Chapter Nine
In which there are sparkle porn packages and unboxing videos of feet and teeth.
Wallace…
Aye, she’s getting a fleg.
Scarlett sits in her comfortable seat in the main cabin of the jet with a tray of tasty bites next to her, her hands in her lap and staring sightlessly out the window.
It’s been four hours and she hasn’t moved a muscle.
Being the gentleman that I am, I coaxed her into taking the first shower. She’s looking better, hair clean and combed, wearing the witch’s borrowed sweater and a pair of my grey joggers.
For me, showering after a job is almost ritualistic, the soot and dirt swirling down the drain, the smoke smell dispenses, overcome with whatever expensive shite they carry on the jet.
The flame inside of me is always flickering, but it’s banked like the last, sullen glow of a coal in the fireplace.
Satisfied. For now.
“What is your family going to say when you show up with some random woman out of nowhere?”
Ah, she speaks.
“Trust me, lass. In my family? You’ve no idea how often that happens.
” I chuckle into my drink. She’ll be getting bombarded with a hell of a lot of tales similar to ours when she meets up with the others.
“And ye are no random woman. You’re Scarlett Banner, daughter of Robert Banner, who was, by all accounts, a good man to do business with. Unlike his arsehole of a stepson.”
“He was a good man,” she says with a sad little huff of a laugh.
“My father may have been a criminal, but he said, ‘A handshake is your word and you don’t go back on it.’ After Massachusetts legalized cannabis, he was perfectly positioned to take a huge chunk of the state’s contracts since he’d been growing and selling it anyway.
So much money… I think he wanted to get out of the dark stuff, then. ”
Curling up her legs, she wrapped her arms around them, making herself as small as possible.
“We’re going to land in a couple of hours,” I say gently. “Ye should try to eat a bit. The Chieftain has a chef just for stocking his fleet with all kinds of fantoosh meals.”
“Fantoosh?” she asks with a little smile, “What does that mean?”
“Overly fancy, a bit ornamental.” I nod at her charcuterie board, brimming with elaborate spirals of cured meats and cheeses, olives, fruit, and rosemary crackers.
“Are we still speaking the same language?” she asks, piling some brie on a cracker.
“Nae, the Scot’s tongue is a masterpiece unto itself.”
Feeding Murder Mittens a bite of salami, she eyes me doubtfully. “If you say so.”
Xenia’s waiting for me on the tarmac when we land, lounging in one of the family’s ubiquitous black SUVs.
Morrie, one of my favorite guards, hands me the keys to my McLaren.
“I’d like to thank ye for allowing me to drive this beauty out to pick ye up.
” He hands me the keys, “That’s a ride I’ll not soon forget. ”
“Ye took it up to 177 kilometers, dinnae ye?” His guilty expression is all I need to know. “Get away from it, ye lummox.”
Scarlett’s trying to hide a smile as I help her and the wee beast into my car. “You can’t blame him,” she says, waving her hand at the leather interior. “I mean… look at it.”
“I’ve got to meet with an associate for a moment,” I nod toward Xenia’s SUV. “I won’t be long.”
She scrunches down in the seat, wrapping her arms around Murder Mittens. “I understand.”
“Welcome home.” Xenia opens her laptop, looking at me expectantly.
She’s a tiny blonde American that the Chieftain poached from a rival group by doubling her salary and giving her an extravagant design lab.
The woman’s worth my weight in gold. “Let’s have it.
” She holds out her hand, wiggling her fingers in a “gimme” motion.
“Relax, would ye? The jet touched down maybe thirty seconds ago.” I hand her my phone, watching her plug it into her laptop, eyes narrowed as the data starts cascading from the Frostbite files.
Scarlett is looking out the window at us, though my McLaren is parked far enough away that I canna make out her expression.
“Holy shit, this is the good stuff.” Xenia’s grinning, fingers flying over her keyboard. “This is one sneaky bastard.”
“You’re not talking about Kyle Banner, you’d be saying eejit.”
“No,” she shakes her head absently. “I’m talking about this file. This encryption…” she shakes her head fretfully. “Usually, I can figure out the root of any encryption system pretty quickly. Once you have that, decryption is a breeze. This little shit is going to fight me.”
