by Lime Craven
Pulse. Pulse. Thumping in my ears.
Fluid movements. My arm comes up, my fist clenched around the knife, which soars in a perfect arc towards his hand where it lodges between the fine bones, cleaves through the meat, and grates against the glass in a way that sets my teeth on edge. Kkkkksssscccch.
A beat.
Cue the squeals.
His pale eyes bulge, eyebrows shooting skyward. God, he squeals like a child. Like a guinea pig. Oily crimson oozes up around the knife; I'm holding it down so hard that the veins on my arm have popped up like ribbons. Blood seeps on to the glass below our piled hands.
"What the ffffff..." He can't get the words out. Doesn't know if he should move. "Ffff!"
Now I'm the one maintaining eye contact. I won't let it go. It's important that I distract him before he finds a use for his free hand; the pain must overtake his fight-or-flight instincts. "I'm going to give you a choice, Mr Wentworth. You tell me what I need to know, and I will remove the knife, allowing you to leave. No harm done." I want to grin at him, but it's too cliché. "Or you can refuse, and we'll be sitting here a very long time. One by one, you'll lose feeling in your fingers. And you'll lose blood. Perhaps too much." I nod once at the growing spill of syrupy red. "Have I made myself clear?"
He says nothing. Just sucks the air through his teeth again. The skin around his mouth has turned white; the tendons in his neck stand out accusingly.
"One question. That's all." I tip my jaw to him. Eye him sideways. "You look to me, Mr Wentworth, like a man who works in private security. No—don't trouble yourself, I don't need clarification. Perhaps you're reasonably new to this job, or you took for granted that I'd be a little more afraid than I actually am."
Still, silence. Fear is a cripplingly beautiful thing.
"I wonder if they told you exactly what I did to Miss Fordham." I stare at him, all cold hell and quiet fury. He's beginning to tremble. To fall. "No? Well. On to my question. I think you can guess what it is, can't you, Mr Wentworth?"
His whole arm shakes.
"Tell me who you work for." I'm almost whispering. It would be such a shame to drown out the soft patois of his panic. "Who?"
"N-no," he bites out.
"I see." I give the knife a little shake; the glass grates again, and the flesh of his hand gives almost too easily. I've fucked tighter pussies.
Poor Wentworth, trying not to squeal again.
"Let's try again," I say. "Were you hired by Redworld Media?" They have dirt on Montgomery; maybe they're coming for me, too.
A bead of sweat drips from his brow. He glances between me and his pinned, bloodied fist. "No," he utters.
"Good boy. Well done. Now. Were you hired by Montgomery?"
"No." The word is harsher. He's losing patience, losing the will to fight.
I scowl at him. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"S-ssssure." He begins to rock back and forth very slowly.
"Fuck. Huh." I give the scalpel another shake, inducing another pathetic squeal. "So who is it?"
Wentworth's breathing is shallow and hoarse. He says nothing. Just rocks, rocks...and that's when I see it. Right behind his ear.
Motherfucker.
I reach forward, yanking away the little camera attachment with my free hand. Wentworth winces as I bring my fist down on it, crushing it against the glass table. It stings my skin; a few shards of plastic leave tiny, acidic scratches. No matter. My heartbeat echoes so far up my throat that I can almost taste the bass.
"SilentWitn3ss? You have got to be shitting me." I jerk the knife, and he lets out a low, strange sound somewhere between a moan and a scream. "Was this streaming?" Because if this asshole not only dares to come in here with the thing on, but has actually poached my WiFi for the purpose, I will be first-world-probleming all over his jugular.
Dread claws at his brow, furrows it like a volcanic landscape. "J-just recording."
"Wise choice. Very wise." I sound far calmer than I am. My mouth moves, but the voice seems to come from the next room. "You've been of great use to me, Wentworth. I appreciate your co-operation." With that, I tug the knife from his flesh and he crumbles in toward his maimed hand.
The moment I turn my back toward the kitchen, I forget about the mess of a man. All I feel is the sticky knife in my hand, and all I see is Leontine.
Flashes of teeth and smoke and honey. Her ass shifting beneath my palm.
Leo who had this all figured out before I even met her in that boardroom.
