Nate’s funeral was held almost two weeks later, when the coroner released the body after ruling out any foul play. It was thought that Nate was driving away from the fire when it engulfed his car. He was unrecognisable.

The service was far larger than I expected. It felt like everyone in Torquay knew and loved the Cartwrights and mourned along with them. Even my father was in attendance. Holland, however, was not. I didn’t know if it was because she thought she wouldn’t be welcome, but I thought she should have been there. He was her husband. She loved him. That was all that should have mattered.

After the funeral, I tried calling her while we were gathered in a function room at the local surf club. The call went straight to voicemail, so I left a message and tried to focus on those in attendance. Despite the sombre mood, it was much like any other gathering. Drinks flowed, speeches were given and stories were shared. Nate was loved and received the perfect send-off. I wished I knew him better, as I thought I probably judged him too harshly due to our circumstances. Now it was too late to make amends.

“I think Jazz needs some quiet,” Sam noted, watching her force yet another smile while someone else offered their condolences. She’d been so strong the entire time, refusing to be the spectacle, but now her edges were looking frayed.

“Let me take her home,” I said. “You stay with your brothers and wrap things up here.”

Nodding, Sam kissed the side of my head. “Drive safe,” he said. “I’ll follow as soon as I can.”

Jasmine blew out a charged breath the moment we got into the car. “I need to go home. I need to drink myself into oblivion and wake up when this is all over.”

I pressed my lips together in an understanding smile. I didn’t need to point out that the grieving process was never really over. Loss just got easier to live with.

Pulling into the circular drive of the Cartwright home, I killed the engine and frowned when I could still hear it running. I looked in the rear vision and noticed a black SUV pulling in behind me.

“Someone’s here,” I said.

Jasmine turned around and set her jaw, her eyes hardening. “Stay here,” she commanded.

I did as I was told, cracking the window and keeping an eye on her at the same time. Two men got out of the SUV. They appeared normal enough, but by the look on their faces and the set of their shoulders, I didn’t think they were there to offer their condolences. This was business.

“I just buried my son,” Jasmine said, placing her hands on her hips. I thought that was a good move, because I’d read that folding your arms meant you were intimidated and keeping them open like that showed you wouldn’t be messed with. “This couldn’t wait for another day?”

The smaller of the two, a man with one of those undercut hairstyles that were popular these days, was the one to speak. I assumed the bigger guy with the bald head was there as the muscle.

“And I’m very sorry for your loss. But business doesn’t stop just because you’re sad. Your son was a big part of our business. That fire took out our best crop. That’s going to seriously affect our profits. Now we need something, I don’t know—life insurance, the proceeds from his estate—to help us cover our loss.”

Oh. I knew who they were. These were the guys Nate was in bed with. The drug dealers.

“I don’t have any control over that. He was married, so everything legally goes to his wife.”

“Is that her?” The drug lord nodded towards the van, and the muscle came straight for me. I didn’t really know what went through my head in that moment, but I unclipped my seat belt and jumped out of the car before he could reach me. Like I wanted to be ready or something.

“No. His wife wasn’t at the funeral. I don’t know where she is.”

The muscle grabbed me by the arm anyway and jostled me over to his boss.

“That’s a pretty ring you’re wearing there, sweetheart. Who gave it to you?”

“Your dad when I was sitting on his face,” I responded. “I’m your stepmum now.” The words shocked me more than anyone else. It seemed when confronted with a situation where I felt in danger, I got really mouthy. The drug dudes found my response mildly amusing, but not amusing enough to let my arm go.

The drug lord smiled. “Well, the next time you’re in that position, do me a favour and suffocate the bastard. He always was a cunt of man.”

“Sure. I didn’t like him much anyway,” I said, and the guy laughed.

“I like you,” he said, waggling his finger at me. “You’ve got fire in you.” He leaned in so close I could smell his breath. Ew. “But not enough to distract me from my task. Your husband owes us money for the fire that ruined our crop. Since he’s left this earth, it’s going to be on you to get that money to us.”

“I’ve already told you, she’s not his wife,” Jasmine insisted. “She can’t give you anything.”

Drug man smiled. “I don’t give a fuck whose wife she is. You’re the family matriarch. You work out how to get my money. In the meantime, Bruno.” He clicked his fingers, and Bruno tightened his grip and started dragging me towards the SUV.

“What the hell are you doing!” Jasmine demanded, leaping to my defence before the drug dude put his arm out and stopped her.

“Just taking a little collateral. I’ll return her to you unharmed when I get my money.”

“How much do you want?” Jasmine asked in a hurry.

“Considering how much revenue we’ll be losing, I think it’s only fair to ask for… all of it.”

Jasmine gasped. I had no idea how much ‘all of it’ was, but judging by Jasmine’s reaction, it was a lot. I really didn’t want to be collateral while they worked that one out.

“Is your name actually Bruno?” I asked the muscle as we neared the SUV.

“Yes,” he said, his accent heavy. Greek, I thought.

“I guess your career options were pretty limited, then.”

“Why?” He totally didn’t understand that his name was a clichéd hired muscle name.

“Never mind,” I said, twisting my body around with enough force that when my open palm hit against the base of Bruno’s big nose, I both felt and heard the bone snap. Blood started spurting everywhere and he stumbled back. But the motherfucker didn’t let go. He just opened his eyes wider, growled from the pain, then placed his big hand on the side of my head.

“Shit,” I said, knowing in the microsecond before it happened that I was going to have an almighty headache.

My head collided with the side of the SUV, pain slicing through my brain and blackening my vision. He tossed me in the back seat, causing more rattling in my head. I gasped as I tried to right myself, touching my head to check for blood as I blinked to clear my vision. “Ow.”

