Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
Hamish
Hamish barely slept that night despite the amazingly comfortable bed. Any time sleep drew near, his mind returned to that one fateful night with Corrine. He remembered how delicious she smelled, how she tasted, the sweet sounds she made under his hands and mouth and—
Bloody hell.
He stared up at the ceiling for a while, wishing he at least felt like masturbating, but even that brief mental respite wasn’t in the cards. Not when he was now forced to accept that the relationship failures in his life were because he never got over Corrine.
And in his fear, he likely let the woman who should’ve been his mate walk out of his life.
When he checked the time, he saw it was past 5:00 and opted to get up, take another shower, and search for more alcohol.
Considering what lay ahead of him that day, he suspected he’d need plenty of it.
He was surprised to see Ken already downstairs, working on his computer at the dining room table. “You’re up early, son.”
“No, I’m up late.” Ken let out a yawn. “My body clock’s all messed up,” he said.
“I gave up trying to reset it. I have a feeling I won’t be sleeping much until I’m home.
Right now, what I’m doing is working until I collapse, then I nap.
Lather, rinse, repeat. I figure if someone needs me while I’m asleep, they can wake me up.
” He stood, holding an empty coffee cup.
“Follow me to the caffeination station,” he joked.
Hamish followed, and soon they both had full mugs and returned to the table. Hamish also snagged a bottle of bourbon from Trevor’s bar and added a healthy slug of that to his mug.
Ken closed his laptop. “I’m not keeping you from work, am I?” Hamish asked.
“Not any more than the rest of this bullshit is,” Ken said. “Between this and that stupid cartel—”
“Cartel?”
Ken froze. “Uh, oh. Um…” He dropped his head. “Fuck. Me.” He looked up again. “Can’t tell anyone,” Ken said. “And if you need Peyton to Prime you, tell me.”
“It’s okay, Ken,” Peyton said from the top of the stairs. “I was going to tell him about it.”
Ken slumped back in his chair and circled his finger, pointing it at his temple. “Sorry, dude. Brainy no worky right now.”
Peyton smirked. “I’ll forgive you for a cup of coffee. How about that?”
Ken snorted and stood. “Sold.”
Peyton sat at the head of the table, Hamish to his right. “He’s exhausted,” Peyton said. “I feel horrible I had to drag him over here.”
“Can still hear you,” Ken called from the kitchen. “And thanks.”
“Meant for you to,” Peyton called back, and Ken responded with laughter. To Hamish, he said, “About what Ken said, we’re monitoring a situation. We told you about the Segura cartel and how they attacked our compound.”
Hamish nodded, and Peyton continued.
“Well, it looks like the daughter of the guy’s uncle is still poking around and fishing for intel. I don’t want it to develop into a major situation, but we have to keep an eye on it. Which is another reason I want you over here.”
“I still don’t understand why you want me here. I haven’t been back here since I left.”
“That’s actually a bonus. We may be missing things because they’re familiar and they’re slipping through our paws.”
“You’re not just talking about the house, are you?” Hamish asked.
“Exactly. You’re also an experienced businessman. You might be able to help Ken crunch the data with a fresh eye and different perspective.”
Hamish slowly nodded. “I promise I’ll give it my best.”
“That’s all I ask.” Ken returned with Peyton’s coffee and retook his seat. “And to be honest, Ken, I’m shocked and impressed it’s taken you this long to flub something.”
Ken stared at Peyton. “I don’t know if I should be insulted or not,” he snarked, but with a smirk on his face that told Hamish he wasn’t upset.
Peyton grinned. “Yes.”
Not quite two hours later, Peyton, Trevor, Ken, Hamish, Jake, and two of Trevor’s men set off in a large helicopter that picked them up directly from the expansive lawn behind Trevor’s house.
“We’ll land at the manor house,” Trevor told Hamish through the headsets they all wore. “Our pilot will go refuel while we’re conducting our search. I have six men waiting for us.”
“I hope I’ll be of help,” Hamish said. “I’d hate to think you brought me all this way and I can’t.”
“I’m sure the house has changed since the last time you were there,” Peyton said, “but a house that old likely has places we won’t find without a complete demolition.”
“I know where Father used to hide things,” Hamish said. “But I don’t know if Faegan’s added any.”
“We’re desperate,” Ken added. “Even if we find only one piece of information we didn’t already have, that might be what leads us to tracking him down.”
“Or locating previously unknown associates,” Trevor said.
