Page 28 of Run, Little Rabbit (Blood & Bonds #1)

“Echo, once you look in there, there’s no going back,” Sphinx warns.

I look up into his pale blue eyes and see something flicker in their depths, something that makes my stomach churn. Fear and sorrow. “What’s in there?”

He takes a deep sigh and places the laptop on my knee. “Just… look.”

The small yellow file beckons me closer, but I can’t quite bring myself to look in it.

Dread wraps a heavy hold around my hands, keeping them away from clicking the folder.

I can’t even begin to comprehend what on earth could have Sphinx looking like someone just died.

I know my dad isn’t a saint; he’s not even really a good man, but what could be contained in there that has Sphinx so worried?

My hand trembles as I move the cursor over the folder and double-click the pad. There are a number of subfolders: Finance, Stock, and Property. Nothing out of the ordinary, but then I see something that makes my blood run cold. There’s a file there that says ‘Norah Nolan’.

Why did Bennie have secrets on my mum?

I open the folder and see a myriad of images and documents.

There are photos of her with some man, and she’s laughing and smiling.

She looks happy and in love, but I don’t understand why.

Who is this man? Why does he seem familiar?

I try to remember where I know him from, but the harder I try, the more distant the memory gets.

I trace the lines of my mum’s face. I look so much like her, except for the hair. Hers is the colour of warm chocolate, and her eyes are a slightly darker shade than mine, like the colour of emeralds.

I pull up one of the docs, and it looks like an acknowledgement of a payment. No, wait. There are two, both for ￡500,000 and dated three days apart.

Then there’s an email from my dad to some random email address confirming the money had been wired.

“Who’s Larke?”

Sphinx grimaces and purses his lips. “A high-end hitman for hire.”

“Wh-what?” Why was my dad paying a hitman? No, it wasn’t possible. Dad loved Mum. Didn’t he? Why would he want her murdered?

Memories flash before my eyes. Mum pushing me on a swing in the park, riding the carousel with me, and making sandcastles on the beach.

Recognition hits me like a fucking freight train.

Hatcher. Mum’s bodyguard. The guy she’s smiling with in the pictures.

“Holy fuck. Mum had an affair?”

Sphinx nods solemnly. “And your dad murdered her for it.”

My stomach lurches and my head spins.

No.

No, no, no.

I jump from the bed and run to the bathroom, pain lancing through my battered feet, but I ignore it as I throw up the contents of my stomach into the toilet. There’s not much, as I haven’t eaten anything for at least a day now, but I dry heave when there’s nothing left.

Sphinx rubs soothing circles on my back and holds my hair out of the way. Grief and confusion consume me, and I sit there, on the cold tiled floor, questioning everything about my father.

No wonder he can’t stand the sight of me. I look too much like her. Do I remind him of what she did? Why did Mum have the affair in the first place? Did she never love Dad?

So many questions float around my mind, but I can’t seem to focus on a single one.

“Do you think…” Fuck. I can’t even say the words. I take a deep breath and try again. “Do you think he had her killed?”

“Yes,” he replies without doubt, and I believe him. There is no way that he hasn’t analysed that data for every possible outcome before showing it to me.

“Why did you show me this?” I ask with a sob. “Why?”

Surely he could have kept it to himself and left me in a state of ignorance. In a world where my family had been a happy one. Well, maybe not completely happy, but at least content. Now…

Now my father murdered my mother, and somebody covered it up. Somebody who told Bennie Fucking Walker.

Realisation sinks in my stomach. Now, I know why my father was so keen to get his hands on the phone first. Did he know that Bennie knew this particular secret? Fucking hell, was Bennie blackmailing him?

“I thought you would want to know,” Sphinx answers, a solitary shoulder lifting in a careless shrug. “I would.”

I go to answer, but I seem to be struggling to put any kind of order to my thoughts.

Sphinx rolls up his sleeve and shows me the scripture on the inside of his forearm. “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of grief. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift.”

His voice is low and raw as he recites the poem, and I choke up at the emotion I can hear. He’s usually so closed off, hidden behind all his walls that I never get this realness from him, and it makes me even sadder because now I know that behind those walls is pain and grief.

I thread my fingers through his and rest my head on his shoulder. “I know it’s silly, but it feels like I’ve lost her all over again. And, I dunno, it just hurts a little bit more because I never really knew her. How can you grieve someone you never knew?”

“Just because you didn’t know her as well as you thought, it doesn’t diminish your feelings or your loss.”

I can tell he’s speaking from experience, and I wonder what it was that put the sadness in his eyes. “Who did you lose?”

“Everyone, Echo.” He squeezes my hand tightly. “I lost everyone.”

What a shit fucking day. I close my eyes and let the tears fall silently. And together we sat there, on the the cold tiles, our souls connecting through grief as we watched the sun come up on a new day.