Page 8 of Iron Cross

I smirked.Yes it was.

Could I terrorize Shiny? I doubt it. Who she was before she disappeared was very different from the warrioress she was now. She was a knight on the chess board, and I had been blind to not see it before.

“Who’s blood is it?” Shiny stepped forward, letting her strong arms dangle at her side. “Or is it more than one person?”

“It was just the one.” I leaned back in my seat, and steepled my fingers, contemplating the man below.

The twists of fate were interesting, to say the least.

“Unless you’re here to tell me where Kira is, I don’t want to hear it.” As much as I was still fond of her, I wasn’t up for her company. She didn’t seem to care. Shiny sat down, as arrogant as she had ever been, taking liberties that weren’t hers.

“Please, make yourself at home,” I said sarcastically.

“I will.” She moved her arse in the seat, rocking back and forth to really make sure that her cheeks left an imprint in the cushion. I could not stop her, feeling myself held back by what decency was left in my soul.

Was it decency or practicality? I wasn’t sure. If I tortured her, she’d never tell me where Kira was. If I killed her, then she’d take that secret to the grave. With Aoibheann now married to Jericho Vasiliev, Pakhan of the Bratva, I wouldn’t be able to torture my stepmum either. So the two women who had stolen away my Muse were untouchable.

They’d both been tortured enough…

Patience. I needed patience - a trait that was not inherent in my blood.

“What’s going through that noggin of yours, Eoghan?” Shiny asked, reaching out to pour herself a glass of my absinthe.

She’d been a drink thief in a previous life, and we had snuck in here to raid my father’s liquor cabinet until we were caught. My father tanned my backside for it.

“Dairo says you don’t go to Gallery Four anymore,” she said, after she downed the glass, and slammed the tumbler on the desk. “He says you’ve just sent him.”

“Why not? Those events are insipid.”

I had gotten into the habit of sending Dairo to the Gallery. And why shouldn’t I? He could slap on some dark contacts, a better suit, and stop talking like an English twat, and no one would know the difference.

“Have you even looked at a painting since she’s been gone?” Shiny almost looked sad for me.

“What for?” I felt the slight buzz of the drink muddling my thoughts. “There’s plenty of art here.”

“Oh yes,” Shiny said in mock contemplation, with a sagaciously sarcastic nod. “Like the creepy blood painting, and the weird gold tree in the hall?” She shook her head, as though she had a right to be irritated with me. “You used to love the gallery.”

Of course she’d bring up that place. In a world full of secrets, what had happened at the gallery over a decade ago was one I shared with her, andonlyher.

“Go away, Shiny,” I grumbled, feeling the pulse in my ears as drunkenness threatened to cloud my head.

“No.”

“Then I’ll fucking kill you,” I said pointing my knife at her in an obvious threat.

She just laughed, throwing her head back so her short black hair flew over her broad cheeks.

“The only way you can kill me is to shoot me,” she said, lifting a fucking brow, as she nodded to the blade in my hand. “A knife fight would be too risky,MisterGreen.”

I hated when she called me that, and she knew it. She had only called my fatherMisterGreen, and it was a slap in the face that she did it now. And she was right.

As quickly as she’d started to laugh, she sobered. Leaning forward in the chair, her elbows on my desk.

“I saw your son a year ago,” she said, pulling me from my spiraling stupor. “He looks just like you.”

The bitch was only two days back from her honeymoon, and she was already torturing me. My jaw ticked as my long harbored resentment for her, and for Aoibheann, threatened to trigger my madness.

“Gold hair, black eyes,” she tapped her fingernail against the glass in her hand. “It was uncanny, really.”

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