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“You thought you would escape me if you went away to London,” he murmured to himself. He looked down at the basin that was filled with blood. More dripped from the knife that was precariously balanced over the edge.
Jaxon had just murdered a man, but if anyone peeking into his small cottage in the Irish countryside would see him, they wouldn’t find anything amiss. Jaxon picked up his cane and limped back to his bed. His legs especially had been screaming for relief.
It took a lot of energy to kill a man. It was more difficult for a handicap like him. Things had gotten worse when he dragged the body towards the quarry, far away from him so that he wouldn’t arouse any suspicion.
There was a knock on the door, and he looked up startled. He hadn’t cleaned up most of his mess yet. Splotches of blood still stuck to his shirt. Before he could reach the door opened, and his mother walked in. She was a small, stout woman, her hair crowned with gray hair. Jaxon, who had turned two and forty just two months ago, felt far older than her. His injury had taken years to heal and it still left him incapacitated with terrible pain on bad days.
His mother didn’t even flinch at the sight of the blood. “Oh, for God’s sake, couldn’t you have made it less messy?”
“Try ambushing someone with a bad leg,” Jaxon said coldly as he massaged the skin below his knee. The bad gash had taken years to heal.
“Well, if you needed help, you could have just asked for it,” his mother said, looking distastefully at his clothes and at the basin which was swimming with blood. “You can’t do one job in a proper manner. Even as a boy you were a messy kid.” She sneered at him.
Jaxon felt his bones going cold. She was referring to his stutter. The other children had made fun of it, and when he had gone to his mother for consolation, she had slapped him instead. He had managed to overcome it with age, but she never left a chance to bring it up and throw it in his face. Her eyes were almost taunting as she loomed over him. “You let a woman get the better of you.”
“She caught me by surprise,” Jaxon said. She had come out of nowhere and plunged the wrought iron rod right inside his leg. He would never forget the pain that came afterwards as he sank to the floor, bleeding out. The physician who had looked over him later said that it was a miracle that he had survived. Jaxon knew it was anything but. He was fueled by only his desire to exact revenge on the woman who had left him for dead all those years ago.
“And what did he tell you?” his mother asked.
“Well, my suspicions were confirmed. It was indeed Chris who had helped them escape that night,” Jaxon said. “And I made sure he understood what it meant to betray me.” The man had broken fast under his ministrations. He had made sure to twist the bones on his finger one by one, and by the time he had gotten to the seventh, he was ready to confess everything. And then after he had told him everything, Jaxon had plunged the knife into him and, with a satisfied smile, watched the life ebb out of him.
“So, you were betrayed by one of your own men,” his mother said. Of course, she had to bring that up. No matter what he did, she would never be happy with it. Growing up, his mother had never showered any sort of affection on him. She was a cold woman with a shriveled heart, and she expected him to follow suit. The only thing that she desired was money. And now that his empire of crime was slowly crumbling, she was growing more and more impatient.
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. He had looked for the traitor for years, but he had never imagined that it was one of his closest aides who had betrayed him in the worst possible manner.
“You should choose your friends wisely. Or maybe they will respect you more if you managed to grow a spine for once,” his mother mocked.
Jaxon fisted his hands and itched to do something with them. The adrenaline from the blood lust was slowly ebbing out of his body but he wanted that high again. He imagined taking the knife and sinking it into her neck and then watching her bleed out on the floor. Nothing would make him happier.
He blinked at his mother and when he came to his senses, she was still speaking. “So, what did he tell you?”
“The two women fled to London,” Jaxon said. He massaged the mangled skin around the worst of his wound. It wasn’t healed yet, it never would, and his limp would remain for the rest of his life.
“How do you know that?”
“He was still in correspondence with her. He had sent her a letter revealing the fate of her daughter. He didn’t have her address, but I will figure it out sooner or later.”
“And what are you going to do about that?” his mother asked, folding her arms in front of her chest. She had a scheming glint in her eyes. She was baiting him, and she wouldn’t leave him alone if he didn’t rise to it.
He had no doubt in mind that the woman was still looking for her daughter, and this weakness would be her downfall. She was probably still in hiding in London. “I’m going to find them and I’m going to kill them,” he vowed.
