“I have nothing to wear tomorrow,” Beau says quietly, losing all lightness.
Fuck. Tomorrow. And quickly, I’m reminded that distraction isn’t an easy feat when we are us and we’re in this fucking world. How do I play this? I tussle over that question for far too long, wasting all our times, because there is only one answer. Be reasonable. I have to be reasonable. I turn to Rose. “How long will shopping take?”
She looks at me like I’m stupid. “How long is a piece of string?”
I show the ceiling my eyes, exasperated. Rose and I both know Beau hates shopping, so I expect it’ll be done far quicker than Rose is expecting. Or hoping. “Tank and Fury go with you,” I say, just as the men themselves emerge from rooms down the corridor, looking like they’re about ready to burst with excitement, which tells me they already know what today entails for them, which means Danny knows too. “Didn’t anyone think to tell me?”
“I forgot,” Beau says, sounding apologetic. Forgot? She had all day yesterday to tell me this. All day! I can feel myself getting worked up, trying to mentally reason with myself. It’s hard when so much is uncertain. Where the fuck is Burrows?
“Call me when you’re done,” I order, my vocal cords straining to keep my voice gentle. I slide my hand onto Beau’s neck and peck her lips. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Why?”
“I have a surprise.” I leave her with Rose and make my way down the corridor, passing the big guys. “Have fun,” I quip, getting grunts from them both.
I pass through the entrance hall, just as the front door opens and Zinnea struts in on sky-high platforms wearing a silver sequin embellished pair of trousers and a bustier covered in feathers. Could be me, but since she heard about her brother, she seems to have become a more extreme version of herself, and Zinnea was pretty fucking extreme already. “Morning,” I say, passing her, forcing her to look up from rummaging through her purse. Her blonde wig is a little wonky. I smile.
“What are you grinning at?” she asks.
I raise my hand to my head. “You’re a little”—I jiggle my finger—“skew-whiff.”
She quickly totters across to the wall-hung mirror to straighten herself out. “I was throwing the ball for the dogs.”
“Dressed like that?”
She looks back, her hand pausing on her head. “Dressed like what, exactly, James?”
“Fabulously, of course.” I smile, and she sniffs.
“How’s Beau doing?” She goes back to her bag and pulls out a tissue, dabbing at her top lip.
I glance up the stairs, thoughtful. “She’s okay.” I frown. “I think.”
“You think?”
“She’s still trying to get hold of Burrows.”
“She never could let things go.” She breathes in and looks up the stairs too. “I’m hoping a bit of shopping today will distract her.”
“For her father’s funeral?” I ask on an unamused laugh. And distract? I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible to distract Beau Hayley, and that’s a massive disadvantage for me.
Zinnea stands tall, obviously pushing back her own warped grief for her egotistical brother. “Zinnea makes anything fun, darling.” She struts past me and stops, pouting her over-glossed pink lips and making her eyes sultry so her fake fans of lashes flutter. “Which is why I’m being Lawrence less and less,” she says in her natural, masculine, deep voice. “Arrivederci, darling!” she sings, high again, as she walks like a catwalk model into the kitchen and shrieks a good morning to Esther.
When I get to Danny’s office, I find him at his desk turning the gold letter opener over in his hand. He looks up, acknowledges me with a cold stare for a few seconds, then returns to deliberately spinning the weapon in his hand. Because that letter open has definitely killed more men than it’s opened letters. I take a seat and let him have his thoughts, while I wonder who’s on the end of that letter opener next.
“John Theodore Little,” he muses, his blue eyes narrowing to slits. This will be driving him wild. Irritating him. Angering him. He was fooled, and Danny Black is no fool.
“Otto has nothing, but he will have.”
Danny places the letter opener down and gets up, wandering to the drinks cabinet, looks it over, probably realizes what the time is, then wanders back. “How are your muscles?” he asks, rolling his shoulders.
“Better.”
“Yeah, mine too.” He pouts. “The delivery Fri—”
“You know I’m not happy about it.”
He hums, walking to the window. “I know. You want to call it off?” He looks back, and I can tell that if I demanded it, he would support it. Fuck the Mexicans, we’d deal with the repercussions. But it’s not the Mexicans I’m worried about.
“I have to let her have this.” It fucking pains me, but if I call a halt on this shit, Beau will retreat and I can’t have her retreating. Not with this afternoon’s appointment and the funeral tomorrow and the fact that her ex is waiting in the wings to . . . what? Make her fall back in love with him? Turn her against me? He’s tried it all already. Failed. And, again, where the fuck is he, anyway? Does it matter? Beau will do what Beau will do . . . if I let her. Which I won’t. Can’t. Fuck. But I’ve long accepted she’s not an average woman. Lara Croft. But if she was pregnant . . .
I shake my head to myself. “And to be clear, this wouldn’t be happening if it were an exchange.” Dealing with Chaka and the Coast Guard is one thing. Dealing with the Mexicans is another.
Danny laughs under his breath. “You’re a better man than I am.”
“Our women have different needs,” I point out. “Rose needed to help those women. You bowed when she insisted on Pearl and Anya remaining in our care.”
“True.” He settles back in his chair. “Sandy called me last night.”
I balk. “And you’re telling me this now?” I look at my watch. “Twelve hours later?”
“I was enjoying my day off.” He tosses the letter opener into the middle of the desk and focuses on it. I don’t challenge him. I was enjoying a day off too. “He heard about the Poles. Told me we left two alive. A prize for guessing who one was.”
“The Shark,” I muse.
“And guess what?”
“Don’t tell me Sandy offered you a name?” How many people are going to claim to know who The Bear is? If I hadn’t spoken to the elusive fucker personally, I would think he’s a figment of all our imaginations. A nightmare that haunts our dreams, but not reality.
“You’re so clever.” Danny turns his eyes up to me. “But that’s not all he offered.”
I raise my brows, thinking. It doesn’t take me long. “Volodya,” I breathe. “Sandy’s offered you Volodya too.” So there really is unrest in the camp, because not so long ago, Sandy and Volodya were playing nicely together under The Ox. Now he’s dead too, the Russians and Poles are offering each other up left and right. Of course Sandy would offer Volodya to Danny; he knows that’s a prime piece of meat for The Brit after he turned on him at the Winstable massacre. But is the not so tiny detail of Sandy organizing a hit on Beau when she lay in the hospital with a gunshot wound being forgotten? Surely not. It’s the whole fucking point I ended up resurrecting The Brit after he faked his death.