Chapter 11 #2
Instead of leaving Brenna in the car, I wake her and bring her into the office with me.
Right now she’s sitting in the corner with large sunglasses covering most of her face, her legs crossed and her arms folded over her midsection. It’s clear that she doesn’t want to be here.
She needs to see who she’s messing with, the monster that she is married to, just in case she forgot last night.
Darren has worked with the O’Sullivan family for years. His father worked for us before him until his eyesight got so bad that he couldn’t fly anymore.
Now Darren is the lead pilot and part owner of this private airstrip.
Usually, he and the few pilots he employs are busy ferrying the rich from place to place, but his most important jobs are the ones we give him.
The payments we make to him every month are the main reason he’s still able to keep his business afloat.
The tension in the room is palpable, both the awkwardness between Brenna and me as well as the undertone of fear and panic coming from Darren. He wasn’t expecting me to show up. It’s usually one of my father’s underbosses that comes here to take care of things.
Darren has never seen me before.
Now that I’ve taken over this portion of the business, I’m sure he’s going to be seeing a lot more of me.
I look over the spreadsheets and flight plans that he has produced for me, as well as the correspondence that he has between himself and the clients that we send his way.
It all looks good. Too good. Based on what I know of what’s been going on here, it seems as if Darren is hiding something from me.
“Where’s the rest?” I question, pushing the papers away from me and getting up out of the chair.
Darren swallows hard and looks up at me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s everything right there.” He points at the papers on the desk, his finger trembling.
I tsk and walk to the side of the desk. I push the hollow skull decoration further inward so it doesn’t fall off the desk. The office is peppered with silly Halloween decorations. Plastic skeletons, fake cobwebs, and a bowl of fun-sized candy.
He seems like he’s a good guy, probably enjoys playing a trick or two on the unsuspecting victim. He’s going to learn today that I’m not the one to play tricks on.
“Darren, I’m not sure how you are used to conducting business around here, so I’m going to give you one chance to get what I’m asking for.
I know there have been some hiccups in the delivery and pickup schedules.
I want to know why and who’s to blame. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.
” My voice takes on a calm but menacing tone.
My brother Declan is the enforcer of the three of us and I’ve learned quite a bit from him when it comes to the techniques used for intimidation. One of the best ones is to make sure the mark knows shit is about to go bad.
“I don’t—” Darren starts, but I don’t let him finish. I rush him, grabbing the back of his head and slamming it down on his desk so hard everything that isn’t weighted down goes flying to the floor.
Brenna yelps once quickly but doesn’t say anything more. My eyes dart in her direction. Her head is pointed this way, but thanks to the glasses I can’t be sure if she’s looking. I hope she is.
“You’re a waste of time, Darren. A massive fucking waste of time.
If I wanted, I could put a bullet in your head right now, go through everything you have in here, and still have more than a few people willing to come take your place.
The reputation of the O’Sullivan family stretches wide and I won’t have you or anyone else fucking it up because you can’t keep to a timetable. ”
“Please! I’ve done what I’ve been told. I have a family. Please.” Darren begs, his breathing erratic as he grips the edge of his desk, trying to take some of the pressure away.
“Family is important to you? I wonder if they’ll blame you when you lose everything because you decided to go against us.”
“Never. I’d never go against you.” He nearly shouts.
I grab hold of his hair and yank him back up into a seated position. A bruise is already starting to form on his cheek under his eye.
“Then show me what I want to see. Where is the rest of the correspondence? Why have our shipments been late?” I stare down at him, waiting and almost wanting him to try and deny what I already know.
“Here… it’s here.” He reaches down to a small drawer and I have to let go of him so he can open it up. There is a special latch that he has to unhook before the drawer pops open.
Secret compartments are never good. I ready myself in case Darren is feeling a little brave and decides to pull out a weapon instead of paperwork.
He’s a smart man. He pulls out another folder and hands it to me. I look over the items inside. Flight plans changed while in the air. New pickup times given out.
“Who made these changes?” I flick my eyes back to him. His face is drained of color.
