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“She’s not coming,” I grate.
“Then I’m afraid I must change the terms of our deal, supply some guns, and kill your son.” He hangs up, a collection of gasps rings out around the room, and my heart drops into my stomach. I breathe out on a long breath, feeling all focus on me. Watching me being slowly backed into a corner.
I have a horrible feeling King doesn’t only want to see Pearl. He wants her. It explains why he’s not taking Sandy’s money. He wants his pet back, and the money. Happy days. He gets the best of both worlds, plus in four years when Pearl turns twenty-five, he gets her father’s twenty-million-pound estate too. Fuck. His death is going to be really fucking slow. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I hiss, calling him back, my back firmly up against the wall. He answers with silence. “I’ll wait for your call.” I hang up and bellow at the ceiling before slumping into a chair, hot and sweaty. The silence is excruciating.
“Give us five,” James says, opening the office door and ushering everyone out.
I light up, puff urgently, head resting back. I was the one who said we do what he wants us to do. But that? Fuck!
“Doesn’t sound like money is his only motivation, Brad,” Danny says quietly.
“There must be another way.” I take another drag and blow the smoke skyward. “Chaka needs to get Nolan out now, and then we make our move. No Pearl involved.”
Danny’s cheeks balloon. “It’s risky. Sandy will have men watching the motel.”
“But we don’t have any other choice.” James pulls out his phone. “Am I making the call to Chaka?”
I nod and James dials. “Move in,” he says simply, before hanging up.
And the next ten minutes feel like ten years, all of us smoking, waiting, drinking, and pacing. I constantly check my watch, the clock, my cell.
When James’s phone rings, my heart crawls up to my throat. He connects. “Nolan’s not here,” Chaka says. “They’ve moved him.”
“Fuck!” I yell, kicking the chair across the room and throwing my tumbler at the wall. It shatters loudly, but we all still hear the sound of gunfire from down the line.
“Chaka?” James says, as it continues—bullets, explosions, and yells. “Chaka, can you hear me?”
The line goes dead.
Silence.
A long, lingering, tense silence.
It’s broken when Pearl’s phone rings. I close my eyes and breathe in, connecting the call. “Oh you thought our Russian friend had your son? How disappointing for you. Don’t fuck with me.” He chuckles. “I eat men like you for lunch, too. Wait for further instructions. And you will bring my niece. Just you, Pearl, and my money.”
The silence that follows once he’s hung up is torturous. “Fuck!” I drop the phone and leave the office, walking back to the kitchen. “Where is she?” I ask the room. Everyone looks to the door. I go out and find her sitting on a wall. Smoking. Waiting for me.
She casts her eyes my way.
I don’t want to say the words.
But I don’t need to. She nods, looking down at her cigarette, thinking.
I hate that she knew this was coming.
63
ROSE
* * *
The following evening, I walk into the TV room with Maggie and find the Vikings, Leon, and Jerry stacking bundles of cash on the coffee table. I stare at the piles, and they all look up, hands mid-placing a bundle of cash. “You’re gonna need a bigger table,” I say, blasé, leaving them to it, hearing Tank chuckling as I go. I meet Beau on the threshold. “The room’s occupied,” I say.
She frowns and peeks in. Doesn’t bat an eyelid. And isn’t that a sad situation for us to be in? Bombs, ransoms, kidnappings. All just a day in the life of this family. I still need a drink, though. Just a small one.
Beau heads into the kitchen, and I look out of the window by the front door, seeing the workmen fitting new gates. How long before those ones are destroyed too? I sigh, backing up to take Maggie upstairs to change her diaper but stop at the first step, listening to the men in the office. They’ve been in and out of there all day. And then I hear the door open and quickly get my backside in gear, taking the stairs.
“Rose?” Danny calls, and I look back over my shoulder. “You putting her to bed?”
