Page 160 of Lethal Obsession

They weren’t all criminals, for example, I think as I click my way down the long-forgotten faces of the grisly memory lane. Many are people I killed for the Orlovs, to whom I had no personal connection at all, beyond carving them up and lowering them into the water.

And my links to the corpses go back years, all the way to when I was just a scared kid the Orlovs used to send out with Dima, night after night, to dump bodies they wouldn’t risk being caught with. The dead faces on my screen now come from different industries, different backgrounds—even different states.

But I can’t find any connection between them, beyond the fact that for every corpse I disposed of, there’s a donation to Hunter’s political campaigns. Either the victim themself was a donor before their death, or someone close to the victim made a donation on their behalf postmortem.

So far, I am the only common denominator linking the donations. Which means that there’s nothing for it but this horrific, grisly accounting that only I can do.

In the dead of night. While Ofelia sleeps.

I swallow my revulsion as I click onto yet another set of long-dead eyes. I’ve learned to consign the faces of my victims to an underwater grave which I never visit, except occasionally in nightmares.

I’ve never been able to work out if the faces of dead people appear that way to me when I look at them in photographs because I know they’re dead or because some invisible force left the earth when they died, somehow leaching the pictures of life. Whether real or imagined, the eyes in those flat 2D images seem to watch me with silent accusation, as if at the moment the photo was taken they already had some premonition of their own violent end, and of my role in it. Either way, I learned long ago to avoid looking at photographs of the deceased.

Especially those who are dead because of me.

I told myself that my reason for doing this work in secret is to protect Ofelia. But as I dredge each face to the surface, forcing myself to recall the reasons for their executions and the smallest details about their lives, I know it isn’t Ofelia I’m trying to protect.

I thought myself long devoid of the qualms that torture other men, but the morbid work has my body reacting like a rookie cop at his first crime scene. I feel like I’m in the water of my nightmare, fighting to stay afloat while a thousand dead hands try to drag me into the inky black depths. My stomach churns, cold sweat turning my fingers slick, the nausea so intense that the face on my screen blurs.

For fuck’s sake, Alexei. I force myself to breathe through the iron bands constricting my chest. Get your shit together.

I stand up, turning away from the accusatory eyes on the screen.

The truth is that I’m doing this work in private so I don’t risk seeing Ofelia’s beautiful eyes darken with revulsion.

Or even worse, with pity.

Not even the hardest of men could remain indifferent to the sheer volume of violent death marching across my screen. Let alone Ofelia, no matter how inured she might think herself to the horrors of the life we were both born into.

Losing her is a risk I know I’m not strong enough to take. Just the thought that she might recoil from my touch sickens me, even more than the dead stares of my victims.

“Alexei.”

I spin around. Ofelia is standing in the doorway, wrapped in a sheet, watching me with those quietly penetrating eyes that always feel like they can see directly into my soul. And by the way they narrow now, she’s caught a glimpse of the darkness I’m so determined to protect her from.

“What is it?” She takes a tentative step toward me as I slam the laptop closed. “Has something happened?”

Something?

I almost choke on an unexpected surge of bitter laughter.

More like a thousand somethings. All with dead eyes I can’t fucking unsee.

I swallow hard, shaking my head. “Lars and I are working on something.” I force a smile. “You know how it is when you can’t get an idea out of your head.”

“Maybe,” she says quietly, “it would help to talk about it.”

About how to cut a human body into pieces by hand and dispose of them? Should we talk about that? Or what about exactly how long it takes for a corpse to begin decomposing in the Florida summer? Just the thought of it recalls the oily, sickening stench with such clarity that for a horrifying moment I think I might lose control altogether and pass out.

“No, you should go back to sleep.” I’m astonished my voice is remotely calm. “I’m right in the middle of it. There’s no chance I’ll be able to sleep until this is done, but there’s no point in both of us being awake.”

“I could sleep out here.” She nods at the wide daybed. “Just keep you company.”

“No, no.” I repress a shudder at the thought of contaminating that daybed and the sensual memories it holds with the repellent work I’m doing now. “Honestly.” I want to touch her, but I genuinely can’t bring myself to, not with the stench of death still permeating my every sense as if it’s a real thing. “Just give me an hour or two, and I’ll be done here.”

“Okay,” she says softly, and the understanding in her eyes is almost worse than anything else. “Wake me when you come in?”

I force another smile. “Oh, you know I will.”