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“You asked me the other day, so I’m telling you now.” He picks up Bambi’s discarded packet of gum on the counter and slowly folds a tab into his mouth. All the while, I’m hearing the tell-tale whistle of a bomb dropping in my head. “They kept me in that basement for a week after they took you and Ada away.”
Still whistling.
He glances down at the counter, his face twisting as if the memory is physically painful. “When I fuck a woman, Lastra, I want her screams to have the major keys, not the minor ones. You know what I’m saying? It’s a mutual thing, however freaky the kinks.”
I frown, confused by the digression.
Still whistling.
His expression stills. “Let’s just say O’Sullivan doesn’t give a shit about consent from menorwomen, especially in that fucking basement.”
Boom.
It takes me a second to register what he just admitted.
“Viper—”
“Not here,” he snaps, shutting down the conversation, and I know enough about assault victims not to push it.
But I get it now.I gethim.The manic behaviour… The self-destruction…
He doesn’t just hunt down rapists to exorcise his sister’s demons. He hunts them down to purge his own.
CHAPTER 29
ADA
“And again, girls, slow-quick-quick, slow-quick-quick—”
Five days, Ada.
Five days until I can hold him again and never let go.
Just then I notice that my class of eight-year-olds have stopped dancing and are collapsing into giggles. The leader has tripped over her Quickstep and the three girls behind have landed on top of her in an ungainly heap.
Trying not to laugh myself, I pull them to their feet. “I said toQuickstep, Lucy, not to falloveryour steps.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Rivers.”
“Shall we try that again?” I click the small remote in my hand to restart the music. “And a slow-quick-quick, slow-quick-quick—”
As much as it kills me, I’ve made the decision to close the studio after today. The risk of bringing danger into my students’ lives is too real to ignore. It was easier to justify keeping it open when I was exiled and overlooked, but now…
They sent me straight home after the incident in the club. I watched Kirill and O’Sullivan exchange angry words in the street as I was driven away.For the first time, I can see cracks forming at the heart of the Red Compass that can’t be filled with money or violence.
Glancing briefly at the clock on the wall, I pause the music again. “That’s nearly the end of the class, girls. Time for a warm down. Find a spot on the floor and follow me.”
Afterwards, I dismiss them with a smile. “Who had fun today?” Their enthusiastic response elicits another smile. “Good! Then, I’ll see you at the same time next week.”
I hope.
Unless…
“Excuse me, is this where I sign up for dance lessons?”
There’s a young girl hovering in the doorway to the changing rooms. As I watch, she swivels to the left to let the line of chattering eight-year-olds pass. She doesn’t look like the kind of young teenager I normally see in this part of Surrey, in her skinny black jeans with food stains, a tight Taylor Swift T-shirt, and her bright pink hair, but there’s something vaguely familiar about her anyway.
She bites her bottom lip when I don’t answer. “Listen, I would have signed up at reception but there was no one there…” She trails off, shrugging her shoulders.
