Leather & Lark: The Ruinous Love Trilogy (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, 2)

… ONE YEAR LATER

“We haven’t had a happy hour like this in years,” Leander says as he tosses a dart. An instant later, a garbled cry bounces off the concrete walls as the metal point lands in Robbie Usher’s cheek. A few more darts quiver in his face as he shakes with fear and pain. His sobs escape from the gag that stretches back the corners of his mouth to reveal his swollen, bloodied gums. His top and bottom teeth are gone all the way to his molars. Bleeding gums aside, the dart hanging from his lower lip looks especially painful. Naturally, that one is Leander’s favorite.

So far.

Can’t say this is the life I imagined for myself, pulling teeth with pliers and playing darts with some guy’s face in my boss’s basement on a Friday night. Who does, I guess? Come to think of it, I probably didn’t spend much of my childhood imagining what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was too busy figuring out how to survive. I don’t remember dreams of being a firefighter or a police officer or a teacher or anything at all. The most vivid daydreams I can recall were how to get away with murder. I even wished for it on my thirteenth birthday, when my brothers cobbled together enough money to buy ingredients to make me a cake.

And we all know what they say about wishes.

Leander offers me a fresh dart on his upturned palm. I stare at it. Swallow my distaste. Catch an irritated sigh in my chest. Try to keep my apathetic mask from slipping. But Leander Mayes has known me since I was seventeen, when he appeared like an angel in my darkest hour.

Little did I know that angel would turn out to be the devil in disguise.

“Come on now, Lachlan. You know how much I love darts.”

“Right …” I say, taking my time to raise my glass to my lips and down a long sip of water. Goddammit. I wish it was something stronger, but I learned the hard way to not indulge in Leander’s extensive supply of thirty-year-aged whiskey on a Friday night when he’s in the mood for a “happy hour.” Last time that happened, I came to three days later, stuffing my face with watermelon as I sat on a curb in Carlsbad, New Mexico, with literally no recollection of how I got there. New Mexico. Motherfucker.

Leander grins like he’s crawled into my feckin’ brain as I pick up the dart and toss it in Robbie’s general direction without taking my eyes from my boss. Judging by the clatter of metal against concrete, I’ve missed and hit the wall.

Leander sighs and drags a hand through his silver hair. His eyes twinkle with amusement even though he tries to look disappointed.

“You know,” he says as he lays another dart on his open palm, “I’ve always kept my promise to you. I’ve never given you an innocent person to kill. And you know as well as I do that Robbie is no saint.”

He’s right. I do know. I’ve heard Robbie Usher’s name pop up over the years. My brother Rowan even brought him up once as someone he wanted to kill before the reckless little shit started his annual murder competition with Sloane and lost interest in drug dealer assholes like Robbie.

“Yeah, I just prefer to get these things done and over with. Cleanly. Not like … this,” I say, waving a hand in Robbie’s direction. When I glance his way, he tries to beg for freedom. Tears and snot collect blood in their rivulets as they streak down his pale skin. “My job is a contract killer. Not a cleaner. Not a torturer.”

“Your job is whatever I need it to be.”

When I meet Leander’s gaze once more, the amusement in his mossy eyes has burned away. Only a warning remains.

“As I recall, the last time you forgot your job and your manners, it ran you into a little bit of trouble. I definitely don’t recall instructing you to piss off one of our most valuable customers, did I?”

Though I often think I should be impervious to emotions like shame or embarrassment, sometimes they sneak up on me and burn in my cheeks. Just like now, when I remember the aftermath of the cleanup job he sent me to do last year on Halloween night. That particular contract shriveled up after that night, along with my hopes of getting out from under Leander’s thumb.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

And the part that annoys me the most? I’m not even sure why I acted like such a prick to that woman whose mess I was sent to fix.

Maybe I was already annoyed that I had to leave Fionn behind at that goddamn party when he was a blubbering mess to do cleanup when that isn’t my job. Maybe it was the way she acted like the death and chaos she’d just caused were no big deal. Maybe it was even the fact that she was clearly injured when I’d been told she was fine. She was definitely not fine. And that inexplicably made me almost as irate as being called out to scuba dive in dark and frigid waters on Halloween night. I’m not really sure what it was that tipped me over the edge. I just know that Blunder Barbie slipped right under my skin. And I fucking let her. Worse still, she slipped away and I don’t even know how.

I shake my head.

We stare at each other for a long moment before Leander’s expression softens. He lays a hand on my shoulder, the other still holding the dart aloft like a precious offering.

