Page 10 of Reign of Psychos

“Can I fetch you a drink, sir?” She seemed overly excited for a waitress stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere. “And also an autograph, if you don’t mind me asking?”

My face froze. “Autograph?”

Her excitement level faltered a touch before she gamely soldiered on. “You’re the lead singer from Only Boyz, yeah?”

Ah, the boy band who’d just won some talent contest. I guess I did look a bit like Kieran Knight. If a person was in dire need of some new glasses.

“Sadly not. Sorry!”

The girl - Moira, according to her plastic name tag - visibly deflated. “Oh. I guess I should have realized when you showed up without an entourage.” She huffed loudly, unhappy to have missed out on a selfie opportunity with her celebrity crush. “So, a drink then?”

“A gin & tonic, please, with a slice of lemon and two ice cubes.”

The girl walked away, still muttering about Only Boyz, leaving me in peace. My table overlooked a lake and the mountains beyond. It was certainly very scenic here, perfect for a meeting with my father. God knows I needed something to distract me.

He’d somehow found out the house we’d been staying in belonged to the Kelly family and had been applying pressure on Seamus Kelly ever since. Nothing too obvious. Just vague threats.

Seamus wasn’t the sort of guy who took kindly to threats. Anything that ruined his day’s golfing or fishing didn’t go down well, so he’d told Declan to sort it out. Not long after, Declan came to me and said if I didn’t put a leash on my father, there would be a problem. A blood-spattered problem.

So I called my father and arranged a meeting with him. I figured this country house hotel was far enough away from Dublin to avoid attracting too much attention, while being luxurious enough to suit his exacting requirements.

My drink appeared. The minutes ticked past, with no sign of Dad. I sipped the gin, wishing I’d ordered whiskey instead. Declan’s whiskey was pretty good. The guy made sure his club had an endless supply of top tier Irish whiskey, which I’d indulged in over the last few days.

Not as much as Landon, but enough. The only one of us not having a meltdown was Dario. At least until he’d got word of his father’s untimely death. I wasn’t sure of the details, but from what Kyril had told me, Francesco was likely responsible.

Dario had immediately booked a flight to Italy and departed without so much as a goodbye.

My phone buzzed. I glanced down, wondering if my father had done us both a favor and cried off, but it was my US agent giving me an update on a real estate purchase. I’d agreed to pay the asking price on a large estate on Long Island, as long as weclosed within 30 days. The buyer was amenable, so everything was progressing.

The sooner we got the fuck away from my father and Kyril’s, the better.

A commotion by the main entrance caught my attention. I looked up to see my father striding in with two men in black suits close behind. God, he was such a pretentious prick.

Moira, my star-struck waitress, stood with her mouth open. She probably thought some A-lister had dropped in for afternoon tea. Dad cast her an interested look - he liked them young - but then his attention snagged on me, and he swept across the room like a plague of locusts, leaving nothing but devastation in his wake.

Dramatic?

No. He had a true talent for sucking the life out of most things, including me.

“Cassian. Good to see you,” he said with a fixed smile as the girl hovered nearby, waiting for one of us to call her over.

“I’d love to say the same, but it would be a lie.” I raised my hand and Moira scurried over.

“Can I take your order, sirs?” she chirruped with practiced efficiency.

Dad nodded, blessing her with his best oily smile. “Coffee. Black, no sugar.”

“A double whiskey. No ice.” I needed a drink to get me through this.

Moira wrote down our order in a large loopy, cursive text, and then scampered away. Dad’s eyes followed her for a moment, which made my stomach heave. She was barely 18.

An old couple wandered in, jumping in alarm when they saw my father’s two mean-looking security guys hovering by the entrance. They soon walked back out.

I didn’t blame them. Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Douche looked like they’d just walked off the set of a Jason Statham movie about London gangsters. Life imitating art.Hilarious.

Outside, rain sluiced down in gray sheets. It seemed to do nothing but rain here. Relentless, endless rain. God knows it was a beautiful country, green and verdant, but I would have liked it better if it rained less.

“I assume you’re returning to Abernethy shortly,” Dad stated once Moira had delivered our drinks.

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