“I fucking love you,” he let out, feeling the knife-like pain cutting into his chest. “I fucking love you and I never told you. I never fucking told you. I never…”

His thumb roamed over her lifeless face, over her thin lips, and fuck they were still red, even in death. His fingers floated through the strands of her long blonde hair, and he grabbed a fistful, sucking in more air as his world twisted apart around him.

No. No.

Shaking, he swam back to shore with her and carried her to a spot on the sandy ground. His body was an earthquake, his face had paled at the sight of the woman he returned for. The woman who had given him purpose when he had been lost and gone. He opened his mouth but his voice was trapped inside his lungs. His vision swam but no tears fell out.

He collapsed over her, burying his face into the soft curve of her shoulder. That was the moment the colours in his world diminished. He tore himself away to look down at her face and saw nothing but black and grey everywhere. Digging his fingers into the sandy earth, the acute pain in his chest was accompanied by an anger that made his blood run cold as death.

It was exquisite, this anger.

It gave him purpose, this anger.

It changed him.

Whatever was left of Marcus that day died on the riverbank with Kate Davenoth.

Part Two: Borden and Emma

“The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”
Norman Cousins

Six

Emma

They nicknamed him the Tank, and I could see why now that I was standing in front of him. The man was bloody huge. Like, Ajax the Great kind of fucking huge. I had to crane my head to take in all six and a half feet of him.

But Marcus Borden was a lot younger than I expected. He looked to be in his early thirties. His brown hair was longer than previous images I’d seen, curling just a little at the nape of his neck and over his forehead. His face was heart shaped, and he had plump lips, a strong straight nose and high cheekbones. I’d have thought pretty features such as his screamed pretty boy, but that was the last thing he was. At the calculated way he moved and with cold eyes like those, he screamed predator instead.

And only one word was going through my mind in that moment: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I was immediately overwhelmed with fear. I felt like somebody had knocked the wind out of me. His grave expression instantly put me on edge, and when his resilient blue eyes flashed to mine, even for the half of a second that it did, my heart picked up and I could feel my speedy pulse thump in my ears.

Why the fuck am I here? The one night I agree to come out and this is what happens…

There were three of his men standing around him and a tall, slender redhead in a skimpy red dress hanging by his side. She was looking at me, amusement scribbled in her gentle features at my predicament. I instantly hated the bitch.

Borden, wearing a thick black sweater and dark jeans, was standing in front a large steel table, sorting through an open briefcase when we first walked in. I couldn’t see the contents of his briefcase from where I stood, nor did I want to. What I wanted desperately was to be away from all of them. This was like a bad scene out of some B-grade mafia movie, and any second someone was going to put a bullet through the back of my head. I looked behind me, just to be sure.

Yeah, I was losing my shit.

Again: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I had been dragged here forcefully by a man they called Hawke, and his hand was still currently wrapped tightly around my bare arm. When I looked down at it, I felt my stomach churn. He was missing his third finger, and the skin around his forearm was thickly scarred.

He roughly situated me in front of the table across from Borden. I watched as another man walked to where he stood and leaned into his ear. “Found her in the alleyway when we were taking care of business. Think she saw everything…”

The walls were vibrating from the music roaring outside the back room of the club, drowning out the remainder of his words. Or maybe that had been the cause of my heart climbing into my ear canals, beating my hearing riotously into deafness. Whatever. It didn’t matter, did it? Fact was I couldn’t hear shit without straining.

Still looking down at whatever was in the briefcase in front of him, he said, “What did you see in the alleyway, Miss…?” His voice was low and smooth but had a backbone of authority in it. He appeared almost bored, as if this was yet another inconvenience.

“I didn’t see anything,” I quickly responded.

“He asked for your fucking name, bitch,” growled Hawke, digging his fingernails deeper into my arm.

“Well, I didn’t really know that, did I?” I couldn’t help snapping. I honestly wouldn’t have done it if I was in the right frame of mind.

My heart picked up at the way Hawke looked at me. I swallowed hard and uttered, “Emma Warne. That’s my name.”

Borden instantly looked up at me. “Emma Warne?” he repeated, a note of surprise in his voice.

My brow furrowed at his strange reaction before Hawke’s grip tightened once again in warning. “Y-yes,” I quickly said.

Borden just stared at me for a long moment, and the silence was awkward as shit. I sort of wanted to fade into nonexistence at the look in his eyes, all hard and curious. Then, before I could question that look, his face smoothed out and he returned to normal.

“Have you given her a pat-down?” he asked Hawke.

Hawke nodded. “There’s nothing really to check. The dress is pretty skin tight.”

Borden eyed me carefully, roaming my body from top to bottom. It wasn’t heatedly either. Just clinical. “Did you check her bra, see if she’s concealing…blades of any kind?”

I tensed suddenly. How the hell could he know that?

“I didn’t check her bra. I’ll do that now.”

The second Hawke’s mangled hand shot up to my chest, I jumped back. “No!” I hissed. “I’ve got a switchblade in my bra. I’ll get it myself.”

He looked to Borden to see if that was alright, and Borden nodded. All eyes were on me as I stuffed my hand down my top, searching for the blade concealed under my breast. I pulled it out, and my breasts were practically on display before I fixed them back into place. My face was flaming red as I reluctantly handed Hawke my switchblade. Not that I would mourn it or anything. I had a dozen others in my apartment. He took it and placed it on the table before returning to stand next to me.