“Robbie’s the one behind that latest batch of rainbow fentanyl that the cops discovered in a raid last week. Rainbow fucking fentanyl. He made his drugs look like candy,” Leander whispers, a dark melody that rings in my ears. Leander’s brows raise as Robbie squeals his protests from across the room. “He’s purposely targeting kids, Lachlan. And this time, he just happened to reach kids whose parents can hire the kind of people who will actually deliver justice where it’s needed the most. People like you.”

I turn my attention to Robbie as he struggles against the cable ties that trap his wrists and ankles to a metal chair. His wide eyes are not innocent. His muffled protests are selfish pleas, not words of remorse. Though I didn’t bother looking up the details on Robbie’s latest escapades before we grabbed him, I know Leander isn’t lying. He never does.

My eyes don’t stray from Robbie as I pluck the dart from Leander’s palm. There’s no need to turn and look at my boss to gauge his reaction. I can feel it. His smile is a breath against my skin before he steps back.

I take my shot. Robbie cries out as the dart hits his forehead and ricochets off bone to land in his lap.

“Oof, good try. Almost a bull’s-eye. But I’m winning,” Leander declares as he lines up to take his next shot. He’s about to let the dart fly when a security alert dings through the speakers. We turn in unison to the screen hanging behind the bar. A rugby game is on mute and the security feed in the upper right-hand corner shows the front gate of Leander’s estate. There’s an old Honda Civic waiting to be let in.

A second later, a call comes through to Leander’s mobile. “Let him in,” he says in lieu of a greeting. He hangs up without a goodbye and I watch the screen as the gates open. The car rolls forward on the driveway, which snakes through pines.

I exchange my glass for my gun and stride toward the fortified basement door as Leander lets another dart fly. “Be right back,” I grumble. Robbie’s shrill cry snaps at my heels as the heavy steel slams shut behind me.

The silence in the rest of the house is a balm, soothing and sweet after suffering. The October sun is already so low behind the woods surrounding the house that all the expensive furniture and curated decorations are coated in shadow. Leander’s wife and teenage kids are gone for the weekend. Even the security guards are keeping their distance. Sometimes, the boss wants to pretend he’s just a simple guy with an uncomplicated life. The kind of guy who has a few beers on a Friday night. Has fun with his tools. Orders some takeout. Maybe plays a round or two of darts.

But in his typical high-functioning psychopath style, Leander puts a bloody spin on pretty much everything he does.

I open the front door and keep my gun hidden behind the thick mahogany, the muzzle pointed toward the kid. At Leander’s house, one can never be too careful.

“One pepperoni and one meat lover’s?” he asks as he checks the receipt.

My stomach flips uncomfortably. Pizza is never a good sign. Leander is always better behaved when it’s Thai—he doesn’t like to waste the good food. “Sounds about right.”

When I’ve tipped the kid and locked the door behind me, I holster my gun and take the boxes back down to the basement, casting a longing glance at the wall clock as I go. Nearly five-thirty. Thank fuck I have an excuse to get the hell out of here tonight.

Robbie has three more darts stuck in his skin when I enter the room.

“Fuck yeah. I’m starving. This is a sport, you know,” Leander says as he tosses a dart in a high arc, probably in the hopes of getting it stuck in the top of Robbie’s head like a little flag. It lands in his thigh instead, the metal point lodged deep, the sound of our captive’s distress a grating accompaniment to the music that plays through the speakers mounted on the walls.

A headache surges behind my eyes. “Mmhmm.”

“Hard work.”

“Yeah, you’re really breaking a feckin’ sweat there.”

Leander grins and follows me to the counter of his copper bar where I set the boxes down next to the blood-spattered pliers and discarded incisors. “Hungry?”

“Shockingly, not at all.”

“Just one slice?”

I shake my head. “Saving myself for tonight.”

“Ah yes. Is Rowan all set for the grand opening of his new Butcher & Blackbird place?” Leander opens the box of pepperoni and pulls a slice free. My molars clamp together like they do every time he mentions my brothers by name. Leander’s never been anything but kind to them on the rare occasions when he’s come face-to-face with my boys. But kindness is an insidious mask. A lure in the dark. I’ve seen the grotesque creature that lies behind the pretty light.

“As ready as he’ll ever be.”

“Wish him luck for me, yeah?” His grin is luminous as he takes another bite of pizza and washes it down with a long sip of beer. “Two restaurants. Who’d have thought you’d all be where you are now. Rowan a successful chef. Fionn a fucking doctor. And you with your own studio. Bet you never could have imagined it that first day I found you boys.”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice thin as the haze of memory descends to battle with the present.

