“Stand the fuck down,” he growls, connecting and answering with silence, his eyes narrowing. “Speak,” he eventually demands, getting edgier the longer the caller remains silent, and as a consequence, I do too. But then his scowl turns into a frown, and he looks at me. “Who?”

  Just the fact he’s asking that means I can safely say it’s not my ex. “Who is it?” I ask, impatient.

  “Frazer Cartwright,” James replies.

  “What?” I question, reaching for my phone but getting nowhere near, because James moves back. “The journalist?”

  “Yes, the journalist.”

  What could he want? Jesus, if my father has set this up, I can’t say I won’t lose my shit again. He wants me to play the doting daughter to the respected businessman who’s running for mayor? Absolutely not. And James should not be talking to him either. I reach for my cell again, and this time I get a growl. “Give me it, James.”

  “No.”

  I drop my purse, lift the skirt of my dress, jump and spin, kicking my cell away from his ear. It hits the wall with force and drops to the ground, and I scoop it up. The screen is cracked, but the call is still in progress. “This is Beau Hayley speaking,” I say, my eyes on James’s fuming form. His nostrils are flaring. His jaw pulsing. I ignore it all and walk away before he blows me back when he explodes.

  “Miss Hayley,” Cartwright says. “My name—”

  “I know your name and who you are. What do you want?”

  “Your father—”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  I cough, stilling, my stomach feeling like it’s just fallen to the ground at my feet. “What?” I whisper, turning my eyes onto James. I know they must be wide because his irritation dissipates in a second and he’s in front of me, his expression questioning. I don’t know what to do. What to say. How to react. I feel . . . empty. And despite emptiness being a constant threat in my life, this feeling is new. My cell falls away from my ear, my arm limp, my eyes searching around me as I turn on the spot, as if I might see my father here and now and confirm I didn’t just hear right.

  “Beau?”

  I blink, running back over the conversation I just had.

  “Beau?”

  He’s dead?

  “Beau, for fuck’s sake.” James takes the tops of my arms and shakes me, dipping and getting in my field of vision. He recoils when I look at him, then feels down to my hand, taking my cell. He looks at the screen. Cartwright has disconnected, and I blink rapidly, seeming to come back into my body at the sight of James’s concern. I reclaim my phone and dial the only person who comes to mind, putting aside my grievance with him, and James will have to too.

  “Ollie?”

  “Beau,” he breathes in answer, and the second I hear his voice, I know. I just know.

  “Don’t tell me you were just going to call me,” I beg anyway, praying for an explanation. “Please don’t tell me that.”

  “I was just going to call you.”

  “No,” I whisper.

  “How do you know?” he asks.

  “Cartwright called me.”

  “Fuck. I’m on my way there now, Beau.”

  “Where is there?”

  “A hotel downtown.”

  “No.” God damn it, I should have met Dad for dinner. His heart. I knew there was something wrong. But Doc checked him over. I look at James, and the moment he catches my expression, he withdraws, standing down, his ego wilting. I can’t find the words to tell him what’s wrong, and he sees my struggle.

  He takes my cell and puts it to his ear. “It’s James,” he says shortly, holding on to my shoulder. “What’s going on?” He inhales in an obvious attempt to gather patience. “Now’s not the time to throw your ego around, Burrows. Whatever you were doing at Hiatus this evening, I couldn’t give a fuck. Whatever you hoped to achieve sending Beau that picture, I couldn’t give a fuck. What the fuck’s going on?”

  Dead. He’s dead. He’s dead and Ollie, an FBI agent, is on his way there. A journalist has called me. It wasn’t a heart attack? A seizure? A stroke? I startle, and it’s the oddest feeling, like a switch just flipped inside of me. Like I’m going into business mode, except I am not a cop anymore, and my father isn’t any old victim. I grab my phone from James, and this time he lets me take it. “Why are you going there, Ollie?” I ask. “And why the hell are journalists calling me?”

  “Witnesses are claiming to have heard a gunshot.”

  “A single gunshot?” I ask robotically.

  “A single gunshot,” he confirms. “I’m just relaying what I’ve been told. There’s no sign of a struggle. Nothing taken from his person.”

