26. Raif
“Really?”
I nod, though don’t lift my gaze from my copy of the master plan spread across the tabletop. “An urban oasis. Parklands and a canal,” I say, my finger following the meandering path designated in the paper. “Ten thousand new homes and three new schools.” According to the architect, whose meeting I was only forty minutes late for. London traffic. “You know what that means?”
“A community.”
“And every community needs somewhere to spend their money,” I say, glancing. “So there’s—”
“Arrgh! Fuck, that hurt! Don’t do it again, please. I got a wife and kids.”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, straightening. “Pete, come on. Keep it down. I’m trying to have a conversation here.”
“Sorry, Mr. Deveraux.”
Luis’s left leg shoots out, catching Pete in the shin, who grunts this time, biting back any other instinct.
Pete, my second appointment of the afternoon, drops his chin to his chest, shivering in the cold air. The sun might be shining outside, but it hasn’t penetrated the damp brickwork.
“I have every intention of paying you back.” He sniffs. “I just don’t have the money right now.”
With a sigh, I roll up the plans and slot them back into their cylindrical holder.
“Put this in the car,” I instruct, throwing it at Antonio.
I pivot, and my shoes echo against the concrete floor, halting only when I lower myself to an old-fashioned wooden kitchen chair. The same kind Pete is sitting on.
I say nothing but eye the man. The incessant drip, drip of a leaking pipe only adds to the gothic atmosphere.
“We’ve been here before, Pete,” I eventually begin. “Gambling when you don’t have the means to pay…” I allow my words to trail away as I shake my head. “It’s fucking astonishing.”
“I know,” Pete placates, his East End accent turning whiney. “I have no one to blame but myself, though they do say it’s a disease.”
“One that’ll cut short your life if you’re not careful.”
Pete turns the color of putty under the fluorescent light. But it’s just a bit of theater because dead people can’t pay their debts. We prefer to leverage what’s owed against other outcomes. Things my organization might find useful.
A trader on the stock market floor? How about a little inside trading in exchange for writing off your debt? A policeman? Information. Or maybe turn a blind eye to our activities. In local government? Help grease the wheels with our planning applications. A politician? The possibilities are endless.
Pete is a property developer, and this isn’t his first time in the hot seat. Last time, he was in for a hundred grand and helped us with some shady property dealings.
So many upstanding citizens. So many to bend.
“You weren’t thinking about the bigger picture, Pete. You got lost in that rush.” I don’t know why I’m wasting my time. Or my breath. “What’s wrong with your face?” I glance Luis’s way. “Why is Pete’s face twitching?”
“Nothing I do, jefe.” For a big scary fucker, Luis has a surprisingly soft voice, his Spanish accent mildly endearing.
My attention turns back to Pete, who wiggles his fingers—spirit fingers, Daisy would call them—but fingers are all he can wiggle, given his wrists are tied to the arms of his chair and his ankles to its legs.
“Itchy nose is all,” Pete explains before carrying on. “The thing is, Mr. Deveraux, I just paid my tax bill. My bank accounts are empty until the money comes down the food chain—you know how it is.”
Pete knows I know how it is. I have my fingers in many ventures, including property.
“Time and the tax man wait for nothing. The quantity surveyor is arguing with the cost plan on my last job,” he continues. “It looks like it’s heading for mediation.”
“But you knew this was coming. I’ve given you thirty days already. Come on, Pete. That’s like a regular line of credit.”
From his position leaning against a steel pole, Antonio chuckles. By contrast, Luis, standing to Pete’s left, says nothing.
“You’ve put me in a very difficult predicament, paying the tax man when you owe me.” I throw up a hand as I lounge back in the chair. “Come on, Pete. The tax man lets you pay on account.”
“Only, I still owe money from last tax year and the missus—she does the bookkeeping—doesn’t know I owe you.”
Along with my sigh this time, I drag my hand down my face.
I don’t need to sit in on these… grassroots meetings. But from time to time, I choose to. It’s a way of keeping myself grounded, remembering where I came from. It also keeps the clientele from getting complacent.
Raif Deveraux. He’s got more money than Croesus.
He’s not going to chase me for fifty Gs.
But I am.
“So what are we going to do, Pete? How will we reach a satisfactory agreement this day?”
“I dunno, Mr. Deveraux. I’ve got no idea.”
“What’s the job you’re working on now?” Pulling my cigarettes from my pocket, I silently offer them his way.
Peter shakes his head. “A new build townhouse in Kensington.”
“How much is it worth?”
“It’s not mine.” His gaze flicks to the cancer stick in my hand. “It’s just a remodel.”
“I might have an idea. Your interior designer is Molly, yeah?” Exhaling, I blow out a perfect circle of smoke.
“Yeah,” he agrees hesitantly. Maybe because I happen to know he’s screwing her on the side.
“I want you to give her this,” I say, reaching into my pocket and pulling out Lavender’s business card. It must’ve fallen out of her purse in the bedroom this morning. I stare at the heavy stock card and run my thumb over the embossed WW. Whit With.
I offer it to Luis, who sticks it between Pete’s fingertips and looks down and reads it without sound.
