Scorch (Virtues & Lies Book 2) Read online

  “What are you doing?” Laughing as I hoist her up into my arms, she rests her head on my shoulder, her arms wrapping around my neck.

  “The right thing. Every bride gets carried over the threshold.”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, Christopher, this isn’t our home.”

  “It is for tonight.”

  “You don’t have to charm me anymore. We’re a done deal now—we’re stuck together.”

  “You think I’m charming you?” Looking down at her face, I laugh. “I’m conserving your energy for when we get into the room.”

  Heavy-lidded eyes flash to mine. They’re dark and alluring like bottomless pits. Every time I look in them, I fall a little harder and further.

  When we get to the Royal Suite, security waits for me to open the door so they can do their checks, and although I know I should, I can’t let them in there. I want just this one thing for us today.

  I don’t care if they stand out here and listen to us fucking all night, but that room is our bubble for the next twenty-four hours, and I’ll be damned if I let them burst it.

  Chapter 1

  Christopher

  Five months later…

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  I take a sharp breath to stop myself from yelling, and when there’s no answer, I thump some more.

  I’ve been standing out here for ages, Leo isn’t answering his phone, but I can hear Toby’s loud sniffs at the door. He’s not barking, which means he and my sister are home.

  “Open the fucking door, Fairfax!” Shouting, I ram my fist onto the hard wood.

  I just about manage to stop myself as the door opens. Cassie stands there with her hands on her hips, a scowl twisting her face.

  “What the fuck, Christopher?” she growls. Toby pops his large head around her body and looks at me in warning.

  “Where is he?” Walking into their apartment, I take a good look around. It’s different to the last time I was here. There’s more shit…everywhere.

  Fucking hell!

  Leo is minimalist. He likes everything in its place, which means he must be going insane with Cassie’s organised clutter.

  “He’s out.” She follows me into the large living space, perching on the back of the love seat as she looks me over, assessing. “I don’t know details. I didn’t ask.”

  She’s lying. I can tell by the way she swallows down on nothing and fidgets with her long fringe.

  “Where the fuck is he, Princess?”

  “Work? I don’t fucking know, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. You look like shit. Crazy.”

  “My daughter is dead. My wife is gone.” Heart pounding in my chest, I stalk to her.

  Toby growls beside her, ready to attack.

  “Down, boy.” Patting his head, she sits straighter, taller… “Be careful, Christopher, he doesn’t always listen.”

  “Tell me where he is.”

  Eyes flitting to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, like she’s taking in the scenery, she responds, “With Freddie.”

  “Where?”

  Shrugging, she looks at me with pity gleaming in her big eyes.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “You need to get yourself together. For Bella…and you. You’re going to end up hurting yourself, and it will destroy her. She’s already lost so much…”

  I hate that word. Loss. It’s a cop-out for what happened.

  My chest heaves with my uncontrolled breaths.

  What does she know of losing everything?

  “We. We’ve lost so much.” I take one last step towards her. “Call him.”

  Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I call Casper as I follow her to the bedroom door. Watching as she dials, I wait for him to pick up his phone.

  Why is every motherfucker out of reach?

  “Leo’s not picking up,” she tells me, pushing past me towards the lounge. “I’m starting my internship tomorrow. It’s two in the morning, and I have an eight-o’clock start…”

  “I don’t give a shit about your fucking internship. I want to know where the fuck Leo and Freddie are!”

  Spinning fast on her heels, she grabs my jaw roughly. It takes me aback. Anger blazes in her eyes.

  “Don’t be a dick,” Cassie spits in my face with more fury than I’ve ever seen from her. Her nails pinch as her hand clenches tight. “They’re trying to help you. Hold your shit together. Don’t be so fucking ungrateful!”

  Ungrateful?

  My hand closes around her wrist as I push her against the wall. My anger is rife, and right now I don’t care if she’s my sister. I don’t care whether I’m going against my own morals. Yanking her hand down, I twist it to her side, my other hand closing around her throat.

