Page 5 of Harry

“I can’t believe he is gone,” Jack finally says, breaking the quietness between us.

Brig turns back to face us. “Well, it seems somewhat inevitable in his line of work.”

My eyes widen at her bluntness. But she is right.

Unbeknownst to all of us, our dad was a crime boss.

An awkward sounding laugh comes from somewhere, and it isn’t until Jack and Brig both look at me that I realise it came from my open mouth.

“Sorry,” I say just as another laugh escapes. “I just can’t wrap my head around it.” Jack reaches over and squeezes my hand.

“It was a bit mean to put James in coach,” Brig says. Which stops my laughter dead.

“He bought his own ticket,” I mumble back.

“I’m just saying,” Brig adds. “He was very kind to Mother when he told us the news.” Her eyes well up again and I wish I were closer to her so I could offer her a hug.

I decide it’s better to keep my thoughts to myself about James. How he has always been a little too nice, a little too charming. Especially to Brig, all throughout her growing up. James has ten years on her easily. Which would be fine now she is over eighteen. But it was nothing but predatory before then.

I remember the first time he came into our home. Dad had returned from the US and we were so excited to see him. I was eighteen, Brig was twelve. She has always had an ethereal quality about her. Her golden-brown hair glows in the summertime, and her eyes, like our mother’s, are so pale blue that there’s nothing they can be reasonably likened to.

“We’ll be landing soon,” I say, looking down at my crumpled letter and wondering what we’re about to walk into. I just want to get it over with and bring dad home so we can bury him and give him a funeral.

Yet despite reading the letter again, I cannot come to terms with the fact that the man who used to let me stand on his feet to dance around the living room is the same man who ran an international crime syndicate.

Aidan

Club Curve never stops. At least this one doesn’t. The music pumps twenty-four-seven and girls are practically on a revolving door in and out for shifts.

Look after my girls.

I never thought Richard wasthatprotective of the women that worked for him. He looked after them, made sure they weren’t assaulted or abused. He ensured they were well paid and not being shafted of their earnings. He was a good guy, but now I’m concerned I’ve missed something vital.

I head up to his office, expecting to find it locked, and instead find Philip Cordez rutting into a poor young thing over Richard’s desk. Tears are being squeezed from between the lashes of the young woman and dripping onto the desk. She is keeping her eyes tightly closed against the assault, her teeth bared and gritted together holding in the yells of anguish that are written in the creases of her face as she grips onto the edge of the desk, her knuckles white.

I pull my gun and aim it right between Philip’s beady, piggy eyes.

The woman is sobbing now, her face scrunched up, my trigger finger itching.

Philip stops what he is doing, clearly unfinished, and buckles up his belt, before slapping the young woman on her bare ass.

“Get back to work, slut,” he growls and she doesn’t need telling twice. She yanks her short skirt into place and bolts from the room, a purple bruise blooming on her cheekbone, unable to look me in the eye.

“I don’t appreciate being cock blocked, son,” he says, ice dripping from his words.

I could shoot him here and now, but know that the rules of Sindicate Towers forbid it. This is neutral ground, and he knows it too.

“I don’t appreciate you fucking the talent in Richard’s office. He isn’t even cold yet.”

The office looks as though it has been ransacked. The desk is full of papers that weren’t there when I was last in here with Richard, books are strewn about from the shelves behind the desk. Even the bar looks untidy.

“Well.” Philip takes a moment. He is a big man, but not in a muscular way, in a way that speaks of gluttony and greed. Richard was muscular and lean and looked harmless but could kill a man in twenty different ways without the use of a weapon. “I’m your boss now and I can fuck who I want when I want.”

The way he was still wheezing from the exertion of what he was just doing tells me otherwise.

I weigh my options. Philip Cordez ordered the hit but doesn’t know I know. The only way I can see this unfolding is if we somehow get him out of the building, and kill him off the property. That’s where his hire fucked up. We were still on the steps of the main entrance when Richard was shot.

I lower my gun.

---