Chapter 7 Tierney
Two days later, I’d just finished dinner when my phone rang.
I reluctantly turned it over to look at the screen, hoping it wasn’t another call from Hugh, hoping it might be London who’d texted back to promise she’d visit as soon as she’d saved enough for the flights.
I’d offered to fly her over, knowing my prideful friend would say no and wishing for once she would say yes, but the restaurant kept her so busy.
Still, London was the only family I had left, and I missed her more every day.
The call wasn’t from London. My pulse leapt at the sight of Perri’s name. Fumbling in my hurry, I dropped it and scrambled to pick it up.
“Hey!” I said, sounding out of breath.
“Hey, you okay?” Perri asked in husky, calm tones. From the moment Perri Wilcox contacted me, I’d found her voice soothing and her capable, take-charge demeanor reassuring.
“Fine. Just dropped my phone.”
“How goes it in Scotland?”
“It’s what I needed,” I answered honestly.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
I frowned, realizing the time difference. “Isn’t it like three or four in the morning there?”
“It’s after five. I have an early flight out.”
“So, do you have news?”
“I do.” Perri sighed. “It’s not exactly the news I was hoping to impart.”
“You met with Adila?”
“I did. She was very anxious and jittery and kept looking around, but I managed to get her to tell me that she has now accepted a settlement figure from the Silver Group. Signed off by Halston Cole.”
Disappointment crashed over me. “So she can’t talk to you.”
“Legally, she can’t go on record or that fucker could sue. I told her I could still quote her as an anonymous source, but Adila got very frightened. She thought someone in the restaurant was watching us, someone she recognized and thought was following her that morning. She left.”
“Shit, shit, shit.” I stood and kicked the bottom of the sofa, the dull pain not enough to satisfy the frustration raging through me.
“I got back to my hotel room and after I showered, I found a note shoved under the main door. It was typed—and it was a threat. It said I needed to get the hell out of Australia and to mind my own business or I would end up dead like my friend.”
She said it so matter-of-factly that it took a second for the threat to register.
“Perri …” My phone shook against my ear as my body trembled at the reminder of what happened to my parents and Perri’s colleague, Ben. “This isn’t worth your life. Maybe you need to stop.”
“Isn’t it? They killed Ben and they killed your parents and they know that one more ‘incident’ is going to fuck them.
I don’t work for some small-time newspaper, Tierney.
I work for one of the biggest fucking papers in the country and every single one of us at the Chronicle is gunning for this guy.
Don’t think for one second he doesn’t realize that.
If one more reporter dies investigating this, it is a nail in his own fucking coffin. So don’t you worry about me. Okay?”
Heart racing, my whole body vibrating with adrenaline, I let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”
“Good. I’ll reach out when I return to New York. Adila is a setback, but it’s not the end of the world. We can still do this.”
“Okay. Thank you, Perri.”
“Talk soon.”
After we hung up, I stared around the tiny apartment suddenly feeling so restless it was claustrophobic.
I needed to get out.
I needed to expend the rage and fear and frustration building inside me.
In my mess of emotions, I didn’t even remember walking to the guesthouse.
One minute I was in my rented apartment, the next I was letting myself into the dark building on the hill.
There were solar lanterns at the front door.
I picked one up and walked into the dining room.
There was currently a wall between it and what was a sitting/leisure area.
It was the room with access to the gardens and views of the harbor.
I wanted people to see it from the dining room.
However, the wall obstructing it was a supporting wall.
Quinn had told me they were putting temporary support braces in place today so they could take the wall down tomorrow.
I noted the braces at either end of the wall. And I noted the sledgehammers.
He’d invited me to be there since it was one of the changes I’d most been looking forward to.
Now it felt like if I didn’t take the wall down right this second, everything whirling inside would suck me into a black hole.
Roughly putting on a hard hat I’d found discarded in the shell of my B and B, I picked up the sledgehammer, surprised by the weight. Back in New York, I’d gone to the gym every other day. There was no gym on Leth Sholas, but I was a mere ferry ride to some of the best hiking trails in the country.
Still, I felt the weight of that sledgehammer in a way I wouldn’t have felt eight months ago.
It was a good kind of heavy, though. The kind of ache I needed as I bashed the flat end of the tool into the wall with a forward motion rather than a swing.