“You have an art gallery, then?” he asks, looking up.
I don’t answer. “Molly is going to go visit this address and pick up a few pieces on your client’s account. I’m sure you’ll do your usual markup, which will come to me. Because I’m in a good mood, I’ll also deduct the retail price from your balance.”
“What?” His expression scrunches. “Why? You sure you don’t own the place?”
“How is this any of your business?” My tone is fucking frigid.
Whether by my tone or the look in my eye, Pete begins to stutter.
“S-sorry.” There go his eyes to my cigarette again. Not sure where he’s gotten the idea I’d burn him from and make a mental note to get Leo to investigate who else he owes. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Good, because you know what curiosity did to the cat.” I glance in Antonio’s direction.
“Put him in a sack, boss,” he offers, his hands tightening across his chest. “Dropped him in the river.”
It wouldn’t do for my clientele to think I’d gone soft.
“All right. Let’s not get hasty.” Pete folds the card between his fingers, holding on to it for dear life.
“So how’s this gonna work? What do I have to spend?”
“You owe me fifty thousand, so spend, say, twenty-five.”
Twenty-five in my pocket and the same in Lavender’s. Yeah, that feels nice.
“That’s a lot to spend on art—a lot of money to persuade the client to spend on art, I mean.”
“You don’t expect me to solve that problem for you as well, do you, Pete?” My phone buzzes in my pocket. “Excuse me.” I’ve been waiting for this call.
“Brin.”
“Yeah. I’m just returning your call.” Not because I want to, his tone seems to suggest.
“Thanks.” I keep my tone even. No need to bring up the other night. Not right now. “I have a question for you.”
“Yeah, all right.”
“Who hurt your sister?”
“What do you mean?” he demands, his tone much harsher than my own. “Is she okay?”
“When I left her earlier, she was perfectly fine.” I was less so. My brain felt like it was trying to escape through my temple, and my heart beat so hard, it wondered if it might be about to burst.
“It was in the past. I don’t know when, but someone hurt her, and she’s not saying who.”
“Well, it wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t an insinuation. It was a civil question.”
“Civil or not, I don’t have the answer for you,” he grumbles. “And trying to get information out of Lavender when she doesn’t want to give you will only give you a headache.”
“I’m aware,” I say softly, touching my hand to my still throbbing temple. At the other side of the warehouse now, I gesture to Antonio, who nods. I click the key fob in my pocket and pull open the car door. “That’s why I’m calling you.”
The car engine roars to life.
“Are you driving Lavender’s McClaren?”
It’s not hers yet, though I find myself smiling at his incredulous tone.
“She’s not even interested in cars,” he mutters. “Never mind appreciate a machine like that.”
“Focus, Brin. Cast your mind back and tell me which one of her shithead boyfriends would be a prime candidate for frightening your sister.”
He falls quiet for a beat. “What do you mean frightened? Is she being threatened? You’ve got a security team.”
“She’s not under threat, no.” But her sense of right and wrong seems to have been tweaked. More to the point, I feel protective. Protective of the woman I forced to marry me. The woman I was wholly unprepared for. I can’t make sense of my feelings, but I do know what conversation I’ll be having with Lachlan. I’ve known all along.
Who the hell did I think I was kidding?
It hasn’t been confusion keeping me from speaking with him but disbelief. Discomfort. Denial. There’s also one more d to the list. Dunce. Because I’m a fucking idiot.
“Then I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to get it. You just have to help me find out who he is.” So I can pull his spine out from his throat. “So old boyfriends?”
“Tod’s the only one she’s ever brought home, and I can’t see him lifting his hand to her. Not unless he wants Lavender to shove it so far up his arse he can tickle his tonsils.”
“It’s not Tod,” I agree. Tod is her safety net somehow. And a pain in my ass. But he’s no threat. “Who was she dating before?”
“She doesn’t date,” he says, unconcerned. “She never has, as far as I know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. Like I said, Tod’s the only bloke she’s introduced us to.”
Is he saying what I think he is? What kind of brother would insinuate his sister fucks around—and to her new husband?
“You might not have noticed, but Lav and I aren’t exactly bosom buddies.”
“Brin,” I growl as the shutters jerk and shudder, though eventually lift.
“I know, I know. Lavender is just such a mouthful.”
More like a handful. “It’s her fucking name. Don’t disrespect her by calling her anything else.” The McLaren roars as I pull out of the warehouse.
“I bet that thing sticks like snot to the road when it corners,” he says in answer to the sound of the accelerator.
I find myself shaking my head. At the junction, I take a left.
“And you know, it’s not my fault our parents gave us stupid names.”
“Lavender isn’t a stupid name.” It’s calming and soothing and… but maybe she was misnamed. “This is not what I wanted to speak to you about.”
“Yeah, well. I can’t help you.”
“Yes, you can. And you will, Brin. I need a name. Ask her friends, your mom. Someone.” Because Lavender isn’t as brave as she makes out. Someone has made her fearful, and I plan on returning that favor. Before this marriage is through, I need her to know she’ll never have to worry about him again.