Me: I miss your big juicy tits and wish you were here right now so I could wrap them around my cock.
I grinned to myself before squeezing my now aching shaft.
Conal: Please excuse my moronic twin, who I’ve now disowned. What’s he’s trying to say, badly, is that he really misses you. Not just sex with you.
Me: Don’t put words in my fucking mouth!
Conal: Someone needs to.
Two blue ticks appeared next to our messages, showing Pixie had read them. But yet again, she wasn’t responding. Had I upset her?
My bad mood returned with a vengeance.Fucking Conal. I loved my bro but he needed to stop making me look bad.
I was about to curse him for ruining my life when a speech bubble appeared as Pixie started typing a message. Conal asked me something, but I ignored him. The stupid bastard was dead to me. The only person I cared about at this moment was my Pixie girl.
Pixie: I miss you too.
Was that for me or him?
Pixie: Both of you.
Not Declan? Served the grumpy fucker right.
My bad mood lifted. Pixie missed me. All was right in the world. She wouldn’t need to miss me much longer. I’d had enough of sitting around this miserable morgue of a house.
Declan needed to get his fucking head out of his fucking ass and see what the rest of us saw: i.e. that we all belonged together.
One big, happy, murderous family.
57
Declan
Ronan’s messages to Verity were highly inappropriate. I should have muted the chat, so I didn’t have to read the bullshit he came out with, but I lived for her replies. Not that she replied often. Since my brothers created the chat and added me, I’d monitored her level of engagement. It was minimal at best.
A few emojis here and there.
The man sitting opposite me huffed in irritation when I failed to respond to his question. I looked up and fixed him with a glacial stare. The mayor could shove his attitude right up his wrinkly ass. I was doing him a fucking favor, not the other way round.
With a sigh, I pushed my phone back into my desk drawer and focused on the matter at hand.
“My contact has sent me enough evidence to shut down the operation.”
The mayor paled. “And does this contact of yours have names?”
“He does.” My face remained blank, but inside, I raged. The mayor’s name had been on the list of members who usedthe club. A notorious club where powerful men wielding their money and power abused young women.Sick bastards.
Thanks to Milo and his shadowy network of hackers, we’d accumulated enough evidence to shut down the remaining trafficking network that traded women and girls across Europe. Boys, too, according to the documents I’d seen.
Not all the clients on Milo’s list had been men; I spotted at least one high-flying female politician with a predilection for young boys.
“I can keep your name out of it if you play your cards right,” I told the mayor. Of course, I had zero intention of protecting him, but the man reeked of desperation.
Relief and then anger flashed across his face. Relief that he wouldn’t be going to prison and anger that I now had leverage over him.
“What do you need?” He shuffled on his chair while staring at my drink. I took a sip just to mess with him, licking my lips appreciatively at the complex peaty flavors. Landon Rothmore was a jumped-up little prick, but his family made damn fine whiskey.
“I need you to sign off on some planning applications for me.” The bastard had been stalling on my nightclub development project for months now, and the investors were getting twitchy. No doubt he’d been hoping for a bigger payout, not to mention a stake in what would become a very profitable business, but thanks to Milo, this meeting had turned into a shakedown. One where the oily fuck sitting across from me had no room to maneuver.