The impact juddered up my arms, satisfying my writhing rage.
Mindless, I thrust the hammer again, watching the plaster work crumble and the brick beneath loosen, the dust irritating my eyes and throat.
But I didn’t care.
Sweat dampened my neck and underarms and my muscles ached as I expelled my burning wrath with each destructive blow. Suddenly, there was a gaping hole in the middle of the wall. But I wanted it all gone. Gone, gone, go—
A large hand wrapped around the sledgehammer, and it was suddenly yanked from my grip with such force, I stumbled backward.
Wiping the sweat and dust out of my eyes, I stared directly into a wide, muscular chest. My gaze moved upward and locked with Ramsay McRae’s. His pale eyes burned with anger and his knuckles were white around the sledgehammer I’d just wielded like a therapy tool.
My heart raced and I was a little out of breath. I could feel the ache in my shoulders and upper arms and knew I’d pay for it in the morning.
But it was worth it.
“What the fuck?” Ramsay bit out, his fury palpable.
Suddenly uneasy, I took a step back. “What are you doing here?”
“I left a tool I need, and it’s a bloody good thing I came to get it. Are you trying to bring this building down on top of you, woman?”
Confused, I looked at the wall that now had a hole in the middle of it. “Quinn braced it. He was going to let me do this in the morning, anyway, so I don’t see what the problem is.”
My attitude seemed to enrage Ramsay even more.
“The problem is you are unqualified to take down a supporting wall. Propped braces can move, which they have done.” He pointed the sledgehammer at one of the steel braces.
“You need a professional on hand throughout the whole process to make sure everyone is safe.” He stepped into my personal space, looming over me.
“You don’t fucking whack at it like a demented banshee with no one else in the fucking building! ”
“Stop yelling at me!” I shouted, my nerves snapping. The wall wasn’t enough. I wanted to claw and scream and tear something apart.
“You need a good yelling at if it’ll save your bloody life!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
Somehow we’d moved closer to one another, a mere inch of air separating us.
Heat and frustration emanated between us, drawing us together inexplicably.
Something flared in Ramsay’s eyes and my breath caught as his head bent toward mine.
My body bowed like a magnet, ready and willing to take on the invitation, to take out my anger on his body.
But just as suddenly, he jerked away, blinking rapidly like he was taken aback by his own actions. He glared like it was my fault. “You’re leaving and I’m not leaving until you’re out of here. I’ll fix the supports.”
Now mad at him for two reasons, I ripped off my hard hat and dropped it at my feet. Seething, I stormed past him, throwing over my shoulder, “Remember who the boss is, McRae.”
“Aye?”
Something in his mocking tone had me whipping around. “I’m the one paying the wages here.”
His dark, brooding look caused a deep, low flip in my belly I absolutely resented. “You might pay the wages … but that doesn’t mean you’re my boss.”
“That’s kind of how it works.”
“Don’t tempt me to teach you that nobody is my boss, Silver.”
I shivered at the heated threat. “Whatever. Make sure you lock up when you leave.”
“Will do. And there are healthier, more productive ways to channel the rage you have inside you.”
I scoffed. “Mr. Monosyllabic is suddenly Mr. Perceptive, full of advice?”
Ramsay gave me an annoyed look that made me feel like a five-year-old. “I have thirteen years on you, woman. More if you count the multiple lives I’ve led. I know rage when I see it. I know when it’s gotten to a point where you either let it eat you alive … or you find a way to master it.”
Just like that, the fury turned to tears that thickened my throat. “And what do you suggest as a way to master it?”
His expression was solemn. “Find something that calms your mind.”
“Like you with your woodwork?”
“Aye.”
“I don’t think taking up knitting is going to help,” I replied softly, my resentment toward him deflating as reason returned.
“No. But once this place is up and running, you’ll have a purpose.”
“Is it enough?”
“Most days. On the days it’s not … you …” He looked away, and I disliked the loss of his expression. “You remind yourself that only the people who shouldn’t win if you lose yourself to the anger.”
Frustrated tears, tears he missed because he’d turned away, slipped down my cheeks. I watched as Ramsay kept his back to me, tightening screws on the braces holding up the ceiling. Wiping my cheeks, I walked away and quietly let myself out.