“I still remember it like it was yesterday—Rowan some gawky teenager with blood running down his chin. Looked like something from a zombie film. At first I thought he’d bitten a chunk out of Fionn until I realized Fionn was stitching up Rowan’s lip with a fucking sewing needle.”

I nod, or at least I think I do. Leander keeps talking, but I don’t really hear him.

The memory is untarnished. It’s like I’ve stepped into that moment. Every image is so sharp. So clear. I can recall every detail, from the minute to the monumental. I still feel the phantom throbbing beat in my fingertip that had been sliced off. I can see the precise shade of crimson that poured from a deep slice through Rowan’s upper lip. I picture Fionn’s face as he pulled the thread through the torn flesh, the concentration in his eyes. I remember the way the moonlight poured through the window and reflected off the broken shards of glass and the last of my mother’s porcelain plates scattered on the floor.

And most vividly, I recall my father’s lifeless body lying at my feet, my belt wrapped around his neck, one end still curled around my sticky, shaking fist.

Rowan had turned to me, the thread pulled taut between his split lip and the needle clutched in Fionn’s fingers. His eyes were soft, so soft that I realized that maybe it was the first time I’d ever seen him relaxed. “You can let go, Lachlan,” he’d said as his gaze flicked down to my hand.

It was only a moment later when Leander strode in and changed everything, even the things that had already been irrevocably changed. That belt was still wrapped around my fist. And when Leander looked down at me, he grinned.

“ … and then Rowan said, ‘I swear it was almost an accident,’ and I thought, yeah, these kids are all right,” Leander says with a low chuckle. I blink away the memory, realizing I missed part of what he was saying …

… and all of what he was doing.

“What in the feckin’ hell are you making?”

Leander takes a slice of meat lover’s pizza and stuffs it into the blender where a first slice is already folded, grease and condensation smeared across the glass. “Smoothies.”

I look from the pizza box to the blender and back again. “What?”

“Smoothies. You know, drinkable food.”

“A … pizza smoothie …?”

Leander simply grins as he pours half a can of beer into the blender.

“Why?”

“Robbie doesn’t really have teeth anymore. How else is he going to have a last meal?” Leander shifts his attention to Robbie, who cries in his chair. “Didn’t anyone tell you that candy will rot your teeth out, dickhead? Speaking of which …”

Leander slides the teeth off the counter and onto his waiting palm before he plops them into the blender and turns it on. The beer froths. The melted cheese sticks to the glass. It takes a few stops and starts, but eventually he gets the mixture whipped into a thick, bubbly brown paste.

“Feckin’ Christ Jesus. That is truly horrific.”

Leander shrugs. “Still just pizza and beer, but with extra calcium.”

“Didn’t he have a gold cap on one of them?”

Leander sloshes the mixture around and peers into the jug, but there’s not much to see in the brown sludge. “Yeah, he did. So, it’s got fancy calcium. Anyway, I’m sure it tastes pretty much the same.”

“Doubtful. You should try it. Test your theory and let me know.”

“Fuck no,” he says on the heels of a barked laugh as he pours the mixture into a pint glass. “I have a thing about teeth.”

I groan and Leander cackles again, clearly delighted with himself. He runs a hand through his silver hair and then rummages in drawers behind the bar until he pulls out the funnel with a sound of triumph. “Christ Jesus, man. I’m leaving.”

I turn on my heel but don’t make it even a step away before his words stop me dead.

“You know, kid, I could make you stay.”

I stare at the door for a long, unblinking moment before I pivot to face Leander. He’s still smiling as he walks past me with the funnel in one hand and the full glass in the other. But there’s always a threat beneath his bleached smile and the creases that fan from the corners of his eyes. There’s a predatory edge to Leander that cuts through that mask like a razor.

Leander jerks his head toward Robbie in a bid for me to follow, and I do. “Good thing I’m all benevolent and shit. I wouldn’t want you to miss your little brother’s special night. And I definitely wouldn’t want him spitting in my meal the next time I pop in for a visit. Word is that while he might have scaled back on his Boston Butcher theatrics around town, he’s still a bit unhinged. I understand he was recently up to no good in Texas with that girlfriend of his. That’s where they went, right? Texas? And … oh, where was it before that …? I remember now. California. Calabasas, specifically. And West Virginia—”

“What do you want from me?” I snap.

Leander grins. “Just hold him steady.”

With a flash of a lightless glare, I step behind Robbie and press my palms to either side of his head. He trembles in my grip.

