Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

LEO

The next morning, Ty has me in the kitchen, making snickerdoodle and marshmallow cookies. On the way back to the cabin, we'd stopped by the grocery story to get ingredients for everything he wants to bake. Even though we're in the middle of planning a murder, Ty still wants to make everything he wants to bake for Ray's. He had me load up the cart with everything he needed and asked me to be his assistant so prep and baking ran smoothly.

I'm not sure if I'm helping, since I don't know how to bake. Cooking is one thing, but getting ingredients right and putting them together at the perfect time isn't as easy as I thought.

Ty doesn't seem to mind. He grins at me while I struggle, helping me when I fuck up. He grabs my wrist quickly when I try to dump salt into the new spoon. "That's too much. One tea spoon. Not a table spoon. You'll have everyone gagging when they bite into these cookies." He takes the tablespoon from my hand and gives me a teaspoon to use.

"Why do you need salt for cookies?" I ask as I sprinkle some into the bowl. Sounds counterproductive to me.

His tone is patient as he explains, "There are many reasons salt needs to be added to cookies. The biggest factor is they make them last longer. The salt helps hold moisture so they can stay fresher for a prolonged period."

"What other reasons?" I ask while trying to add the right amount of salt to the bowl.

"It brings out the flavor of the other ingredients. They all have their own tastes—the salt adds to it and combines them, if that makes sense. Makes the flavors more acute. Like the chocolate and the marshmallows will mingle, but you'll taste them separately. That's because of the salt being added to its natural taste."

As he's speaking, I watch Ty and how his eyes brighten as he talks about baking. He loves it. I've always wondered what that kind of unabashed happiness for a healthy hobby felt like.

I continue making the cookies, trying to mix the dough into a cohesive whole. According to June's contract, Ty has to bake fifty of everything to start, then add to his order every few days for the next couple of weeks to see how things go. Ty is worried about if anyone will buy his baked goods, even though I've told him how much I enjoy them. I'm sure he doesn't fully believe me, but I told him that while I can lie effortlessly, I wouldn't to him. I know enough about relationships to know lying is the easiest way to fuck things up.

"So," Ty begins, arranging some of the ingredients for his cupcakes in a way I don't understand, but I'm sure he knows what he wants, "what is the plan for Michael? Can I ask that?"

"Fire." I answer simply.

"Fire?" he parrots.

"Yep. Do you want details, or do you want to be surprised?"

A slow smile spreads across Ty's face. "Surprise me. Like I said, burns hurt." He stretches out his arms and shows me a few scars. "Hot pans coming out of ovens, hot pans on the stovetop, hot cupcakes falling on you." He chuckles. "Shit hurts. So fire sounds good."

"You said you want to kill him?" I ask. Ty nods, jerkily, his hands shaking as he opens a bag of flour. "How do you want to do it?"

"I told you I want to stab him in the heart."

I take his shaking hands in mine. "Have you ever stabbed anything before?" He shakes his head. "Okay. I'll give you a quick lesson." I look around and grab a butcher's knife from the block on the counter. "Take this. Get a solid grip on it. Good. Now—" I move behind him, wrapping my hand over his "—for the heart, you'll want to stab down and put all your body weight behind it." I raise and lower his hand in a fluid motion, careful to avoid our bodies.

"Okay," Ty whispers.

"The breastbone and the ribs," I say as I tap his chest with the flat of my free hand, "is hard to break through. You'll need extra power behind the strike. If you want to stab him somewhere that will give you the same result for a lot less effort, I'd suggest stabbing in the neck. Right at the jugular vein. You'll open it up and his frantic heartbeat will do the rest." I let his hand go and move back to my bowl.

Ty gives the knife a few more swings, smiling as he slices it through the air.

"You already have good form," I mention as I swipe over my belly. The bandage is gone, but there will be a scar left.

His grin is still bright on his face when he looks at me. He places the knife back in the butcher's block and moves back to his makeshift workstation. "It'll be my first. Firsts are big deals."

I shrug again, doling out more ingredients so I can start another batch of cookie dough. "Sometimes."

We work in relative silence for a few minutes, other than Ty telling me what I need to add to the cookie recipe.

While he's adding food coloring to the vanilla he's mixed in his bowl for the homemade red velvet cupcakes, Ty looks up at me cautiously. "What was your first kill like? How old were you?"

I glance over at him quickly. No one has ever asked me that. I volunteered the information to June and Blu when Blu asked where I'd been for so many years. Ivan never inquired—all he knew was my father wanted me out of his house and the reason was because the reform school didn't work. He knew I was just like him and didn't need to know any specifics. I told the story before, but no one ever asked.

For some reason, it makes my heart thud. I'm not sure if it's from excitement to share this story with Ty or giddiness that he even asked, but I'll take either one. "Do you want to hear about my first body or the entire story?"