Leo who knows about Rachel Fordham. Nobody knows about Rachel Fordham.
Mother fucking fucker.
Somewhere in the background, Wentworth clutches his hand and croons to himself. I wash my hands thoroughly in the kitchen sink before grabbing a large dish cloth, which I toss to him on my walk back.
"Wrap yourself up and get the hell out of my apartment." The words are toneless. Cool. No molecule in my body will properly engage, or do as I tell it; they flock and cluster in sensitive areas, growing fat with adrenaline and anger.
Wentworth dashes toward my elevator, clasping the dish cloth around his hand. I follow him step for step, making sure he doesn't drop blood on my hard wood floor.
When I'm sure Wentworth is gone—and has exited the elevator to the lobby—I down the rest of whiskey in one short swallow. Pour another, demolish it, no ice. Then I sit and stare at the clotting red mess of blood on my coffee table, its mass casting a shadow on the rug below.
Leo played me. Hired a private security firm to taunt me with information she should not possess. This isn't all because she wants a merger. No. It's a lot more than that. Lion, indeed—though not as clever as she thinks she is. Only an amateur would have sent Wentworth to my home and expected this to come out in her favour. The advantage here is mine.
There are two reasons she'd want to fuck with me. The first is because she wants something: money, perhaps. Information. Revenge for some imagined wrong; a task she has taken into her own manicured hands.
But I suspect it's the second reason. Leo is fucking with me because she can.
Isn't that interesting?
Tonight, I was too cocky in the grip of excitement to contemplate the idea of surveillance, or to consider that Wentworth might have come in bugged. And it can't happen again. Of course I never considered anything official; the FBI or FCC are a bunch of meatheads, but even they fall with a certain amount of grace. Nothing about this attempt to manipulate me was graceful.
After a third glass of whiskey, I grab my phone and speed dial Tuija. It rings out longer than my nerves will tolerate.
"Oh, hi," she calls over the static of a crowd. EDM music throbs in the background. "You rang?"
I flex my free fist, stretching fingers in and out, over and over, trying to will the anxious tension away. "I don't care who you have to fuck," I grind out, "but I want a key to Leo's apartment."
"A what now?" She coughs. Smoking, no doubt. Disgusting. "A...? Oh. Right. Jeez, Hitler. You don't think that's going a little too far?"
"I'm not asking for your opinion. I want a key, so you get a key, and it had better be on my desk tomorrow or I promise, firecracker, I'll beat seven shades of candyfloss-flavoured shit out of your silicon ass."
More static; clinking glasses. Tuija gives a heavy sigh. "Well. Since you're asking so nicely."
"Tomorrow."
"Or else. Okay, I get it." She takes a very obvious drag on a cigarette. "I'll bring them right in with your unicorn poop on rye."
I should berate her for the way she's talking to me, but it's just easier to hang up.
The blood draws my gaze again in the lamp light. A thin film dulls its sticky surface. Blood is like lust; once out of your system, it quickly loses its lustre. Fuck desire, fuck trust, fuck obsession; time to get off my knees for this meddling bitch.
Leo wants to hunt me?
I'll show her whose teeth are sharpest.
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Bellvue Hotel, downtown NY
&nb
sp; Aged 25
I'm twenty-five years old and I just launched my second national news network.
I've got smoking hot redhead Barbie on my arm.
Dietrich Montgomery fucking hates me because I'm awesome.
Drunk. So drunk. I'm celebrating, you know. All that shit. This couch's kinda cheap for the Bellvue New York, huh? You'd think they'd put something that doesn't smell like ass in the penthouse suite. But I'm not getting up because that pseudo antique closet keeps lunging in like it's coming to get me.
Tonight, I put Tuija in a white satin Versace gown that cost more than most people's cars, and we swanned around the launch party like royalty. Me with my God-given dimples and charm, her with her surgeon-sculpted tits and ass. And bottled hair. And capped teeth. And...I forget what else, but she looks damn good for someone who used to have a bowl of Xanax with milk for breakfast.
"I'm gonna call you Frankenklein," I slur at her as she totters into the bucket chair opposite and kicks off her velvet heels. "Get it?"
