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Slamming the door, I walk away from the car. It pisses me off when Aidan acts like this. I have no idea why he’s suddenly so keen for me to settle down, but if he thinks he’s going to force my hand, he’s mistaken. Eleanor will be mine when I decide the time is right and not before it.
CHAPTERTHREE
Eleanor
Stifling a yawn,I tuck my hair behind my ears and try to focus on the laptop in front of me once more. The figures on the screen don’t make sense. I measured everything so carefully, had Kenny, the lead contractor, look over the numbers for me, and somehow I’ve still ordered the wrong size of countertops for the kitchen area.
They arrived earlier this evening and they don’t fit. They’re three inches out, which is not a small mistake. I have no idea how I messed this up.
There has to be an explanation but, at two in the morning, I doubt I’m going to find it. I’ve been onsite for sixteen hours, and I’m too tired to see straight. This is the second night I’ve worked late on this project and the lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me.
Andrew Donovan wants to open the club in less than a fortnight, and I promised him everything was on track. This major setback could have serious repercussions. Everything I’ve done for him so far has run smoothly, so I don’t know how he’ll handle it if I can’t deliver what I promised. I can’t imagine he’ll be pleased, though.
The pressure is intense, but there’s nothing more I can do tonight. I shut down my laptop and get my blanket and pillow from the locker where I stashed them. Sometimes, when I work until the early hours, I make a bed on the sofa here in the office. I doubt Andrew would approve, but it’s better than traveling across the city to get home and only having a couple of hours’ sleep before I have to get ready to come back.
I drop my pillow onto the sofa and lay out my blanket. Then I head to the ladies’ restroom. It was one of the first rooms we got up and running when we started the remodel on the club, thank goodness. After quickly taking care of business, I go to double check all the doors are locked. I secured the place after the last of the workmen left for the night, but I need to be certain I’m safe. Although we’re in central London, the building feels quite isolated this late at night.
The front doors are locked, and the steel shutters are down. They haven’t been opened all day, so I don’t know why I felt compelled to check. I guess being alone makes me jittery. I live by myself, so you’d think I’d be used to it, but I’m not.
Once I’ve ensured everything at this side of the building is locked up tight, I head back through the main room of the club and walk down the corridor leading to the rear of the building. There’s a door there leading out to the small parking lot the employees will use when the place opens.
As I walk along the corridor, switching off lights as I go, I hear a noise up ahead. Startled, I duck through the nearest door, into a storeroom.
Moments later, there’s a scuffle outside. I hear a couple of different voices. A man is shouting, a pleading tone in his voice. He speaks a language I don’t understand. It’s Russian, I think.
Someone with a deep, throaty laugh mocks him. It takes a second or two before I catch a familiar voice, recognizing the Irish lilt of one of the Donovan brothers, though I don’t know which one. They all have the accent, despite being largely brought up in London.
My heart pounds furiously as someone asks a question, addressing it to Aidan. So the boss of the family is here. He’s never come to the site as far as I know. He has no reason to since this is Andrew’s project.
I have a bad feeling about this. What are these men doing at what’s more or less a construction site in the middle of the night? Whatever it is, it can’t be good. I’ve seen enough Mafia movies to guess what’s happening.
The men move on down the corridor and I relax a little. Though they passed by without detecting my presence, I still have to get out of here. If, as I suspect, they’ve brought someone here to hurt him, I don’t want to be around to witness it.
All I have to do is get to the office, a few doors farther along the corridor, grab my purse and then slip out the fire exit. The nearest underground station is only five minutes away. I can hopefully be home and tucked up safely in bed within the hour. When I turn up for work tomorrow, I’ll just act like nothing happened.
Taking care not to make a sound, I open the door to the storeroom and step out into the corridor. I close the door quietly behind me in case someone notices it’s open, when it wasn’t before.
I don’t know much about the world of organized crime, other than what I’ve seen on TV, but I imagine these guys are observant. They’d need to be aware of their surroundings at all times so their enemies can’t get to them.
As I creep along the darkened passageway, I wonder if I’m letting my imagination run away with me. There might be some perfectly legitimate reason for Aidan Donovan to be here, though I can’t think what that would be.
Curiosity gets the better of me and I sneak back toward the main room of the club. I peer around the corner and have to stifle a gasp. Aidan Donovan is there along with his brother, Jacob and three others who I don’t recognize. There’s a man tied to a chair, his face bloodied.
“Give me a name,” Aidan says.
The man spits a few words at him. I don’t need to speak his language to recognize it’s a curse. A sadistic grin twists Aidan’s lips, like he was hoping that would be the response. Shit. This is about to get nasty. I have to get out of here.
As quietly as possible, I move back down the corridor. My stomach lurches as I hear the unmistakable whirr of a power drill coming to life. I hear a man’s voice yelling ‘nyet, nyet, nyet,” and a second later, agonized screams fill the air.
Fear grips every part of me and my instinct to flee kicks in. Abandoning all thoughts of retrieving my purse, I run straight past the office and out through the back door. I wince as I shove it too hard, and it crashes against the wall. Fuck! I hope nobody heard that.
Crossing the street, I run for a couple of blocks, not really thinking about where I’m going. Then I spot a black cab coming in my direction. I frantically wave it down. Though I don’t have my purse, I do have money at home to pay the fare. I can get into my house using the spare key I keep in a lockbox by the front door. Shit. What’s the combination for that? I’m sure I’ll remember by the time I get home.
“Are you alright, love?” the cab driver asks as I breathlessly give him my address.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
He glances at me in the mirror, his furrowed brow suggesting he doesn’t believe me. Thankfully, he doesn’t push the subject. We drive in silence through the streets, and I try to figure out what my next move should be.
