34
H How is everyone this fine evening?” I asked Gunner and Ronan as they sat in the lounge room on the office floor with the large, darkened window overlooking the casino.
Gunner shot me a dirty look as I poured a whiskey and sat in the leather chair. “Why are you in a good mood?” snarled the boy, who was forever in a bad mood.
“I am blinded by the sunshine that beams out of my cousin,” I told Ronan, who chuckled as he sipped his whiskey. “And I’m not in a good mood. This is merely a charade for paying customers. You should try it sometime, Gunner.”
“No, thanks,” he snarled, after taking a pull of his cigarette. “Anyway, I called Mom and ah…I don’t think she’s lying about that night. I think she was confused.”
“That’s fair,” Ronan agreed, as the casino was in full swing with some of the best players sitting at their favorite tables, lightening their wallets of cash, while the girls flirted and smiled, wagged their tails. “Her husband was shot in front of her, so…maybe we were being too harsh. Besides, I reckon the police are the problem from beginning to end. Knee-deep in rotting meat.”
“Did you tell him about his father’s phone?” I asked Ronan.
Ronan turned to Gunner. " The Police said it got damaged, so the PI couldn’t inspect it.”
Gunner snarled, “You’re fucking kidding me.”
Cigar and cigarette smoke quickly filled the air as I took another sip of my expensive Scotch whiskey and relaxed into the leather armchair. I had a profitable business and good men beside me, and this view over Savile was the prettiest view ever. But when I felt the urge to allow myself to enjoy our success, I thought of young Gunner left without a father, and everything pales in comparison.
Ronan continued to fill Gunner in: “A Witness saw Mr. Kaiser have an angry argument with someone on his phone. She reckons he was being blackmailed. Do you know anything about that?”
Gunner’s black eyebrows were low over his sharp eyes, drinking in what Ronan said. I saw his father in him daily, but he needed to do something about that anger. He was only a cat’s whisker away from severely damaging himself or someone else.
“No,” he leaned forward, and his hand clenched the armrest. His knuckles turned white as he glared out at the casino, but his mind was elsewhere, probably back, Larsson. “Who the fuck would be dumb enough to blackmail Dad?”
“Exactly my thoughts,” Ronan agreed in his leveled voice, watching Gunner closely in case he flipped his lid.
I focused my attention on the sea of tables and men enjoying the spin on the wheels as the dancers prepared the stage behind the partitioned wall.
“What the fuck?” Gunner murmured, and I assumed he was still thinking about the police’s hitjob on our family. But his eyes were fixed on the floor as those black eyebrows sunk even lower over his narrowed eyes. “What the fuck is she doing here?”
I followed his gaze, hoping like hell Sylvie hadn’t just turned up unannounced. She threatened to come over for my birthday as an excuse to see her son but couldn’t get away from the club in Larsson. But I couldn’t see her out there unless she just slipped out of view.
“Who are you talking about?” Ronan asked, taking an interest in his odd behavior.
“Riley,” Gunner answered, perplexed, glaring unflinchingly, fingers gripping the armrest tighter.
“Who?” I asked, trying to figure out which person he was looking at.
“Riley,” he snarled as if I should know who Riley was. “The girl, I think, is Ann,” he swallowed before finishing her name, “ika.”
“Seriously?” Ronan stood up and stepped to the window, a glass of whiskey in his hand. “Which one?”
“The girl…” he pointed his finger, stunned, mouth gaping in awe. “She’s wearing a uniform. She works here? Why didn’t you tell me you had Riley Laws on the payroll.”
“Pretty sure that we don’t have a Riley Laws on the payroll, but I could check with Betty,” Ronan screwed his face up and glanced at me like he was wondering if Gunner was losing the plot.
“Gunner, point out which girl Riley Laws?” I stated sternly so he’d calm the fuck down.
“The pretty girl in the kitchenhand uniform,” he outlined.
“Why the fuck are they on the floor?” I growled, annoyed as that was a breach of our high standards, and my hand reached for my phone to call Betty to sort it out. “Kitchenhands are supposed to stay behind doors.”
“The girl with glasses and long, brown hair tied up,” Gunner added as I pressed the phone against my ear.
Ronan groaned and landed back down on his chair as the color drained from his face. “That’s Petra Black.”
Betty picked up. “Betty, why have you got kitchenhands on the floor?”
“Sorry, Mikky. There's a problem with one of the servant doors. I'm sorting it out now,” she replied swiftly, and the kitchen staff was driven off the floor in seconds. With that small problem diverted, I was left with an impending hazard with these two.
“Petra Black?” Gunner questioned, looking back at Ronan, who was starting to look a little sick.
“Don’t tell me…” Ronan began, “Are you the masked man who knocked the teeth out of some guy who hurt her?”
“Yeah,” Gunner replied darkly. “How do you know?”
“Wait. Whose teeth did you knock out, Gunner?” I thought it was more important to avoid another lawsuit than worry about a kitchenhand that’s caught the attention of these two.
“It was one tooth, and he fucked her, then forced her to walk home in the dark,” he stated proudly.
“Okay,” I resigned, still not happy about this.
“What do you mean, Petra Black?” Gunner snarled.
“That’s the name on her ID. Obviously, it’s a fake ID-”
“What?” I scratched my forehead in frustration. “We don’t hire underage staff. Does Betty know there is an underage girl here?”
“It’s on me. I wanted her to work because I met her as someone else,” he explained as Gunner’s suppressed rage grew.
“You know she was Riley?”
“No. I knew her as the girl who swam in the forest pool. That’s how I met her. Sort of.”
“Forest pool?” Gunner was frothing at the mouth like he was about to snap. “Have you fucked her?”