“Mr. O’Sullivan, I swear to you, we all assumed each and every one of these changes came from your people. It wasn’t until shit started to go bad that we realized someone else must have done it. I don’t know who is behind it. I swear.” He puts his hands up in a surrendering motion.
The more I look at the paperwork, the more I realize that whoever is making these changes must have had direct access to information only people in my family would know.
Could it be my father? Killian? Declan can’t do much from jail, but what would be the point of him trying to sabotage this?
It’s not making sense, but I know it’s something that we have to look into.
I frown before I fold the papers up and stick them in my back pocket. I need to do more research. “From now on, any changes to the schedules or the pickup clientele will come directly from me.”
Darren nods quickly.
I turn and gesture for Brenna to get up and go to the door. I turn once to look at Darren, who finally has a bit of color coming back to his face.
“If I find out you are lying or hiding something away from me again, they won’t find enough of your body to bury. Don’t make me turn your wife into a widow.”
He nods again, this time slower.
I walk out the door knowing I got my point across.
Brenna walks next to me, but not close enough that I’ll be able to touch her. It’s almost as if she’s trying to put a wall up between us. As if that’ll work.
It’s not like she’s not used to seeing brutality. Her father’s reputation is almost as extensive as my own. He’s known for losing his temper and making others pay in blood and pain.
The driver opens up the back door of the truck for the both of us to slide in. Brenna goes in first and I follow.
The stress brewing between us is still at a high and now I have to deal with the long drive back to the mansion.
Now I’m cursing my decision to bring her along with me.
It’s at least two hours back, and that’s if there’s no traffic. It’s getting to be midday, so I’m sure there will be some.
Twenty minutes of silence. I check my phone, read over the paperwork I’ve taken from Darren’s office, but I can’t focus. Not truly. Not with Brenna sitting there in silence.
She has taken her sunglasses off, but she still doesn’t look at me. It feels like the drive we took the first night after getting married. Despite what happened last night, she feels more like a stranger right now than before.
It pisses me off that I’m feeling this way. If we hadn’t fucked, I doubt I’d give two shits about how quiet she was being. If I hadn’t gotten it in my head that I was duty-bound to take care of her, I wouldn’t care if she was uncomfortable.
Out of nowhere she starts to speak. In fact, it’s such a shock I have to ask her to repeat herself.
“What?”
“I said, that was intense.”
“It was business.” I shrug and busy myself scrolling through my phone, looking at the same emails I’d just gone through.
“Business?” She scoffs and finally turns her gaze on me. “How can you call what happened in that room business?”
“What would you call it?” I slide my phone into my pocket, fully ready to have this fight with her.
“I’d call it savagery.” She blurts out.
“Savagery. Sorry to disappoint you, princess, but what happened to Darren was soft compared to what could’ve happened. Lucky for him, he complied with my requests.”
She squints her eyes at me, leaning forward. “And if he didn’t? If he really didn’t have anything more to show you, what would’ve happened?”
“Exactly what I told him would happen. He’d have a number of bullets in his body, the final right between his eyes.”
“So you’d kill him. Over some papers?”
“I’d kill him just for lying to me.” I snarl.
She shakes her head and looks at me with disgust, such a drastic change from how she was looking at me last night. “You play so hard at being a brute. Monster isn’t a good look on anyone.”
“Playing?” I question before I push myself out of my seat, crouching so I don’t hit my head on the ceiling and getting as close to her face as I can.
I place my hands on either side of her, grabbing on to the seat to steady myself and cage her in.
“You think I’m playing at being a nightmare.
Demons cower when I come their way. This is no game. This is who I am.”
Her voice is quieter. She’s scared and she should be.
“No, it’s not. You’re not a monster.”
I’m so close now I can smell the minty toothpaste she used this morning to brush her teeth. Our eyes are locked on each other.
I realize she’s referencing how I was last night, the same night she claims she can’t remember, the same one where nothing of importance came to pass.
“Oh, and how would you know that? As far as you remember, this is how I’ve always been. Right?” She doesn’t answer and my anger crescendos. I grab hold of her hair, brutally yanking the strands until her head is tilted up. “Right?” I shout down into her face.
If I thought I’d somehow tamed the wildcat that is Brenna, in that very second she let me know I was wrong.