Chapter 28 Tierney
The beeping sound was annoying.
I kept waiting for it to go away, but it seemed to grow louder and more insistent. I groaned, fighting against the urge to open my eyes.
But I couldn’t.
Even though my eyelids felt so heavy, it was almost like they’d been glued shut.
Finally, I got them open and immediately slammed them closed against the brightness.
“Silver?” a deep, male voice rumbled pleasantly in my ear. “Silver, I’m here.”
Ramsay.
I tried again, pushing my eyes open and blinking rapidly against the lights that stung. Eventually my vision unblurred, and I stared into Ramsay McRae’s rugged face.
Those wolf eyes were alight with concern.
“You feeling all right, Silver? Just give yourself a second. I’ll go get the nurse.” He stood up.
“Nurse?” Confusion had me turning my head on the pillow. My body felt heavy, my brain sluggish. Where was I? “Ramsay …” But he was already half in and out of the door and calling for a nurse.
A nurse.
The beeping.
I turned my head, my hair crinkling overly loud in my ears as I saw the machines next to the bed.
The bed.
I was in a hospital?
And like a rush of memories, it all came flooding back.
The masked figure.
The burning pain in my stomach.
The blood.
The fear.
Ramsay holding pressure on my wound.
Keeping me calm.
Then there was nothing.
“Am I okay?” I asked fearfully. “Ramsay …”
He returned to my side, taking my hand between his. “You’re all right, Silver. You’re all right.”
A few minutes later, a doctor introduced himself. He told me about my injury, the surgery, and my recovery time. That I had to stay in the hospital for a few days so they could monitor my situation.
And he kept referring to Ramsay as my husband.
It sounded nice.
Really, really nice.
“Water,” I’d said in response. I needed water and to wake up properly. I still felt sluggish.
They let me angle the bed up but warned me I had to be very careful with my stomach and sutures.
Then the nurse told me and Ramsay the police would want to talk to us as soon as I was able.
Eventually, thankfully, they left us alone.
My gaze moved over my … Ramsay. He was wearing someone else’s shirt. It fit too tightly. I remembered him taking off his own to put pressure on my wound.
“I told them I was your husband so they’d keep me updated.”
I huffed. “Isn’t that illegal?”
“They should’ve checked my ID.” He shrugged. “Tomorrow, when you’ve had some rest, I need to know if you know who did this.”
I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow.
I took another sip of water, my hand shaking so much, Ramsay reached out to steady it for me. Smiling in thanks, I nodded when I was done, and he put the cup at my bedside. “I was … I was going to tell you. Everything. Today.” I frowned. “Is it still today?”
“It’s still today.”
“I was going to tell you,” I repeated, my throat a little hoarse. “I didn’t want to keep it from you anymore.”
“You can tell me tomorrow after you’ve rested.”
“No. Now.”
“It wasn’t a robbery, was it?” At my furrowed brow, he explained, “The perpetrator stole your handbag to make it look like a robbery.”
Shit. My wallet and car keys were in that purse.
I met his fierce stare with my own. My brain still felt fuzzy, but I needed to get the words out.
“Last year, an investigative reporter from the New York Chronicle approached me. Perri Wilcox was investigating the death of her colleague. He was in the middle of several investigations, so she was trying to narrow down if one of them was connected to his death.”
Ramsay frowned but nodded at me to continue.
“He was working with my mom and dad.” Tears burned my nose. The trauma of what I’d gone through hit me and the tears spilled over before I could stop them.
“Silver.” Ramsay’s voice was gruff as he reached out to stroke my cheek. “We can talk about this later. You’ve been through a lot today.”
I cried a little longer, trying to get a handle on my emotions. “I’m sorry. Must be … the anesthesia.”
Ramsay held out some tissues. “Silver. This can wait.”
“No, it can’t. I th-thought I could handle it. That the threats were desperation … I underestimated him.”
His expression hardened. “Underestimated who?”
I wiped away my tears and snot, balling the tissue up in my fist. “My parents were on the board of the Silver Group. Over the years, my dad’s family sold off more and more of their shares in the hotel empire.
Dad gave up being CEO and sold even more.
But they still owned a twenty percent share, which doesn’t sound a lot but that’s a big stake in a publicly traded company.
It’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
And he still had great influence with the board.
He voted to appoint Halston Cole as the new CEO. ”
Ramsay waited patiently for me to continue.
“Unbeknownst to me, around three months before their deaths, my parents were approached by a woman called Adila Binti Aziz. The Silver Group has resorts all over the world. After my father stepped down as CEO, he was like any board member. He had to trust Halston Cole was informing the board of all important company decisions. But he wasn’t.
They bought land on an island off the coast of East Malaysia to open a luxury resort.
But it turned out the local government had allowed the Silver Group to displace some of the Indigenous people of the island from their village on the coastline.
Their village was mowed down to make way for the hotel.
If that wasn’t bad enough, once construction began, it became clear that the new construction involved rerouting the islanders’ water supply to fill the fucking pools in the resort.
