Page 35 of Beautiful Scars

Chapter 9

CILLIAN

There is no GBX music in the club right now, and for once I’m actually disappointed. There’s nothing I would rather do right now than spend every penny I have on drugs and quit my arsehole of a job.

But I can’t do that when Cole’s already halfway there for the both of us.

He’s pacing the floor of the office like a caged lion, the smoke in the air twice as thick as usual since I fell off the wagon. The news is on the TV behind him, the volume way louder than I usually allow it.

I stub the end of my cigarette into the ashtray and swear it’ll be the last one. “You’re absolutely sure she saw all the evidence?”

He stops pacing and turns to face me. “Without a doubt. Sent it to Ford’s own private email address and got the read receipt to prove it.”

I let out a sigh and look up at the TV. Ford has got her contact lenses in tonight, probably so the big glasses she usually sports can’t hide the rattled, hollow look in her eyes as she talks to the news reporter.

“Look at her,” Cole says with a tut. “Someone needs to give her a Grammy. She fucking played us.”

She played us well. By the time I crashed Meisie’s car into the tree—hitting Derek on the way—Ford had already reported the car stolen. I guess my little captive didn’t actually have permission to take her mum’s car out for the night.

Ford is on the news right now telling the whole damn country that masked and armed robbers accosted her and her daughter in their home. Made off with the car keys, cash, and jewelry. My little Meisie is apparently in her bedroom right now, too shaken to leave the house.

We can’t use evidence of her daughter going off the rails on a drug-induced bender to threaten her, if she’s already made it crystal clear to the world that her daughter was at home and the victim of a robbery.

Clever bitch.

“So the leader of the country is smarter than a pair of street-reared reprobates. Hardly a shock, is it?”

Cole laughs and rubs his temple in his hands. “Aye, you might be right.”

I lean back in my chair. Of course I’m right. The cow outsmarted us.

This whole weekend has been for nothing.

We’re going to lose everything that makes us money. When the law goes through, and she legalizes drugs, people won’t call up their local friendly psychopaths to get their fix. No. Everything will be above board, with factories and pharmaceutical production lines and a seventy-percent tax rate. Corporate lawyers and a board of directors and shares on the motherfucking stock market.

The Hendry twins can’t compete with that level of operation.

“At least we still have the nightclub,” I tell him.

He narrows his eyes at me, and I don’t miss the clench in his fist. “You’re giving up?”

“There’s nothing to give up. It’s already over.”

Cole shakes his head and starts pacing the room again. Always a bad sign. “This is your problem. Black-and-white Kill. You know it wouldn’t hurt you to care about something for once in your life! We’re not giving up! We’ll pry this all back from her cold dead hands if we have to.”

I laugh at him. “And her replacement? And their replacement? I wonder how many life sentences I can actually serve in prison before you realize this is fucking stupid.”

“Alright, alright,” he says. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

He sits down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk and presses his fingertips together in a steeple.

“You’re going to hit her up. Make an absolute mess of her. Black and blue. Hell, cut all her hair off for extra effect. Then we arrange a little FaceTime. We makehergive the demands. None of this PR bullshit—that was always going to be a losing battle because that’s not what we do. No, we do this the old-fashioned way.”

He leans back, a giant smirk on his face.

“Aye, good idea,” I tell him. “Brilliant. And when she says she’s with Cillian who owns Asylum nightclub? And the police come and bust my front door in? I’m sure you’ll run the business just fine with me rotting in a jail cell.”

His face drops. “It’s the only way.”