Total pages in book: 217
Estimated words: 207224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1036(@200wpm)___ 829(@250wpm)___ 691(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1036(@200wpm)___ 829(@250wpm)___ 691(@300wpm)
“Witnesses are claiming to have heard a gunshot.”
“A single gunshot?” I ask robotically.
“A single gunshot,” he confirms. “I’m just relaying what I’ve been told. There’s no sign of a struggle. Nothing taken from his person.”
“So it’s someone he knows?”
“He knows a lot of people, Beau.”
“I know,” I say, starting to pace. Thinking, thinking, thinking. “The gun?”
“Missing.”
“Shell casing?”
“No shell casing.” He doesn’t hold back at all, telling me things he really shouldn’t be telling me. Because I’m no longer a cop. “I’m so sorry, Beau,” Ollie says, his voice soft. “I know you and Tom had a love-hate relationship, but he was still your dad.”
I swallow, nodding. “I’m on my way. What’s the name of the hotel?”
“Beau, you know that can’t happen.”
“I—”
“I’ll call you later, I promise.”
I take a deep breath and reason with myself. I need to play ball. Keep Ollie on side. “Okay,” I say reluctantly. “As soon as you have more information.”
“You got it.” He hangs up, and I take my cell to my mouth and nibble the corner as James moves in, his arms reaching for me. I step away, not looking at him.
“I’ll take you home,” he says.
“No.” I face him. “I don’t want to go home. Why would I want to go home?”
He frowns, looking confused, a limp hand lifting to point at my cell. “Well, unless I’m missing something, I’m pretty sure you just took a call from your ex-fiancé who advised you that your father’s been murdered.”
“Why such emphasis on fiancé?” I snap. “What’s your fucking problem?” What’s his problem? Why would I ask such a ridiculous question? Ollie was here, still trying to turn me against James. That’s his fucking problem. I am losing my mind fast. Pressing buttons I shouldn’t be pressing. Saying things I shouldn’t be saying. The walls. They’re suddenly getting higher around me again, brick by brick.
I can see James is fighting to keep calm. “Your father is dead, Beau. You’re allowed to be sad. You’re allowed to be vulnerable.”
“My father was a narcissistic prick who left my mother for a brainless gold digger. My father put me in a psychiatric ward and left me to rot. My father hid me from the world to save his sparkling reputation. My father was a hollow, heartless asshole who worried more about his public image than his daughter’s welfare.” I walk past James. “I don’t want to go home,” I yell back, knowing I’ve left behind one very perplexed man. A man who saved me from drowning in the darkness of everything I just listed to him.
The man who might not be able to save me again.
15
DANNY
“Who the hell was that woman?” Rose is up in my face, and it’s all I can do not to growl back in hers. I’m not wasting my words when she’s going to be getting all the juicy details from Beau the moment they’re together again.
“Are you getting spiky with me?” I ask seriously, walking into her, making her back up. To everyone around us, my move would appear threatening. Borderline intimidating.
It is.
And my wife in all her glory will have none of it. “Fuck you, Black,” she spits, making me recoil, walking forward, turning the tables, having me back up. “What’s been going on while your little women have been tucked away safety in your mansion?”
My mansion? I laugh on the inside. It’s not been my mansion for some time. More like a hotel for fucking reprobates. But back to the matter at hand. She wants to know what’s been going on? “What the fuck do you think’s been going on?” I ask, incensed. “Personal lap dances? Or something a little more”—I push my face up in hers—“physical? A good fuck with a willing whore? Is that what you’re asking?”
She flicks her long dark hair over her shoulder, giving me a run for my money in the snarling department. “You wouldn’t dare.”
She’s right, I wouldn’t, but I’m not about to admit it. Besides, I wouldn’t fucking want to. This is fucking ridiculous. How the fuck did James and Beau’s disagreement become ours? “Carry on like a psycho loony bitch, I might.” And there it is, her palm locking, loading, and firing. My hand shoots up and catches her wrist, and she quickly yanks it free.
“Carry on like an asshole, I might too.” She shoves me aside, the argument now done, and I laugh like an idiot as she stomps to the bar, her ever curvier arse jumping beautifully. That gold dress looks fucking perfect on her perfectly pregnant curves. I suppress a growl and discreetly adjust myself, following her, aware of the eyes on us. She’s made it onto a stool by the time I make it to her, and I push into her back with my chest, vehemently ignoring the biting pain the pressure brings, my hard-on wedging into her arse. She gasps and sits up straight, her hand splaying the countertop.