  “You think they’re holding my shit? Trying to help me?” A bitter laugh rips up my throat. I sound crazy even to myself. “They’re keeping your shit together. Helping you. Keeping you safe. You think Leo’s doing anything for me?”

  Her free hand grabs at my wrist, scratching with the deep drags of her breath.

  “You silly little girl. He’s doing it for you. Not me. You.”

  Nails clawing into my flesh, she scratches at my neck, a scream rasping out of her constricted throat.

  Before I can even let her go, I’m thrown to the ground, pinned to the stone floor by a barking Toby. His teeth bared and eyes wild, he drops dead weight on me while Cassie holds on to his collar.

  Sputtering, she rubs her throat, and I cringe at the red prints left by my fingers.

  Fuck.

  I’m losing all my control.

  Fuck.

  I’m losing my fucking head.

  Fuck!

  “You ever touch me like that again,” she grits raggedly, between fast breaths, “I’ll let him kill you.”

  Walking away, she calls Toby, and the beast of a dog follows at her command. I have to take a moment to get my head together. I’ve never touched my sister in any other way than with care. I’ve always looked after her. Always protected her…

  Today I hurt her.

  My guilt intensifies and twists with my grief and bitterness. It burns my insides like gasoline.

  What’s happening to me?

  Picking myself up, my chest tight, I go find Cassie. Standing at the kitchen sink, she fills the kettle up with fresh water.

  “Cassie…I’m…”

  “Don’t bother, Christopher.” Turning, she sticks the kettle on. She remains quiet for a second before she adds, “You should go.”

  “Cass…”

  “Please, just go.” As she turns, her eyes meet mine, and just as quickly they fall to the floor. “I’ll tell Leo you dropped by.”

  “Why won’t you tell me where they are? I can tell you’re hiding something!”

  “Welcome to the fucking club, Christopher!” Her voice breaks with her strangled yell. Hand rubbing at her throat again, she turns away.

  “Don’t punish me now.”

  “Punish you?” Her chuckle is dry. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve hurt her that bad or because she thinks I’m pathetic. “I’m trying to protect you, like you protected me.”

  “There’s a difference between us you don’t understand.” Hate heats my chest, inflating it with all the dark wants and wishes and needs coursing through me. “I want to kill. I won’t stop until I find the people who took my daughter from me…who hurt my wife.”

  Arabella.

  Her name echoes through my thoughts, and although I can’t bring myself to say it, thinking it hurts just as bad. “I’m going to destroy them. I want their blood on my hands. It’s where it belongs.”

  Pulling on the hem of Leo’s T-shirt, she fidgets on the spot. When she looks up at me, my heart freezes with the cold look she gives me.

  “You think I don’t want you to have your revenge. You think I don’t want justice for you? For Bella and…” Shaking her head, she swallows down the rest of her words. “I want all those things too. For you and me…everyone.�
�

  “Tell me what you know, then.”

  “I don’t know anything. Not really.” She fills her mug with hot water, tugging at the teabag before she looks at me again. “Leo and Freddie, they’ve been looking into something—” She stops abruptly at the sound of the front door bursting open. Pulling one of the kitchen drawers open, she grabs a large knife and holds it up in front of her.

  “Cass!” Leo’s voice echoes from the dark hallway through to the living area just as he appears in the opening. “Why didn’t you pick up your phone?”

  He strides purposefully to her, taking the knife from her hands and putting it down on the counter. “I thought something was wrong.”

  Cupping her face, he takes a good look at her. I see his posture going from relieved to tense, and I know the minute he sees my handprint on her neck.

  “Hey, Neat Freak.” Her voice comes out a little too high-pitched and raspy.

  “What happened to your neck?” It’s not really a question. It’s a warning that he’s about to lose his shit. Looking over his shoulder, his eyes flit to my hands, still balled at my sides.

