Page 98 of Beautiful Scars

Chapter 3

CILLIAN

“We need to talk.”

I lean back in my chair. “Well if it isn’t my favorite mother-in-law-to-be. Jesus suffering, that’s a bit of a mouthful, eh? Can I cut the bullshit and call you Ma? Or do you prefer Mammy?”

Helen Ford scoffs on the other end of the phone. “We’re not doing this over an unsecured line. A car will pick you up. You’re at the club?”

“Helen, Helen, Helen. You need to stop trying to get me in the back of your car. I’m marrying your daughter, and I fully intend to stay faithful to her.”

There’s a moment of silence before she scoffs again. “The car will be at the club in twenty minutes.”

“I’m not at the club,” I lie, as I mute the TV in the very club I’m claiming not to be in. “So don’t bother sending a car.”

“I’m making you a deal.”

“Not interested in your deals,” I shoot back.

“Are you alone?”

“Why? You wanna FaceTime? Is FaceTime cheating? Imagine the screenshots. We’d definitely make the front page.”

“Fuck off,” she shoots.

I burst out laughing. That’s the closest thing to a human reaction I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth.

“I can’t revoke the bill, but I will assure the viability of your business going forward. Cut the drugs, keep the clubs, the guns, the security, the girls, whatever else you’re involved in.”

“I don’t do girls, that would be the Romanians,” I inform her. “But please explain to me how any of thatisn’twhat I’m already getting?”

Seems to me like she’s offering me exactly the same as what’s going to happen anyway. I’m still a drug dealer with no fucking drugs.

Another pause. She really is one for dramatics. “There’s another offer, but this one is only for you.”

She knows exactly how to pique my interest in the same way her daughter knows exactly how to lick my balls. Fucking Fords. They’re my weakness. “Go on.”

“Go legit,” she says. “And I’ll give you a slice of the pie. It’ll be a new world—rife with opportunity, and there will be a place for a man as resourceful as you. Logistics, perhaps. Seems like it could be your forte.”

Cillian Hendry, a real legitimate businessman. Interesting perspective.

“And in return?”

“I get Meisie back. Tonight. No press.”

A legitimate business. An actual empire—one that I can pass along to all my little Hendry Juniors in the form of a clean piece of paper and not a bloody war on the streets.

I stare at the desk. I never liked this place, but maybe that’s because it wasn’t real. It’s an illusion, and every day I’m reminded how it could all be taken away from me.

Cole reminds me when he talks about the legalization.

Derek reminds me when he moans that Cole’s latest mess is going to get us both ten years in jail.

Dimitri fucking Vasiliev reminds me when he gets our shipments busted.

It’s a sandcastle of crushed bones built on the illusion of power, and I’m not stupid enough to think I’ll be doing this forever. We’ll either lose it all, or we’ll have to fight until we’re too old to fight for it anymore.

Unless I have a rake of wee brats who are as fucked up as me to continue the legacy.