Chapter Nine
In which there are sparkle porn packages and unboxing videos of feet and teeth.
Wallace…
Aye, she’s getting a fleg.
Scarlett sits in her comfortable seat in the main cabin of the jet with a tray of tasty bites next to her, her hands in her lap and staring sightlessly out the window.
It’s been four hours and she hasn’t moved a muscle.
Being the gentleman that I am, I coaxed her into taking the first shower. She’s looking better, hair clean and combed, wearing the witch’s borrowed sweater and a pair of my grey joggers.
For me, showering after a job is almost ritualistic, the soot and dirt swirling down the drain, the smoke smell dispenses, overcome with whatever expensive shite they carry on the jet. The flame inside of me is always flickering, but it’s banked like the last, sullen glow of a coal in the fireplace.
Satisfied. For now.
“What is your family going to say when you show up with some random woman out of nowhere?”
Ah, she speaks.
“Trust me, lass. In my family? You’ve no idea how often that happens.” I chuckle into my drink. She’ll be getting bombarded with a hell of a lot of tales similar to ours when she meets up with the others. “And ye are no random woman. You’re Scarlett Banner, daughter of Robert Banner, who was, by all accounts, a good man to do business with. Unlike his arsehole of a stepson.”
“He was a good man,” she says with a sad little huff of a laugh. “My father may have been a criminal, but he said, ‘A handshake is your word and you don’t go back on it.’ After Massachusetts legalized cannabis, he was perfectly positioned to take a huge chunk of the state’s contracts since he’d been growing and selling it anyway.Somuch money… I think he wanted to get out of the dark stuff, then.”
Curling up her legs, she wrapped her arms around them, making herself as small as possible.
“We’re going to land in a couple of hours,” I say gently. “Ye should try to eat a bit. The Chieftainhas a chef just for stocking his fleet with all kinds of fantoosh meals.”
“Fantoosh?” she asks with a little smile, “What does that mean?”
“Overly fancy, a bit ornamental.” I nod at her charcuterie board, brimming with elaborate spirals of cured meats and cheeses, olives, fruit, and rosemary crackers.
“Are we still speaking the same language?” she asks, piling some brie on a cracker.
“Nae, the Scot’s tongue is a masterpiece unto itself.”
Feeding Murder Mittens a bite of salami, she eyes me doubtfully. “If you say so.”
Xenia’s waiting for me on the tarmac when we land, lounging in one of the family’s ubiquitous black SUVs. Morrie, one of my favorite guards, hands me the keys to my McLaren. “I’d like to thank ye for allowing me to drive this beauty out to pick ye up.” He hands me the keys, “That’s a ride I’ll not soon forget.”
“Ye took it up to 177 kilometers, dinnae ye?” His guilty expression is all I need to know. “Get away from it, ye lummox.”
Scarlett’s trying to hide a smile as I help her and the wee beast into my car. “You can’t blame him,”she says, waving her hand at the leather interior. “I mean… look at it.”
“I’ve got to meet with an associate for a moment,” I nod toward Xenia’s SUV. “I won’t be long.”
She scrunches down in the seat, wrapping her arms around Murder Mittens. “I understand.”
“Welcome home.” Xenia opens her laptop, looking at me expectantly. She’s a tiny blonde American that the Chieftain poached from a rival group by doubling her salary and giving her an extravagant design lab. The woman’s worthmyweight in gold. “Let’s have it.” She holds out her hand, wiggling her fingers in a “gimme” motion.
“Relax, would ye? The jet touched down maybe thirty seconds ago.” I hand her my phone, watching her plug it into her laptop, eyes narrowed as the data starts cascading from the Frostbite files. Scarlett is looking out the window at us, though my McLaren is parked far enough away that I canna make out her expression.
“Holy shit, this is the good stuff.” Xenia’s grinning, fingers flying over her keyboard. “This is one sneaky bastard.”
“You’re not talking about Kyle Banner, you’d be saying eejit.”
“No,” she shakes her head absently. “I’m talking about this file. This encryption…” she shakes her head fretfully. “Usually, I can figure out the root of any encryption system pretty quickly. Once you have that, decryption is a breeze. This little shit is going to fight me.”
