Page 19 of Revenge (Corrupt Empire 3)

Chapter Four

Aiden

Avery was sat up in bed drawing when I got in. I’d told her I’d be late due to a bunch of shit Chuck asked me to do. I was growing tired of being at his beck and call. The sooner we finished this shit with her family, the better. All I wanted was to settle down with the girl I loved. Whether that made me a fucking pussy or not, I no longer cared.

I dropped a kiss on the top of her head before going over to the cupboard to strip out of my clothes.

“What you drawing?” I asked, tugging my jumper off.

“Ben texted me a couple of his sketches. Was just working on the one for us.”

She’d been back and forth with him for a few days now. At night, she’d taken to drawing or painting. She was working on something for our living room having insisted on taking a bunch of photos of us together for reference. I had told her I wanted more of her paintings for our walls, but I wasn’t counting on her wanting to paint us again. She told me it was going to be a proper portrait rather than fantastical like the one above our bed.

“And Frazier?”

“He was obviously happy, but he wants to have some kind of agreement put in place since he knows this isn’t a love match.”

I could go over the footage of her conversation with him tomorrow. I moved to the bed, having stripped down to my boxers and slipped in next to her, looking over at her sketch. She paused, taking her pencil away so I could see it. A pair of angel wings, but it was only half done.

“It looks good.”

“Thank you. I should hope so since it’s going on you too.”

I grinned. Another set of matching tattoos. Ben was going to tattoo them next week so she’d have them done in time for the wedding. She set the drawing down on the bedside table and turned to me. She looked a little concerned.

“Something weird is going on with Ed.”

I reached over, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“What makes you say that?”

“I know Saskia is new and all, but she followed me into the ladies earlier and told me she overheard him having a shouting match with someone on the phone.”

I frowned. From what Avery told me, he was a very amenable guy who never raised his voice to anyone. I’d not met him in person, but I knew his father, Troy, a little. At least I’d seen him often enough on footage of him and Mitchell to know he was just as bad as his cousin.

“Did she happen to hear anything he said?”

“Not much. Just that someone had really fucked up and they needed to sort it out before Charlie finds out. I don’t know whether it’s to do with the company or… if it’s perhaps because he’s involved in the other shit.”

I had my suspicions about her cousin. She knew that. Something about him didn’t add up quite right.

“Perhaps we can look at the footage from his office at some point. Maybe we’ll hear the whole thing.”

She shook her head.

“He wasn’t in his office, he was in the photocopier room which you know doesn’t have any cameras.”

I wondered if that was on purpose. If he didn’t want his conversation filmed, then it might well be.

“A little too convenient.”

She took my arm, wrapped it around her and put her head on my shoulder.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I’ll look into it, but we have to focus on Frazier.”

She nodded. That really was our main priority. So far, Chuck hadn’t found out about Sophie and Cora. We were in the clear on that for the time being. Tina said they were both doing a little better since she’d moved them to her place in Cornwall. She was down there with them at the moment, but she’d return before the wedding.

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