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I almost threw up in my mouth. Who the hell did he think he was to give me an order? I would have lost my rag right there and then if Aro hadn’t chosen that exact moment to walk into the room without knocking, right on cue.
“Sinclair,” he said, walking right up to us both.
“I’m in a meeting,” Sinclair snapped. “What is it?”
I forced my eyebrows to stay put as much as they wanted to hike upwards before the rest of me lashed out at Sinclair for showing Aro such little respect.
“Are you aware of this?” Aro slapped a bunch of press clippings into the space Sinclair had just cleared, which I found childishly amusing.
Sinclair’s gaze dropped to the papers but he made no move to read them. Instead, his eyeballs rolled from the table up to Aro, slowly and patronisingly. They’d never been the best of friends but I hadn’t seen the gulf between them to be quite so wide. Maybe I’d simply chosen not to see it before, back when I thought I was one of them.
“Just summarise it,” Sinclair said, his words dripping with boredom.
“We’re fucked,” Aro said. “How’s that for a summary?”
Sinclair merely dipped his head to the left and closed his eyes. “Well, aren’t we lucky?” he replied.
Aro slammed a fist onto the desk making Sinclair’s lids pop open. “This is different, Sinclair. Did you know Ossian has been pedalling opioids? He may as well be a fucking heroin dealer for all the sympathy the press is showing us.”
Sinclair’s brows sank into an irritated frown. “What the fuck are you talking about? Ossian dealing heroin? He wouldn’t have the first clue how to do that.”
“Don’t underestimate him, brother,” Aro said, and I didn’t miss the slight stiffening in his neck as he said those words. “He’s been messing with the formula for months and he’s been distributing a new version – one that is laced with addictive opioids – for many weeks now. It’s been in circulation long enough to have got a few of our customers hooked. And because we can’t simply increase their doses, because we can’t meet demand as it is, they’re finding a fix elsewhere.”
Sinclair coughed, surprising me with how hollow and rasping it sounded. “Good on them.”
“What?” Aro made a good show of being stunned, even though this whole conversation had been planned, to see just how fragile Sinclair’s health was.
Sinclair waved his hand dismissively. “It’s quite enterprising of them to seek their own solutions to problems.”
“These are problems we’ve caused,” Aro said, his disbelief lacing every word. “They’re not being enterprising; they’re trying to survive.”
Sinclair coughed again and this time held a hand to his chest. “Is that all?” he grunted, barely lifting his eyes to meet Aro’s.
Aro stood tall, anchoring his feet to the floor. Their likeness was uncanny but Aro was of far stockier build than Sinclair. “No.”
Sinclair rolled his eyes. “In that case, can you call Iris for me?”
“Why? What’s Iris going to do?” Aro looked affronted that Sinclair would want his wife beside him in this battle. Aro had always kept Aunt Isobel as far away from Thorn family business as possible.
“I forgot my medication,” Sinclair snapped, burning us both with an acid glare.
“What… this medication?” Aro threw an orange pot onto the desk and watched it roll to a stop against the press cuttings.
Sinclair kept one hand over his chest while he snapped off the lid of the pot with the other. He tipped two pills into his mouth and swallowed them dry.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Something I have to take,” he said, rubbing his chest wall.
I narrowed my eyes. “You said you were fine. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing important,” he snapped. “Now leave, both of you. I’ve work to do.”
“Do you still want me to call Iris?” Aro asked, his tone thick with sarcasm. His steadfast calm was beginning to unnerve me.
“No, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”
“But are you?” Aro asked. “I mean, you’ve got the press accusing you and Ossian of drugging the top one per cent of Great Britain; you’ve lost any chance of getting the supplies you need to the Isle of Crow; your two eldest sons can’t stand to be in the same room with each other.”
