The Roots That Bleed (The Bloodroot Book 1), page 23
Offering to help her study? What's up with that? The Aaron I know would never bother. He'd just hole up in his room, shutting out the world. He'd continue to fade away, just like he's been doing for the last twelve years.
I grab a CD from the rack next to the radio, its plastic case marked with the faded handwriting of Aaron’s late mother—'Aaron’s first concerto.' I slide the disc into the old-school radio, hit play, and take a deep breath.
Aaron's got his issues, but his music is flawless. Nothing calms me quite like it, and considering that most of it was recorded when he was just a brat, it is quite mind-boggling, actually. Even then, his soul was seeping into the music like it was trying to give some astral message with the piano keys. His mother made it timeless. If only I could, I’d thank her for that.
The first notes sound out, and I allow them to sink into me, calming that storm that shattered my inner peace. I know every bit and piece. Every nuance. I’ve listened to it so many times that I lost count, and this familiarity is like the sound of rain at night. Peaceful. Or the closest to peace that I could ever feel, I guess.
With more ease now, I turn around as Lorelei’s quiet chuckle reaches me from the monitor. But the very moment I see her face again, my beastiality comes back with double force.
An image of her naked body flashes in my mind, her sultry voice echoing like a song that just won't leave my head.
“Like that, Snake?"
The reaction in my body is instantaneous. My slacks get tight. My balls tighten. I lick my teeth.
“This is fucking impossible," I curse aloud, cutting through the static. “It’s like taking a step forward and three fucking steps backwards."
I run a gloved hand down my face, the leather irritatingly tugging at every tiny hair. I always shave carefully, leaving nothing behind, but still, it pulls. Fuck this shit. Just like that, all the peace that the music brought shatters all over, like spilled milk.
I need to break something, or else this goddamn tension will rip me apart.
But just then, as I pick myself up and aim for the next closest object, a phone buzzes in the pocket of my jacket and saves me. I take it out and pick it up without looking at the screen.
“Speak," I order after bringing the phone to my ear.
My employee on the other side of the line clears his throat before doing as I said. He can hear my annoyance in my voice and knows just how dangerous it is to deal with me when I’m not in the mood. My fingers start tapping against the chair's armrest.
“The warehouse is fixed," he says. “All the missing components have been resupplied, and the security has been upgraded, like you ordered. We're ready to bring it back into circulation."
I take a deep breath and exhale. Finally, some good news. This is what I need—a confirmation that everything is just the way it's supposed to. My machine is running smoothly… even though I am not.
“Good," I say simply. “You are dismissed."
“Yes, sir," I hear just before canceling the call.
I close my eyes just for a second—a mediation of sorts. The hunger is swirling and twirling inside me, squeezing at my insides, never satisfied, but at least more content now. I take a moment to relish this feeling.
I count in my head. One, two, three...
The moment's gone. It’s time to keep going.
I slide my chair against the floors until I reach a glassed cupboard before opening it and putting the phone inside it. It lands among a dozen others, all having a different purpose from each other. The one I put away is strictly reserved for calls with the warehouse managers.
With this done, I slide back to the main computer, the LED lights casting their glow onto my face. For the next two hours, I do the usual: I check the security of the server, analyze the shipments for Lionhart Pharmaceuticals, read emails and news in the area, while keeping an eye on Aaron and Lorelei. Then, with a couple of clicks, I enter the stock market, the grid of columns and zigzags laid out in front of me, and check our standings.
“Everything's under control. Now, let's check in on our 'friends,'" I mumble, layering on the sarcasm thick when I say 'friends'. These people are anything but—mostly sociopaths and money leechers. However, I'd be lying if I said I couldn't relate to them. They're almost as greedy as I am, after all.
My fingers tap against the keyboard, and a layout of at least twenty boxes with live footage appears. Twenty-six, to be precise. They are all showing the homes, offices, or meeting points of influential people in Silverbrook. Some are Aaron's family, some are not, but mostly, they're all scumbags.