Ty searches my face, his soft with what I can only describe as sympathy. "All of it," he whispers.

Turning back to my bowl, I pour my dry ingredients into a bowl and make sure everything is mixed properly before I begin my tale.

"When I was eight, I was sent to a reform school that was supposed to temper my behavior and get rid of the urges to set fire to shit and murder any animal I came across. Those are usually the first signs of a psychopath." I look up at Ty to gauge his reaction, but he only meets my eyes briefly with a nod before he goes back to scooping the cupcake mixture into their tins. "By that time, I'd killed a few strays I found—setting most on fire to see how they burned—and my father's business partner's prized poodles. They were both white and fluffy. I wanted to see what the red of their blood looked like against their fur. They caught me in the act of that one." I think back to that moment, a bloodied knife in my hand and the body of one the dogs in front of me while I held the other close, watching its blood flow from the wound I just gave it. There was no way I could have denied it, even if I wanted to.

"After paying an outrageous amount to compensate his business partner for his loss, an apology, and probably some serious ass-kissing, my dad promised his partner that's he'd fix it. He got the bright idea that this reform school would make me act normal. So in the middle of the night, these men abducted me. They tossed me in the back of a van, my hands and feet zip-tied, and drove me states away."

Ty gasps, looking up at me from the bowl he's still scooping cupcake mix out of. "In the middle of the night? You didn't know they were coming?"

I shake my head. "Not really. That's their whole thing. They grab kids in the middle of the night so they can't try to run away."

"That's awful."

"Didn't bother me," I tell him with a shrug. "My parents were whispering about it before they came for me. I didn't fully understand it, but I heard my dad repeating the directions back to the director of what was expected when they came. So I was more prepared than most. Honestly, I wanted to see what they would do. I was more curious than scared."

"Curiosity killed the cat, Leo," he mutters with a twinkle in his eyes. I shoot him a wink, making him blush.

"Anyway," I pick the thread of the story back up, "when I got to the school, I was told what was expected of me. It was a glorified military school. Wake up at six, physical training at six thirty. Breakfast, school, chores, blah, blah, blah. I didn't give a fuck. I wanted to do my own thing. But I needed to bide my time until I could get out. I had to pretend. Blu used to give me lessons on how to act like a normal person with feelings, so I tried that."

"Blu is the psychiatrist who's dating your business partner, right?"

"Yep. I hope you can meet him one day. He'd be fascinated by you."

Ty looks up at me with wide eyes. "Why? Did I do something?"

"You're with me. He'll want to know why so he can further study our …" I wave my spoon around trying to find the right words, dough dropping onto the counter. "…mental state. People like us aren't supposed to feel deeply. It's surprising to him as a medical professional, so I'm sure he's going to want to ask you questions."

"Fun," Ty deadpans.

I chuckle, then get back to telling him about what led up to my first kill. "Pretending worked for a while, but I was never good at controlling my emotions at that age. Small shit would set me off—I got into a fight once because a kid was chewing too loud." Ty gives me a wide-eyed look that makes me laugh as I'm scooping dough onto the pan. "I was ten. I blame it on my age."

"I bet," he mutters.

"After that, I stopped pretending. I was the way I was. Most of the other kids there had ASPD so it was whatever. The director, Mr. Eldridge, hated me." I see Ty's eyes flash with recognition at the name. "It was like he looked at me, saw my dimples, curly blond hair, and blue-green eyes, and loathed on sight. He would single me out, making an example of me. If I was in a group that got caught doing something, he would beat me and make them watch, saying that the pain of them observing was punishment enough. That was bullshit, but he didn't care. I was tough, so I could handle it, but it got old fast.

"One day, me and a few of the other boys were caught stealing food. They barely fed us, and we were starving. We'd get two meager meals a day and were worked to the bone from sunup till sundown. I was the smallest, so I was able to get into this vent in the pantry door. When he caught us, Mr. Eldridge sent the others back to our dorm. When he had me alone, he told me he would look the other way, even give me more food if I did what he wanted. I knew exactly what he meant, and I wasn't down with it. I said no and tried to hit him in the balls. Like I said, I was small, so he was able to block my attempt effortlessly. After that, he got angry. No one had ever told him no or fought back. He beat me so badly I couldn't walk. The only reason he didn't try to force himself on me when I was in no shape to move was because one of the security guards heard the racket and came to investigate. He stopped Mr. Eldridge and took me to the infirmary. The security guard was new, so he didn't know he was supposed to look the other way for shit like that. The nurse thought Mr. Eldridge broke my back because I couldn't feel anything from the waist down for days."

"Jesus," Ty whispers, his face drawn as he slides both pans into the oven.

