☆ ᴡᴀᴛᴛʏꜱ 2024 SHORTLISTER!! ☆
A tragic misunderstanding. A murder. A secret. An unlikely partnership. A spirited countess and an enterprising racketeer.
~~~
Manchester, England. May 1925.
The Roarin' 20s. An era of glamor, decadent parties, jazz mus...
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Warwick Hall Manchester, England May, 1925
The ground was stained vermillion around the traitor's motionless head. His eyes stared up at the sky, unblinking, pupils dilated.
Between those sightless eyes was a single bullet hole. Fresh. Deep. Fatal. Blood seeped and steam rose from the wound in gruesome harmony.
Liam lowered his revolver to his side. With a sniff of impatience, he holstered the weapon and stalked toward the corpse. Crouching, he closed the man's sightless eyes with his fingertips.
“Don't fuckin' stare at me,” Liam muttered to the dead traitor. “Brought this on yo'self, didn't ya? Should've known I'd suss you out.”
The deceased was a gardener Liam had hired no more than a fortnight ago. A Russian. Due to the ongoing unrest in Russia, England was crawling with Soviet strays, and this man claimed to be just another refugee in need of a job. He'd seemed a good fit to the grounds staff, at first. But as the days went on, Liam became increasingly suspicious of the young man. He was too attentive. Too friendly. Too interested in Liam himself.
He had to be a spy. A plant. Liam was sure of it. The Russians he'd encountered and conducted business with in past years said they would be watching him. And so they had. This gardener served as their eyes on the inside. Sent to observe. To report. Maybe to assassinate.
And now he was dead.
Nobody surveilled William Mercer in his own home and lived to tell about it.
He'd pleaded for his life, of course. The traitor. Swore up and down that he was just a gardener. Exclaimed the word “sestry” again and again, as though it would prove he wasn't a spy. Liam knew better. They all claimed innocence — every person who strove to betray another.
Liam wiped his hand across the gardener's shirt. He then reached down and pulled the gold signet ring from the man's finger. It was engraved with some Russian word that Liam couldn't read. Курагин. Maybe a name. Maybe a symbol of his fealty to whomever had sent him.
With a decisive nod, Liam stood and pocketed the ring. It was too exquisite a thing to end up in the ground with a dead traitor. Perhaps he'd send it back to the Russians so they would know their spy had failed. Perhaps he'd keep it as a trophy.
“Never shoulda got in bed with the likes of youse,” he said, addressing the corpse as though it represented his dealings with the Russians as a whole. “I already paid ya, but I keep findin' ya between my sheets all the same. Like a whore who can't take a fuckin' hint.”
He expelled a rough breath through his nostrils and lit a cigarette. Might be time for a cleansing fire. Burn some of the refuse on his grounds before the stench set in.
Liam took a calming drag off his cig and blew the smoke in the direction of his former gardener. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. No one was going to miss one more dead Russian.