“I didn’t fucking know she was Riley,” Ronan argued back with fists clenched, ready to deal fight off the angry pitbull terrier. “Calm your shit down. She used a fake ID and said her name was Petra fucking Black.”
“Alright, timeout. Sit the fuck down, Gunner.” He was pacing, pent-up, confused energy about to explode. Once he was seated and calmed, I collected my thoughts and sipped my whiskey. “You both fucked the staff and broke the number one rule. I should sack the both of you.”
“I didn’t know she was staff,” Gunner informed us. “I knew she had a job, but she wouldn’t tell me where?” He folded his arm tightly across his chest and cocked his dark head, holding back his frustration. “Even if she told me, I wouldn’t break it off with her.”
“Are you falling for her?” I asked Gunner as disappointment swept across Ronan’s face.
Gunner shrugged, trying to play down his feelings. “I mean…she’s a nice girl.”
“How the fuck did this happen? Of all the girls in this city, you two choose the same girl who also happens to be a kitchenhand here at Savile,” I lectured them, annoyed that I had to deal with this juvenile shit. “We have rules for a reason.” I took a drag on my cigar and analyzed the looks on their faces, wondering what was so special about that particular girl. She didn’t seem that great from where I stood. “The best option is to sack the girl…”
“I could find her another job elsewhere,” Ronan pointed out. “I’ve got contacts-”
“Hold up,” I interrupted, pointing at Gunner’s sad face. “Didn’t you say you suspect that girl with the glasses is Annika?”
“Yeah, that’s why I started pursuing her and breaking into her room and stuff,” he explained.
“I thought Annika was blond?” I questioned. All I could remember of her was thick blond, curly hair, but she was only sixteen then, so I didn’t pay her much attention.
“Riley dyes her hair, and her glasses are fake,” Gunner stated, so he had been doing his homework and not just fucking the target. “I caught cops following her too, and she said that had happened before.”
The situation stunk to high hell. “If she were Annika, wouldn’t Savile be the last place in the world she would work?”
“Unless she doesn’t know,” Gunner argued. “It’s not like we announced to the world that the Kaisers bought this place. It was done on the quiet. Besides, the Kaiser name was more infamous in Larsson.”
“Or she isn’t Annika,” Ronan added, another relevant point.
I stewed on their arguments for a few seconds, as we still didn’t know for sure if she was Annika, and basing it purely on Gunner’s hunches wasn’t smart.
“Either that girl in the glasses is not Annika and Gunner had been hounding the wrong girl, or if she is Annika, then it’s a fucking weird coincidence that of all places she works, it’s here,” I summarized, figuring out in my mind what was the best way to deal with this.
“She’s Annika. I feel it in my bones,” he stated emphatically. “I knew her better than anyone. I knew her better than her biological mother, who abandoned her.” Emotions were running high, and his voice cracked as he spoke. “She was my best friend.”
“And you said she had police following her?” I clarified as something about the conviction of Gunner’s answer stirred an uneasiness in me. Annika held the answer as to who set me up, and I’ll bet she’d have information on who murdered Lars Kaiser, my uncle.
Gunner nodded. “There was an unmarked police car following her on campus last night. She was on her own-”
“How was she on her own when you were there?” Ronan raised an interesting point. “Were you stalking her?”
“No, I was following her. It was dark. She shouldn’t be walking alone at night,” he answered firmly.
I snorted. “Cousin, that sounds like stalking to me.”
“If it weren’t for me, the plain clothes would’ve grabbed her,” he argued without seeing the irony.
“Maybe the cops were trying to protect her from you. Did you think of that?” I proposed, finding this scenario funny, even though there was a serious side that I had yet to acknowledge.
“They couldn’t see me,” Gunner stated confidently.
“If she was Annika, then she’s likely working with the cops,” Ronan offered an interesting angle. “If she’s lying about who she is, dyeing her hair, fake glasses to keep up the facade, under the witness protection program, then she’d be under their watch, probably conversing regularly.”
“Interesting point. Is she here in Savile by choice, or is she here as a plant by police?” I considered this as a possibility, but Gunner shook his head.
“Too dangerous. Too irresponsible. If they’re going to plant a spy, they won’t use the girl that we want dead,” Ronan explained, and I nodded in agreement.
I took another pull of my cigar, “This puts us in an interesting position because if that’s Annika down there working in my kitchen, on the payroll, then we have her where we want her. Don’t we?”
Gunner cringed, wrestling with his conscience. “Mikky, you’re not going to hurt her? I mean…she’s only young and,” he exhaled, unable to find the words to finish the sentence.
“Wasn’t that always the plan, Gunner?” I reminded him in a steady tone. “Isn’t that why you saw Annika in every fucking girl that crossed your path? In your desperation to find the girl that screwed us over and put me in prison.” I pointed to the window. “You might have found the real Annika, Gunner. After three fucking years, that might be her downstairs, and you want me to let her go?”
“Nah, I just…” he was seriously conflicted, and Ronan wasn’t looking much better at the consequence of this revelation.
“Right,” I stated firmly, “this is what we’re going to do.” I took another pull of my cigar as the boys watched me closely.
Fate had smacked them in the face, and they were confused about what to do, but luckily, I was here. I had no emotional attachment to Annika or Riley downstairs, even though they might be the same person.
“Nothing,” I told them. “Act normal. We’re going to do nothing until we find out for sure who she is. Because she’s using a fake ID and working under my roof, which does not make me happy, but if we scare her off, we’ll lose her, and all that hard work will be for nothing.”
“So…keep seeing her?” Ronan asked carefully and received a sour look from Gunner. “Romantically.”
I took a deep breath. “Yes. Both of you act normal. But find out more about her and why police are sniffing around her. Then once we’re sure who she is and have a correct identification…” I rubbed my chin, considering my words. “She’s mine.”