The Salvation of Daniel (The Blue Butterfly Book 2) (15 page)

The fact that my robe still hung from the back of her door hurt my heart further but I shook it off as I pulled it around me, wincing at the pull on my stitches, and tied the belt.

The house was too quiet, making me aware Daniel was not there. I flicked on the kettle while my laptop fired up then logged into the program I needed. My mouth dried when Daniel’s location flashed up.

He had me so confused. His lifestyle, his
profession,
was very selfish. However, his emotions regarding Mae were conflictive to who he was. I had studied him for eighteen months, watching his moves, his relationship with Annie, his contact with women and although he never brought them home when Annie was there, he still had a tendency to go for the women with kinks. Daniel Shepherd liked to fuck with pain. Mae had been very much a gentle person so I knew she would never have had that kind of relationship. So what had been their connection because their association, especially for Daniel, had not been anything romantic?

I pulled the pre-pay phone out of my bag and connected it to a lead then into the laptop, sending its signal via several satellites to disguise our location before I dialled.

“PIC financial services,” a woman’s voice answered.

“Four-three-two-nine. I require a call back from management.” Terminating the call I stared at the screen, my anger already rising before I even heard his voice. It rang almost immediately and I gave it a few rings just to piss him off before I connected.

“Hello, my love.”

“How does divorce sound?”

His deep laugh both made me smile and heightened my fury. “Well, it sounds rather drastic.”

“Drastic?” I stood up, turning to focus on the garden as I tried to simmer the rage in me. “How dare you. You do know Darren tried to kill me?”

He was silent for a moment. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. Would that have pleased you? Is that what you want?”

“Now, love. You know you’re talking with your emotions. If you take a moment to calm down…”

“Fuck you, Isaac. How the hell do you expect me to be calm when I find out my own husband has stabbed me in the back?”

He drew in a deep breath, a slight hiss vibrating through the phone. “I suggest you calm down. I have not misled you. You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

“He tried – to – kill – me, Isaac.”

“Yes. And maybe that’s because you killed Blade. You know if that was any other Phantom, their lives would already be over. I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour, and you of all people know that. You…
YOU,
Connie, turned on your own for someone who deserves nothing but the swiftness of your blade. You are letting your heart rule over what needs to be done. If you’re having trouble finding the courage to do what is needed then return and I will send another to finish what you were supposed to have nothing to do with in the first place.”

I rubbed my eyes, exhaustion suddenly overtaking me. “Isaac…”

“My love…. One moment,” he spoke to someone, the sound of a soft feminine voice loud enough for me to hear through the phone.

“I’m sorry, you have company.”

“No woman comes before my wife, she’ll wait.” I rolled my eyes, already knowing the woman would currently have her lips wrapped around Isaac’s dick, making his declaration null and void when he wouldn’t have to wait at all. “Listen Connie, I specifically told you not to involve yourself in this particular contract, which is the reason I sent Darren into the Shepherd house. Yet you chose to deceive me by ignoring my order. You went rogue, my love. You put them before your family.”

“Annie
is
my family, Isaac. She’s the only blood I have left. I can’t… and
won’t
carry out that particular side of the contract.”

He sighed. “Yes, we spoke of this. All arrangements are made for her to be cared for after. As for the other part… I need to know your stance on that.”

Closing my eyes, I pushed down the surge of emotion and swallowed before answering. “I will respect the order.”

“Very well. For now I will leave it in your hands.”

“I miss you,” I whispered. Isaac was the only one who could ever talk sense into me, made things clear and uncomplicated.

I could sense his soft smile, his eyes closing when my words wrapped him up as they usually did. “And I need you home. No one sucks my cock the way you do.”

I smiled, shaking my head in amusement when I heard the gasp of his female friend. “And I think you just ruined your orgasm for tonight.”

“I’m sure Becca will oblige.”

“I’m sure she will,” I spat. Becca had been after Isaac for many years, much to my infuriation. Although we shared an open relationship, both of us having numerous other lovers, Becca was the one that caused my jealous side to rear its ugly head. She’d had a relationship with Isaac before we married when I was seventeen, but she refused to back off, forever touching and shimmying up to him.

His laughter both angered me and amused me. “You know I would never go there, Connie. She is the only one capable of hurting you and therefore the reason I refuse her.”

“I know,” I said quietly, hating how my jealousy chose to be so obvious. “I’m sorry.”

“Good girl. Now I must go, Jem currently has her finger up my arse and I’m rather eager to finish what we started before she bails on me.”

I couldn’t hold back the laugh. “Well enjoy, baby. I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes, you will. Take care, be safe and use your head.”

“I will.”

I needed something stronger than coffee so I found the bottle of vodka Katey always had stashed in her freezer and made my way down the stone steps beside her house that led to the beach. The moon was large, its reflection lighting up the darkness surrounding me. It didn’t reach inside me though, it couldn’t, the darkness inside me was way too black.

Taking another swig of alcohol straight from the bottle I sat on the edge of the tide, the water just reaching and tickling my toes, washing away the dried blood that had dripped from me.

