50. Seventy Times 7

Dom

The gate was opening and I was already nudging my car through the gap, revving the engine. I’d considered letting her know I was there or trying to walk in on her. Surprise her or give her a chance.

What was I going to say to her?

The team Chris had sent after me hadn’t managed to catch up, but I’d done half the journey on the motorway, speeding down the hard shoulder.

The car screeched to a stop outside of the house and I was throwing open the door before it halted.

There, up the twenty-eight steps, was the front door. Open.

Inviting me in.

Maybe she did want me to see her.

But the house was silent, save for my footsteps on the marble floor.

In the hall, I didn’t know where to go. There were at least twenty rooms I could search, including the housekeeper’s rooms and the poolhouse. Would she be in the kitchen where her dad died? Her bedroom?

Everything in the house was covered like it had been when we were last here together. As I walked up to her room, I checked for any signs of disturbance but only found the furniture still covered in white or yellowing sheets.

Music played from Leonie’s room. An old song, probably from when we were teenagers. Before everything was ruined.

It was then that I got out my phone. It was only 5 pm, but the nights came in quickly at this time of year. There was enough natural light to see, but I may need a torch if she decided to hide.

There had been two more notifications on my phone from Leonie’s gate. At least someone else was in the house, or she’d left and come back.

I pulled my gun out, advancing.

The last time I had seen her, things had been salvageable. We were going to make it.

Something had changed. Clearly, she no longer believed I was innocent.

But this gun was not for her. Never for her.

I’d gladly use it on myself before her.

The music got louder the closer I got. Seventy Times 7 by Brand New. A song we had both belted in the car, over and over, sometimes covered in salt water, sometimes with a handful of chips in our mouths.

But always screamed.

Outside her bedroom door, I took a deep breath, put back my gun and stepped inside.

The Leonie from the camera, the blank one with shorter hair, sat on the armchair beneath her teenage bookshelf, a book lying open on the arm of it, a gun held on her lap, pointing at the door.

Where I stood.

She looked into the notebook and didn’t bother glancing up as I entered.

She’d taken off all the sheets. It was as if I’d stepped back into my own seventeen-year-old’s memories.

“You’re late,” she chided.

“Late?”

“It took you an hour and forty-two minutes,” she said, voice curt. “I wasn’t expecting to wait so long.”

“I came—”

“Yeah, I get it,” she cut me off, flipping the page. “You came as quickly as you could.”

“I did—”

As I stepped forward, she raised the gun and the song repeated.

“This is what you think of me?” I asked, gesturing to the speaker. My voice was breaking. “You going to shoot me to this song? I told you I didn’t know, Leo.”

“Can you remember the last time we were in this room together?” she asked easily as if she wasn’t holding a gun up to me.

I moved to sit on her bed. The barrel followed me though her eyes didn’t. It was still the same duvet cover as the time she mentioned. When she had thrown the covers over herself to hide her activities with Sam.

“Yes.”

“That was the beginning, wasn’t it?” she said, pulling the notebook onto her lap. “That night. When you came in here and finished breaking my heart because someone else might like me when you were too scared to admit it yourself.”

“Finished?”

“The night before this was when we went to the cove and I said we should go skinny dipping. You turned me down. You’ve been breaking my heart for years, Dom. But when you walked in on me and Sam— you came around the day my dad died to tell me you loved me,” she said and glanced up at me for me to confirm, though she had already heard it.

Keep those eyes on me, Leo.

“There’s someone you need to meet,” she said and stood, her hand requesting my gun.

I handed it over.

If I was going to die, it would be by her hands, and that was okay with me.

Her eyes were so very tired.

She pocketed my gun, and the second her hand was free, I took it in mine. She looked down at our connection with no emotion. But she didn’t pull back.

I held that inch and took a mile. “Leonie, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I’ve missed you. Please.”

Her bottom lip was pulled into her mouth as she thought with a deep breath. “There’s someone you need to meet.”

And she pulled me down the stairs. I squeezed her hand so tightly, trying to show her how much I meant those words. “You weren’t there at the parole hearing.”

That had been my last resort. Flying the world playing chase hadn’t got me anywhere, so I waited at the courthouse for her to arrive, knowing she wouldn’t leave it to chance.

I was wrong. She didn’t come.

“Because I needed him to be free.”

“For?” I asked. For weeks she had been hellbent on writing that statement, on keeping him locked up forever.

“For you to know what really happened,” she said and tugged me in the direction of the kitchen. My phone vibrated in my pocket and with her leading the way, I managed to draw my eyes away from her to let the front gate open for the team Chris had sent.

Only because they would probably blow the gate up if Chris had any concerns.