  He comes at me so quick I don’t have time to do anything. I don’t stop him. I don’t fight him.

  Fisting the collar of my T-shirt, he pushes me to the nearest wall. The last time we got into a physical fight was because I was trying to protect Cassie from him, or all the shit that being with him would thrust her into.

  How things have changed.

  “You don’t put your hands on what’s mine!” He’s right up in my face, fists pressing so hard onto my collarbone that it feels like it might snap.

  It’s the first time in so long that what I feel on the outside correlates with everything inside.

  His teeth clench so hard that he’s spitting his breaths as his forehead butts mine, grinding my head to the wall. The green of his eyes glows with hatred.

  “You want to hurt someone? Huh?” Letting go of my collar, his hands close around my neck. “Go on, big man, hurt me.”

  “Leo…” Cassie tries to pry him from me, but his rage has him tightening his grasp. My jugular pounds as my head feels like it’s about to pop. “Leo, please. I’m fine. It was a misunderstanding. Please…stop.”

  “No man puts his hands on a woman by mistake.” Horror and disgust has bile burning up my sternum. “No man, no matter who the fuck he is, puts his hands on you.” Looking at Cassie, he shakes me. “You understand? Nobody touches you and is left unscathed.”

  “I get it!” Her voice dims as my eyes begin to bulge, my vision blurring. “You’re going to kill him! Stop! Leo! Pleee…”

  I don’t know when I come to, but it’s quiet. For a moment the dark startles me, and I think I might be dead at first. But then the headache pounds, and pain pulses in the centre of my face.

  “Welcome back, fuckhead.”

  My head spins as I try to get up. Then I remember why I feel like this. What happened.

  “Motherfucker.”

  “You lay a finger on her again and I’ll end you.” Getting up, he stops beside me. “You owe me a new sofa.”

  “You broke my fucking nose.” Or at least it feels like he has.

  “You did it first. Call it payback and be grateful it wasn’t your neck.”

  “I lashed out. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” Finally managing to sit up, I have to hold my aching head.

  “I don’t care,” he barks at me. “How many times do you think my father said that to my mum? You think because Cassie’s your sister it’s not the same? It’s not as bad?”

  Breath sticking in my throat at his words, I shudder. Shame and guilt overwhelms my frayed nerves and emotions.

  “I know you’re in pain, Christopher. Believe me, no one has more regrets than I do about everything that’s happened. I want to find the cunts, but I can’t do that if I have to protect Cassie from you too. If I can’t trust you, then I won’t help you.”

  “What about-what about…fuck!” I can’t say her name. It physically hurts.

  Leo walks away, and hate threatens to swallow me whole. I hate myself for all the things I’ve done and failed to do. All the things that got us where we are.

  “Here.” He holds a tumbler towards me, and the sweet smell warms me.

  Taking it from him, I knock back the ice-cold vodka in one go like it’s an extra-long shot. “Thanks.”

  “You came into my house, and you touched my girl. A part of me wants to give you the same treatment as the arseholes who hurt her are going to get,” he says, shooting what’s left of his drink. “That was all the warnings and chances you get. Any more of that shit from you and I won’t stop until you’re horizontal for good.”

  We sit in silence for what feels like forever. My mouth dries with every second that ticks by, my pride shrivelling…

  “I need to find her.”

  “Who?” My eyes flash to his. He knows that there is only one her I need.

  Bastard.

  He knows what he’s doing, looking down on me.

  “If you can’t even say her name, how do you expect to bring her back?” Sitting beside me, he unscrews the bottle in his hand and pours us both another double. “Tell you what, we’re going to sit here until we’ve finished this and you’re blinding drunk. Then you’ll owe me a new sofa, another outstanding bottle of the good stuff, and an apology.”

  “An apology?”

  “Yeah, to Cassandra. You owe it to me, because I’m not following through on my threats, and you need to give it to her because you hurt her. Physically.”

