“Burrows?”

  I look at Otto, the pieces still all rearranging as I think. Otto knows it adds up, and so many things are falling into place. “Beau’s never been at risk. Not only because she’s with me.” For fuck’s sake. I should have killed him. I should have fucking killed him! The straightest fucking cop is The Bear. And he now has Beau.

  “How do you explain the Russian in the hospital who tried to kill her after she was shot?”

  “Sandy,” I say simply. “He was retaliating after I took out his men at the factory. Nothing to do with The Bear.”

  Otto steps back. “And Burrows didn’t like that,” he says quietly. “So he and Sandy aren’t friends anymore.”

  “Correct.” My stomach turns, my scar tingles, my fucking veins burn. “Fuck!” I roar.

  “Calm down,” Otto says, and I throw my head back, laughing dementedly, seeing my family home going up in flames. “James!”

  “I’m fine,” I exhale, pacing up and down, slowing to a stop when something comes to me. “He’s too young.” I say quietly, turning my eyes onto Otto.

  “What?”

  “Burrows. He wouldn’t have even been out of college when my family were…” I swallow. “…murdered.” Blown up. Burned alive. I exhale and rake a hand through my hair and watch as Otto absorbs what we should have thought about instantly.

  “Fuck,” he breathes. “He’s not working alone.”

  I feel like my head is about to spin off. But who? “Where is she?” I ask, calm but not.

  “We need to find this lawyer he’s seeing.” Otto’s phone starts screaming with the sound of an alarm, and he looks down. “Shit.”

  “What? What is it?” I ask, not that I have to. Otto’s nervous sweat speaks volumes. He’s tracked Beau.

  “Burrows address.”

  I fly out of the bank and throw myself behind the wheel.

  “What’s going on?” Danny asks from the back as Otto comes after me.

  “You need to stay and clear up that mess,” I say, starting the engine.

  “What mess?” Danny asks.

  “I’m not fucking staying anywhere.” Otto runs around the front, hopping in the passenger seat. “Remember who he wants, James.” Otto looks at me with a face full of fury. This is one of those times when I won’t argue. “I’ll call Len and Bud to come sort this.” He goes straight to his phone as I wheel-spin away.

  “Will someone tell me what the fuck is happening?” Danny orders shortly.

  “Spittle’s dead.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “Beau.” I don’t question that. She’s a stellar shot. She also needed to keep her escape open, hence using Spittle as a doorstop.

  “Now she’s at Burrows’s.”

  “What?” Rose gasps, shooting forward in her seat, forcing Danny to pull her back.

  “There was an empty box in there,” I explain. “Security guards dead, cameras cut. It’s Burrows.” Burrows and who the fuck else? “She’s at his place.” What I don’t know is whether she went there willingly, or if Burrows forced her.

  “You realize this is a trap, don’t you?” Danny says. “He wants us, not Beau.”

  “Do you want me to drop you off anywhere?” I ask, serious. I can see the mental battle he’s having. His loyalty to me but his love for Rose. I don’t envy him. This is the pinnacle moment in this fucking nightmare.

  So I decide for him, screeching up at the curb and calling Fury, giving him the address. Rose is sobbing as she gets out, clinging to Danny like she’s afraid he might abandon her. His face is impassive. But his eyes? They blaze with a hatred I can relate to. He doesn’t need to speak. His icy eyes tell me everything he wants to say.

  Make it messy.

  He closes the door, and I pull away fast, looking at them on the roadside in the rearview mirror, Danny’s arms wrapped around his woman.

  I exhale, rubbing at my temple, trying to remember how it feels to have Beau in my arms. In this moment, I can’t.

  I return my eyes to the road, my head fucking bent.

  This will be a crime of love.

  But for who?

  * * *

  I park as close as I can to Burrows’s apartment without risking being detected and jog down the street, my gun in one hand, my phone in the other. The lights are on, the whole place glowing. I creep around the back, my body hard, tense, shaking.

