Page 95 of The Dearly Departed

As the months went by, my body count grew, and alongside it, so did my bank account.

The more critical the death was, the higher the price.

It was messy work, and I didn't enjoy it. But somewhere around the fifth or sixth job, as I changed into one of the brand-new suits Gerald kept readily available in a guest bedroom at his mansion in Hollow Cove, it hit me that not only was I good at it, but the act of taking another life had come naturally to me.

Like a baby learning to walk, I had learned to kill with proficiency, and I did it well.

I wasn't proud of myself, and with every new life I took, the weight of their souls sat heavily on my shoulders. They were bad people—evil by social and moral standards alike—but that didn't give me reason to be happy to serve as their judge. I was simply following orders and keeping the innocent lives I cared about safe.

But that didn't mean I couldn't be good at it, too, and the better I was, the quicker their execution was over.

So, a little over a year after Leonard’s death, with over a dozen names etched into my soul, I was confident, damn near cocky, and Dean's patience in my ego was growing thinner with every job.

And I was growing fonder of him.

"Sir," he murmured as I walked toward Seint Manor from the hearse.

"Dean,” I replied with a nod.

I peered behind him into the house, trying to appear inconspicuous while hoping to catch a glimpse of the illusive Analise.

Throughout the past year, I had tried to spend as little time here as possible, to avoid both Gerald and his snake of a wife, Virginia, and so the contact I had with Analise was infrequent. When our paths did eventually cross on those few rare occasions, our interactions were kept cordial in passing at best. But her eyes lingered as she walked by, and although she couldn't tell—with little thanks to the mask I insisted on wearing—mine lingered too. Watching her, memorizing the effortless flow of her walk, the elegant way she held her hands and lips.

But if she was Beauty, I played every part of the Beast. The phantom of her opera, lurking in every shadow I was permitted to inhabit, wishing I had a way to see her more often without drawing the attention of my weasel of a father or her siren of a mother.

But the foyer was empty of her presence tonight, and where I wished she’d been, descending the stairs, coming right toward me, was Virginia, the vision of elegance and poise.

A wolf in beautiful sheep’s clothing.

Belladonna.

She carried a glass of wine in her hand as she glanced in my direction. Her mouth curved into a salacious smile as she lifted her other hand to waggle her fingers in a wave. I was glad for the mask as I narrowed my eyes with disgust when she stepped into the foyer and approached.

"I'm glad I've finally caught you," she said, taking a place beside Dean and leaning against the doorframe. "Abraham, right?"

It unsettled something in me to hear my real name escape her lips.

"Mrs. Crowley," Dean interjected gently.

“Mrs. Seint-Crowley,” she corrected haughtily, her nose wrinkled, as if to be called anything but disgusted her. “It’s absurd the number of times I’ve had to remind you of that.”

He offered an apologetic nod. "Mrs. Seint-Crowley, I'm not sure Mr. Crowley would be happy with you talking—"

"Oh, I can talk to whoever I want, Dean. You should know this by now. You've been here long enough," she replied, shooing him away with a fluid wave of her hand directly in his face.

Dean's chest puffed with a sigh as he lifted his eyes to my face, his expression apologetic.

"What can I do for you, Mrs. Seint-Crowley?" I asked, my tone tense as I made sure not to make the same mistake Dean had by addressing her with the wrong name.

"Are you heading out on an assignment?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," I replied, keeping my responses short, wanting nothing more than for this interaction to be finished.

"Will you be returning here afterward?"

With a nod, I said, "I always do.”

Every line of work I seemed to stumble into brought with it an array of messes involving a variety of biological material, and after every embalming or stabbing alike, I eventually needed to change my clothes.