  “I know.” Taking a long sip of my drink, I let that rock sink right to the bottom of my stomach.

  “Good,” he says, throwing back his drink. “Another.”

  “Don’t you have work?”

  “I’ve got it covered.”

  “I haven’t been a great partner.”

  Laughing as he refills our glasses with a triple, he shakes his head. “Silent partner. Besides, you’re the legal brains. I’m the one who has to do all the hard graft, and I’m telling you–I have it covered. You’ve got better things to worry about.”

  “Like getting pissed with my sister’s boyfriend?”

  “Like getting abso-fucking-lutely wankered with your mate.” Clinking his glass to mine, he sits back into the seat, wedging the bottle of vodka between us.

  I follow suit, and in the quiet of dawn we keep working our way through the bottle. My mind hazes with every measure, and although I hope to hell that the fog brings some kind of calm with it, it doesn’t. It makes her voice louder. Her screams. Cries.

  And all the blood. So much fucking blood. Tears.

  “Arabella…Belles…”

  “Christopher…”

  “It’s going to be okay, baby.”

  So many tears. So much blood.

  Nothing is okay.

  “I don’t know where she is.” My worry strangles my voice, breaking it into all the pieces to match my shattered heart. “I don’t know if she’s safe. If she’s hurting. If she’s healing. I don’t know anything, and it’s killing me. I need to know she’s okay.”

  “She’ll come back. She always comes back.”

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  Sitting up straight, he looks me in the eyes. “We bring her back.”

  My soured laugh is hard. They may be friends, but Leo has no idea how stubborn my wife can be. He has no idea the fight she has inside her.

  He didn’t see her. He didn’t hear her.

  “Don’t let me die.”

  “You’re not dying. You’re going to be okay.”

  Sputtering a throaty laugh, her hands desperately push her ripped flesh back together. “Pick her. Always.”

  “Belles…”

  “Promise.”

  “Morena.”

  I know what she’s asking, and I can’t promise that I won’t do whatever it takes to keep her with me. I can’t choose between her and our little girl.

  “Please. Her first.”


  “Arabella.”

  “Cariño…”

  I hate her for making me choose. For making me fail at my vows all over again. I swore I’d protect her. Eternally. I’d keep her by my side for always.

  “Okay.”

  “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” Leo tips what’s left in the bottle into my glass. “She’s one of us—she doesn’t get to run away. Besides, she’s got promises to keep. Vows to uphold. So, stop being a motherfucking pussy. Drink up, get some sleep, and then we find her.”

  Walking away, he looks back at me one more time, “We’ve all lost something…someone. It’s up to us to make it count. I have a great place to start.”

  Chapter 2

  Christopher

  Leo sips his coffee as he goes through the financial reports in the papers. He hasn’t said shit today. It’s past midday, and I know he’s been up for a lot longer than I have.

  I doubt he got much sleep. He and Cassie were pottering about before she left with Wayne. I was too much of a fucking coward to face her, even with alcohol still lining my system.

  Toby’s whines after she left wouldn’t let me back to sleep. He’s all about Cassie, and I have no idea how Leo puts up with his noise.

  Checking his watch, he takes a sip of his coffee. “Freddie and Casper will be here in a bit.”

  “What’s going on?” The smell of the strong coffee makes my stomach turn. My cotton mouth is so dry, my words sound slurred. “What were you doing last night?”

  Grinning, he folds the newspaper he’s currently reading into a quarter and then throws it onto the middle of the table. One of his cufflinks pops off with the force of his movement. “You mean when you were strangling my girlfriend?”

  Fuck.

  His stare narrows with his belligerent pout as he rolls his shirtsleeves up his arms. Checking the time once more, Leo huffs as he states, “I had to see a man about a dog.”

  “What dog?”

  “We have unfinished business, Christopher. We have a kitty cat to drown.” His eyes light up when they meet mine. For a pretty boy, his gaze holds a sinister gleam.