  “The curtain,” Otto whispers, nodding to a window. I look and see a slight gap, and breathe in my anticipation, looking back at Otto whose attention is on his screen. He nods. She’s in here. I peek through the small sliver between the curtains.

  And my heart drops into my stomach when I see Beau unconscious on the floor.

  39

  BEAU

  Voices. Muffled words. A low, irritating buzz. The fridge?

  Then a woman’s voice.

  I open one eye, just a fraction, trying to see . . . anything. Trying to make out their words. My head is ringing, my left arm dead. My eyes dart but stop when I see a pair of shoes across the room. I recognize them.

  Oh God, no. How could this be?

  My poor brain is in no position to compute what is happening. How it’s happened. How I never knew what was right in front of me this whole time. “Beau? Beau, can you hear me?” He sounds fraught, stressed, as he comes closer, and my already racing heart gets faster and faster until I am unable to play dead anymore. I open both eyes, but my vision is far from clear, and my hearing is a whoosh of inaudible words. “Jesus, Beau.” He crouches before me and strokes my hair back, and I look up to see him glancing around, his gun poised, ready to shoot. He’s sweating. Breathless. I hear a noise outside the window. “Fuck,” he curses, returning his eyes to me. I mumble some garbled words. I don’t know if he understands them. “I’m so sorry,” he says, sounding distant. Grainy.

  I move fast. I don’t know if it’s fast enough.

  Bang.

  40

  JAMES

  I rest my back against the wall, my mind racing, feeding me instruction after instruction. I can’t get them straight. Can’t think clearly. I growl, my teeth gritting.

  Think!

  I take a deep breath, telling myself I can’t go in there, guns blazing. But then a gunshot sounds, and all rationale is lost, along with my fragile temper. I roar and lift my arm, throwing my elbow back into the window, shattering it, and I’m through it soon after, numb to the sensation of glass ripping through my arm.

  I scan the room and nearly fall to my arse when I see Beau on her knees, sobbing.

  Burrows’s head is in her lap, his eyes open, blood trickling out the corner of his mouth. His hands cover his neck, blood spilling through the gaps, pouring all over the floor and Beau.

  “No,” she sobs, rocking back and forth, crying her fucking eyes out. “No, no, no.”

  My heart splinters, my gun lowering, my useless body motionless. Clueless. She looks at me, her eyes welling, and I’m about to go to her, but I hear a noise from another room.

  My body hardens again, and I follow the sound to the front. “James, no!” she yells. “Please, come back!” The front door is open, and I rush outside, seeing a woman pulling away in a Ford.

  “Hey!” I yell, running out into the road, aiming my gun, trying to read the license plate. The car speeds around the corner. “Fuck!” I yell.

  “James!” Beau screams, forcing me back to her. I find Otto at the door, and I reel off the license plate number as I pass him. “Find her.”

  “On it,” he says, going straight to his phone.

  I find Beau still rocking back and forth, looking down at Burrows in her lap, the noises coming from him unbearable. I should finish the fucker off. Not to put him out of his misery, but to put Beau out of hers. I slowly start to aim, get ready to shoot, my eyes passing between his and the back of Beau’s head, her tears splashing all over his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he garbles. “I’m s-orry, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry.” They’re his last words.

  His eyes close and he goes limp, relieving me of the job, and I let my gun drop to my side on an exhale as Beau’s sobs ramp up another notch. I can’t bear to hear her cry. I dip and remove her, carrying her to a chair and sitting her down, checking her over. I see a mark at the top of her arm. A small puncture. “Beau?” I ask, wanting to shake her. She stares blankly forward, her eyes dead. Black pits of nothing. Will she recover from this darkness? I take her cheeks in my palms, desperate for her to see me. “Look at me.”

  She does, and I withdraw, her face expressionless. “The woman,” I say.

  “His girlfriend,” she says robotically. “She showed up.”

  I frown. I thought Burrows said she was practically living here. “And?”

  “I don’t know. She screamed. She yelled. She ran.” Her eyes find me, and I hate the infinite emptiness I see. “My dad,” she says on a whisper, her voice wobbly. “My dad’s name was in the box.”

