25. Mina

TWENTY-FIVE

mina

About thirty minutes ago.

When I open my eyes, Brian is already gone. He’s been already gone a lot lately. Something has been off since the ill-conceived plot to blow up the Stryker building during the Fourth of July parade. I’ve asked him where he goes a few times, and why we’re not going together, but he brushes me off.

I don’t want to be that girl , you know, the one who needs to know exactly what her boyfriend is doing at all times, but… if he’s letting me in on his world and his side jobs, shouldn’t I know about anything that pertains to that? I laugh out loud in the empty dungeon room, thinking about Brian as my boyfriend . He is so not my boyfriend.

Though he did get me those almost-black roses for our murder date. They lived a whole 3 weeks. I kept them upstairs in the gym, so they could get some light.

Things have been pretty quiet at the house lately. Most of the girls have been steering clear of Brian’s wrath, there have been no good contracts the past couple of months, and no misbehaviors among the pleasure house’s clientele.

So Brian has become increasingly antsy. I can feel it in him, this need to kill something. And I’d be lying if I said the beast curled up inside of me isn’t making the same grumbling noises. I don’t know if Brian’s darkness feels like an itch under his skin, but it feels like one in mine.

The first time it happened, I tried moisturizing. Nope. It wasn’t until Easter when I killed Matsumoto’s son and a guard, that I realized this dark thing inside me was no longer content to just be okay with Brian killing. It wanted some of the action, too.

I feel like a cartoon character as I dramatically stretch and yawn. The side table says it’s eleven o’clock. Great.

I hate it when Brian doesn’t set the alarm. He’s got this internal alarm that wakes him up like clockwork, and I have no idea how he does it without sunlight cues. Normally he wakes me, but when he’s gone like this, I’m left to wake myself, which means I end up missing out on the house’s breakfast buffet.

I sigh and swing my legs over the side of the bed, and that’s when I look up.

What in the fuck?

Also, how did I sleep through this? Was Brian just in here in the middle of the night with a black light, setting all this up? I probably should see a sleep specialist to find out if this is normal.

I don’t know how, but somehow, there is… I don’t know what they’re called. It’s like… when you watch a show about a serial killer, and the police have this wall up and there are newspaper clippings, and photos, and thumbtacks holding stray sticky notes to the wall, and then red strings that connect things, and giant question marks trying to see if this thing links to that thing?

So yeah, that’s what I’m looking at right now. There is a photo of an older gentleman in a suit in the middle of the board. He has thin wire-rimmed glasses and a very distinguished look about him. Above his photo is the name: Drake Windsor. There are a few index cards, thumb tacked to… wait, this is a stone wall, how does he have things thumbtacked?

I press my fingertips against it. Okay, so he’s put in a whole cork board underneath this, and again, my question is how? Why? What is happening right now? So he’s got these index cards with some facts about Drake Windsor who I assume is a new contract.

He’s a widower, apparently. His children are grown and live out of state. Brian has noted here that “they won’t be a problem”. Well, that’s reassuring.

There’s a second photo on the board of a clearly Italian man that says Dante Valentino. And below that, another index card makes it clear that he’s the guy who put out the hit on the guy that looks like a rich librarian.

There’s a picture of a Jack-O-Lantern tacked in the bottom right corner, with a pink sticky note asking, “Halloween Masquerade Ball, get invite?” and another blue note that reads, “Six weeks enough time?” There’s a red string that connects this note back to Dante’s photo and another blue note that reads, “Wants job done soon. Will he wait this long?”

Before I can read more, I hear the door behind me open, and I know it’s Brian, not just because nobody else is suicidal enough to enter our room uninvited—not that we’re entertaining guests down here—but because I can feel his cold, empty energy, which somehow feels like a blanket of silence that wraps around me and makes me feel calm inside like the first snow of winter.

“What is this?” I ask, not turning around.

“That’s my murder wall. It’s just something I’m trying.”

I just stand here with this thought for a moment and let it gel. There’s this part of me that thinks it’s completely cute that Brian made a murder wall and actually calls it his murder wall. I like it. It means I’m going to know what he knows when he knows it about jobs, and I won’t have to follow him around like an annoying sidekick trying to get him to talk about things.

“How did it get here?”

“Elves,” he deadpans. “What do you mean how did it get here? I set it up last night when I couldn’t sleep.”

I try to imagine Brian making a two a.m. run to the office supply store and then… doing all of this. But I just can’t picture it—especially the Jack-o-Lantern. Did he clip it out of a magazine? Does he have a stash of Better Homes and Gardens hidden under our bed? Terrifying, if true.

“It’s missing something,” I say, still assessing the wall. “We should add some Washi tape.”

“What the fuck is Washi tape?”

I turn then because I’ve finally noticed the edge in his voice. He looks a bit pale. “Brian? Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

He is absolutely not fine, but I don’t push him. I wonder if it’s connected to where he’s going when he slips off. I don’t worry that he’s cheating on me. Unless cheating means killing people without me—that’s just not Brian. He’s far more interested in killing people than he is fucking them. It’s not like he’s never fucked a woman down here in the dungeon, but it’s just not like that. It’s not romantic and hearts and kisses. It isn’t even passion. I probably should be bothered, but I’m not. As he’s said on many occasions, fucking from him is not a compliment. Even now, he doesn’t trust himself to have real full-on sex with me unless he’s tied up for the event, which I’m happy to accommodate.

I don’t know what he imagines would happen or how it could go south, but he’s adamant about this.

The only mistress I have to worry about is Death—as in the general principle. Probably not my own—at least not at Brian’s hands.

He closes his eyes when I press a hand against the side of his face and lean in to press a soft kiss to his lips.

He returns the kiss then pulls away and sighs. “I killed someone this morning,” he confesses.

“Without me?”

“It wasn’t like that. It was just something I had to do and it… it brought up some things.”

Childhood things. He doesn’t have to say it. The specter of his stepmother hangs over him even after all these years. Even killing her and burying the pieces in multiple states couldn’t stop her relentless pursuit of him in flashbacks and nightmares.

He says it’s not as bad since he’s had me, but sometimes it’s pretty bad.

“Soooo,” I say, pulling his attention back to the here and now. “New contract?”

He nods. “New contract.”

“I better get to go.”

He smirks. “Or what?” The haunted look in his eyes has faded away, replaced with the wicked gleam reserved only for me.

“I do get to go, right?”

He chuckles. “Yes, you get to go.”

“On Halloween?”

“If I can swing it, that’s when I thought we could take him out. Windsor is a paranoid man and always heavily guarded, but at a party where he’s relaxed with everyone around him singing his praises, we should be able to find our moment.”

“But… Halloween. It’s so far away.”

He arches a brow. “Relax, Killer. I’ve got another side job we can go on together.” He pulls a folded up piece of paper from his pocket and waves it in the air, teasing me.

“Another contract?”

“Nope. Anton stopped me upstairs, and apparently one of our buyers doesn’t understand the consequences of breaking house rules.”

“Oh, let me kill him. You already got to kill someone today.” And besides, the men who break house rules are abusing the women they bought, so I definitely want to be the one to spill blood.

Brian just smirks.