Chapter 7
C onnor
The aroma of something sweet reached my nose. It didn’t conceal the maddening scent of Everly in my bed, a punishment I’d had to endure even in my dreams, but it drew me from my room to the kitchen.
The lass was pulling something from the oven, what sounded like a podcast playing in the background with female voices discussing empowerment. She’d taken ownership of my hoodie again and had the sleeves rolled up in her efforts.
I squinted, almost ready to pinch myself because nothing I was seeing made sense. It took a few seconds, but I found my words. “Ye baked?”
Everly jumped, then set the tray down on a heat mat. “You startled me.”
“Where the fuck did ye get the ingredients?”
“I have my ways.”
I stomped over. “No, seriously.”
“Genevieve. I asked, and she brought them to me, posting them through your pointless parcel delivery box.”
She knew Genevieve. I’d been aware of the connection but had no idea they were close enough for this.
Everly rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand, leaving a dusting of icing sugar in its wake. She had her hair up and her neck exposed, though her brow was pinched like she’d been fretting over something. “I needed food. I’ve had a rough twenty-four hours. Stop scowling like that. You’re allowed to help yourself.”
On autopilot, I sat on one of the high stools on the other side of the counter and took in the tray. “Cookies?”
“No, miniature lasagnes.”
I lifted my gaze to find her laughing at me.
She used to enjoy cooking, I remembered. More complicated things than this, but it was one of her methods of de-stressing. My stomach rumbled. My fucking mouth watered. I wanted them. Fuck, I had a hard-on for her, as well.
Neither was happening.
As quickly as I’d sat down, I climbed up. Turned my back. In my bedroom, I yanked on clothes, needing to get the fuck out of here. When I was ready, I returned to the living area.
“I’m going out.”
Her smile dimmed. “Business on a Sunday? No rest for the wicked.”
“Ye don’t know the half of it. What time do ye need to be at work in the morning?”
Any remaining happiness fled her. “Seven-thirty. I’m setting up a conference in the town hall. Will you really be gone that long?”
“I’ll be back in time to take ye.”
Then I snatched up my keys and left her to her domestic toil. Ignoring the lift, I descended the stairs, the thud of my boots echoing in my haste to get out of the warehouse.
Everly being in my apartment was driving me to distraction. Yet I couldn’t let her go without knowing she’d be safe. I needed to solve this problem.
On the ground floor, I exited, glowering at two staff members rolling a delivery cage for the bar through the front corridor. The huge cage, taller than them, rattled and clanked.
“Don’t bring those in this way. Send the driver around the back and take the service entrance,” I snapped.
They knew this. It was the same every week. Wheeling deliveries across the nightclub’s floor was a pain in the arse because of the steps. It meant unloading halfway to the bar, tearing into the packaging, and carrying the crates the rest of the way. A waste of fucking time.
“It’s a new driver,” the guy at the front of the cage said, darting his gaze at me then down. “We just wanted to get it done quickly because he was late.”
He kept his head down, his shoulders bunched.
For fuck’s sake. I was scaring people with my bad mood. With effort, I tempered my scowl. “Make sure he knows the drill for next time.”
“Yes, boss. So sorry.”
They trundled the cage through the nightclub’s double doors, the rattling going through my head. I eyed the exit but sighed. Clearly there was no management around or the driver would’ve been redirected.
I changed course for Arran’s office. It was empty, and there was no answer when I called his number, so I paced into the strip club instead. Up on the stage, Alisha directed the cleaning staff.
“Leesh,” I called. “Have ye seen Arran?”
Her gaze leapt to mine. Clung to it. At the edge of the stage, she placed a hand to hop down, the length of today’s wig, a thick blonde coil, bobbing with her action. “Where have you been? You never replied to my texts. What’s going on? Arran said to just leave you alone.”
Alisha ran the operations side of the strip club and the brothel, managing the staff and sometimes taking to the poles herself. Occasionally, she still sold her body to men, though she was choosy with her list. We’d been friends for years, except recently, Alisha had made some poor choices, rattling Arran’s trust, and mine.
I had no tolerance for anyone acting underhanded, or keeping dangerous secrets and supporting the wrong person. Alisha had veered close to all three.
I shrugged. “I kidnapped a woman and am keeping her locked up for a while. Ye know, business as normal.”
She snorted. “Right, and I’m taking up a new career as an accountant.” Her gaze gentled. “I missed seeing you around.”
A beat passed, but I didn’t take the bait. “I’m heading out. Can ye keep an eye on Divide? There doesn’t seem to be any supervisors around.”
“Oh, sure.”
Her smile diminished, and I turned away before it could affect me. Two women disappointed in the space of ten minutes. I was on a roll.
Outside the back of the warehouse, rain spattered the spacious car park, and I ducked my head and jogged to my car. But as I unlocked it, Arran pulled into the space alongside.
I gestured, and he wound down the window.
“I need a word,” I said.
“Then get in.”
Dropping into the passenger seat, I shut the weather outside.
My friend took me in. “What’s wrong?”
Everything.
I flexed my fist, my energy becoming more difficult to contain. “We need a solution to the problem of Everly.”
Arran rubbed his chin. “I asked a few people. No one seems to know about any connection between the Four Milers and the mayor.”
“I have an idea for how we find out. It involves Convict.”
His muscles hardened, and Arran shot me a look. A month ago, Convict had been one of us. A core member of our skeleton crew. Loyal and trustworthy.
Until he wasn’t.
By his own admittance, he’d taken a cash job for the Four Milers, and prior to that, he’d disobeyed a direct order that no one from our crew enter into Arran’s game. Arran had mostly let that one slide, because he himself had gone in to claim Genevieve, but working for a rival gang went beyond the pale. Whatever Convict’s excuses, he’d lost our trust. He’d almost lost his life as well, and I hated that I regretted laying my fists into him.
