Page 103 of Bad Bishop
Tiernan: Do you still have those sleeping pills? I need to crush them into Lila’s drink.
Tierney: Aw, are we getting rid of her? I kinda got attached. ?
Tiernan: I’m not offing her, you eejit. She needs to sleep.
Tierney: SHE’S PREGNANT, Tiernan. You can’t just give her shit.
Tiernan: She’ll drop dead at this rate.
Tierney: Is this concern I read between the lines, brother?
Tiernan: She is my Camorra warranty.
Tierney: Admit that you like her, and I’ll give you a solution to her sleeping problem.
Tiernan: I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
Tierney: To negotiate I’d have to budge from my demands. I’ll do no such thing.
I heard the toilet flush on the other side of the door. I didn’t have time.
Tiernan: Fine. I don’t want her dead. Happy?
Tierney: Elated.
The faucet was running. Tierney was typing.
Tierney: Whenever sleep escapes me, I find a willing victim and orgasm. HARD. A good orgasm always knocks me out.
Tiernan: THIS is your advice?
Tierney: Yup. It’s a good one, brosky.
Tiernan: Hate you, sis.
Tierney: <3 <3 <3
_______
When we got home, I filled Lila a warm bath and threw a pink bath bomb into it. The entire bleeding bathroom reeked of essential oils and strawberries. I made a note to torch down the apartment to get rid of the smell.
Not that it needed to be set on fire. The temperature was already at a record fucking high.
Lila must’ve been a lizard in a previous life, because she liked the thermostat on seventy-six.
I preferred it at forty-nine. We settled for seventy-six. Whoever said marriage was all about compromise had never wedded an Italian princess.
“Don’t fall asleep in the bath,” I barked out the order.
She nodded sleepily, shutting the door in my face.
While Lila took a bath, I took my sister’s demented advice. It was shit terrible, but I had zero alternatives. Apparently, giving Lila pills could fuck up the baby. And while that sounded like a win-win situation to me, she seemed fond of the devil’s spawn.
Ambling to the kitchen, I grabbed a whiskey bottle and poured three fingers into a tumbler, tossing it back and wiping my mouth. I fished out my phone and texted Rhyland Coltridge.
Coltridge was a newly minted tech billionaire. He was also a former escort who used to screw half of New York’s socialites for a living. I had it on good authority he knew what he was doing in the sack. I needed expert advice. Someone who wouldn’t run their mouth. For all his faults—and fuck knew I could write a dissertation about them—he was discreet.
I knew, because my sister had hired him to overcome her own hang-ups back in the day.
