I peek down at Rose. She’s looking at the screen. Not watching though. Frankly, my time is of better use elsewhere at the moment, and I know she’s thinking the same. Neither of us want to be the one to speak up.
I sigh, breaking away and getting to my knees in front of her. “As much as it’s been lovely sitting here pretending to relax, I would much prefer to do this another time when I haven’t got a million fucking questions on my mind.”
She smiles. It’s small. “I should go check on Daniel and Beau.”
I nod, kiss her, and get up. “I’ll be in my office.” I head that way, and the moment I’m in there, Ringo pours me a Scotch. I show him my gratitude with a smack on his shoulder. Brad’s shaking his head from his seat at my desk, still looking a bit shellshocked. “Where’s James?” he asks.
The man with all the answers we need. “Where do you think he is?” I pace up and down, my head ringing. “Higham’s sorted Burrows.” Poor bloke. He’ll definitely be retiring soon. “Fuck knows what Burrows did with Amber’s body.” That’s a worry. My wife killed the ex-in-house whore, and I have no way to ensure the body is never found to protect Rose. What a fucking mess.
The door to my office opens and James walks in. He looks fucking awful. “Rose is taking some tea up,” he says, going straight for the vodka. I look at Brad, who looks at Ringo, who looks at Goldie.
“How is she?” our she-warrior asks. She has more balls than any man in this room.
James laughs, increasing the uneasiness surrounding us. He turns, armed with a full glass, and toasts the air. “Mourning the death of her corrupt ex-fiancé while her current one stands here drinking himself into an oblivion wondering what the fuck this means for him.”
Silence.
“What the fuck happened, James?” I ask, my brain fried. “How did Amber have a key to the box?”
He peeks up at me. “Beau found her father’s name in the safety deposit box.”
The collective gasps of everyone drench the room. “The fuck?” I breathe, lowering my glass as I mentally walk my way through every tiny shitty thing that’s happened.
“Tom Hayley? The Bear?” Jesus, and Burrows was his little mole. The fuck? “Burrows was at Amber’s for the key?”
“And Beau got there first.” James drops into a chair heavily, staring forward. “He drugged her. Took her back to his place.” He downs the drink as we all remain still and quiet. “His lover showed up. Disturbed him. Beau disarmed him. Killed him.”
And now she’s mourning him. My cheeks blow out, and I join James in supping the hard stuff. I can only imagine how livid he is. How relieved. How worried. Lost. It’s going to take more than a break in St. Lucia to fix this shit. I get up and go to him, tentatively placing a hand on his shoulder, fully prepared for the blowback in the form of a fist to my face. “So who the fuck killed Tom Hayley?”
James laughs lightly under his breath, rubbing into his temple. “Amber. Ollie. Volodya…”
I inwardly laugh. He’s right. Any one of them could have, and we’ll never know for sure because they’re all fucking dead. “You’ll get through this.”
James obviously doesn’t agree, taking a glug of his drink. “I’m going to the gym.” He rises, setting his glass on the desk. He needs to stand on his head for a while. Try to level himself out. He doesn’t need me to tell him it probably won’t work this time.
My phone rings and I pull it from my pocket as I watch James pace out of the room, all eyes following him. Something tells me that the next time I see him, he won’t be James. He’ll be the man we all fear. The Enigma. Even though The Bear is dead. Burrows is dead.
But James doesn’t have his peace. Fuck. I look at the screen of my mobile. “Sandy,” I say, looking up, seeing James stop at the door, his hand on the knob. “Am I talking to him?” Can I distract him with business? I doubt it—we know Sandy arranged a hit on Beau, not The Bear. Because The Bear was her fucking father.
“Someone’s got to take those guns off us,” Brad pipes up, looking nervously at James’s back. “Chaka’s going to be delivering a load more soon. We need space.”
James’s back rises, and he slowly turns to face us. He nods, and I answer. “Morning.”
“Afternoon,” he counters, making me glance at the clock on the wall. One minute past noon. “I heard there’s been some developments.”
I click to loudspeaker as James comes over, settling back in the chair. “News sure does travel fast in this city.” I raise my brows. “How do you know?”
“Our friend Higham.”
“Our friend?”
“You don’t like sharing?”
“No, actually.”
“What about selling?”
I smile and rest my arse on my desk, crossing one ankle over the other. “Depends what’s on offer.”
“The whereabouts of Carlo Black’s remains?”
I still, the tumbler slipping from my grasp and hitting the rug. “What?”
“Since we’re getting things out in the open, doing a bit of housekeeping, I will tell you now—”
“Tell me what.”
“I was ordered to dig up your father.”
“And you did.”
“I did.”
If Tom Hayley and Burrows weren’t dead, I’d fucking kill them so fucking slowly, they’d be begging me to end it. “And where is he?”
“I will send you directions.”
“And Beau’s mother?”
“What?”
“Jaz Hayley.” I eye James, who is slowly rising from his chair, his big, coiled body unfolding, looking as deadly as we all know it is. “Where will we find her remains?”
His extended silence does not bode well, but before I can demand an answer, the door flies open and Otto flies in. “The lawyer Burrows was seeing. She’s in Aspen. A getaway to get over a break-up. She said she and Burrows had a few casual fucks, he was uninterested, and then he suddenly wanted her there every day. She broke it off. Said he was behaving strangely. It wasn’t her running away from Burrows’s apartment.”
I look at James, confused as fuck. He’s staring at the floor, and he slowly lifts his gaze to mine.
“Answer my fucking question, Sandy,” I order darkly. “Where are Beau’s mother’s remains?”
“We only got orders to dig up your father, Black. I know nothing about Jaz Hayley’s remains.”
I inhale, my lips pressing together, as James’s body gets taller and taller.
“I have more.” Otto says, winning all of our attentions. “The rental car speeding away from the scene.”
“What about it?” James asks, his voice low, calm.
Deceiving.
“Rented under the name Dolly Daydream.”
He tears out of the office on a curse.
42
JAMES
The stairs are a blur as I fly up them, my legs numb. All I can see is Beau’s mum’s car in the parking lot. Beau approaching warily. The fireball rising, touching the nighttime sky. I race down the corridor, the thumps of my boots and many more following me shaking the house.