Hamish stared at the landscape below as they sped over it, amazed at all the development that had taken place since he’d last seen it.
Previously empty expanses of forests and farmland now held towns and cities and dense clusters of homes.
Roads and electrical wires and cell towers further crisscrossed the landscape.
He’d expected it, but still…
It was remarkable and conflicted him in ways he’d need time and space to process.
That’s not happening right now.
As they closed in on the manor, Hamish was startled to see how much of the main property…hadn’t changed.
When they landed and it was safe to emerge, he needed a moment as he stood there, staring at the back of the house.
It looked more rundown than he’d expected. Empty.
Sad.
During their approach, he hadn’t bothered trying to spot his old cottage because that section of the property was thickly overgrown now.
But he closed his eyes and deeply inhaled, trying to remember that last run through the woods, not knowing at the time it’d be his very last time touching paws to the land.
A land he’d very much loved and never thought he’d see again due to Faegan.
He now regretted not taking a gun and killing Faegan himself back then—ironically, he would have gotten away with it and then become the head of the pack since Donnel wasn’t a shifter, as well as the lord of their estate in the process—but at the time, he wanted to do neither and didn’t feel it was worth killing over.
If only I could go back in time and save everyone this anguish.
He finally opened his eyes, turning to look.
So many vaguely familiar scents, but now overlain with the ever-present hints of modernity and technology—gas fumes—sorry, petrol—various human-centric scents wafting on the breeze, such as food cooking, someone’s laundry, even the hint of rubber that wore off tires and accumulated along the asphalt roads nearby.
And from this very spot, he saw three cell towers and the tops of a line of high-tension electricity pylons marching off into the distance.
Peyton had started toward the house, then turned back when he realized Hamish hadn’t moved. “Are you okay?”
He swallowed hard. “Yeah.” His mouth had gone dry, but still he forced his feet forward, following the others.
They entered through one of the rear French doors that led into the dining room. On the dining room table, which looked like the one he remembered, were laptops and paperwork and a printer, along with various other trappings of a temporary office.
“We’ve made this a secondary command center,” Trevor explained.
Hamish nodded but he couldn’t move, staring around the room.
It was dingier, darker—if that was possible, considering it now had newer electric lighting—and more suffocating than it ever felt back then.
The sour stench of his brother’s scent permeated every breath Hamish took.
“He never even changed the bloody wallpaper,” Hamish said. “Miserly bastard.” Then he looked down. The hardwood floors were clean, but the tattered rug beneath the table—
“Ha. Same carpet, too,” Hamish noted.
“Do you need a moment?” Peyton asked.
“I’d kill fer a glass o’ water,” Hamish said, no longer trying to suppress his old accent.
One of Trevor’s men silently nodded and disappeared through the doorway that Hamish knew led to the kitchen.
Hamish slowly turned, studying old paintings and portraits on the walls.
These, too, were the same, best he could tell.
Long-dead people whose names he mostly couldn’t remember, if he ever knew them at all.
While there were a few framed photographs scattered around of Tamsin, he noted there were none of Faegan’s other sons, or of Hyacinth.
There were a few pictures of a couple of men he didn’t recognize, younger men, relatively speaking.
The pictures looked like they were taken after WWII, if he was forced to guess.
“Where was Hyacinth, anyway?” Hamish asked. “When everything happened?”
“She was here,” Trevor said. “The front door wasn’t locked. My men made entry and found her unconscious upstairs in bed. Either she’d taken or been forced to take what for a human would have been a lethal dose of alprazolam. Nearly was for her. Our doctor ended up pumping her stomach.”
“Of what?” Hamish asked.
“Xanax,” Ken said. “Used for anxiety and related conditions.”
Hamish turned to look at him, then Trevor. “She doesn’t know if she took them or not?” The man returned with Hamish’s water, and he forced himself not to gulp it.
“She’s pretty scrambled,” Peyton said. “Serious C-PTSD from the decades of systematic abuse she suffered, the trauma of Faegan murdering Ben and Ben’s mate right in front of her, then losing Tamsin…
Yeah. Like I said, I interrogated her, as did several other Primes.
She’s not lying and I’d stake my life on it. ”
“Was Faegan always an asshole?” Ken asked Hamish.
“My eldest brother had an inferiority complex,” Hamish said. “From when we were children. He was shorter than Father, shorter even than me and Donnel. His first son, Ardin, wasn’t a shifter, and—”