  “So it’s someone he knows?”

  “He knows a lot of people, Beau.”

  “I know,” I say, starting to pace. Thinking, thinking, thinking. “The gun?”

  “Missing.”

  “Shell casing?”

  “No shell casing.” He doesn’t hold back at all, telling me things he really shouldn’t be telling me. Because I’m no longer a cop. “I’m so sorry, Beau,” Ollie says, his voice soft. “I know you and Tom had a love-hate relationship, but he was still your dad.”

  I swallow, nodding. “I’m on my way. What’s the name of the hotel?”

  “Beau, you know that can’t happen.”

  “I—”

  “I’ll call you later, I promise.”

  I take a deep breath and reason with myself. I need to play ball. Keep Ollie on side. “Okay,” I say reluctantly. “As soon as you have more information.”

  “You got it.” He hangs up, and I take my cell to my mouth and nibble the corner as James moves in, his arms reaching for me. I step away, not looking at him.

  “I’ll take you home,” he says.

  “No.” I face him. “I don’t want to go home. Why would I want to go home?”

  He frowns, looking confused, a limp hand lifting to point at my cell. “Well, unless I’m missing something, I’m pretty sure you just took a call from your ex-fiancé who advised you that your father’s been murdered.”

  “Why such emphasis on fiancé?” I snap. “What’s your fucking problem?” What’s his problem? Why would I ask such a ridiculous question? Ollie was here, still trying to turn me against James. That’s his fucking problem. I am losing my mind fast. Pressing buttons I shouldn’t be pressing. Saying things I shouldn’t be saying. The walls. They’re suddenly getting higher around me again, brick by brick.

  I can see James is fighting to keep calm. “Your father is dead, Beau. You’re allowed to be sad. You’re allowed to be vulnerable.”

  “My father was a narcissistic prick who left my mother for a brainless gold digger. My father put me in a psychiatric ward and left me to rot. My father hid me from the world to save his sparkling reputation. My father was a hollow, heartless asshole who worried more about his public image than his daughter’s welfare.” I walk past James. “I don’t want to go home,” I yell back, knowing I’ve left behind one very perplexed man. A man who saved me from drowning in the darkness of everything I just listed to him.

  The man who might not be able to save me again.

  15

  DANNY

  “Who the hell was that woman?” Rose is up in my face, and it’s all I can do not to growl back in hers. I’m not wasting my words when she’s going to be getting all the juicy details from Beau the moment they’re together again.

  “Are you getting spiky with me?” I ask seriously, walking into her, making her back up. To everyone around us, my move would appear threatening. Borderline intimidating.

  It is.

  And my wife in all her glory will have none of it. “Fuck you, Black,” she spits, making me recoil, walking forward, turning the tables, having me back up. “What’s been going on while your little women have been tucked away safety in your mansion?”

  My mansion? I laugh on the inside. It’s not been my mansion for some time. More like a hotel for fucking reprobates. But back to the matter at hand. She wants to know what’s been going on? “What the fuck do you think’s been going on?” I ask, incensed. “Personal lap dances? Or something a little more”—I push my face up in hers—“physical? A good fuck with a willing whore? Is that what you’re asking?”

  She flicks her long dark hair over her shoulder, giving me a run for my money in the snarling department. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  She’s right, I wouldn’t, but I’m not about to admit it. Besides, I wouldn’t fucking want to. This is fucking ridiculous. How the fuck did James and Beau’s disagreement become ours? “Carry on like a psycho loony bitch, I might.” And there it is, her palm locking, loading, and firing. My hand shoots up and catches her wrist, and she quickly yanks it free.

  “Carry on like an asshole, I might too.” She shoves me aside, the argument now done, and I laugh like an idiot as she stomps to the bar, her ever curvier arse jumping beautifully. That gold dress looks fucking perfect on her perfectly pregnant curves. I suppress a growl and discreetly adjust myself, following her, aware of the eyes on us. She’s made it onto a stool by the time I make it to her, and I push into her back with my chest, vehemently ignoring the biting pain the pressure brings, my hard-on wedging into her arse. She gasps and sits up straight, her hand splaying the countertop.