There was something different in the way she moved. Graceful but predatory. She had always been strong footed, nothing would stop her, but now there was something more than determination. A hardness.

That was why I didn’t notice the plastic sheets until we were walking on them. The crinkle of our steps were loud, nearly covering the muffled groans coming from the chair in the middle of the room.

For the last few years, I had made this house appealing and habitable from the outside. Somehow, the kitchen was also that way. A vase of lilies rested on the countertop, chopping boards lay on the side, accompanied by handwash.

But it was a premeditated crime scene with the plastic covering on the floor, waiting to be painted with blood.

“Leonie,” I warned, stopping as I saw the bald man struggle against the restraints that held him to the chair. “What is this?”

“Come and meet my new friend.”

The man started to lash out at the sound of her voice, the chair jolting with his movements.

Her new… what?

As we rounded the corner, I saw him then. Daniel Firdman. The man guilty of pulling the trigger on Leo’s dad.

He was covered in blood. Snot and tears trailed down his face. As Leo stood before him, he screwed up his eyes. He sobbed against the ball gag in his mouth.

He gripped the arms of the chair so tightly with nailless hands.

I had seen many a torture session and instigated more than my fair share.

But nothing had ever been as scary as Leo’s expression. Because she was ecstatic, proud, beaming down at him before picking up a knife from the line up at his feet that I hadn’t even noticed.

Months ago, I had promised to kill him. She’d always been capable of doing so herself.

“What… what’s happened?” I asked softly, trying to get between her and him, my hands on her shoulders.

Her gaze snapped up to mine. Her voice was full of faux surprise, not of regret nor concern. “Oh, you don’t love me anymore? Because this is who I was meant to become, Dominic. This is who you would have been with if he hadn’t killed my dad that night. Whatever I am is your doing.”

But my voice hadn’t been one of disgust. More a concerned awe.

I tipped her chin to look at me, trying to find the Leonie from months ago. There was no way I expected her to sit back and let business happen around her. That would never have been Leonie’s way. “It’s… I would have helped you, Leonie.”

“How could I trust you?” she asked, looking down at the knife in her hand. I wasn’t worried she would hurt me with it until her eyes bore into mine again. They were tight, full of something I had never seen before. Actual hatred. “You did this! You! He couldn’t have done this without you!”

“I don’t know what you mean!”

Her breathing was heavy as she ripped the ball gag from his mouth. “It might not be your fault, but this would have never happened if you weren’t his pawn.”

“Whose pawn?” I asked, my voice tightening with frustration. “Leonie, fucking spit it out.”

“Tell him!” she shrieked, pulling out the gun and pointing it at Firdman, who was openly weeping. “Tell him!”

“The Belovs hired me,” he sobbed, spitting blood on the floor.

“And the rest!”

The man before me was so broken. Traumatised. Crusted sick covered his top. He stank of piss and blood. He was such a mess that he looked at her for help.

“How many people?”

“Three,” he whimpered. “Meant to kill everyone in the house but the girl.”

Everyone? Even Aunty Elena? Even with the order not to kill Leo, he would have hurt her.

There was the rustle of plastic from the open French doors as Rocco entered, eyes locked on Leo. He warned, “We have company. A team out the front. You want me to…” He glanced up at me.

“They’ll only be Dom’s. Just leave them.”

He nodded and walked out the way he came.

“Leonie, my dad wouldn’t—”

“Don’t insult me!” she shouted, gun raised, aimed at me again. I didn’t budge, didn’t so much as blink. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last seven months?”

“I don’t know,” I shouted back, “because you shut me out!”

“I followed the trail. Every person linked to one of those accounts that wired money to Firdman’s account. All the way from Bristow Buildings to La Baranda. I tortured and killed until I got exactly the proof I needed. Do you think I want it to be him? Do you think I wanted to hate you? To know that this is only going to be more complicated when—”

“I think you’ve got a lot going on,” I snapped because she couldn’t finish that sentence. “Let me do this for you. Let me just kill Firdman—”

“He’s mine!” she screamed and stepped forward, gun raised, walking me back into the wall.

Heavy boots sounded from all directions, then, “Castillo, put down the gun.”

She didn’t react, only breathed heavily as she pressed up against me, the gun barrel to my temple. Where she had kissed so many times before.

Moving my head to see around her, I told the guards, “Lower your guns. If you hurt her, you’re dead.”

They looked at each other, and the one in front argued, “But, sir—”

“You can stay and watch,” I said, looking down at her deep-sea eyes. “She loves an audience.”

That twinkle was back in her eyes and she breathed a laugh.

“You going to kill me, Leonie?” I asked and cupped her cheek. “Then do it.”