Chapter 4
Estella awoke to bright sunlight streaming in through the windows.
For a second her body tensed: fight or flight, ready to run.
Then, for the first time in what felt like decades, she let all her muscles relax.
She stretched luxuriously in the crisp hotel sheets and nestled her face into her soft pillow.
The peace of the moment almost overwhelmed her, until a single tear leaked out from under her gritty eyelashes and she rubbed her face to stop.
Slowly, her consciousness fully returned to her, her brain now finally rested, beginning to fire up again.
She flung back the covers. God, she had so much work to do.
She took her time standing under the massive rain-head shower, washing it all away.
The scent of blood — real or imagined — her own acrid sweat, the stench of a police station.
Everything slipped away down the bathroom drain, washed clean with the suds of fragrant five star hotel shampoo.
She stepped out of the water and made herself meet her own eyes in the mirror.
She raised her chin to really stare. The woman in the mirror was naked, wet-hair, no makeup.
She looked, for an instant, terrifyingly vulnerable.
She leaned her hands on the bathroom cabinet and narrowed her eyes in challenge.
There she was. A sense of warmth flooded through her chest. No one could touch her now.
She smiled at herself and felt leonine. An apex predator, top of her game.
What a fucking turn around from little Estella Carletti, nineteen and obsequiously obedient.
She walked away with a slight sway to her hips and began to dress herself.
Her options were minimal. She remembered checking today’s forecast earlier in the week, trying to figure out what to pack.
She’d long thought of this day as E Day.
The day after D Day. The day she’d get to wake up with the hardest part finally done.
Time now to remake the Grant business into Estella’s business for once and for all.
And here she was, all of a sudden, in that moment.
Getting dressed in a simple skirt and silk blouse, all in black of course, just in case she was papped by swarming media.
All she had to dress for this morning was low-key comfort while she took charge of the infrastructure, rebuilding her life in her own image. Tonight, however—
Her thought process was shattered by the sharp rap on the hotel room door.
She took only three seconds to grab her illegal handgun from the bedside table, the heft of the loaded weapon with a bullet ready in the chamber giving her a solid sense of well-earned power.
She tried not to think of how sweaty her palms were.
She glanced through the peephole of the door. She huffed and pulled it open.
“Apologies.” Kenneth strode in. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“Can’t a girl get some sleep?” Estella wasn’t in the mood for this paternalistic, bodyguard shit he’d reverted to today. Her arm relaxed and she dropped her gun hand to her side.
“I figured you would want to go willingly, not have the police turn up with handcuffs,” he said flatly and her spine went rigid, gun still in hand.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your lawyer called me, when you didn’t answer. Cops want you back for further questioning, an hour ago at this point.”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” Estella huffed. She crossed back to the bedside table and laid down the gun, picking up her pearl earrings and slipping them back into her lobes.
“What does that little rat want now?” It was intensely aggravating, considering the mountain of work that towered over her.
Jesus christ, it was almost like Barry had no idea how busy she was.
She tried her yoga breathing again in the backseat of the car as Kenneth drove her back across the city.
She should have known. Barry had tried this kind of shit with her before.
Haul her in, waste her time, keep her away from business, all with nothing new in his arsenal except to be annoying.
He’d only succeeded in booking her once in their decades long relationship, and on the most minor of charges.
He couldn’t ever seem to get it through his dumb hangdog head that she was untouchable.
It was his consolation prize, after all: he would never be able to take her down — he didn’t have the balls — but he could irritate her.
She made Kenneth stop by her favourite cafe and run in to buy her a smoothie and an espresso.
She wasn’t about to spend yet another day under those sickly lights without something real fuelling her.
When they pulled up in the station carpark, the door of a black Lexus opened and Sasha approached, sliding in next to Estella in the backseat of the SUV. Her lawyer gave her a cool once-over.
“You know the drill.” She didn’t bother with greetings, or with stupid instructions, which Estella more than appreciated.
Sasha was a rare beast. A defence lawyer happy to be on retainer for Grant family business and without a shred of dirt on her.
She’d agreed to Estella’s terms without blinking because she believed in justice, not because she could be compromised.
Once upon a time, having hold of a dirty lawyer seemed like an essential to Estella.
But Simon Hartmann had changed all that.
Another bonus to Sasha? She had no desire or inclination to fuck Estella. Long may that last.
Together they approached the station.
“Morning boys.” Estella flicked back her hair. The young constable manning the desk blinked rapidly and pressed a button that opened the reinforced glass doors to the interrogation rooms. Estella led the way, Sasha in her wake. She had no need to hide from Detective Barry fucking Dobson.
Another young officer held out his arm like a hotel concierge and opened the door to the same damn room she’d spent sixteen hours in yesterday.
Estella strolled in, ready to do another round.
And then she paused. Instead of the same old tired detective, a woman sat across from her.
Her back was straight, her bearing regal.
She was perhaps in her late forties, her face make-up-free and lined, her eyes as clear and sharp as her chin-length black bob.
“Who are you?” Estella snapped.
“Good morning, Mrs. Grant,” the woman said, her tone calm and confident. “I’m Detective Markos. A new taskforce has been assigned to this murder investigation — sorry for your loss— well, your losses, by the way — and I’ve been appointed the lead.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Estella bit down on a stab of unease. “I want Barry back.”
“Take a seat, Estella,” the detective said. Her smile was shrewd. She didn’t drop her gaze. “You can call me Yolanda.”
It was dark again by the time Estella finally stalked out of the station, but at least — to her grim relief — she wasn’t in fucking handcuffs. She was exhausted.
“What the fuck was that?” Her voice was brittle. “You should have dealt with her.”
“She was unprecedented.” Sasha sounded strained. She wasn’t wrong. Yolanda Markos was everything Barry was not: calm, controlled, smart, a hint of a pit-bull beneath the surface. “But the strategy is the same—”
“It’s not the same at all and you fucking know it,” Estella hissed. “Barry is a piece of piss. Yolanda is going to be a problem for us. We need to deal with her.”
“Well, no shit, Estella,” Sasha snapped. “But don’t forget what you pay me for. I’m your defence lawyer, I’m not going to take her out back and-”
“Careful,” Estella dropped her voice to a pitch that scared grown men. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
“We’re both tired.” Sasha met her eyes. Sasha wasn’t scared of her, and Estella frequently wished she could remedy that.
“Go home and get some sleep. Don’t do anything stupid.
Stay the course and we’ll follow due process.
When people fuck up about now, it’s because they panic and think they need to take action.
” She put her hands on her hips and stared Estella down.
“Don’t take any action. Especially not that kind of action. Are we clear?”
“Just do your fucking job.” Estella didn’t back down a step. It was always a pissing contest with Sasha.
“Take a break from yours,” Sasha retaliated. She turned her back to walk to her car.
“Sleep well,” Estella called after her, her tone dry.
“Sleep with the fishes,” Sasha shot back as she pulled open her car door. Despite herself, Estella started to laugh. Kenneth raised his eyebrows as he opened her door for her.
“What?” She rolled her eyes at him. “We all need to have girlfriends in our lives.”