  I exhale shakily, looking up when I detect movement by the door. Otto looks as grave as I expect I do. Jesus fucking Christ. Burrows and her father?

  I pull her into my chest and hug her tightly, looking up at the ceiling, cursing that motherfucker to hell and back.

  It’s over.

  But it feels like my challenge has only just begun.

  41

  DANNY

  The TV is on. I’m not watching it. Every sound in the house gets my attention. And Rose’s, who’s curled up in my side, pretending to relax too. It’s hopeless. James and Beau got back past midnight last night. Beau looked like death. James looked like he’d been through hell. They had, from what he told me while Doc checked Beau over and James necked a few needed vodkas. I called Higham to deal with Burrows’s body. Otto has been non-stop trying to find out who this lawyer is that Burrows was seeing. The Ford was a rental. I expect he’ll have a name and address shortly. Oliver fucking Burrows? The amount of times we have been in a room with that fucker.

  I peek down at Rose. She’s looking at the screen. Not watching though. Frankly, my time is of better use elsewhere at the moment, and I know she’s thinking the same. Neither of us want to be the one to speak up.

  I sigh, breaking away and getting to my knees in front of her. “As much as it’s been lovely sitting here pretending to relax, I would much prefer to do this another time when I haven’t got a million fucking questions on my mind.”

  She smiles. It’s small. “I should go check on Daniel and Beau.”

  I nod, kiss her, and get up. “I’ll be in my office.” I head that way, and the moment I’m in there, Ringo pours me a Scotch. I show him my gratitude with a smack on his shoulder. Brad’s shaking his head from his seat at my desk, still looking a bit shellshocked. “Where’s James?” he asks.

  The man with all the answers we need. “Where do you think he is?” I pace up and down, my head ringing. “Higham’s sorted Burrows.” Poor bloke. He’ll definitely be retiring soon. “Fuck knows what Burrows did with Amber’s body.” That’s a worry. My wife killed the ex-in-house whore, and I have no way to ensure the body is never found to protect Rose. What a fucking mess.

  The door to my office opens and James walks in. He looks fucking awful. “Rose is taking some tea up,” he says, going straight for the vodka. I look at Brad, who looks at Ringo, who looks at Goldie.

  “How is she?” our she-warrior asks. She has more balls than any man in this room.

  James laughs, increasing the uneasiness surrounding us. He turns, armed with a full glass, and toasts the air. “Mourning the death of her corrupt ex-fiancé while her current one stands here drinking himself into an oblivion wondering what the fuck this means for him.”

  Silence.

  “What the fuck happened, James?” I ask, my brain fried. “How did Amber have a key to the box?”

  He peeks up at me. “Beau found her father’s name in the safety deposit box.”

  The collective gasps of everyone drench the room. “The fuck?” I breathe, lowering my glass as I mentally walk my way through every tiny shitty thing that’s happened.

  “Tom Hayley? The Bear?” Jesus, and Burrows was his little mole. The fuck? “Burrows was at Amber’s for the key?”

  “And Beau got there first.” James drops into a chair heavily, staring forward. “He drugged her. Took her back to his place.” He downs the drink as we all remain still and quiet. “His lover showed up. Disturbed him. Beau disarmed him. Killed him.”

  And now she’s mourning him. My cheeks blow out, and I join James in supping the hard stuff. I can only imagine how livid he is. How relieved. How worried. Lost. It’s going to take more than a break in St. Lucia to fix this shit. I get up and go to him, tentatively placing a hand on his shoulder, fully prepared for the blowback in the form of a fist to my face. “So who the fuck killed Tom Hayley?”

  James laughs lightly under his breath, rubbing into his temple. “Amber. Ollie. Volodya…”

  I inwardly laugh. He’s right. Any one of them could have, and we’ll never know for sure because they’re all fucking dead. “You’ll get through this.”

  James obviously doesn’t agree, taking a glug of his drink. “I’m going to the gym.” He rises, setting his glass on the desk. He needs to stand on his head for a while. Try to level himself out. He doesn’t need me to tell him it probably won’t work this time.

