Chapter four
The Level Boardroom
Harrison
Russell’s fist crashes down on the boardroom table, the glass top vibrating violently. His brother hisses through his teeth and they glare at each other. “I don’t want to fucking replace the table again. Get yourself under control,” Connor growls.
“That bastard better start talking,” Russell replies, then his focus moves to the man tied to the chair sitting at the opposite end of the room. He screams again as I hit him hard across the face with the black leather glove I was about to put on
“I bloody told you this place is soundproof. Save your cries. No one will hear them,” I tell him again.
For a member of a criminal gang, this guy is pathetic.
“When did Devane say he’d be here? Why we have to do that fucker’s dirty work I don’t know,” I mutter, annoyed that my day has started like this.
“He pays us handsomely for it, and stop complaining. This part is fun,” Russell says with a dark smile. “You love it, Waite. I know you fucking do.” I roll my eyes at him, then finish putting my glove on.
The intercom buzzes, announcing one of our associate’s arrival.
The hidden elevator doors glide open, and he steps into the room.
This is the only floor it rises to, and the sole access to it is a single door hidden in a storage closet on the ground floor.
The only people who know of its existence are our small team and Matthew, the security guard.
Hunter Devane’s gaze roams over the room as he assesses the situation. “Thanks, lads,” he says, a broad grin spreading across his face. “I knew it was a good call to have the bastard dropped here. The cops have been snooping around my place.”
His long dark hair is scraped back into a rough manbun.
Days of stubble coat his chin and cheeks.
He’s the oldest of our group at forty-two.
With clear blue, astute eyes and sharp features, he emanates control.
He’s not a big man, both slim and lithe, but deadly.
I’ve seen what he can do with a knife. His connections to the Irish mafia make him lethal, but he’s London born and bred.
The Irish connection is generations ago on his mother’s side, but he uses it to his advantage daily.
“You’re lucky you have deep pockets, Devane,” I say crossly.
“It’s fucking Sunday. Some of us have places to be other than cleaning up your mess. Every bloody week you make our job of keeping you out of prison more fucking difficult. Next time, why don’t you just kidnap someone in front of Buckingham Palace. It’d be less obvious.”
“All right, Waite, you’re pissed. I get it. I’ll take over from here. You get back to whatever bit of skirt is in your bed. Is she paid for or here of her own volition?”
“Not every man has to pay for sex,” I spit back at him, and he laughs.
“Sensible ones use prostitutes.” He leers then grabs his crotch. “You can ignore them, kick them out, and call them back when it suits you. I’d rather have an on-tap pussy than a wife nipping my head.”
“You have a fucking wife,” I remind him. “Do you remember where she lives?” He shrugs, unconcerned.
“If you two are quite finished with your lover’s tiff,” Connor interjects. “Perhaps we could get back to our friend here.” He gestures to our captive. “Did you let Damon know in case anything crosses his desk? He always prefers the heads-up if he’s going to find a body.”
“I texted him,” Russell says. “Told him we had a fish on the hook. Are we going actual fishing this week? I miss our boys’ afternoons. There’s nothing better than a cooler box of beer and a salmon on the line.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Connor says. “If you’re all quite finished, I do have a bit of skirt to get back to and she’s paid hourly. So, could we sort this out, and I’ll return to getting my money's worth. She’s still spread-eagled on my bed. You said it would take an hour maximum.”
He scowls at his brother. “That was two hours ago.”
The sound announcing someone’s arrival pings again.
The doors open, and Chief Constable Damon McKinney, Head of the National Serious and Organized Crime unit, walks out.
“Morning boys,” he calls, running his hand through his close-cropped dark hair.
He’s huge at almost six and a half feet tall, with a physique a wrestler would be jealous of.
“What shit are you dropping on my doorstep now? You do know it’s the weekend.”
“We know,” Russell replies sharply. “These idiots have been moaning since we arrived. But work never stops, not in our world.”
“Who’s this?” Damon asks as his eyes land on our guest.
“This,” Hunter replies, “is Michaels’s man.” Damon’s eyes light up at the nugget of information. “Jarvis here was agreeing to help us with our inquiries.”
“Is he being cooperative? Or does he require some encouragement?”
Hunter pulls his knife from the waistband of his jeans, twirling it between his fingers as he wanders over to the man in the chair.
His eyes stay fixed on his prey. There is little chance of him getting out of here alive.
The plastic sheet below the chair confirms it.
Russell has prepared him for disposal on Hunter’s say-so.
“Where’s the product?” Hunter asks calmly. Jarvis shakes his head. The knife tip grazes his cheek in one swift motion, lifting a morsal of skin. He groans at the unexpected injury. “Listen to me, Jarvis, is it?” His victim nods.
“Today will be your final day on this earth. Everyone in this room knows it. I’m no liar, so I won’t give you false hope. You have exactly…”
Hunter turns to Connor, gesturing toward the large digital clock on the wall.
Connor starts the countdown from one hundred minutes.
“You have exactly six thousand seconds left in life. How they’re spent is completely up to you. You have the choice of being put out of your misery with a final blow, or I can tear you apart piece by piece.”
Our target visibly swallows as he listens to the maniac in front of him.
“What will it be?” Hunter smiles sweetly, then drives the blade into the man’s arm. “The clock is ticking.”
***
That afternoon, the five of us sit around our boardroom table in The Level.
“It’s still fucking Sunday,” Connor mutters petulantly.
He gave in a while ago and went to release the girl from his bed.
She’d been furious, twisting his cock in her hand before storming off.
When he arrived back in the boardroom, he was cradling both his crown jewels and his pride.
Our captive lies dead on the floor, wrapped in the sheet he sat on.
