Page 63 of Sixty Meters Under

“When this is all over, I want you to be mine.”Lennart heard Björn speaking and Scarlett laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, Boo.”Scarlett continued to laugh.

“I’m serious here.”

“You’re so young and naive.”

Scarlett stopped laughing and looked at Björn. She suddenly pushed herself into a sitting position, grabbed the front of his t-shirt and pressed their lips together in a passionate kiss.

Björn mumbled between kisses, but after replaying the scenes Lennart could make out the words:“Mmm, you will be mine, and no one else’s. No one’s!”

“You can’t control me, Boo. No man can control me.”

Lennart saw Björn grab her chin.“No one, but me. You don’t need other men.”

Scarlett laughed and Björn pushed her back on the table. She yelped and he penetrated her again, this time more aggressively. Scarlett moaned in a mixture of pleasure and pain until Björn took out all his frustration on her.

“You are mine! Do you understand?”Björn growled, but she didn’t reply. He finished, cleaned himself and left her lying on the table. When he left the room Scarlett got up, put on her bathing suit and fixed her hair. She didn’t look the least bit shaken when she walked out of the room.

Lennart pressed pause, and on another screen, he found the footage from the bar. He replayed it one more time, but his focus was on Björn and his girlfriend. He wanted to see if either of them had been in close contact with Scarlett that night.

Based on the video, Scarlett wasn’t near Björn, except when she and her husband entered the bar and she approached him in what looked like a greeting, and they didn’t stay long in each other’s company. Later that night, Maya passed Scarlett’s table twice, but the crowd prevented Lennart from seeing whether there was any contact between them. Either way, Lennart was convinced he should discuss this with his brother. He paused the video, pulled out his cellphone.

“What do you want?”

“Björn, we need to talk. Please come to my work room.”

“Why would I?”Björn asked, irritation clear in his voice.

“It’s about Scarlett.”

“What?”

From the tone in his voice Lennart figured Björn hadn’t heard about Scarlett’s death yet.Or he acted like he didn’t know,his inner voice whispered, but Lennart dismissed it, refusing to even think that his brother had been involved in a murder.

“I’ll tell you when you come. I can’t talk on the phone.”

?

Ryosuke opened the bathroom and saw his fiancé was standing by the door with her arms crossed and a displeased look on her face. He felt the growing annoyance and had to suppress his eyes from rolling.

“Are you going to talk to me or what?” Ayame asked when he brushed past her.

Ryosuke stopped halfway. “There’s nothing to talk about. A little bit of suspicion is on me as well. But it was only expected, as I was one of the last people who talked with Scarlett.”

Ayame hung her hands on the hips and narrowed her eyes. “A little bit? Made you cry inside for an hour. Did you really like her or what?”

Ryosuke rolled his eyes this time. He hated that Ayame had heard him weep, and especially because it made her conclude that Scarlett meant something to him.

“That doesn’t automatically mean I liked her! I saw her once in the library, and we talked a little, but I never looked at her as a potential romantic partner,” Ryosuke said and sighed, exasperated. “This whole situation was simply the last straw for me. Everything that had accumulated in me lately just burst out.” Saying this out loud, Ryosuke realized it wasn’t just the things that happened lately, but everything that racked up inside of him for the last couple of years.

Hearing this Ayame altered her invasive stance. “I see,” she said and relaxed both her arms on her sides. “I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t realize how hard this was falling on you. You manage to keep your emotions under control all the time, so witnessing this was… I… I’m not used to it.”

“Yeah. I didn’t seem to have realized that either. Until today.”

“I’m sorry,” Ayame said and hugged him. Ryosuke returned the hug but inside he felt numb.