It took years of cunning and sneakery to assemble such an arsenal of cameras in these V.I.P. places, but I've made it. Not only can I keep tabs on people, but I do so in such a way that nobody even realizes it. And the best part? I fucking record it all, the nasty parts included.
I lean back in the chair, cycling through the cameras one at a time, scanning the footage for anything noteworthy. I pause on the feed from Dorothea's office, Aaron's cousin, and the owner of the thriving luxury makeup brand NextHue, which is gearing up for a major product launch next fall.
She's there, sipping her pricey afternoon coffee, her red hair a stark contrast to the stark white walls, poring over product proposals. It's impressive, really. Despite being born into wealth, like Aaron, she's incredibly hardworking. She often stays late in her office, a choice she could easily avoid.
Dorothea is about the only person in Aaron's family he can stand. He's never called her a saint, but he's got a soft spot for her, which I respect.
But respect doesn't equate to trust.
I clip a segment of her conversation with the NextHue board and save it to the server. You never know what might come in handy. After finishing up, I skim through a few more videos, trimming and saving the key parts.
It's been a lackluster day until my eyes catch something on one of the cameras: two figures embracing in an office, instantly recognizable.
“Ah, another episode of Silverbrook's juiciest drama," I mutter, enlarging the footage to fill the screen and sinking deeper into my chair. “High-end fashion with a plot that’s absolute crap."
I'm looking at a textbook case of cheating. Honestly, it's pretty stale—boring and unoriginal. Same old, really. A high-profile man, supposedly content with his trophy wife, seeks thrills elsewhere.
A yawn bottles in my neck, but I force it down. Gaining an advantage over others is usually like this—nothing fun while preparing. But when you reach the point where you can flaunt your victory, putting your enemies in checkmate... that's when it all becomes worth it.
The tall brunette with him settles into his embrace, trailing her nails down his back and purring like an engine in need of tuning. She's aiming to be sultry, like something out of a porn movie, but it falls flat, coming off as a cheap imitation at best.
But he doesn't seem to care. He's so caught up in the thrill of cheating on his wife, especially with her sister—a betrayal that's bound to cut deep—that he barely listens.
Chad Whittaker: businessman, husband, father, banquet host, charity donor, a man always in the limelight. He wears these grand titles like a facade, a glossy mask hiding a decaying truth. To me, though, he's just one thing: a cheater.
I roll my eyes as his mistress, his wife's own sister, plays with his belt. There was a time when this would've made my stomach turn, but I've seen too much corruption. Seeing filth is just another day's rot for me.
“I've been thinking about you too," she whispers, unclasping the belt. “I wanted to come to your office earlier, but I knew she had her spies watching." Her breathy voice matches his, but it's obviously put on. She's after something else entirely—his wealth, the kind she'd get if she were the wife, not her sister.
Old-money families and their strange ways... Her family, in particular, is to pass most of the fortune to the daughter who upholds the status. In this case, it must mean snagging a powerful husband, among other things.
These people, with all their money and privilege, dangle it over their children like a golden carrot. They force them to jump through endless hoops, even though the kids will never truly measure up.
Me? I grew up alone, hungry, and dirty, with a void for a heart and moral compass. I’m perhaps just as greedy and broken as all those old money children who want nothing but love and acceptance.
But we're not all the same. Greed doesn't shape us.
Some have rules, and some don't. I most certainly have.
“You did right by waiting," Chad says, skimming her body with his hands. I wonder how many deaths he actually has on them. If I wanted to, I'd count it. Proofs of most of them are definitely stored on the server. Two weeks ago, I'd done it just for the hell of it. Now, I’d rather get this over with. “Everyone's gone now."
The brunette pulls him in for a kiss. He eagerly returns it, resulting in a five-minute-and-thirty-two-second display of messy affection.
My thoughts then drift to Aaron and Lorelei, to the subtle sounds she makes while studying. The soft hums when she grasps something new, the frustrated huffs when she slips up, and the gentle murmurs asking Aaron to explain again.