I turn to him and lean against the counter, crossing my arms. "I was in the hospital wing for three weeks until I could limp back on my own to my dorm. The nurses thought it might have been a pinched nerve. They were days away from taking me to the hospital to be seen. They knew the whole operation would have blown up in their faces, so they were reluctant. I was eleven. I had been there for close to two years, and that was the worst it got. It was also the first time I felt a strong feeling of hate, so strong I was willing to risk my life so Mr. Eldridge would pay for what he did to me. I didn't give a fuck about those other boys. It was because of how he treated me. I vowed right then and there that no one would get away for fucking me over."

"As you should," Ty says, arms wrapped around himself as if he's protecting himself from my shitty story. "Is that when you killed him?" he asks, eyes brimming with anger. It's a shock that he feels that way about something that happened in the past. People with authentic emotions are puzzling.

I shake my head. "No. I waited. I figured he would be expecting me to make a move. I still did the same shit I did so he didn't think I changed my behavior, but I didn't give him the sense that I wanted revenge. I wanted him to assume I was trying to put it behind me. I stayed out of his way, trying not to draw his ire. When I didn't immediately retaliate and made him feel as if I was afraid of him, he dropped his guard." I smile as I think about what I did next. "Everyone knew Mr. Eldridge was an alcoholic. He drank everyday while he was working and always left a bottle of whiskey in his bottom drawer. A few of the older boys told me they'd sneak sips, careful not to drink too much or he'd notice. So one night after he went home I snuck into his office and put finely crushed rat pellets in his bottle."

"Shit. That had to be painful."

"Oh, it was. I made sure of it. There was enough in there to have killed a man many times over. My only regret is they found him dead at home and I couldn't stand over his body and tell him it was me."

"How very Olenna Tyrell of you," Ty mutters, walking over to me slowly. He wraps his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my chest so he can look at me. "Did you feel bad? Regret it?"

"Fuck no," I say, wrapping my arms around him. "I can't feel regret, but if I could, I'd regret that the least."

"What happened next?"

I kiss his forehead twice, then tip his head up and kiss his lips. Ty sighs and leans into me. "After the director was killed, there was an investigation at the school, and it got shut down. A lot of people were charged, but no parents, as far as I know. Most of them claimed they had no idea what was going on there. They thought it was a military school that taught structure, excuses like that. My father had his suspicions it was me. The nurse called him about my injury and how I got it, but dear old dad told her unless I'm dead, don't contact him anymore. He didn't know for sure until I killed the new family cat with crushed rat pellets. Since I didn't see what happened with Mr. Eldridge, I wanted to see what it did to a body. When he came into my room and found the cat, he beat me with a belt until he broke it across my back and shipped me off to Russia. He thought Ivan would end up killing me because of my attitude. But my grandfather didn't mind. He saw someone he could train and pass on his legacy since he's just like me and Blu. I was made into who I am because my grandfather knew he couldn't stop me from killing but wanted me to do what I do and get paid for it."

"That's … smart," Ty mutters, probably because he doesn't one hundred perfect agree with me slaughtering people. Not the innocent ones. "Where is he? Your grandfather?"

"Still in Russia. He's semi-retired, only taking a few contracts a year. He's over seventy. He hands some off to me, but for the most part, he passes on contracts. It's not like he needs the money."

The oven dings, and Ty gives me a quick kiss before he pulls the pans out. "I'm sorry that happened to you when you were a kid. Your parents shouldn't have sent you away. They could have put you in therapy or something."

"My father hated me, so I don't think he cared that I wasn't there. My mom did whatever he wanted, so she probably didn't care either."

"That's awful. I might have been closer to my mom than my dad, but my dad and I still had a great relationship. He never would have treated me like that."

After he puts the hot pans down, I pull him to me, kissing the back of his neck over and over until he starts giggling.

"Leo, stop, you weirdo."

I smile against his skin, breathing him in and holding in his scent. "It's okay," I tell him, returning to his previous comment. "I think I would have been in prison or dead if it weren't for Ivan. He gave me what I needed so I could remain free. I kill, but I'm smart about it. He passed on the tools necessary for me to survive. If my father hadn't treated me the way he did, I wouldn't have had that opportunity."

"That's the perfect way to look at it," Ty says, turning his head to kiss my lips softly. "Now, let's get these cupcakes and cookies and Danishes wrapped up. We have to take them to June before the end of the working day."

One more kiss to his sweet-smelling skin and I let him go so we can get wrapping. We pack the cupcakes in their own personal boxes, not wanting the icing to get ruined by the plastic wrap. I find myself smiling as we pack everything up, especially when looking at the care Ty takes to make sure everything is arranged to his liking.

He's making sure everything is as perfect as he is.