Page 58 of From Hell

She nods. “Speak to Quinn, she’s got a private estate you can use.”

Quinn is Nola’s fixer and hacker. I met her once and couldn’t connect in my mind with the beautiful Asian model sitting in front of me, sipping cosmopolitans, and the efficient as-hell contact who sent me intel every so often. “Thanks, Nola.”

“No problem. Now make that damn move. Or I’ll do it for you.”

22

JAXON

Ihave never wanted anyone as much as I want Laine Summers.

She’s like a drug.

It makes me chuckle at how much she intrigues me, at how long her ghost has floated inside my head. I noticed she doesn’t chew the end of her pens anymore. Does she still draw bleeding hearts? I’ll have to check her notebooks at her house another time.

When she didn’t show up at the shooting range, I realized I needed to show her what she should be afraid of. I’d already moved Henry’s body to the trunk of my car that morning. After my shift, it wasn’t difficult to drive it to the common near her house and dump it under the shroud of darkness. I kept the scene clean but easily discoverable so any morning jogger or dog walker would find it. I wonder how she will take my gift. I would have left it on her doorstep had that not been too obvious and careless of me. I don’t want her caught by anyone else. I want her desperate and clawing at the confines of the cage I put her in when she finally submits to me.

It’ll make her taste so much sweeter when it ends.

“Max Lamberton had a visitor this afternoon,” my father states when I enter the club lounge.

He’s not in his office but drinking and smoking cigars with Shepherd while they talk business. Christian, sporting a broken jaw, a shattered eye socket, and both hands in casts where I snapped each finger several times over, bristles at me between them. Addison leans against the wall, coat still on like he just strolled in.

I squash all thoughts of my fox and walk over to the man who raised me, taught me, and gave me everything. I was on my way to deal with Christian, but it looks like he was found and treated. I carve a smile for the trio, tilting my head to Christian to show brotherly camaraderie. My father won’t bawl me out for what I did to Eric De Lacy’s son, not in public. Even if the De Lacys’ are founders of the Lucians, just as we are.

“I never agreed with your decision to use Max as a scapegoat,” I say, glancing at the empty seat my father expects me to fill. I’m not in the mood to sit and chit-chat.

“Laine Summers was his visitor. Would you know anything about that?” Shepherd points out.

I keep my face blank as her name touches his lips. I’m not surprised to hear she’s been snooping around. Only angry I didn’t see it coming.

“No, I don’t.”

My father looks over his shoulder at me, annoyed to have to look up at me but trying hard to keep the emotion off his face. “Find out what she knows, and then deal with it.”

“Sir.” I incline my head and turn to leave.

“Oh, and Jaxon, be discreet. She’s Fiona’s daughter.” He pauses, eyes narrowed, aware we have company.

“Let the Ripper deal with this one?” Shepherd finishes, dismissing his caution. It’s not a secret among the Lucians who my father prefers.

I snort in response. “The Ripper is anything but discreet. Not everything requires his blunt force. Finesse, in this case, would be best.”

My father shoots Sherperd an irritated glance, not liking having his henchmen speak for him, and then looks at me. “I don’t which of you deals with her, just do it.”

Addison smirks from his languorous position and pushes off the wall to meet me at the door. He flexes his gloved hands, curling them into fists and then relaxing as he stands between me and the exit. “Fiona’s daughter is Laine Summers. Wasn’t she there that night?”

“Where?” I don’t have time for this.

“At the lodge?”

A flicker of vexation shadows my face before I can stop it.

“Don’t you think it’s strange that she was there that night and then she disappeared after, and now she’s back, the acolytes are going missing?”

“The Ripper took care of any witnesses at the Lodge.”

“Did he? Because something doesn’t sit right. Brainy Lainey is digging up the past, poking her nose where it doesn’t belong. If I recall, you had a soft spot for her.” He cocks his head. “Or was it a hard-on?”