“Ye look chuffed, ye do. Like ye have a braw Tinder date about to show up.”
“Please,” she waves her hand dismissively, “there’s nothing sexier than making a complex system give up all its secrets.
A guy will strip down if you so much as sneeze in his direction.
But with a complex encryption code, laying it all out there?
Give me a glass of wine and a sneaky file like this and I’ve got myself one hell of a night. ”
She slams the laptop shut. “I’ve got the files and I deleted them off your phone. I also cleaned up your account and reset your password for your banking information. Don’t you know you’re supposed to do that every two weeks so our spyware is optimized on your phone?”
“Get your sneaky wee paws out of my information, ye Jezebel!” I pocket my phone, glaring at her. “I heard ye signed Logan up for FetLife with a premium account once when ye were mad at him. Ye dinnae load anything onto mine, did ye?”
“It’s like you don’t trust me, Wallace.” She makes a boo-hoo face. “I’m hurt. I thought we were friends.”
“Aye, we’re friends,” I growl, getting out of the SUV. “Because without ye, the entire MacTavish empire comes crashing down.”
“Thank you for noticing that,” she smiles modestly. I’m about to shut the door when she says, “Wallace?”
“Aye?”
“You might be getting monthly sparkle porn packages from the Purple Penis Club. I’m not sure if I deactivated the app.”
I lean against the door, keeping it open. “Ye know, we were all wondering why Logan would be giving ye his Maserati Grancabrio. He loved that car. All the cousins tried to get it out of him, he’d never say why.”
“It’s our little secret,” she says demurely.
“Hmm… ye must be feeling pure dead brilliant, driving that thing around.”
Her smirk is slipping a bit. “Yeah?”
“Do ye know what temperature turns steel to liquid?” I muse, rubbing my chin.
“Likely around 1,370 Celsius for a steel frame for a sports car. Lightweight. The carbon fiber monocoque body would disintegrate in less than thirty seconds, leaving the steel frame to liquify in another, oh, sixty-five seconds or so.” I’m smiling at her pleasantly, like we’re discussing the weather or our favorite coffeehouse.
“Am I signed up to receive sparkle porn packages from the… what was it? The Purple Penis Club?”
She scowls; the woman hates to lose. “Not anymore. Geez, some people can’t take a joke.”
Scarlett jumps a bit when I open the driver’s side door, sliding in. “Was that like a mission debriefing or something?”
“Or something,” I say, giving her a quick smile. “Let’s go home.”
Murder Mittens crawls up on her shoulder, wrapping around her like a wee fur stole, like the ones old ladies used to wear. Do the old ladies wear those anymore? Her gold-green eyes stare at me, glowing in the dark.
“Where’s home for you?” Scarlett asks.
“In the Tweed Valley Forest, about an hour outside of Edinburgh. Most of the cousins live in close proximity in a posh as feck neighborhood in the city or in Glasgow. I like my privacy.”
“That’s not because you need a place where no one hears screaming, right?” she blurts out. “Like, you don’t make unboxing videos about feet and teeth?”
“Why dinnae ye just ask if I tan human hides and make skin suits?” I ask dryly, but she dinnae laugh. “Lass, I know we haven’t known each other for long-”
“And you did burn my family’s business down to ash,” she adds helpfully.
“But I’m no monster.”
Well, I’m not that kind of monster.
“I dinnae intend to hurt ye,” I say. “I brought ye here to keep ye safe.” The sun’s coming up and I can see the lines of exhaustion on her face. “Close your eyes, aye? Try to get some sleep. I know ye dinnae get a wink of it on the flight.”
“It’s so weird to hear you turn all Scottish,” she murmurs, eyes already closing. “The dinnaes, and the fecks…”
She’s beautiful, this Scarlett I’m now responsible for, her lashes are a thick fan across her cheekbones, her pink lips parted slightly as she falls asleep.
I’ll keep her safe. I’ll kill for her, if I have to. Even if I canna explain why.
Braw - Scottish slang, used in this case to indicate a hot date.
Getting a fleg - Scottish slang for freaking out.
Lummox - Scottish slang for idiot.
Chuffed - Scottish slang for excited or highly motivated.
Fantoosh - Scottish slang for fancy or overly ornamental.