I shake my head.

We stare at each other for a long moment before Leander’s expression softens. He lays a hand on my shoulder, the other still holding the dart aloft like a precious offering.

“Robbie’s the one behind that latest batch of rainbow fentanyl that the cops discovered in a raid last week. Rainbow fucking fentanyl. He made his drugs look like candy,” Leander whispers, a dark melody that rings in my ears. Leander’s brows raise as Robbie squeals his protests from across the room. “He’s purposely targeting kids, Lachlan. And this time, he just happened to reach kids whose parents can hire the kind of people who will actually deliver justice where it’s needed the most. People like you.”

I turn my attention to Robbie as he struggles against the cable ties that trap his wrists and ankles to a metal chair. His wide eyes are not innocent. His muffled protests are selfish pleas, not words of remorse. Though I didn’t bother looking up the details on Robbie’s latest escapades before we grabbed him, I know Leander isn’t lying. He never does.

My eyes don’t stray from Robbie as I pluck the dart from Leander’s palm. There’s no need to turn and look at my boss to gauge his reaction. I can feel it. His smile is a breath against my skin before he steps back.

I take my shot. Robbie cries out as the dart hits his forehead and ricochets off bone to land in his lap.

“Oof, good try. Almost a bull’s-eye. But I’m winning,” Leander declares as he lines up to take his next shot. He’s about to let the dart fly when a security alert dings through the speakers. We turn in unison to the screen hanging behind the bar. A rugby game is on mute and the security feed in the upper right-hand corner shows the front gate of Leander’s estate. There’s an old Honda Civic waiting to be let in.

A second later, a call comes through to Leander’s mobile. “Let him in,” he says in lieu of a greeting. He hangs up without a goodbye and I watch the screen as the gates open. The car rolls forward on the driveway, which snakes through pines.

I exchange my glass for my gun and stride toward the fortified basement door as Leander lets another dart fly. “Be right back,” I grumble. Robbie’s shrill cry snaps at my heels as the heavy steel slams shut behind me.

The silence in the rest of the house is a balm, soothing and sweet after suffering. The October sun is already so low behind the woods surrounding the house that all the expensive furniture and curated decorations are coated in shadow. Leander’s wife and teenage kids are gone for the weekend. Even the security guards are keeping their distance. Sometimes, the boss wants to pretend he’s just a simple guy with an uncomplicated life. The kind of guy who has a few beers on a Friday night. Has fun with his tools. Orders some takeout. Maybe plays a round or two of darts.

But in his typical high-functioning psychopath style, Leander puts a bloody spin on pretty much everything he does.

I open the front door and keep my gun hidden behind the thick mahogany, the muzzle pointed toward the kid. At Leander’s house, one can never be too careful.

“One pepperoni and one meat lover’s?” he asks as he checks the receipt.

My stomach flips uncomfortably. Pizza is never a good sign. Leander is always better behaved when it’s Thai—he doesn’t like to waste the good food. “Sounds about right.”

When I’ve tipped the kid and locked the door behind me, I holster my gun and take the boxes back down to the basement, casting a longing glance at the wall clock as I go. Nearly five-thirty. Thank fuck I have an excuse to get the hell out of here tonight.

Robbie has three more darts stuck in his skin when I enter the room.

“Fuck yeah. I’m starving. This is a sport, you know,” Leander says as he tosses a dart in a high arc, probably in the hopes of getting it stuck in the top of Robbie’s head like a little flag. It lands in his thigh instead, the metal point lodged deep, the sound of our captive’s distress a grating accompaniment to the music that plays through the speakers mounted on the walls.

A headache surges behind my eyes. “Mmhmm.”

“Hard work.”

“Yeah, you’re really breaking a feckin’ sweat there.”

Leander grins and follows me to the counter of his copper bar where I set the boxes down next to the blood-spattered pliers and discarded incisors. “Hungry?”

“Shockingly, not at all.”

“Just one slice?”

I shake my head. “Saving myself for tonight.”

“Ah yes. Is Rowan all set for the grand opening of his new Butcher & Blackbird place?” Leander opens the box of pepperoni and pulls a slice free. My molars clamp together like they do every time he mentions my brothers by name. Leander’s never been anything but kind to them on the rare occasions when he’s come face-to-face with my boys. But kindness is an insidious mask. A lure in the dark. I’ve seen the grotesque creature that lies behind the pretty light.

“As ready as he’ll ever be.”

“Wish him luck for me, yeah?” His grin is luminous as he takes another bite of pizza and washes it down with a long sip of beer. “Two restaurants. Who’d have thought you’d all be where you are now. Rowan a successful chef. Fionn a fucking doctor. And you with your own studio. Bet you never could have imagined it that first day I found you boys.”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice thin as the haze of memory descends to battle with the present.

“I still remember it like it was yesterday—Rowan some gawky teenager with blood running down his chin. Looked like something from a zombie film. At first I thought he’d bitten a chunk out of Fionn until I realized Fionn was stitching up Rowan’s lip with a fucking sewing needle.”

I nod, or at least I think I do. Leander keeps talking, but I don’t really hear him.

The memory is untarnished. It’s like I’ve stepped into that moment. Every image is so sharp. So clear. I can recall every detail, from the minute to the monumental. I still feel the phantom throbbing beat in my fingertip that had been sliced off. I can see the precise shade of crimson that poured from a deep slice through Rowan’s upper lip. I picture Fionn’s face as he pulled the thread through the torn flesh, the concentration in his eyes. I remember the way the moonlight poured through the window and reflected off the broken shards of glass and the last of my mother’s porcelain plates scattered on the floor.

And most vividly, I recall my father’s lifeless body lying at my feet, my belt wrapped around his neck, one end still curled around my sticky, shaking fist.

Rowan had turned to me, the thread pulled taut between his split lip and the needle clutched in Fionn’s fingers. His eyes were soft, so soft that I realized that maybe it was the first time I’d ever seen him relaxed. “You can let go, Lachlan,” he’d said as his gaze flicked down to my hand.

It was only a moment later when Leander strode in and changed everything, even the things that had already been irrevocably changed. That belt was still wrapped around my fist. And when Leander looked down at me, he grinned.

“ … and then Rowan said, ‘I swear it was almost an accident,’ and I thought, yeah, these kids are all right,” Leander says with a low chuckle. I blink away the memory, realizing I missed part of what he was saying …

… and all of what he was doing.

“What in the feckin’ hell are you making?”

Leander takes a slice of meat lover’s pizza and stuffs it into the blender where a first slice is already folded, grease and condensation smeared across the glass. “Smoothies.”

I look from the pizza box to the blender and back again. “What?”

“Smoothies. You know, drinkable food.”

“A … pizza smoothie …?”

Leander simply grins as he pours half a can of beer into the blender.

“Why?”

“Robbie doesn’t really have teeth anymore. How else is he going to have a last meal?” Leander shifts his attention to Robbie, who cries in his chair. “Didn’t anyone tell you that candy will rot your teeth out, dickhead? Speaking of which …”