Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(5)
“I’ll distribute the images when I get back to the office. In the meantime…” I flick a hand toward the door. “Go wake yourselves up. This is the biggest story we’ve had for months, and I want to run with it.” With scissors.
To be frank: this is the biggest story anyone has had since a notorious young media mogul was accidentally shot by his girlfriend, and if there was ever a headline to bury bad news, this is it. Finally, I can draw some attention back to my channels without heat and speculation; once viewers clap eyes on the image of that girl’s blood-encrusted thigh, nobody will care about Aeron Lore. They’ll just want to know who the hell Blood Honey is, and what America’s going to do to catch him.
My staff shuffle out of the board room, flinching as the fluorescent corridor lights scrape their eyes. Over the years, I’ve called them in far earlier, but for nothing quite as grotesque as this; they’ve left shadows of themselves on the upholstered seats, nervous sweat and microscopic flakes of skin shed amid shudders of tension. Bunch of snakes. One legacy begets another, it seems, and all of them make me desperate for a shower.
But instead of that, I have to face Leo. She’s still in place beside me, unblinking. Contemplating. I am about to be lectured in layers of honey and smoke; I’ll be dirtier afterward, but will feel cleaner.
Leo waits until the door folds shut. Then she twists toward me, resting her chin in her palm. “Are you satisfied that we’ve done this psycho justice?”
“Because psychos deserve justice.”
“Of course.”
I lean in close enough to breathe on her cheek; even after all these months, it still sends her teeth crashing into her bottom lip. “You wanted to sit in on the meeting. It was nothing to do with Silentwitn3ss; you didn’t have to.”
She lets her eyes fall closed. Inhales.
“You were curious,” I say softly.
“Hardly the word I’d choose,” she retorts, swatting my hand away when I attempt to stroke her knee. “That’s not why I—”
“Morbidly curious, Leo. Come on. You know, you could’ve spared yourself the confederacy of dunces and just asked me for the pretty pictures.”
“But then you wouldn’t have his new name, would you?”
“No.” I cock an eyebrow at her. “Nice work.”
She mirrors me, arching a pale gold brow right back. A vague smile tugs at her lips, the reluctant kind. It hints at blood rushing beneath her fitted white shirt and plum leather pencil skirt, ushering heat to places she wishes it didn’t, causing delicate tissues to swell. My Leo never wanted to need me, you understand; she fought me with everything she had. But here she is, irrevocably mine. Tainted. And lovelier for it. Her orgasms are sticky echoes on my fingers, the memory of them a rough throb to my cock. I have an intimate relationship with death, undoubtedly, but my relationship with Leo is more than that. It’s alive.
Leo—who knows where my mind has wandered to, and is forever biting the hand that feeds her—taps my phone with a manicured finger. Jane Doe fills the screen once again, frozen in the middle of her final plea. “Christ.” She gulps and looks away. “She doesn’t even look real.”
“She isn’t, anymore.”
“Aeron, can we…can we not?”
“For now.” I catch the tip of my tongue between my canines. Pinch at my own flesh. “Later, though. At dinner.”
There’s a two-week-old wound barely healed on Leo’s right buttock, and I suspect it whispers to her. Froths at the mouth. Aeron likes to cut you, it must murmur while she’s sleeping; will he want to paint you with pretty words soon too? Let’s be honest—the insinuation I’m somehow impressed by that mess of a girl on a motel bed (been there, done that, avoided the pesky death part because I’m not a complete moron) is highly offensive. But then so is the image still bleeding from my cell screen, so I’ll forgive Leo, just this once.
“What time are we eating?” she asks.
“Around nine. I’ve got a bunch of shit to do before heading home.”
She gives a mocking tut. “When are you going to suck it up and get another assistant? You’d save yourself hours.”
I rise slowly, snaking a hand into Leo’s hair and squeezing a soft fistful as I go. “I already have an assistant.”
“You can keep calling me that for as long as you like. Doesn’t mean I’ll give in and start doing the job.” She peers up at me, rolling her shoulders back so her scalp rubs against my fist. “You know I could find you someone.”
“It’s fine, Leo. I’m fine.”
She hunches as I release her, exasperated. There are a hundred things she wants to say to me, but she’s wise enough to stay silent. I’m not sure I could tolerate otherwise.
She also has the courtesy not to stare as I leave the room.
It’s not that I can’t walk, or that I look stupid. But I’m slower since the bullet. Since a surgeon’s knife took me apart and put me back together again. I spent two weeks in a hospital bed, just rotting; another three weeks at home, lying on the couch and hiding from a world that was desperate to know if my injury was, indeed, an accident. All the while, I micromanaged Lore Corp from my cell and laptop, tripping on painkillers and angry because I was Tuija-less. Fearing I might become Leo-less at any moment. Though I never did. She visited when Ash was at school, worked in tandem with Harvey at Lore Corp, and when I made my return to the office amid a sea of gossip and controversy, she was right at my side—even when I told her to f*ck off, because misery does not love company. It loves nothing but the ache of the thorn in its side.