She holds up an open bottle of champagne, winces, and takes a hearty swig. "I prefer firecracker."
"Tuij. Stop drinking. You're not meant to drink."
"I might take that more seriously if you weren't too slaughtered to get up."
"Can they surgically remove sarcasm? 'Cause I might get that done to you next." I hold my hand out toward the champagne. "Now gimme."
She rolls her eyes, drops to her knees, and crawls around the mahogany table toward me. Her makeup is all mussed up, her tits almost spill out of the front of the gown, and she's kind of a vision in white, this white lump moving along the rug like a—
"Hey." I click my fingers. "You look like you're going to a wedding."
"Absolutely nobody else has told me that tonight," she deadpans.
"Actually...didn't we get asked by like, three people, if we're getting married?"
She looks away, chewing her lip. "A couple."
"That's fucked up." The champagne bottle is heavy in my hand. Smells like piss. I put it down and poke one of her breasts with a shaking finger; it feels weird, soft but not flesh-like. She grunts and glares. "Go sit back down," I mumble.
Tuija sighs and gets to her feet. "Yes sir."
"I swear, you'd think these motherfuckers would want to ask me about my business. But no. All they go on and on about is whether I have a girlfriend. What's this obsession with who I'm boning? Seriously? I'll open Forbes next week and it'll have like, a small paragraph on NN24 and then some massive pull-out called Aeron Lore's Dick: A Destination Guide."
Tuija snorts. "We should get in there first. Run that feature before they all start thinking you're gay."
I pull myself up. Take a breath—shit, I'm woozy. "I need to not be gay."
She blinks a couple times. "What?"
"I'm not coming out, you moron. But you're right. People are just gonna keep asking questions."
At this little scrap of validation, Tuija sinks back into her chair with a smile and crosses her legs slowly—not because she wants to flash her pussy at me, but because frankly, that dress is so tight that she can't do anything fast.
I lean down to find the champagne and almost knock it over. The neck of the bottle falls into my palm just in time. "Maybe we should just give 'em what they want." Then I take a mouthful—and it does indeed taste like piss.
She starts to fiddle with her hair; colour climbs her face like a slow tide. "You mean, um...get married?"
I spit out the champagne and retch all over the couch (which is an improvement in terms of design and smell). "Jesus. God. No."
"Oh."
There's a piece of...something...across the back of the couch. Maybe a towel. Feels like a towel. Whatever—I wipe my mouth with it and pat down my damp shirt. "I meant we should fake it." If I was a cartoon right now, I'd have the biggest light bulb above my head. Which is weird. Fuck you, Nickelodeon. "You can be my fake girlfriend!"
She has the kind of expression you get when a cat brings you something dead. "Your what? Why? Aeron, why don't you just get a real one?"
"Because," I announce, holding my arms out, "pussy makes me stupid."
"Pussy makes every man stupid."
"I'm special," I slur. No, really. I am. Trust me. "Come on, firecracker. Imagine. I'm hot fucking shit right now and it's only going to get better—give me a year and I'll own me some newspapers. Whole empire. You're already my first lady, right? Montgomery's got his shrivelled husk—sorry, wife—"
She titters.
"—And what I need is to not have a shrivelled husk. Or a wife, 'cause I'm too young and everyone will just wait for a divorce."
"You're not really selling it to me."
"Tuij." I put the champagne down, haul my legs off the couch, rest my elbows on my knees and my face on my fists—really look her in the eye...when I can focus. "I'm serious."
"You're drunk," she counters.
"I can be drunk and serious. Come on. You're a clever girl, you know it makes sense."
"If I'm your fake girlfriend," she says quietly, "how am I gonna have a real boyfriend?"
"You're not. I feel like—I dunno. Might give the wrong impression, huh?" I grin at her. She loves my grins; look at her mouth softening, her feet rubbing together. "Middle America needs monogamy. If I'm gonna sell them shares, they need the whole shebang."
"You just said shebang."
"The champagne said shebang. Now shut up. Come on, Tuij. I'll keep you in style, I promise, clothes, shoes. How about an upgrade on that apartment, huh? It'll be like being a really high class hooker, but you don't have to fuck me."