As I sat, intent on trying to scramble out the open door while Bruno attempted to stem the flow from his nose, I heard a growl followed by a grunt. Bruno’s body arched backwards as a thick arm wrapped around his neck and yanked.

Bruno may have been the drug dude’s muscle, but Sam was mine and he was bigger. Angels sang an exultant chorus, a big brass band blew trumpets and beat drums, the crowds cheered, all rejoicing in my rescue—although that noise could have also been the concussion, I was pretty sure I was developing.

I jumped out of the SUV just as Bruno slid into a heap on the ground, passed out but definitely still breathing.

“Samuel!” Jasmine’s scream came at the same time we heard the click.

“He’d better not be dead,” the drug dick said, crouching to check Bruno’s pulse while keeping his gun trained on Sam and me.

“He’s not,” Sam said, shifting me until I was slightly behind him. “Just sleeping.”

“You’re out of your depth here, son. All I want is compensation. I won’t be going away until I get it.”

“You won’t be getting it,” Jasmine said, her lips curling as she came up behind him. The moment he turned to address her, she raised her hand and plunged what looked like a pocketknife into the side of his neck.

If I’d thought Bruno’s broken nose had sprayed a lot of blood, a knife to the carotid artery produced a waterfall. I’d seen the amount of blood that came out of a human body before, but never like this. I’d never watched a man bleed out before.

“Holy hell,” I gasped.

As he gripped his neck, Sam grabbed his gun and uncocked the hammer, shoving it in the back of his pants as he tried to use his body to shield me from the sight. Jasmine just stood there with the bloodied knife in her hand, staring at the douche as he tried in vain to stem the flow.

“I know it was you,” she ground through clenched teeth. “I know it was you who set that fire and killed my boy.” The drug man shook his head wildly, gurgling and choking on his own blood as he dropped to his knees. “How dare you come here demanding money and making threats. You think I wasn’t expecting you? You think I wasn’t ready? I didn’t become who I am by lying down and getting fucked over by miserable cunts like you. I know who you are, Simon Ferezis. I know where you live and who your friends are. And most of all, I know everything there is to know about your business. You underestimated a grieving mother, and now you’re the one losing everything.”

He coughed on the ground, struggling to keep a hold of his life. It was taking way longer than in the movies. They took seconds while this was minutes. Not a lot of them, but still, minutes. Enough time for another car to pull into the driveway. Enough time for Toby and the twins to rush over and mutter things like “Holy shit” and “What did you do?”

When it was over, and the drug man I now knew as Simon had lost his fight, Jasmine looked over to Bruno and pointed to him with her bloody knife. “He needs to die too,” she said.

“Fuck!” Toby yelled. “Fuck.” Then he stormed over to Bruno, pushed him into a sitting position and kneeled behind him.

Oh no

Toby took three quick breaths, the fight evident in his face as he placed his hands on either side of Bruno’s head. I literally witnessed a piece of Toby’s soul crack, the sorrow and pain flitting across his face before he roared and twisted Bruno’s neck so far it snapped. He was dead—I heard the crack, saw the way his face went slack.

Then I threw up on the ground.

* * *

“What are we going to do with the bodies?” Kris asked as we sat around the table, each with a stiff drink in hand. The house was dark except for the light overhead, like we were in a secret meeting. In a way it was, the lighting fit the mood. It was one thing to steal, another entirely to take a life—well, two. Thankfully, the Cartwright property was secluded enough that no one could’ve seen what went down unless they were flying directly overhead, so witnesses weren’t our problem. Hiding the evidence was.

“Someone’s gonna know they came here,” Abbot added. “Someone’s gonna come lookin’.”

“And we’re going to say we never saw them,” Jasmine concluded. “We’ll dump the car into a gully, drop the bodies in the ocean for the sharks to get. No one will ever find out.”

“Bodies have ways of turning back up,” I whispered, my shaking hands clutching the glass of straight vodka in front of me. I took a sip, making a slurping noise because all of my finesse was locked away in the numb part of my brain. “They bloat, animals find them and drag them free, they get hooked on fishing wire, caught in a boat’s propeller, eaten by a shark and discovered in its belly.”

“Take them out far enough and deep enough, it’ll never be a problem. No one ever found Harold Holt,” Toby said.

“Yes, but there are so many theories surrounding his disappearance. There may be no body to find,” I added.

Jasmine pressed her fingers against her eyes. “Then what do you suggest?”

“There’s only one real way to completely dispose of a body.”

“How’s that?” Sam asked.

“Fire. And not just any fire. We need to cremate them.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Kris asked.

“Yeah,” Abbot added. “We can’t just walk up to the funeral home and say, ‘Chuck this in with our brother, will ya?’ Get a three for one deal.”

“You’re forgetting something,” Sam said, his eyes on me as his lips kicked up at the side. “Alesha’s family owns a mortuary. She has keys.”

“And alarm codes, and working knowledge of the chambers,” I added.

“I say we do it,” Toby said, downing his drink. “Kris and Abbot can deal with the car. Don’t dump it, take it to the chop shop in Sunshine and sell it for parts. They’ll take it no questions asked. Me and Sam will deal with the bodies. Jasmine and Alesha, stay here and bleach the driveway.”

“I need to come with you,” I said. “The cremator isn’t just ‘push a button and it’s done’. There’s a whole process we have to go through that takes a few hours. We have to leave the place looking like no one was ever there.”

Jasmine looked at her watch. It was almost 9:00 p.m. “Then you best be on your way.” On our way. Such a casual order to dispose of two bodies. It made me sick to think about what we had to do, but it had to be done. Had to.

How did my life get to this point?

Right, I married a thief. Fell in love with him and his family.

And I’d do whatever it took to keep them safe.