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Shit.I yank the door shut again. “How do you know?”
“Black magic.”
“Silas told me he hasn’t seen Ada in months. What the hell is he doing back here?”
Just because I couldn’t step foot in London, doesn’t mean I didn’t have eyes on her. Silas Hunter is an old contact of my father’s in the Metropolitan Police. He’s long since retired, and now he works surveillance exclusively for me.
“Taking up dance lessons. What do you think? He’s checking you haven’t been in touch after you adios-ed Zaccaria.”
“Well, he’s not here now, and her bodyguards are out front.”
“Yeah, but what about the five extrapatsanswho showed up as soon as Semenov left?”
I scan the quiet high street as I reach inside my jacket for my gun. “Where?”
“They went to grab some food while you were off sending brown packaged smoke signals to my sister. They’re in the Italian café opposite. Ironic, huh?” He barks out a rough laugh. “It’s the one with the blue awning and the blonde sitting outside it pretending to drink coffee when she just dumped half a bottle of vodka in it.”
Fucking suburbia.
Another quick scan confirms most of what he just told me. The vodka thing I’ll just have to take on trust. “How do you know all this? Are you following me?”
“You accusin’? Bambi hacked into the traffic and shop security feeds. Figured you’d be here when you didn’t show up for our meeting. It went well by the way, ‘though I had to shoot a couple of them in the head when they refused to sell us their casino. Messy business. Wave to the camera above Tesco Express to your left.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “It’s not so much Big Brother as his irritating little sister. Are the dead men O’Sullivan’s?”
“Nah. I’m not that stupid. It’s not like I drove twenty miles to taunt him or anything.”Jibe taken.“I’ll tell you all about it when you get back. I kept one alive just for you.”
“Afternoon delights aren’t what they used to be.”
“You might be pleasantlysatisfied.” His tone tails off into something flatter and more serious. “Don’t go defaulting on Santiago’s terms of agreement before the deal’s agreed, Lastra. No waves, remember? That’s what you told me. Not even a mafia skid mark within five miles of trouble. Spook O’Sullivan, and it’s not just you in the firing line anymore.”
I clench my hand into a fist again, knowing he means Bambi.
This is precisely why I didn’t want the pink-haired mini punk coming with us.
“It’s another fourteen days, not fourteen years,” he reasons. “Think about that the next time you get a hard-on for the past. I want to blow the backs of their heads off as much as the next man, but the Irish cunt is already bracing for something. Why else would he send his pet paedophile off to Surrey to check on Ada? He knows you’re out of jail, and he also knows you’re not back in Monaco with Aiden Knight. We need time to throw him off track. Now, start the engine and get your vengeful self back to London so I can give you a tour of our new casino.”
Fighting every instinct, I go to pull away from the curb, but the minute my foot touches the pedal there’s a deep ache in my chest and I’m slamming on the brakes.
“Fuck!”
Two extra weeks is more a papercut than a stab wound, so why is it hurting this much?
Maybe that’s the reason I turn left at the end of the high street instead of right, following the road up into the hills to an exclusive gated estate, while ignoring Viper’s next five calls.
The guy on security is a rookie. I don’t even need to show him my gun. Ten minutes later, I’m parking a hundred metres down from the entrance to an ugly red brick mansion. There’s a rock star’s house opposite, and a private golf course beyond, but it’s like the superyachts in Monaco ran aground and left all the sunshine behind.
I note the silver curls of barbed wire on top of the walls, the closed gates, the surprisingly small windows that look like the arrowslits of a castle…
It’s his taste, not hers. There’s no warmth, just cold anonymity behind a façade of wealth and ill-gotten status.Ada deserves a real home filled with love, not misery and shattered dreams.
I think back to my own childhood home, and there’s an idyllic snapshot waiting for me. My mother is baking focaccia in the kitchen, flooding my senses with the smell of warm yeast and rosemary, while my father and Matteo are conducting business in his study. My little sister, Vittoria, is twirling across the tiles at the bottom of the stairs again, and I’m watching her from the doorway of the living room, reluctant to join in because that’s not what cool twelve-year-olds do.
I wish I had. I wish I’d told her she was beautiful and wise and funny, and then made stupid shapes on the tiles with her because some moments are too fucking special to waste.
I’d tell her to run and hide when the doorbell rang that night.
I’d tell her I was sorry I couldn’t save her.
