Page 124 of Lau Ahi
And it wasn’t her first time.
That look she’d given that evidence was recognition of something but I wasn’t sure what. That was a question she’dhave to fill out and I was unsure if I’d earned her trust for her to let me in. If this was someone else who was watching us, waiting on us to catch them why hadn’t he gone after her? She was the lowest-hanging fruit of everyone who was working on the case and fit the victim profile: young, beautiful and from an affluent family even if that part wasn’t widely acknowledged.
Was she killing everything that reminded her of herself?
She’d been an integral part of the investigation having directed us to specific subjects all of whom hadn’t panned out. Was sending us after Christopher her way of throwing us off her scent? Her comment about preferring her sister because she represented everything she could have been went through my mind.
I picked up my phone not knowing if the stress of the day had me moving like this or if I was actually worried about the woman I was supposed to marry. I wasn’t even afraid of her. The craziest part was that I needed to protect her the same way Yacouba had done Jasmine.
I hit his line and then waited with my foot tapping for him to answer.
“Ori.”
His words were succinct: the speaking of my name a friendly command to tell me why the hell I was on his line so late especially since I knew what he’d just gotten back from. The message I sent him let him know I was in distress and I could hear him moving around already on go despite how exhausted I knew he had to be. That was the training that we’d endured to ensure that we could handle what was thrown at us in any situation. But it was also love. A brotherhood that nothing could shake and I had to think carefully about what I was going to tell him. The night had cooled and the dark sky was clear, allowing a few stars to peek through despite how bright the city was.
“Xerx, I know it’s late but you've gotta come up here. Everything is fucked up.”
I knew he was probably wondering what the fuck I was on now. He’d just seen me a few weeks back when we handled Vanya’s ex and her adoptive family. I was still on a high from being able to shoot destroy that church and caught hell from Asha for being out of pocket all day. She’d been working with Alec and I’d done the wrong thing by checking in with him instead of her.
“What is wrong? Are you in danger?”
“Shit, I might be.”
I looked out at the city below me trying to put into words what had been dancing around my brain for the last half hour. She was too smart about this subject and it fucked me up to think that her intelligence was based on something else but my gut was screaming at me that it was.
“You sound way too calm for zhis shit to be an emergency.”
“It is an emergency!” Was it, though? I ran a hand over my hair trying to bridle the emotions roiling through me. I needed to control it but they were so unfamiliar I wasn’t sure how without killing something.
“So tell me what’s wrong?”
“I think my fiancée is a serial killer.”
His end of the line was dead silent and I wished that I had the forethought to grab a bottle before I came up here.
“You woke me from my wife for zhis? Ori—”
“I know you can’t think that I’m overreacting.”
He stopped moving around and I could almost see the way he was glaring angrily into space. “Of course I can, because it is clear zhat you are.”
“Xerx—”
“You want me to believe zhat zhe daughter of a billionaire is a serial killer? One zhat we’ve vetted before zhis deal was even done?”
He was making a good point but I still wasn’t going to let up. “Yes.”
“Ori, have you been drinking?”
“Xerx, I’m sober as the day I was born.”
“I’m sorry, my friend, but I don’t see how it is possible.”
Xerxes was laughing it off because when he’d met Asha he hadn’t seen the side of her that could be vitriolic. He’d seen the almost painfully shy woman who’d been too worried about messing up to truly open up to anyone. I’d seen her speaking with Jem and Vanya and her friends at the wedding but that had been the extent of it. She’d been ambushed with being in the wedding party but I understood that Vanya didn’t want to exclude her and that Asha’s acceptance of me, or rather mine of her, enabled their wedding to proceed. It was her way of saying thank you but I was sure Asha thought it was some sort of tradition.
“The same thing could be said for your mother and yet she’s as deadly as they come.”
“My mozher is oleander. Zhe proverbial Venus fly trap. Zhe ammonium glycol in antifreeze zat tastes delicious as it kills you. Much like my wife, apparently.”