She puts her face in her hands. "Right. What a deal."
I don't think she realises what a favour I'm doing her there. "You know, I can probably find another assistant who'd go for it. Some nice little graduate. A yes girl."
"Oh, fuck you." She peers through her fingers, antsy and suspicious. "You hate yes girls."
"I hate most girls," I say matter-of-factly. With the fire of a thousand fucking suns. "But I don't hate you, firecracker. And I need you to stop me being stupid the same way you do in the office every day. What do you say?"
"I don't know."
I lower my voice. "I've done a lot for you. Everything. And I don't ask for much in return."
"I'll regret this," she murmurs.
"Probably."
"My parents are gonna think it's weird."
I cough. "Your parents are in Finland."
"Yeah. Takes a lot for them to think stuff is weird, but this...ah, fuck it." She holds her hands up and lets loose a shrill, jagged little laugh. "Do I have to sign in blood?"
Jesus.
Don't fucking tempt me.
6
Honesty (noun): the absence of all fear
At three minutes past eleven on Tuesday, Tuija struts into my office like she's on a runway. Each footstep is a skidding bullet; she barely even blinks.
"Nice of you to make an appearance," I mutter.
"Voila." She drops a single silver key on my desk with a clatter. A yellow Post-It note flutters down in succession, landing on the edge of my keyboard. "Happy?"
The key, no doubt, is for the front door of Leontine's East Side apartment. The Post-It bears numbers for door and alarm codes, as well as an ETA courtesy of Leo's doorman.
I sit back and appraise Tuija, my arms folded. "Fast work, firecracker."
She raises one red eyebrow. The rest of her face is utterly blank. "If you will give me permission to fuck someone." Then she turns back, tossing her wavy hair in a limp gesture of dismissal.
"I hope he was a gentleman."
A beat. She stills in the doorframe. "What makes you think it was a he?"
* * *
My first mistake was to think with my cock.
I didn't need Leo's brain, and so I didn't consider it. Now, as I slip through the front door of her apartment and bash the alarm code into the panel on the opposite wall, I realise how much I failed to question. I confuse
d sex with honesty, and we haven't even had it...yet.
The moment I laid eyes on her, it felt like we were three seconds from a fuck. Always does. Some men call this teasing, but it's my favourite part of the chase. My second mistake was to indulge myself too long in it. If you enjoy something enough, it probably has the power to kill you...God, flesh tempts me to forget this. Wants me to.
Thirty minutes until Leo usually arrives home from her office on a Tuesday. Since I can't get inside her brain, I'll do the next best thing and spend every one of those minutes going through her personal effects.
Leo's apartment is small but luxurious; set on the fourth floor of a small art deco building, complete with twenties-style chandeliers and a purple velvet chaise-lounge in the lobby. Off the hall, there are doors to a single bedroom, a bathroom, and then a kitchen living area with double doors to a terrace. The whole place smells like mulled wine and old candle smoke, as if Leo left just moments ago and blew herself out in the hall.
I hit the bathroom first—specifically the medicine cabinet, which hangs over an opulent marble sink. Above the bottom shelf, lined with skin creams and dental floss boxes with their lids half-cocked, is a constellation of pill jars and packets. After Tuija's report, this is what I'm most interested in.
Tylenol. Contraceptive pills. A half-finished antibiotic and a barely touched anti-sickness med. There are no mood stabilizers, no anti-depressants; nothing to suggest Leo is anything other than normal these days. A part of me is disappointed in this. It's so much easier to take a girl apart when she hands you the strings to pull; not that I prefer easier, but Leo has shit on me. Taking her apart will be necessary at some point.
Next, I head to the kitchen living area. Silver and white cabinets line the walls beside a retro refrigerator and several plants in desperate need of watering. The living area has been turned into a home office, with stacks of SilentWitn3ss boxes sitting in scattered heaps on the carpet. A laptop is splayed open on her cream sofa, its screen bent back, and a plastic basket of tangled wires sits beside it like some kind of garnish. Near the stove, there's a copy of New Scientist open, its pages marred by the charred halo of a coffee cup ring. The only real colour in the room comes from a bowl of apples and bananas on the breakfast bar.