He’d been a brother. One of us.
But where he went, Alisha followed. The two of them had been tight. Fucking, probably. She’d been persuaded to take a terrified Genevieve to Convict and leave her with him. She’d also given Convict the run of the basement when our backs were turned, rather than leaving him locked up in a cell.
In the game, Convict had hunted Genevieve, thinking she’d signed up for the violence. Alone with him again in the basement, the woman almost had a breakdown. I only knew this from Arran. I couldn’t imagine how Genevieve had felt, or why Alisha could have persuaded herself it was okay.
It turned out Convict only wanted to apologise to Genevieve, but where Alisha had got the benefit of the doubt, barely, I couldn’t imagine trusting Convict again.
I didn’t forgive easily.
In some cases, like with Everly, read that as never.
Arran wouldn’t even talk to the man. He curled his lip. “You want to use Convict. After everything he did.”
“We need someone on the inside of the Four Milers to find out why they want Everly. They already know Convict and were happy to give him their money. We patch him up, make a show of kicking him out, and send him there with the objective of information gathering.”
“A double agent.” Arran swore, staring out of the rain-speckled windscreen. “You’ll have to do it. I can’t be in the same room with him without wanting to drive my fist into his face. All I imagine is his hands on Genevieve.”
His words dried up. I tried and failed to understand the emotional toil. There was no one I could put in that role in my life. Someone so treasured I’d kill for them. To have that, I’d need that person to want me in the same way, and that was a fucking tragedy all in its own right because I’d never believe them if they said the words. Not again.
“I’ll handle everything,” I promised.
“I have two questions,” my friend said. “The first is what happens if he defects entirely?”
“Then we’ve lost nothing apart from the man who already fucked us over. What’s the other?”
“His incentive.”
I twisted my lips, because there was only one thing Convict wanted, and that was to return to the fold. “A new job with us was my thoughts. Not in the crew, but maybe on the outside.”
A long moment passed of consideration, then Arran gave a single nod. “Everly’s important to you, so I’ll follow your lead.”
“She’s nothing to me.”
He barked a laugh. “That’s why she’s locked up in your apartment.”
“It’s for the sake of our crew,” I argued. “For the city. If she’s abducted, the Four Milers will have leverage over the mayor. Whatever they want won’t be good for us.”
Arran lightly punched my shoulder. “Lead with that. It’s working.”
I flipped him the bird and climbed out of his car, his laughter chasing me to my own. Then I drove out into the city, putting space between myself and the centre of my world which somehow now contained my previous source of gravity.
There were two things I needed to do on this dark Sunday afternoon. Neither of them were the place I found myself driving to.
Deadwater sat on the border of Scotland and England, and an hour’s drive north took me to the seaside town of North Berwick. Where my mother lived.
Dealing with Everly, and her comment about other women in my life, had prompted the thought that I hadn’t checked in on my mother for a while, so I found myself heading there. Up the coast, through the windswept landscape, and to the outskirts and Lochbridge Road which sat under the towering slope of North Berwick Law, a steep hill that had a whale’s jawbone at the summit. As a lad, I’d heard the stories of how whale bones had been hauled up the hill as a monument three hundred years ago but had no fucking clue why.
I was in no mood for nostalgia. Only the reassurance that other elements in my life were as they should be.
I parked up on the street outside my mother’s white semi-detached house, the coastal weather stripping the paint here and there. She had flowerpots lined up under the window and kids’ toys scattered around the front garden. Under my watch, her red Honda backed into the drive, and I climbed out of my car at the same time as she released her two young sons from the back. At fifty, she had the same thick dark hair as me. But that was the only resemblance we shared.
As if she could sense me across the road, my mother’s focus lifted. Then her gaze shuttered, and her mouth formed a stern line. She said something to her boys then opened the front door to shoo them inside, turning back to watch my approach.
She didn’t speak, just ran a disapproving look over me, her arms folded.
“Nice to see ye, too,” I quipped.
“What do ye want?”
Inwardly, I sighed. “Nothing your maternal powers would be able to give. I just wanted to check in.”
“My children are home.”
My brothers, not that they’d ever been introduced to me as such.
I wanted to throw out my hands and demand to know what the fuck I was, if not her child, but berating her wouldn’t get me anywhere.
I matched her posture of hostility. “Not gonna pollute their lives with my presence, don’t sweat.”
She peered at the door then back to me. “If it’s money you’re after?—”
“I’ll earn it myself. When have I ever asked ye for anything?” My temper rose, but I tamped it down. “Listen, a couple of women have been killed in Deadwater, and I was worried. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
She didn’t fit the mould. Cherry and Natasha had both been young and beautiful. Attention-grabbing for different reasons. I’d never considered my middle-aged mother a target, not that she wasn’t beautiful, but she wasn’t in the city. Hadn’t been for the best part of a decade. Still, I wanted to pass on the warning.
“Did ye really come here to scare me? Or maybe the neighbours with that get-up.” She gestured up and down me.
My tattoos, she meant. I wore no outward signs of being in a gang.
I was wasting my time here. Still, I leaned in. “Just take care, aye?”
The woman gave an exasperated huff of breath, turning without a goodbye. I stomped back to my car and sped away.
In an even darker mood, and with the steadily falling rain matching my energy, I returned to Deadwater and commenced my hunt for Riordan fucking Jones. Slowly, I was putting into place all the components necessary to get Everly out of my life again.
Riordan had heard from somewhere about the abduction attempt. He’d tell me once I tracked him down.
Likewise, Convict would get people talking. He had the easy manners to make people like him.
I’d use the information they gave me to neutralise the threat. With that, she’d go home. And I’d burn my sheets and never think about her again.