I find myself getting absorbed in these sounds; every part of me is attuned to them. They're more captivating than the moans on the screen, more thrilling than this clumsy tryst unfolding before me. I wish I could just sit here, letting Lorelei's voice dominate my thoughts, but the conversation between the two cheaters picks up again, yanking my attention back, and I groan.
“I don't know how much longer I can do this," the wife's sister says in a pitiful voice, breaking the kiss. She has a name, actually, Evelyn Abbot, but wife's sister suits her better. “I love you, Chad. I hate that you go home to her," she admits, accentuating her words in a way that shows just how much she hates her sister. She's not jealous of him. She's jealous of her. She wants to be her.
This gets under my skin. I roll my eyes—I've heard these kinds of conversations so often I could recite them by heart. They're always the same script. The third wheel dressing up their homewrecking with flowery words, coaxing their lover to leave their spouse, all under the guise of love and care. The teary-eyed confessions like, 'I can't bear being apart from you,' 'I need you.' And the lover eats it up, echoing back, 'Me too, baby. My spouse doesn't mean anything to me anymore.' I pinch the bridge of my nose, tuning into their conversation despite myself.
“We'll get someone to take care of it soon, Evie," the man replies, clearly unhappy that his make-out session got interrupted. But taking this opportunity, he starts unbuttoning his jeans as he continues, “We just need a bit more time."
Huh, so he doesn't want to leave his wife just yet. He likes infidelity too much.
“I've been looking into fixers, you know," she starts. “But all the good fixers are taken. That crazy old hag always gets the best ones, leaving only the second-rate ones for the rest of us."
This gets my attention. I perk up and bring my head closer to the screen, even though it doesn't really give me better hearing.
“Mhm, whatever you want, baby," Chad says, catching up to her and bending his knees to pick her up. In a flash, he has her sitting on his desk, her legs spread open as his fingers venture between them. “Now, c'mon, I've been waiting for this moment all day. I don't want to think about your damn sister," he urges.
My eyebrows raise in surprise when he practically agrees to eliminate his wife, using a fixer, no less. There's no way he's that blind to his wife's sister's implications. Everyone knows what a fixer's role is—they take care of problems by any means necessary. But this isn't what really piques my interest. I'm well aware of what people like him are capable of; murder is just part of their repertoire. No, it's what Evelyn Abbot said next that really catches my attention, making me sit up and listen closely.
'All the good fixers are taken. That crazy old hag always gets the best ones.'
There is only one person to whom this can refer.
Margaret Coldwell, the woman who's been raising hell to make us suffer ever since that tragedy in Aaron's family, is gearing up. Either it's another wave of her crazy, or she's onto something.
My fingers work like spider legs, tapping fast onto the keyboard and minimizing this camera feed. I go to the page with all the other live cameras and scroll until I find the one I'm looking for. One minute I drum against the keyboard, and next I lean back into the chair, scanning the new picture on the screen like a hawk.
It’s nothing fancy-looking—just a set-up of a living room that’s half obstructed by some object, probably a decoration of sorts that masks the presence of my camera. I don’t even have a full picture, and yet it’s probably my most prized intel in my arsenal.
Margaret Coldwell is not an easy woman to eavesdrop on. She’s paranoid, resilient, and lethal, making any attempt to place a bug in her lair either a treasure or a death sentence to the messenger.
Usually, there's not much action here. It's the living room of an elderly woman, after all. Aside from the occasional trouble, she mostly knits, journals, or looks at old photo albums. It seems like the charade of someone lost in the past glories of a family long since faded away. Of all the Coldwells who once shared dominion over Silverbrook with the Lionharts, only she remains. Alone, yet somehow she still embodies the fierce legacy of her entire line.
