Hanging up, I jog down a couple of levels to find the car. Pulling out of the NCP, I set a course for Encore and a pink-haired wildlife expert who has some serious explaining to do, but I find myself taking the A4 to Richmond instead.
Parking up outside an old townhouse on the Green, I kill the engine, and let the stillness in. My walls are a fortress now, buttressed with spikes. My pain and grief are interchangeable. It’s all red and haemorrhaging.
I see a ghost of myself on the top step of the house, flicking a jealous finger at Matteo as he and my father leave for the night, before I’m losing the battle with my self-restraint and racing down to join them. Matteo’s arguing with our father now to let me tag along, as Antonio, my father’s double-crossing underboss, stands silently on the pavement. I sense my father’s reluctance, trapped between giving me a taste of a life that’s inevitable and one last shot of innocence.
My grip tightens around the steering wheel as my breathing shallows. No good comes from reliving the past, but how the fuck am I supposed to move forward when the man who shaped it is still walking this earth?
“Four days,” I mutter, my words harsh and raw. “Four fucking days, and then you’re mine O’Sullivan.”
Finally.
Glancing at my watch again, I’m surprised to find it’s late afternoon already.
Where’s my lunchtime call, Silas?
I check my phone. There are no messages, either. No updates about Ada.
Dialling his number, I frown when it rings out. When I try again, I leave a terse message for him to call me back immediately.
I’m chucking the device onto the dash when it bursts into life.
Withheld Number.
“Silas, where the f—”
“It’s not your surveillance team,” snaps a voice, more ice than Texan sunshine today.
“Are you planning on giving me the tough treatment, Grayson?” I drawl, assuming this is about last night.
“Did you take her?”
I pause, caught off-guard. “Take who?”
“O’Sullivan’s wife.”
“Why the hell would I take O’Sullivan’s wife?” But at the same time there’s a hazard warning going off in my head.
“She tried to slit her wrists three days ago. Her body was giving up. There was nothing more they could, so she was being moved to another ward to die peacefully when she vanished into thin air. There are Red Compass men crawling all over the hospital.”
“Then tell the NHS to call in fucking pest control. At least that explains the trigger-happy greeting I received earlier.”
The line goes dead for a second. “So, you knew she was there?”
“Yes, I knew she was there. Ada got a message to me to check on her discreetly. That’s all. Check, not steal. So, you can take that accusatory finger of yours and shove it up your arse.”
I can feel my anger rising.
“This has consequences, Frankie.”
“Everything has fucking consequences, Grayson,” I snarl back. “Twenty-one years ago, O’Sullivan fired a round of bullets that spun all of this into motion, and now my son is dead. MY SON IS DEAD!” I roar this so loudly the echo in the car feels like an earthquake. With another roar, I hang up and chuck the phone away, my restraint in pieces.
I wait for the tears. More rage. Anything.
But all I want is Ada.
It’s gone six by the time I stagger through the front doors of Encore.
The casino is still packed. I even recognise a few faces from the night before, though their designer suits are looking crumpled now, and their make-up is more sweat than matte. I applied for a twenty-four-hour license from the commission, and London’s gamblers are clearly taking advantage.
I’m drunk.
Seriously fucking drunk.
I jumped headfirst into a bottle of whiskey, and I’m still swimming in it. I also have fifteen missed calls on my phone, but none of them are from Silas.
Muttering a greeting to Nancy when I reach my office, I slip my suit jacket off with the intention of throwing it over her desk, but I miss it by a couple of feet, and it lands on the floor instead.
“Shit.”
She stares at my loaded holster with bug eyes, but wisely chooses not to comment. “Would you like a coffee, Mr. Lastra?”
“Good idea. Extra strong.” I need to sober up and fast. Silas has never been off the grid for this long, and I need to track him down. “Is Viper in?”
“There’s no sign of Mr. Viper yet, sir, but his daughter’s in his office.”
Entering without knocking, I find Bambi sitting cross-legged in his chair, watching another maths tutorial on her laptop. She tries to shut it off before I can hear the subject, but she’s not fast enough.
“Simultaneous equations?” I slur, lifting my eyebrows at her as I shut the door. “Can I simultaneously drink at the same time?”
She scowls at me in disapproval. “Are you drunk?”
“No,” I lie.
“Why are grownups so bad at telling the truth?”
“It’s our way of keeping life interesting now that we’re not kids anymore.”
“You’re not selling adulthood to me, Frankie…” She trails off as I toss Ada’s letter onto the desk between us.
“Care to explain why you strolled into a hornet’s nest yesterday? I told you to leave it alone. You keep doing stupid shit like this and you won’t be reaching an adulthood to bitch about.”
“I wanted to meet her,” she says defensively.
“Why?”
She shrugs, in that irritating ‘just because’ teenage way that makes me want to pick my chair up and throw it at the wall.
There’s a knock and Nancy enters with a triple espresso. I drink it in one and request another.
“She said to tell you she loves you,” says Bambi once we’re alone again. “And that she’s not scared.”
Queen move, Ada. You’re still reassuring me even when I’m falling apart without you.
Placing my hands on the desk, I drop my head and shut my eyes briefly.
“What happened to her legs?”
“Bad circumstances, a baseball bat and two men who are at the top of my kill list.” Grabbing the phone, I drag it towards me to try Silas again, but there’s still no answer. “Can you hack into dance lady’s studio, like we talked about?”
“Sure, but can we start calling her Ada now?” She spins her laptop around and sets to work as Nancy delivers another triple espresso to the office. “If you drink that, you’ll have a heart attack,” she says, eyeing it suspiciously once my assistant disappears again.
“Good. Would you come to my funeral?”
“Nope. I’d rather stick pins in my eyeballs.” The ‘p’ is more pronounced than ever, but her secret smile gives her away. “Did you know that dolphins eat puffer fish to get high?”
“Maybe I should start dealing them instead of coke. What’s the profit margin? And when was the last time you saw Viper?”
“He made me a crap sandwich around midday, then disappeared. Thiago dropped me off here an hour ago.”
“What remarkable parenting skills,” I mutter, as my iPhone starts ringing. It’s the Texan thundercloud again. “Shit.”