” I jerked with my anger and hissed as pain ricocheted across my stomach.
Ramsay leaned forward. “If you can’t tell this without getting worked up, we’re stopping right now.”
I bared my teeth at him in frustration. “I’m fine.”
His lips twitched. “A wee warrior, I know. But you’ve only come out of surgery, and I don’t need you ripping open your wound.”
I softened my tone. “I’m fine. I promise.”
He settled back in his seat. “So, what happened?”
“The islanders quite rightly had enough. They started protesting the construction. One day they were assaulted by private security Halston hired to protect the contractors building the resort.” Guilt roughened my voice.
My father had made it a point to avoid doing all the shitty things so many of the bigger hotel chains did in the name of their luxury properties.
Halston had betrayed his legacy. But we’d let him by trusting him.
“Adila was the assistant to the main contractor. She spoke Malay, which half of the construction workers spoke because it’s the main language in that part of Malaysia.
She also spoke with the islanders. It wasn’t her job, but the main contractor put her in the middle of it.
“She tried to tell them that the islanders weren’t violent and wouldn’t become violent.
But Halston insisted on the security team.
One of the guards shot and killed an islander called Rahman Bin Raffi.
He was a local leader. A husband. A father.
Peaceful. Nonviolent. One day some of the protestors were getting a little out of hand.
Rahman was trying to calm things down, but a guy on the security team got jumpy and trigger-happy and he shot Rahman.
” I blinked back tears. “Halston covered up the death.
Paid settlements to the islanders and threatened them to keep quiet. He paid off the local authorities too.
“But Adila couldn’t stay quiet. She believed from what she knew of my father that he wouldn’t stand for it.
So, she reached out to him to tell him what had happened, taking a huge risk in doing so.
My parents being who they were, they flew out to meet with her.
To get the full story. It was enough for them to look into it.
Quietly. Not wanting to raise suspicions.
At least they thought they were circumspect.
Once they realized it was true, they decided the best way to deal with it was to make the truth public by bringing in an investigative reporter.
Even if it meant ruining everything my father’s family had worked for. My parents were good people.”
The tears fell fast and free now. “They stood up for what was right, no matter the cost to themselves. I’m proud of them. I’m proud to be their daughter.”
Ramsay nodded, squeezing my hand in comfort.
“Anyway, they got in contact with Ben Rierson at the Chronicle. And then they had a bit of luck drop in their lap. Henry Copeland, an intern in Halston’s office, had accidentally been on the line when Halston took the call about Rahman’s murder.
His conscience forced him to take action.
He stole copies of all the transaction documents for the settlements made to the Indigenous people of the island and the ‘donations’ to all the local authorities who helped cover it up. They thought they had him.
“But Halston must have found out. They all flew out to Bintulu to meet with Adila again. My parents got on a helicopter to fly to the resort under the pretense that they wanted to check out the new hotel. Their helicopter exploded off the coast.”
He squeezed my hand harder.
I wiped at the tears that kept falling beyond my control.
“I didn’t find out until last year when Perri came to me that it wasn’t an accident. That same day, Ben was killed in Bintulu. They made it look like a violent street robbery. There was no reason for the local police to look into it beyond that. But they never found out who did it.”
“You all believe it was Halston Cole quietening everyone who knew the truth?”
“Yeah. Henry Copeland and Adila disappeared off the radar. Perri and I tried to keep things quiet as we looked for him and attempted to find Adila again. Ben had copies of the documents, but we needed Henry’s and Adila’s statements.
We found Adila in Australia. I don’t know if she was being watched, but they tapped our phones. ”
“You realized it that day the picture of London showed up—you smashed your phone.”
I nodded, mopping up my tears again.
“Halston was behind all the threats to you?”
“Yes. The Chronicle informed the Silver Group several weeks ago that they were running with the story and asked for their statement. Halston and the board tried to stop it, but the Chronicle will print it next week. The man … the man who stabbed me”—my lips trembled with remembrance—“he said ‘Maybe this will shut you up.’”
Ramsay’s features hardened, his eyes flashing with wrath. “That fucker thought killing you would stop the story? Is he insane?”
“Desperate.” I slumped, exhausted, into the pillow.
“He’s desperate and not thinking clearly.
Making everything worse. Perri told me that the Malaysian officials Halston bribed aren’t concerned for themselves.
All the transactions for the money they received were put through as legitimate donations.
Legally, this won’t touch them. They didn’t kill my parents.
” I sucked in a shaky breath. “Or an innocent reporter. Halston paid off the investigator who examined the crash. We found a money trail that’s proof Halston paid money to the investigator who signed it off as engine failure.
But we have no evidence of what actually happened to the helicopter.
It was destroyed and with it any evidence to support our claims that he killed my parents.
And there’s none for Ben. No evidence. Just one hell of a coincidence.
We knew we could only get him on covering up manslaughter.
Until now.” I scoffed bitterly. “If we can prove he did this to me … it’ll be worth the knife in the gut to nail that evil bastard to the wall. ”