She frequently employs a host of professional hitmen. The reason is a mystery, but her mansion is always crawling with guards, coming and going, vanishing at night, and reappearing by day. And even though I had an eavesdropping device right in the heart of the Coldwell mansion a year ago, until this day I wasn’t able to find out the reason.
I grit my teeth now, glaring at Margaret’s seemingly peaceful form as she sits on a rocking chair with a crochet project between her wrinkled hands. This mystery scratches the inside of my brain. It’s annoying and jarring, making me want to wince.
Most people say she’s just crazy, and this whole thing with an army of hitmen is just the doing of an old and lonely brain that’s way past its prime, but I give her enough credit to suspect otherwise. And if something scratches me like this? I’ll make sure to cut its fingers off.
However, just like no smart man enters a battlefield without a recon, I can’t do anything about Margaret Coldwell but watch until I get some intel.
Minutes pass as I look at her fingers leading the yarn around the crochet and the red needlework covering her legs.
Nothing happens.
Nothing, completely nothing.
She just threads the yarn, moving rhythmically, almost as if she’s going along with Aaron’s melody sounding out in my room. Her foot starts moving like it’s in tact with the tempo, and her wrinkled lips start opening and closing like she’s humming something. Something that I can’t quite hear because of the bug’s discreet position.
The scratching in my brain intensifies, and I can’t help but curl my lips in disgust. There aren't many people that can scare me anymore, but this woman has always given me the creeps.
The music in my room ends, and so does her movement. Her fingers stop with the last note played by Aaron’s younger self, and my eyebrows crease, an unsettling feeling nesting at the bottom of my stomach.
“Fucking possessed," I mutter to myself, battling the unease that tickles the base of my neck. I hate unease. Probably most humans do, but I’m nearly certain that I hate it more. I hate it so much that I almost surrender to it and decide to close this feed just not to feel it anymore, even though it goes against my entire being. Against my reason to breathe, my creed.
But mid-movement, I stop. I stop because Margaret Coldwell says something, louder this time, in what looks like an empty room.
“That’s not very nice, Mr. Snake," she says, and my whole body tenses.
Before I even blink, my mind jumps into overdrive. It takes a millisecond—just enough for her message to reach my brain and for me to strip down the unease and turn on the problem-solver mode.
Why does she know about me? Why does she speak to me?
I don’t open my mouth to reply. I don’t want to interact with her in any way. Instead, my body leans into the screen, and my fingers jump onto the keyboard as I frantically begin to sever the connection and cut this off right away. But before I can do that, the woman nods somewhere to her left, to a place that I cannot see.
“But it’s okay. I intend to teach you all a lesson. Send my regards to Mr. Lionhart," she says.
The connection turns off. The signal is gone.
Shit.
The beast inside me roars, and I clench my fingers above the keyboard.
This whole equipment needs to be burned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
There are a whole lot of blonde people in Aaron's family (even though he doesn’t really count them as such). Not only that, but they're also so similar-looking that I started suspecting at least half of them of inbreeding just to maintain that flaxen hair.
I've never thought blonde hair to be attractive, really. With my own hair being so, I liked the opposite. But somehow, Aaron makes it work. Well, more than work. On him, it just looks right.
I take a look at his mean face now and actually appreciate how nice a blonde can look when the strands turn platinum against the rays of moonlight. As much as I cringe internally at the thought, I could actually stare at him like that for hours. He just looks so… unreal. I mean, how can a human being even be like that?
The shady types are oftentimes just blessed too damn much.
He notices me staring, and our eyes lock. I swear his gleam in the moonlight is like he’s some night fairy that stumbled into the human world and has trouble coming back. Maybe that’s why he’s so salty most of the time—because he hates being here as much as I do. But, nope. That would be just ridiculous. I take a deep breath and shut my heavy eyelids.
“I see your grandfather's face when I close my eyes," I drawl out, my voice dragging at the dreadful image popping up in my mind. Ugh, from all the things that could flash in the darkness of my mind, it has to be that mean-looking geezer. “He's gonna be in my nightmares, I swear."
