Page 74 of A Lethal Game of Trust

“Okay,” I breathed. “Okay.”

My body was rigid as I looked at that spot on the floor where there had been so much blood, my knees had been covered in it.

Dom stepped into my side, pulling my head to rest on his chest, looking down with me.

“That night…” I started, my voice pained. “You never told me why you were here.”

At the time, it hadn’t bothered me. Back when I thought our argument was just a blip and we would work through it. If anything, it made sense that he was there in the worst moment of my life, my guardian angel.

I’d expected him to be there in my moment of need.

It was the weeks after that the cracks became a crevasse.

“I came to apologise,” he said into my hair, “for how I was the week before and at school that day.”

“Those six days were hard, I remember that,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist. “I thought you hated me and then you did.”

“I never… I couldn’t ever hate you, Leonie,” he said and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Did you want to write your impact statement here? I can find something to clean up the table and we can grab your notebook from the car and…”

Outside of my house, I knew my dad was capable of deadly, merciless things. He was not the same man in a suit as the man in his cargo shorts and apron, cooking ribs on the barbecue. Or the man that loved so fiercely he’d tortured those who kidnapped me so brutally it was rumoured they died from heart failure.Too soon, my dad had muttered at dinner.

He’d left the one that hurt me for Dom.

Mum’s love could feel like a chore. I had to play the part, even at the funeral. Whereas Dad’s love was effortless, it filled the room.

He was easy to cherish.

Dom’s palm stroked my bare arm in a comforting rhythm, up and down, up and down.

Would Dad be disappointed in me? The Castillos and the Belovs had a saying that family was the only thing that came above reputation.

I hadn’t honoured my family by getting out of the business. I’d just shoved those responsibilities onto Ivan and Anton. The Castillo name was hardly feared along the coast; it was just a story told when people drove past this house.

It was all the Belovs now.

The Castillos had disappeared.

The Castillos were just me.

I should let Firdman get released. I should let him live a lifeof luxury on the money he’d been given. Give him a glimpse of life and all it had to offer before I burned that life to ash and shoved the grains down his throat for him to choke on.

I’d make him suffer.

But nowhere near as much as who had paid for the deed.

“I just want to see,” I said, my voice shaking. “I just want to walk through. Dad’s office, the library, my room… I just want to see it. I can’t write like this.” My hand was shaking in his.

“Lead the way,” he offered.

Did he still know the way? Did I? Realising that I might not know the floorplan after so long made me feel ashamed… but I found the routes easily, poking my head into the library where Mum and I used to read together and argue over character arcs. The only way we bonded was through fiction. A lot of my mum’s life was fiction.

Now, it was permanent in her mind.

I picked some up to take to her. She wouldn’t have noticed my absence, but guilt was a bitch. Even though she asked me why I bothered showing up the last few times I’d visited.

Sometimes, I had to look after my own mental health.

We moved through the house, room to room, seeing the ghosts of furniture. I played a game in my mind each time, trying to remember the furnishings beneath each sheet before peeling it aside. I was right every time.