  I push my face into her hair at her ear. “Get upstairs.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “No, I want to fuck you.” I physically lift her off the stool and place her facing the right direction. “Move.” I rest one hand on her nape, squeeze a little, the other I slide onto her tummy, stroking softly, and I walk her through the throngs of people toward the office.

  “You gonna listen to me if I say no this time?”

  Oh, how she tests me. “Yes,” I grate, because of course I’ll fucking listen. Jesus Christ, she’ll never let me forget that, the spiteful bitch. She knows I’m beating myself up about it constantly. I don’t need her help, although she’ll undoubtedly stick the knife in further when she feels like it.

  “No,” she snaps, and I stop dead in my tracks, loosening my hold of her neck.

  I breath in deeply. Calmly. “Why do you want to hurt me?” I ask. It’s a perfectly reasonable question. Every damn fucking time she’s got the hump, she kicks me in the balls. I know I’ve always said she can take everything out on me, but there’s only so much a man can stand. Yet at the same time, the twisted fuck in me loves being the one person who gives her the chance to fight back, even if she’s out of line. Like now.

  She flexes her neck and faces me, her hand resting on her tummy where mine was a moment ago. “I don’t want to hurt you, baby.” She smiles, and I hate it. My eyes narrow, waiting for the blow, and she steps toward me, looking up as she slips a finger past my lips and circles it around my tongue. She pouts, licking her lips, and my wilting arousal springs back to life. She comes closer. Strokes my lips from side to side, watching, concentrating. I realize I’m heading for a fall here, and yet I cannot find the will to remove myself from the reach of her vindictiveness. “I want to pain you,” she whispers, stroking down my front and cupping my dick. I swallow a grunt and close my eyes.

  So she’s going to deprive me? Jesus. Deprive me, knowing I won’t ever force myself on her. She’s done this before, of course. It’s her weapon, her ace card that she flaunts when she’s feeling particularly cruel. Or, actually, helpless. But whereas before I could convince her in my own way, I cannot now. Not after my fuck-up in St. Lucia. “I fucking hate you,” I wheeze in my darkness.

  She pushes her lips to mine and kisses me gently, and I naturally fall into it, but my hands remain dangling lifelessly at my sides, scared to hold her. “If you think you’re leaving me at home while you sit in a strip joint having girls drooling all over you, you’d better think again, Black.” She drops me. “And I want Esther and my son back here with us.”

  I snort. Not a chance in hell. But I don’t say that; I don’t want to escalate things further. Rose passes me, and I turn, my trousers tight, seeing Beau walking back into the club, and a few feet behind, James, looking as murderous as I’ve ever known him to look.

  Beau puts herself on a stool at the bar and signals Mason, and Rose joins her, not signaling Mason.

  “Fucking hell.” I scrub a hand down my face and go to them. Beau’s face. It’s grim, and an uncharacteristic urge comes over me to help my mate out and explain. “Beau, let—”

  “Don’t, Danny,” she warns, in a tone so deadly I listen. It’s rare to see Beau the cop. But she’s here now, firm in her stance, looking pretty fucking gritty, and I’m quickly very worried for that Beth woman.

  “Go take a seat in one of the booths,” I say. “I’ll get Mason to bring some . . .” I falter, looking at James. He doesn’t look like he wants Beau drinking anymore. I don’t think I want her drinking anymore either.

  “Wine,” Beau says, not looking at me. “And we’ll be staying here.” She remains on her stool and Rose doesn’t question it. I’ve just about had enough of insolent women for today. I wave Mason over. “Water for that one,” I say, pointing at Rose, who is quick to swing around and give me daggers. I push out my bottom lip. “Did that hurt, baby? Me talking about you like you’re an object, did that hurt?” I’m so fucking childish. Her fault. “And a bottle of Scotch and vodka for the table over there, since it looks like we’ve been banished.”

  I join James. “If it’s any consolation, I’m in the doghouse with you,” I say, sliding into the round booth seating, reaching under the table and pushing into my semi-erect dick, willing it to behave. Two bottles and two glasses land on the table, and I nod my thanks to Mason. I’m pretty sure he’s had more tattoos. His neck? The bloke is covered, head to toe. I pour us both a drink and push James’s across the table, taking my own and sipping while I watch him stare at it. “Yo, bud?”

