Page 20 of How to Kill Your Rival

‘Oh God, I hope not,’ Maggie says.

‘It’ll be fine. How’s the wedding planning?’

‘We’re sacking it off,’ she says, glancing at Roman. When she does, it’s like something inside her melts into a little puddle of love. ‘We’re eloping.’

‘You’re eloping?’

‘In the Highlands,’ she says. ‘Just us and a registrar and a hillside somewhere. And you guys, too.’

I think about the last Hamilton wedding. Twenty grand’s worth of flowers and a corpse in the next room.

‘When?’

‘After Priscilla’s party. We’ll all be there anyway.’

‘That,’ I say, ‘sounds perfect.’

7

JAMES

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I groan as the noise interrupts our conversation. Rolling off the floor onto my knees, I grab the face-shaped sponge from the kitchen countertop and drop it into the red puddle. It doesn’t completely eliminate the dripping, but it dulls it at least.

‘The thing is, Jeff, I can’t stop thinking about her,’ I say with a sigh, plopping back onto the floor.

Jeff’s only smile is from the red slash across his throat. It curves up at the corners and everything. A grotesque grin three inches lower than it should be.

Alas, he’s very much dead, and I should really get my arse back on the road, but it’s nice to chat to someone with no opinions for once. My knife lies on the floor, still sticky with blood, a few tiles across from where I lie. The flagstone tiles press cold into my shoulders and backside. Jeff must have been doing pretty well to afford this cottage with its colourful Aga and extensive floorplan. No surprise, really, when he’s been using his pharmaceutical company as a cover to push drugs. Not the helpful kind either. The ones that rip through communities and leave teens in early graves.

The money of the desperate paid for this lovely chocolate-box cottage. When his laced drugs killed the wrong kid, he gained himself some rich enemies. And with money comes true vengeance.

Killing him only took thirty seconds. A spray of blood in his cornflakes, and then he was gone. So, for his penance, he can listen to me wax lyrical about Eliza instead.

‘She’s so fierce. And I love that she doesn’t need anyone else. But I wish she needed me. Or even just wanted me, really.’

Jeff stares ahead, unblinking.

‘How do you convince a woman like Eliza that she needs a man? She’d sooner lop off my ball sack than give me one night.’

Jeff’s kitchen has a motivational magnet on the fridge. Black letters on a white background. It looks entirely out of place amongst the curated cottage decor.

EVERY DAY IS A NEW BEGINNING

Not for Jeff, I suppose.

‘She’s so focused on trying not to look weak that she cuts herself off from everyone. I need to find a way through to her. The only time I can engage her is when I’m competing against her.’ I sigh and look up at the ceiling. ‘Even worse, our parents are married. To each other.’ Jeff leans a little to the left. ‘But I saw her before Evan had eyes on my mum. Hell, I remember seeing her storm into a party when we were teens. She was all red hair and determination, and I fell for her in an instant. All these years later, I can’t get her out of my head.’

Standing, I fetch myself a glass of water, drinking deeply before popping the glass in my bag. I don’t need to be leaving a fingerprinted glass covered in DNA about the place. With our connections, going to court would be unlikely even if caught, but it’s never foolproof. So I always err on the side of caution.

‘She is the most competent, most infuriating, most completely infectious person I have ever met. I thought I’d finally cracked when we kissed the other day, but it turns out that beyond that hard outer shell, there’s an even more impossible one to breach.’

Jeff slides further to the left, and despite the cable ties holding him to the chair, he topples over, bringing the chair down with him. It’s a good thing he’s already dead as a doornail or he’d have quite the sore head from the way it thwacks against the floor.