Life had become too complicated. Isaac had been right, this was one job I should have refused. I knew ending Daniel would forever haunt me, I was taking away the only thing Annie had in her life. Vengeance didn’t seem so important anymore, my niece was more important than my need to sleep at night. Yet I wouldn’t let any other take him from her. I owed it to her to give her father an easy death. It was the least I could do but first I needed to feel Robert Shepherd and Franco Genole’s blood seep through my fingers. I wanted to taste their death, feed from the pain I would inject, and watch with delight when they took their last breaths.

I was glad, in a way, that Mae no longer lived. For her to witness what I had become would be the worst thing. If I’d have known then what I did now, I would have done things differently. I would have made sure to watch over her. I hadn’t only disappeared from her life, I had abandoned her, left her thinking me dead, and after the death of my parents, I should have known that no one, not even Mae, could have dealt with that in any way normally. When I had found out about her self-harm, it had torn the final part of my soul from me, making me into an even colder killer. Nothing mattered after that. No one deserved to live if my own sister suffered like she did. Why should anyone deserve to be happy when the purest of souls on this planet was full of so much pain and sadness?

I lowered my face to the water when I sensed him behind me. I was trained to be aware and his scent of mint and citrus told me who was walking down the beach towards me.

His steps were slow, his smell growing stronger only gradually, telling me he was either wary of approaching me or he was dejected, and from his earlier whereabouts, I decided it was the latter of the two conclusions.

He missed my sister as much as I did.

SHE DIDN’T MOVE as I approached, her knees were drawn upwards, her back to me as her head tipped occasionally whenever she took a mouthful from the bottle she held. Her sadness was potent, tangible and thick in the night air.

“She was always the strongest of both of us,” she said as I drew closer. Her voice was so small, her grief taking her usual confidence.

“She was the strongest person I’ve ever known,” I agreed as I settled beside her. She held out the bottle to me and I took it, wincing at the burn of the cheap vodka.

“Whisky your thing?”

“My thing?” I asked as the echo of Mae’s own words forced a memory. I smiled at her. “You know, Mae said those very words to me once.”

Her eyes caught mine and I had to fight back the emotion when I saw the absolute devastation in her. I pulled the packet of cigarettes I had just bought from my pocket and offered her one. She smiled but shook her head before I lit my own. “Can I ask you something?”

I nodded; there was nothing to hide anymore. I was well aware that Connie knew just about everything.

“What was it about her that made you fall in love?”

I blinked then stared out at the vast amount of water stretching for miles before me, the soft ripple on the surface mesmerising in the moon’s image. “I’m not sure I can answer that question. There’s no easy answer to it. It wasn’t just her strength or her ability to see the good in everything. Neither was it her beauty or her humour, or the way her smile lit the room. Mae was… Mae. She was many things and I fell in love with every single one. There were infinite things about her and I could never in this lifetime or the next have time to describe each one. But one thing I can tell you is that she found something in me that I never knew existed. She made me love, and that in itself deserves my limitless devotion to her.”

Her eyes held mine when I turned to look at her. I reached out and wiped away the tear that rolled down her cheek. “You’re cold.”

“Not really.” I shrugged out of my jacket and placed it over her shoulders. She smiled gratefully. “I’d like that cigarette now.”

I lifted a brow and gestured to the pocket with my chin. “Inside pocket.” She took them out and lit one for herself, blowing out the smoke after holding it in her lungs for a long moment, her eyes closing in satisfaction. “How long since your last?”

She snorted. “About six years.” She gawped at me when I plucked it from between her lips and flicked it into the ocean. “What the hell?”

“You don’t need it, stick to the alcohol.”

When I thought she was about to rip my throat out, she shrugged and picked up the bottle. “I remember when we were eleven, we’d just started senior school and I wore these horrible braces on my teeth,” she started after swallowing a large mouthful of vodka. “Philippa Gregory had taken an instant dislike to me, picked on me something terrible.” A small giggle from her brought a smile to my face, the innocent sound coming from her was quite invigorating. “This one morning, after we’d been at school for around four weeks and Mae had witnessed this bitch’s never-ending bullying, Philippa opened her locker to get her books and around twenty frogs jumped out at her.” Her giggle erupted into laughter at the memory.

“Mae?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I still to this day have no idea where she got them all from. Of course she denied it was her but I knew. We always shared this secret smile whenever it was mentioned after that.”

I nodded, my gaze trained on the huge moon disappearing behind the edge of the water. “She had such a stunning smile.”

She turned to look at me, the light from the moon highlighted her cheekbones. I hadn’t noticed how sculptured they were, completely different from Mae’s softer shape. “Yes, she did.” She pulled in a breath then plucked the cigarette from my fingers and took a deep drag. “Did she love you, Daniel?”

I physically winced, the pain in my chest almost unbearable at her blunt question. “She said she did. However…”

“However?” she probed, handing back the smoke. Her fingers brushed against mine as I took it from her, causing her eyes to slowly lift to mine. She quirked an eyebrow and smirked. “Are we supposed to have felt something electrical then?” Her humour to lighten the situation was a Godsend and I laughed.

“Only in Mills and Boon, Connie.”

She snorted. “Why am I finding it hard to visualise you as a romance reader?”