, I follow him. The tall, proud man, I left, has been replaced by his hunched shoulders and defeated walk. I wonder if he even kills anymore. Did losing her kill all the parts of him that mattered?

His office like everything else is the same, I sit in the chair opposite his desk where I sat so many times. Where I sat and omitted the truth of what was going on after I made him sink that container sealing my father’s fate. When I knew I was leaving them all behind. I feel like I have betrayed him more than can be forgiven, I watch him for ticks to indicate he plans to kill me. He doesn’t reach for his drawer where I know there is a gun, he doesn’t take out a weapon at all. He slides back in his chair and puts his feet up on his desk taking a long slow sip of scotch. “So a wife Callum, that’s what you left us for?” A playful smile creeps over his face. “She was in serious pain, does she enjoy it like you do? It didn’t look as if she did.” God he is good at reading body language – too good.

“I left you to kill my family, every last fucking one of them. She was a glitch in my plan. I didn’t plan on loving her, I just did.” I take a drink and the liquid burns down my throat relaxing some of the tension building in me.

“Bullshit.” His voice is harder and I can tell he doesn’t want to believe me. “You don’t love her, you loved her sister and she was a way of having the one who got away.” He might as well have kicked me in the balls. Where was he when I needed him? Before she killed me, before I made this mistake. I left him behind to save myself.

I swallow another mouthful of the liquid courage I need to have this talk with him. “She is a serial killer,” I say the words deadpan as if they mean nothing at all. The truth of them hurts my heart all over again. “She is killing me. I hurt her and now she is killing me. You see Rowan nothing good can come from loving a monster. I think we have both learned a deadly lesson in love.”

I see it the minute I look up the unmistakable rage, the trigger has been pulled and Rowan the killer looks back at me from those blue pits of hell. “Something good came of it Callum, her name is Avery and I can’t love her because losing her mother killed me. Loving Lauri was the most dangerous thing I have ever done. It killed me. Let her kill you it will hurt less than fucking love.”

He lets out a laugh that doesn’t match the anger that just showed itself. Shaking his head, he smiles at me. “You killed your whole family? You really did that?” I nod drinking the last sip out of my glass and I instantly want more.

“I did, they fucking deserved it. Then Sahib the fucker put me in a coma, I slept like a baby for nearly two years. While I slept Shannon slowly, gave me a death sentence. Fucking bitch. I loved her, I did, but now all, I can imagine, are the ways to make her suffer for what she has done.” The way, we speak, is as if I never left, we are just the same as before only a lot more broken. There is no need for lengthy explanations and feelings; we are free to be the criminals we truly are with each other.

“That they did my friend, they certainly did. Does she love you?” He takes his feet off the desk and reaches for a whiskey bottle on the side table. Thank God. Does she love me? She is so gifted at manipulating people that I don’t know the truth to answer that question. I think she believes she does, but I don’t think a sociopath like her has the capacity to love.

“I don’t know if she loves me. I think she thinks she does. But her twisted idea of what love is… I am not sure. I am such a fucking idiot.”

I stand and walk over to the desk to fill my glass, pictures on the wall catch my eye and I look at each one of Avery’s childish drawing as I continue to speak my mind.

“Loving her was explosive, destructive and always dangerous. She was always a death sentence wrapped up in a soft sexy package and tied with a noose. Killing her will be so much easier than loving her ever was. The worst part of love is falling out of it. I feel a numbness that is worse than the hurt of love ever was.” I feel my eyes sting with the need to cry, but I hold my tears back.

“If she loves you let her watch you die it will kill her slowly and hurt more than anything on earth. If she doesn’t love you, make her suffer until you are ready and I will kill her. I will always be your brother Callum, the bond we have comes before love or anything else. I will fucking kill her for taking you from me.” He hisses the words out. He is angry and I know he means what he says. The question is – does Shannon really love me?

“She has given me cancer Rowan, I don’t have it yet but I
will
get it and I will die from it. She made fucking sure of it. In her defence, I beat her more times than I can count, I tied her up and I pretty sure I raped her on countless occasions too. You know me, you know that I cannot control it. Fuck me I tried. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to do it, I felt shame when I saw what I had done to her.” I look into his eyes and let him see, I let him see how much I loved her. How this is killing me quicker than any cancer ever will.

He doesn’t say anything for a while we just sit there, two broken men, with broken hearts and enough hurt to kill almost anyone. The thick air in the room makes it hard to breathe, I loosen my tie and sit again. I came home for a happily ever after. I just wanted happy, just once in my life.

The thing is the bad guy is never really happy, our world doesn’t have a place for happy in it.

I have to lighten the mood before we both drink ourselves into a coma, and I know from experience now how little fun that is.

“So, the pretty nanny?” I lift a brow questioning the beautiful woman prancing around his house half dressed.

“I needed a nanny, she needed someone dead and we made a trade.” There is no way that fresh-faced pretty innocent little thing is one of us. “You didn’t think I could honestly have a complete outsider in my home did you?”

Well for a minute I did.

“I need her Callum, she is all that keeps everything from falling apart. Stay the fuck away from her. Morgan is off limits, in fact, in my home, Morgan is your boss. She runs the house. Avery is being raised in our world, the real world where bad shit happens and people die and we kill them. She will be the next you and me. Only she will be better because she has so much of her mother in her.”

My heart is heavy at his words I planned to come here and make her mine. Like a house of cards tumbling down, my world is collapsing in slow motion around me. I don’t need to take her, she is ours because Rowan and I are a family. I loved her, and him. And it doesn’t hurt. I realize now that real love shouldn’t hurt.

Rowan stands now, he comes around the desk and sits next to me. “It takes a village to raise a child Callum, growing up our village was each other we had no one else. We are her family and as long as you are here you are part of this family. Part of our fucked up village, but your wife the murderer is not welcome in my home or my child’s life. I don’t trust her, I knew the second I saw her she was dangerous.”