  My phone rings and I pull it from my pocket as I watch James pace out of the room, all eyes following him. Something tells me that the next time I see him, he won’t be James. He’ll be the man we all fear. The Enigma. Even though The Bear is dead. Burrows is dead.

  But James doesn’t have his peace. Fuck. I look at the screen of my mobile. “Sandy,” I say, looking up, seeing James stop at the door, his hand on the knob. “Am I talking to him?” Can I distract him with business? I doubt it—we know Sandy arranged a hit on Beau, not The Bear. Because The Bear was her fucking father.

  “Someone’s got to take those guns off us,” Brad pipes up, looking nervously at James’s back. “Chaka’s going to be delivering a load more soon. We need space.”

  James’s back rises, and he slowly turns to face us. He nods, and I answer. “Morning.”

  “Afternoon,” he counters, making me glance at the clock on the wall. One minute past noon. “I heard there’s been some developments.”

  I click to loudspeaker as James comes over, settling back in the chair. “News sure does travel fast in this city.” I raise my brows. “How do you know?”

  “Our friend Higham.”

  “Our friend?”

  “You don’t like sharing?”

  “No, actually.”

  “What about selling?”

  I smile and rest my arse on my desk, crossing one ankle over the other. “Depends what’s on offer.”

  “The whereabouts of Carlo Black’s remains?”

  I still, the tumbler slipping from my grasp and hitting the rug. “What?”

  “Since we’re getting things out in the open, doing a bit of housekeeping, I will tell you now—”

  “Tell me what.”

  “I was ordered to dig up your father.”

  “And you did.”

  “I did.”

  If Tom Hayley and Burrows weren’t dead, I’d fucking kill them so fucking slowly, they’d be begging me to end it. “And where is he?”

  “I will send you directions.”

  “And Beau’s mother?”

  “What?”

  “Jaz Hayley.” I eye James, who is slowly rising from his chair, his big, coiled body unfolding, looking as deadly as we all know it is. “Where will we find her remains?”

  His extended silence does not bode well, but before I can demand an answer, the door flies open and Otto flies in. “The lawyer Burrows was seeing. She’s in Aspen. A getaway to get over a break-up. She said she and Burrows had a few casual fucks, he was uninterested, and then he suddenly wanted her there every day. She broke it off. Said he was behaving strangely. It wasn’t her running away from Burrows’s apartment.”

  I look at James, confused as fuck. He’s staring at the floor, and he slowly lifts his gaze to mine.

  “Answer my fucking question, Sandy,” I order darkly. “Where are Beau’s mother’s remains?”

  “We only got orders to dig up your father, Black. I know nothing about Jaz Hayley’s remains.”

  I inhale, my lips pressing together, as James’s body gets taller and taller.

  “I have more.” Otto says, winning all of our attentions. “The rental car speeding away from the scene.”

  “What about it?” James asks, his voice low, calm.

  Deceiving.

  “Rented under the name Dolly Daydream.”

  He tears out of the office on a curse.

  42

  JAMES

  The stairs are a blur as I fly up them, my legs numb. All I can see is Beau’s mum’s car in the parking lot. Beau approaching warily. The fireball rising, touching the nighttime sky. I race down the corridor, the thumps of my boots and many more following me shaking the house.

  I skid to a stop at our room, grabbing the door jamb to stop my body overshooting the entrance. I see Rose standing in the middle of the bedroom with a tray of tea in her hands before I see the empty bed where I just left Beau snoozing. I don’t bother checking the bathroom, the terrace, any other rooms in the house.

  All blood drains from my body, leaving it cold. Emotionless.

  “Talk, James,” Danny orders from the door, needing confirmation of the fucking crazy running amok in my head. I can’t speak. Can’t form the words.

  “James,” Rose begs, the china on the tray starting to clang together from her shakes.

  My head a mess, I walk through the people behind me, down the stairs, across the lobby, out the front door, and into the driveway. My Range Rover is missing. I look down the driveway to the gates. They’re open and Bud is stomping back to the gatehouse.