Total pages in book: 217
Estimated words: 207224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1036(@200wpm)___ 829(@250wpm)___ 691(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1036(@200wpm)___ 829(@250wpm)___ 691(@300wpm)
I have no fucking clue what to say. “What are you going to do?” I ask, feeling as stumped as James. Fuck Tom Hayley for fucking dying.
His smile is inappropriate. He’s amused by his thoughts. “She’s going nowhere near Oliver Burrows or a badge.”
I blow out my cheeks. “And the darkness?”
“I’ll fight to keep her in the light.” He throws his drink back and slides the glass into the middle of the table, an instruction for me to fill again. “Kill whoever I need to kill. I’ll do whatever it takes, Danny.”
“Yeah, do, but promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“Do not go back there yourself.” What a fucking mess. As if there’s not enough shit to deal with. But no. It keeps coming and coming and coming. “We need to talk to Higham,” I say, keeping James flush in vodka. “Maybe while he’s helping us out finding the fucker who dug up our dead parents he can find the fucker who popped off Tom Hayley.” I feel at my creased forehead. “Something tells me it could be one of many people.” Because I’m sure as shit, along with me and James, there are plenty of other criminals, businessmen and politicians in Miami who thought Tom Hayley was a prick. But enough to kill him? I laugh to myself. He would only need to say the wrong thing to the wrong person, because, let’s face it, he said plenty of wrong things to us, and if he wasn’t Beau’s father, I would have ended the fucker. I know James feels the same.
“Can I get you two anything?”
I glance up and find Nolan at the table looking smart in a three-piece. “Put your dick in any one of the girls again, I’ll have Cindy or Barbie bite it off,” I say, as James slowly rotates his glass on the table and Nolan places a palm over his groin.
“Roger that.” He looks over his shoulder, prompting me to crane my head past his body to look. I see one of the girls looking this way. Or Nolan’s way.
“That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”
“Not at all.” Nolan pulls his jacket in. “Where’s—”
“Daddy’s upstairs,” I say, making James smile a fraction and Nolan roll his eyes as he leaves us.
A long silence falls, both of us out of words, just sitting here, mulling things over, drinking. I’m about to stand and declare my intention to take my willful wife home when there’s a distinct change in the atmosphere. I frown and turn toward the door, seeing the units Brad has guarding the door, Drake and Des, two black men built like rhinos, scanning the club. I slide out of the booth, showing them where I am, tilting my head in question. One approaches, the other remains by the door. Securing it? Who the fuck is out there?
“What is it?” I ask, my eyes unmoving from the door.
“Someone wants to see you.”
“Who?”
“Some Russian dude.”
I step back and James, obviously overhearing, is next to me in a heartbeat. “Outside?”
“Says to tell you he comes in peace.”
I laugh out loud, and it is so fucking psychotic. Peace? What the fuck is peace? “How many?”
“Four. All unarmed.”
“Is that what they told you?”
“I patted them.”
I raise my eyebrows, impressed. “Did you ask them if they want sugar in their tea?”
Looking unsure, he flicks his eyes between us. “He’s fucking with you,” James says, sighing.
“I’m fucking with you,” I confirm, making his big shoulders drop. And trying to buy myself some fucking time. I look at James. “Am I walking out there and shooting the cheeky fuckers?” I ask, as he stares at the door, lost in thought. It makes me pause for thought, and I hate my thoughts. Oh fucking hell. “You’re curious, aren’t you?”
“We’re never gonna find him if we kill everyone linked to him before we interrogate them.”
“Fuck . . . me,” I grouse, passing Drake and heading for the office. “Anyone would think you like torturing people. Weren’t you ever taught that curiosity killed the—”
“Crime lord?”
“Fuck you,” I snap, pushing my way into the office and going to the bookcase, just as Brad comes out with Nolan.
“What’s going on?”
“Russians outside. Apparently want to talk.” I jog up the stairs and head for the locked cabinet in the corner.
“What’s going on?” Otto asks from the couch, his laptop on his lap, his phone at his ear.
I grab a machine gun and a belt of bullets, attaching it as I head back out, Otto now on my tail. “I’ve got to go, Boo. Call you later.”
Boo? I swing around, now armed, and Otto backs up, hands up, his phone held high.
Facing me.
My mother’s name on the screen.
“Be cool, Danny,” he says.
“Be cool, Danny,” Brad parrots, their pleas having the opposite effect, my blood beginning to boil. A difficult, callous wife, cheeky fucking Russians, missing dead parents, and now this fucker is trying to get my mother into bed? I step forward. “Stay the fuck away from my mum.”