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She reached the door before I did and turned the handle. I shrugged; these guys had become used to me barging in without knocking. Despite who I was supposed to be, the cause was bigger, and we were in it together.
Marcia’s face registered no distaste at all as she strode into the centre of the room and cast her eyes over every single thickly built, angry looking man seated around it. I stood by the doorway, my hand covering my smile, waiting to gauge their reaction. As far as I’d seen, the only female they’d had to contend with of late was Minty, and she took no shit from any of them.
They eyed her curiously then slowly panned their eyes, in unison, to me.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, stifling a smirk. “Meet Marcia. Ossian’s wife.”
It took a second or two for the realisation that the enemy’s wife was standing in their most sacred of meeting places, then all hell broke loose.
“Out!” cried Arran.
“What the fuck, Rupert?” shouted Wilson.
“What the hell are you playing at?” came another voice I didn’t recognise.
I held up a hand and waited for calm.
“She’s with us.”
Arran stormed up to me and hissed in my face. “She’s married to him, Rupert. Haven’t you ever heard a fucking wedding vow?”
I raised my brows. “Yes, I have. I’ve said one actually. The funny thing is though, they only hold sway if the man you said them to doesn’t beat you half to death.” Or you’re not actually the person whose name is written on the marriage certificate.
The room fell silent and I glanced at Marcia, hoping she didn’t mind me betraying that confidence. We didn’t have time to pussyfoot around. They needed to trust her, quickly.
All eyes landed on her in the centre of the room yet she didn’t shrink; she only grew with the acknowledgment. She stood tall and proud in pointed black leather boots, a flowing satin skirt and a sharply cut jacket that hugged her like armour. She looked sexy and strong, everything Ossian had tried to beat out of her.
A head spun back to me. “Why is she here?”
I locked eyes with him. “Because we need more people. We need to end this sooner.”
“We can’t,” Jasper said. “We’re still waiting for more fertiliser to arrive, and with Sinclair’s eyes on the coast, they can’t get through, it’s too risky.”
“You said you had tonnes of the stuff.”
“Don’t underestimate how much we’re going to need to cover forty acres of land, Rupert. We can’t risk doing a half-arsed job here. That would be like writing our own death sentence. If anything is salvageable after we’ve finished, it may as well have been for nothing.”
“Where’s the fertiliser delivery now?”
“It’s being held on the Isle of Scarp. It’s waiting until we have a gap somewhere, but Rupert, Sinclair has deployed every single one of his allies and paid double again to civilians who want to make a pretty penny fast. They’re guarding the coastline. We can’t get through.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Shit.”
“Do you have a list?” A firm voice spoke up and everyone turned to face Marcia. “A list of all the people Sinclair has deployed?”
Arran shifted to face her. “Not an exhaustive one. But we can make it exhaustive.”
Marcia nodded curtly. “Good.”
I caught onto her thought process.
“Be ready to call off the dogs. We’ll arrange a decoy,” I said.
Marcia nodded at me.
“When?” Jasper asked.
I thought quickly. I had my daily catch-up with Sinclair at six a.m. every morning. I could distract him with another issue while these guys made the calls. It might buy us enough time to get the material through safe and dry. “Will five a.m. the day after tomorrow give you enough time?”
