Page 162 of Beautiful Scars

Chapter 13

CILLIAN

I’m pacing my living room, every eye in the room watching me.

It’s starting to get light outside. It’s still early—that happens around three in the morning in summer—but I’ve not checked the time to confirm. I don’t want to check the time, count the hours. I want to push the sun back to wherever the fuck it came from.

I need more time.

Derek told me to come home. Shower. Change my clothes. Have a quick sleep. I did all of those things, except for the last one. How can I sleep?

Sarah told me to have a cup of tea. Like a cup of tea will help. I got her to make us all one but I haven’t touched it. She’s worried too, I think she’s boiled the kettle four times now.

And Cole. Fucking Cole. He told me to leave her. Forget about her. Obviously she’s run off—she was only ever waiting for a moment of distraction.

That’s when I did something I’ve never done before.

Pulled the gun out and pressed it to Cole’s forehead. Looked him in the eye and dared him to say her name again.

He shut his mouth because somewhere beneath all of that cocaine and the fog of whatever mental disorder plagues him, there is actually a clever man with a functioning brain.

She hasn’t run off. She didn’t leave me. Someonetookher.

We searched the place top to bottom. All of us, except Cole, who searched for cocaine instead. Every room, every vault, every nook and cranny. I even went to the hidey-hole I showed her last week, just to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep in there or something. Even Dimitri and his gang of Russki bastards helped me. It’s a fine day when your enemy will bust your shipments but lay down his weapon to look for your misses. An even finer day when your enemy seems more concerned than your own twin brother.

No sign of her anywhere.

And strangely enough, no sign of her father, either. Or her auntie, or her skinny prick ‘cousin’.

Alarm bells started to ring at that point.

Her cousin? A bare-faced lie.

Derek told me he never did order that hit on Alex, because he’d been released from prison the week before. And then he pulled up a news article featuring a mugshot of my friend Peet himself.

But not before I’d publicly accused Cole.

And Cole’s had a face like a thunderstorm since.

He won’t even look at me.

He’s sitting on the sofa in my living room with the Connolly brothers, tapping his knee up and down and scrolling through his phone while he chews on the inside of his mouth.

Sarah is hovering between the coffee table and the kettle.

Derek is in the hall, on the phone to a guy we know who takes in retired police dogs. He’s convinced it’s worth a shot.

I glance again outside. It’s already lighter than it was ten minutes ago. And she’s not home. And I’m just sitting here, standing here, as if she’s going to walk through the door any minute now.

She doesn’t even know where her home is.

“Right.”

Everyone looks up.

“Callum, take the boys and go back to the castle with Derek. It’s getting light so you might see something we missed last night.”

Callum nods and stands up from the sofa. Derek will get a dog. He better get a dog.