“Open wide, fucker.” Leander pushes the end of the funnel past Robbie’s gag. Robbie tries to thrash free of my grip, but there’s no escape. “Last meal down the pipe. Did you know the Nelsons’ kid had to be tube-fed after he OD’d on your fentanyl candy? This is kinda the same thing,” he says as he pours the first thick dollops of pizza smoothie into the funnel.

“Not really the same at all,” I grumble over the sound of Robbie’s gurgling cough.

“Close enough.” Leander pours more mixture in, but it only ends up dribbling from the corners of Robbie’s mouth. A frustrated sigh leaves my psychotic boss’s lips. “He’s not swallowing it.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“It’s just pizza and beer, Robbie.”

“And teeth.”

“Just imagine it’s protein powder. Come on, man. Down the hatch,” Leander says as he tries again. Robbie whimpers and whines, but still doesn’t swallow. A petulant sigh leaves my boss’s lips as his shoulders fall. “Pinch his nose.”

“Hard pass.”

“That wasn’t a question, kid.”

“Leander—”

“Do it, Lachlan, and then I’ll let you head off to your party.”

Our eyes lock for a moment that feels endless.

I could snap Leander’s neck. With one punch to his throat, I could crush his trachea. I could shove the heel of my palm into the base of his nose with a satisfying crunch. Or I could take the easy way out and shoot him. Leave him to bleed across the floor like so many others before him who have found themselves in his basement on a Friday night.

But revenge for my betrayal would be swift and merciless. His equally batshit brothers would hunt me to the ends of the earth, just like I would do for mine. And their vengeance wouldn’t start or end with me.

My fingers curl around Robbie’s nose and pinch it tight.

“The Nelsons wanted him to suffer like they have suffered. This is not torture, Lachlan. It’s not murder. This is justice,” Leander says, his eyes not straying from mine as he fills the funnel.

This time, Robbie has no choice but to swallow. Not all of the liquid makes it down his throat, of course. But Leander doesn’t stop, not until the pint glass is empty. And even then, he keeps his unwavering stare on me.

When he’s satisfied, Leander gives a single nod.

I release Robbie from my grip, whip my gun from its holster, and shoot Robbie in the head.

The pressure and pain behind my eyes subsides now that Robbie’s gurgles and sobs and pleas no longer drone on around us. It’s just the music, and now the steady drip, drip, drip of blood that falls to the floor.

I slide my gun back into its holster. There can be no threat when I let my next words loose between us. “I want to retire.”

A slow, predatory grin creeps across Leander’s face. “You don’t say,” he says, turning his back to me. “I’m totally shocked.”

“Leander, I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me and the boys. Covering our asses back in Sligo. Bringing us here, setting us up. You know how much I appreciate it. I’ve put in the years to pay it back, you know I have. But this …” I say, trailing off as I cast a glance down to the slumped body next to me. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Leander lets out a deep sigh as he sets the glass and funnel next to the sink and turns to face me. “I’m going to be straight with you, kid. I always am.”

I nod when he raises a single brow.

“When you pissed off Damian Covaci last year, that didn’t just kill our contract with him. It had ripple effects on other contracts as well when gossip spread in certain circles. And you know what, kid? That pissed me off.”

Blush crawls into my cheeks. “So I acted like a feckin’ eejit one time. This seems extreme.”

“You put a Covaci in a fucking trunk, Lachlan.”

Shit. I really did.

Leander leans against the counter and folds his arms across his chest. He might be closing in on sixty, but he’s still built like a brute, and his thick biceps strain against the confines of his black sweater. “We talked about this. Like it or not, we’re in the customer service business. You should know what that means, you do it every single day at your studio. If some client comes into Kane Atelier to buy leather saddlebags for their motorcycle or some shit and they piss you off, are you gonna lock them in the fucking closet? Chrissakes, I hope not. Because that would be terrible customer service.”

“So, what, I’ve gotta keep doing this indefinitely?”

Leander shrugs. “Unless you magically find a way to fix the damage you caused, yeah. I guess so.”

A suspended moment lingers between us. Leander might feign disappointment in me, but sometimes I wonder if this mistake of mine worked out to his benefit, even if the jobs tapered off like he claims. As though he can see these thoughts turning over in my mind, Leander pivots away before I can read too much into his expression.

“Go on, get out of here,” he says as he cracks open a fresh beer. “Say hi to the boys for me.”

I wait for him to meet my eyes, but he doesn’t.

Without another word, I stride away. The steel door slams shut behind me with a reverberant thud.

I leave Leander behind.

But I know I’ll never really get away.