A drain in the centre of the room stands open, too small to fit a person in.
In one piece.
Maggie stops dead, her hand gripping mine almost painfully.
‘Eliza, I told you I don’t want to be involved in this any more. I thought you were in danger.’
‘You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need a hand.’
Maggie lets out a brittle laugh. ‘You needmyhelp?’
Eliza’s eyes move from Maggie’s face to mine.
‘Well… I need Roman’s help.’
Ah.
‘You can’t ask him to do that,’ Maggie says. ‘You can’t implicate him in this.’
‘This fucker is too big to move, and my chainsaw is out of juice. He’s supposed to go down the drain, but the lardy cunt won’t fit if I can’t chop him into more pieces,’ Eliza gesturing vaguely at the torso like it wasn’t recently a living being. ‘I managed to get the legs and arms and head off, but I can’t shift this bloody thing on my own, and I need the place cleaned up before morning. I’m going to have to take the body elsewhere to deal with it. Probably back to the pigs, which is super bloody annoying because I’m booked into the spa here for the weekend.’
She speaks in clipped annoyance. I can’t imagine being so blasé about death.
‘Roman. You don’t have to—’ Maggie starts.
I already am.
I take off my coat and roll up my sleeves, fighting the way my brain screamsabsolutely not. Too late. I’d do anything for Maggie and, by extension, Eliza.
‘It’s alright, babe. Not my first rodeo, huh? I’ll do anything for you.Anything.’
Eliza beams. ‘Knew I liked you.’
‘You can’t mean that.’ Maggie watches me with eyes as big as plates.
I look at her, bracing herself to argue with her sister, to protect me.
And I realise Maggie doesn’t know.
I’d help her bury a body.
Fuck, I’d kill someone for her.
‘I mean every word.’
Because whatever family she was born into, shechoseme. And if loving her means occasionally lifting a dead man into a shitty van for my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, then it’s a good thing I’m used to lying for a living.
‘What are we thinking?’ I ask Eliza. ‘Deadlift between us?’
‘Hope you’ve been in the gym, buddy. He weighs a fucking tonne.’
Maggie groans.
‘Was he terrible at least?’ she asks.
‘The worst,’ Eliza answers, and a knowing look passes between the sisters.
Maggie’s eyes trail over the mound of human in the pool of blood. ‘Good.’
