I’m half sobbing, half shouting. “You fucking bastard. You fucking useless bastard.”
I didn’t see Kari move, but she’s sheltering behind the desk, holding a stapler in her hand. Something that would be amusing if it wasn’t so frightening. The knuckles holding it are white.
“You seem perturbed,” he says with slow enjoyment. “Maybe a few sedatives are in order.”
The bag of drugs sits in pride of place on the desk and his smug grin says he knows exactly what they are. Of course, nothing is coming into his house without him knowing about it. I wonder if the maid survived his questioning or if she’s acting on his instructions, causing chaos because that’s the environment within which he thrives.
George has her footing again. Her tiny hands claw at his arm, but I’ve experienced the strength of her fight before. Even energised, she’s not powerful enough to get free. Even my chances against him would be down at fifty-fifty.
“She’s not worth it, Lock. Just say your goodbyes now and it’ll be over with.”
I swipe a hand across my face, trying to clear my vision. “Let her go. Do anything you want to me but just… let her go.”
“Why? Are you really going to go against everything we have planned just so you can sink your dick into this whore who doesn’t even understand our world? Are you planning on telling Soren this is who you’ve picked to replace his daughter?” He barks out a filthy laugh. “Because if you do, you’ll have to kill him.”
The anger and futility engulf me again until I’m shouting, “Fine by me. The more the merrier.”
“Oh, what’s that? Now you’re killing me, too?”
I’m shaking from head to toe. I have never meant anything more than when I spit the words, “It would be my fucking pleasure,” at him.
“Why? Why her?”
“Because I fucking love her!” My hands are in fists, veins popping in my biceps, my temples, wishing the words were a weapon because I feel them so strongly, they should be. They should be a lightning bolt to destroy anything in our path. Anything that tries to hold us apart. “Because I love her.”
He releases his grip on George, still holding her but no longer trying to crush her throat. “Well, good.”
I’m halfway through formulating my response when I hear his actual words, watch him push her towards me, into my arms, and my train of thought derails completely.
“What?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
GEORGE
“Good,”Creighton repeats, pushing me hard enough that I stumble the two steps forward into Lachlan’s waiting arms.
I thought I was dead. That his dad would kill me. But what kind of ultra-detailed dead person can feel the warm breath of the boy she loves tickling her ear? Can feel his warm palms pressing against her back, pulling me closer to him?
Lachlan sounds as lost as me as he mutters, “I don’t understand.”
Creighton angles a glance at Kari. “Want to run along, love? This really doesn’t concern you.”
Like she’d wandered into the middle of a private conversation instead of him barging into the office where she’d been waiting.
Kari doesn’t need another prompt. She unlocks the door and exits the room, sending me a frown as she leaves the door wideopen behind her. Creighton and Lachlan only have eyes for each other so don’t notice.
“You’ve been drifting along so aimlessly your mother was getting worried about you. Drinking and shirking classes and barely engaging with work. Next thing you know, you’d be getting high just to plough through the day and then I’m straight back to where I was with Sean.” He shakes his head. “It nearly killed me to lose him. I refuse to lose you, too.”
Lachlan stiffens, all the tension returning to his body in a second. There’s some weird energy between them. Even though Creighton is saying different words, they’re packed with the same menace.
“You didn’t lose him.” His voice is small, tight. “You made me kill him.”
“Because I couldn’t do it myself.”
Creighton moves, leaning against the desk, hands on the edge, ankles crossed. A study in forced casualness. “There wasn’t anyone close enough, apart from you.” He sighs. “It wasn’t the drugs; it was that he grew so sloppy using them, my rivals could use him to get to me.”
Lachlan’s tension eases and I want to tell him, no. Don’t do that. Surely, you can see it’s a trick? “He was a snitch?”