Hunter got over-excited and finished him before we found out what we needed to know.
This isn’t the first time it’s happened either.
The man is an animal, even though the reasoning behind his actions is somewhat commendable.
“You can’t keep offing the witnesses before we get the information, Devane,” I snarl.
“We have a rough idea where the product is,” he says blandly, still playing with his blade between his fingers. Thank fuck he wiped it clean.
“Yeah, a farm building in Devon really fucking narrows down the search.”
“At least we know the area they’re cooking it. If we find the kitchen, we can take it down at the source. The stuff is lethal. It needs to be taken off the streets.”
Damon clears his throat, then places his hands on the table.
His forearms pulse as he clenches his fists then releases them.
“We have the name of the man in charge,” he says.
“It’s no surprise it’s Michaels. He’s been running dirty product for years; thousands of deaths are due to his drugs laced with anything they can sweep off the floor. Not that anyone knows who he is.”
“I’d skin the bastard alive,” Hunter says, then drives his knife into an apple sitting in front of him, uneaten.
He lost his younger brother to bad heroin.
That was when our crazy team began. Three lawyers, a Chief Constable, and a mafia leader working together to take dirty drugs off the streets.
“Anyway, lads, I need to be going. I’ll get Greyson to come past and dispose of that.”
He signals to the dead man, then stands and leaves. Damon follows behind.
“See you all Wednesday,” Damon calls over his shoulder. “Make sure the beer fridge is full, Waite.”
Russell, Connor, and I sit silently around the table, each sipping a beer. Greyson arrives thirty minutes after Hunter’s departure and removes the corpse from the floor. He disappears without a word.
“We have a busy week ahead of us,” Russell says, throwing each of us an agenda for the week.
The room morphs from a torture chamber to a lawyer’s boardroom in a heartbeat.
“Everyone in the office tomorrow at seven. The stinking rich computer geek is coming in at eight to discuss the murder conviction he’s up on.”
“Roydon? Who did he kill?” I ask, and Russell raises his eyebrows.
“Innocent until proven guilty. Did you miss that class at law school?”
“They’re very rarely innocent. Most likely guilty if he’s paying our prices for a defense. Don’t yank my chain, Russ. What’s the details?”
“His much younger wife. Seemingly after a year of marriage, she wanted a divorce. The thirty-year age gap was too much for her. They grew apart, apparently.”
He chuckles. “Mr. Moneybags wasn’t willing to give her up, so he drowned her in the Jacuzzi.”
I mutter some expletives under my breath.
“It should be an interesting case for you. The evidence is concrete, so you’ll need to do what you do best to get him off.”
“What’s that?”
“Sweet talk the jury, find a technicality, or simply convince them the truth is false. Don’t let this case end your streak. What are we at now? Ten defense cases, ten wins?”
“Something like that.” I turn over my phone, which has been lying face down on the glass. One message blinks on the screen. Violet. I’d left my number written on a notepad in the kitchen for her, next to a new phone. She’d still been asleep when I left this morning.
Will you be back soon? Violet.
“If we’re done here. I’ll be getting home,” I say, standing and walking to the door. As I turn the heavy brass key in the lock, Russell’s voice fills the room.
“Tell my sister I want to see her. She has some explaining to do.” I turn to face him. He stares at me unblinking. “Is that a problem?” Connor watches us but doesn’t volunteer an opinion. His eyes move between Russell and me, waiting for someone to make the next move.
“I’ll tell her, but I’m not forcing her to see you after the idiot you made of yourself last night.” His eyes narrow. “She’s been through hell. Give her a day or so, then we can all sit down together.”
“She’s our fucking sister, not yours. This is family shit. It doesn’t concern you.”
“It does when you threatened her in my apartment.”
His hands clench into fists on the table as he attempts to control his temper.
“All I’m saying is you don’t know what happened when she left. You also don’t know what her life has been like for the past thirteen years. Perhaps thinking with your brain instead of your fists may be beneficial. I’ll see you both in the office tomorrow.”
Without waiting for their response, I leave and don’t look back.
Violet is sitting on my sofa when I enter the living room.
She’s wearing one of my shirts. I gawk at her, taken aback by the sight.
She looks up and gives me a soft smile. “I’m sorry, the clothes I brought with me needed to be washed. I stole this off the dryer. I hope you don’t mind, Harry.”
She stands and walks over to me, her bare shapely legs protruding from the pale blue cotton.
Her long dark hair lies in loose waves down her back.
She’s makeup free, and her skin glows under the soft light flowing in the windows.
“Thank you for looking after me last night and standing up to Russ. He hasn’t changed.”
“It was no problem. He wasn’t thinking straight. I’ve told him to take a few days to calm down. You can stay here until you feel ready to talk to him.”
She stands under my nose, glancing up through long, fine lashes.
Her cheeks heat with a rosy-pink flush. Unexpectedly, she wraps her arms around my waist and places her cheek against my chest.
“Thank you,” she whispers again. I place my hands on her shoulders, pushing her back softly so she lets go, stepping away.
She frowns then rearranges her features.
“You’re safe. Take some time to rest, then we can figure out where you go from here. Have you spoken to Aiden?” She shakes her head. “Has he contacted you?”
“No, I ditched my phone.” The words are barely audible. It’s as if I can sense her heart breaking. It makes me want to kill the asshole for hurting her. How can a man have a woman so beautiful and treat her like a whore? Over a decade of her life devoted to him for nothing.
“We’ll decide what to do about him too,” I say, almost to myself. She gives me a curious look but doesn’t respond. The bastard is going to pay. I know his time is running out with our client he owes, but I may have to speed up the clock.