  “Tom Hayley is dead,” he says to the glass, flat and emotionlessly.

  I still, my drink hanging in midair. “What?”

  “He’s dead.”

  I look across to the bar and see Rose with her hands over her mouth, looking at a very still and quiet Beau facing the bar nursing a bottle of red. And Fury’s face says it all too, as he looks at me, as if to check he’s heard right. What? How? When? Who? Why? I shake my head, trying to straighten out my thoughts. “He’s dead?”

  “I don’t have many details. Frazer Cartwright called Beau.”

  “The journalist?”

  “Yes, the journalist.”

  “He’s a man in the know, isn’t he?” I quip. “Perhaps we need to talk to him.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And it’s confirmed?”

  “Agent Burrows confirmed it.” James looks at me through hollow eyes. “He was on his way to the scene.”

  “Fuck. All this transpired just now?”

  “Yes, while Beau and I were”—he cricks his neck, his hand wrapping around his tumbler—“ironing out a few differences.”

  “Well, you’re a shit ironer if that shiner on your cheek is anything to go by.” I toast the red mark as James feels at it, then have another sensible sip of my Scotch, wanting to, or needing to, down the lot and get a solid hit of alcohol. But I can’t do that. I can never do that. In fact, I shouldn’t be fucking drinking at all. And yet . . . I take another sip. “Dead?”

  “Gunshot reported.”

  I nod, thinking. If I’m brutally honest, the world won’t be so hard done by with no Tom Hayley in it and, being even more brutally honest, it’s one less thing for James and me to worry about, because that man was gunning for us. But . . . Beau. I look at the girls at the bar again, seeing Rose now rubbing Beau’s back, her stool closer, but Beau hasn’t moved. “Who sent her that picture of you with Beth?” I ask, going back to the initial problem.

  James looks up at me as he plays with his glass. “Burrows.”

  “But he was on his way to the scene. From here? And why the fuck would he come here, anyway? To make peace?” I laugh. I doubt it. Or . . . I frown and look up at James. “Or he’s got someone in our club.” I glance around the expansive space, up the stairs to the mezzanine floor. Staff? A client? It could be anyone.

  “I think it’s simpler than that, but I’m gonna have Nolan look into it to be sure.” He goes to his phone and taps out a message.

  “Wise.” Now, back to the matter at hand. “Do you think this will knock Beau back more?” I ask, topping up James’s drink. She wasn’t exactly head over heels in love with her father. “Her mum, now this?”

  “No,” James says. “I think it’ll be worse than that.” He turns his glass slowly on the table, oblivious to my questioning expression.

  “What could be worse than her returning full tilt to that darkness?” I ask, and James looks up at me. I hate the answer before he’s even spoken it, his face so impassive. It’s truly worrying.

  “Taking me with her,” he whispers, turning his eyes to Beau at the bar.

  Fuck, yes, that would be pretty fucking horrific. There’s no denying James is on the upper end of the fucked-up spectrum, even now, but at least he’s got a purpose beyond revenge. “How do we stop that?”

  “I’d have to let her do what she’s planning on doing.”

  “What is she planning on doing?”

  “Becoming a cop again.”

  I shoot back in my chair like I’ve been shot. “What the fuck?”

  “I saw it,” he says quietly, still turning the glass, as if clinging to it to keep himself rooted. To stop himself going on a killing spree here and now. “She loved her father but hated him. Her thoughts of him mirrored ours. Narcissistic prick. But the orphan in her will feel guilt, and the only way to ease that guilt would be to end their relationship by serving his honor.”

  She can’t find her mother’s killer, so perhaps she can find her father’s. “Shit,” I hiss, taking more than a sip of my drink. So what James is saying, basically, is either way, he’ll lose her. Fuck. I know Beau’s relationship with her father was strained to say the least, but if there’s anyone in this world who can relate to being orphaned, it’s me. Before Carlo Black found me, filthy and hungry in a London alley, I often felt alone. My mother was terrified of my stepfather, unable to protect me.