by Tilly Delane
“You like watching, baby girl?” he whispers hoarsely.
“Love it,” I admit.
His eyes darken at that, and he runs his hand so fast up the inside of my leggings-covered leg, the friction leaves a burning sensation in its wake. He cups my sex when he gets there, squeezing hard and pushing the heel of his palm into me.
“Mine,” he growls, and I shake my head despite the heat that fills my body.
“No, mine. You’d look silly with a vagina.”
I hold my breath in anticipation of his reaction. But then he laughs, lets go of my pussy, grabs me by the hand instead and pulls me upright into a side-hug. His mouth finds my ear.
“You can watch, you can make out with girls, but I draw the line at another man’s cock inside you,” he murmurs. “Understood?”
I draw back and swap position, my mouth finding his ear. I nibble on it first, to make him more compliant.
“Why would I want another cock inside me when I can have this one?” I ask, my hand finding his raging hard-on to give it a squeeze as hard as he just gave me. “What about your cock inside me and a girl licking us both at the front?” I add, just for good measure. “But no sticking yours in her either.”
He draws back and looks at me, so intensely, the rest of the room falls away.
“I changed my mind. I don’t care about your name and you can staple your passport to your forehead for all I care, I’m fucking keeping you.”
“Romantic,” I snort.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Silas says from the hallway as he and Grace are about to re-enter the room. “Leave you two bastards alone for two minutes and you start a fucking orgy.”
Raven unfurls out of whatever bliss she was experiencing at the hand of her man and shoots Silas an admirably composed look.
“One, there are four in this orgy, so don’t be a sexist asshole and only call out the guys. Two, your woman’s lips are twice the size and twice as smiley as before you left to ‘get a laptop’, because as we all know laptops are soooo heavy. So spare me the holier than thou shit.”
Rowan grins at his brother and hugs his woman tighter, slowly retracting his hand out from under her skirts to envelop her in both arms.
“I love her,” he declares.
Silas nods.
“Yeah, we know. It’s why you married her. You told Mum yet?”
Rowan’s face falls at that.
“Wow, you really know how to kill the mood.”
“Good,” Grace says, overtaking Silas with Kalina’s laptop under her arm. “Because if everybody is finished having their orgasms or whatever, I want to get to this. I’m interested in this. I’m finally getting to know my best friend in the UK and it’s fascinating. So I want you all to shut up until story time is over.”
She sets the laptop down on the table where she made space earlier, opens it and fires it up for me then plops down.
At the same, Diego’s phone rings and for the first time this afternoon, he doesn’t ignore it. I’m not surprised because I know even before he’s picked it up that it’s from Julian. Diego is the only person I know who assigns an individual ringtone to each of his contacts. Another little trick not to let the dyslexia get the better of him, I guess. My heart goes mushy again at the thought of this amazing, resourceful man.
“You’re fucking shitting me, Julian,” he says after he’s picked up and listened to the other end for about half a minute. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
He hangs up, angrier than I’ve ever seen him, gently lifts my feet off his lap and gets up.
“Sorry, guys, I need to go downstairs. Julian’s lost the plot. He’s really fucked off with how we treated him earlier. Says if I don’t meet him right fucking now, he’s gonna quit. I can’t afford that. Not right now, anyway. There is too much going on. I think I need to go and eat some humble pie.”
He turns to me, leans down, bracing himself with one arm on the sofa as he gives me a concerned smile.
“I won’t be long, I promise. Don’t start without me, I want to hear this, too. And I want to help, if I can.”
Then he touches his lips gently to mine, angling his head carefully to avoid my nose.
He straightens up and starts buttoning his shirt on the way to the bedroom. Silence falls over the rest of our group. A handful of minutes later, he re-emerges with tan dress pants instead of jeans encasing his legs, Italian leather shoes on his feet, waistcoat securely fixed over the shirt and in the middle of shrugging himself into the suit jacket to go with it. He runs his hands through his hair, then waves to all of us as he passes and marches to the lift. He pushes the button, waits until the lift comes and leaves without another word.
“Shit,” Silas says, as soon as the lift door shuts behind Diego.
“I feel bad,” Rowan adds but then shrugs. “On the other hand, if that arsehole really quits, I’ll happily run Santos-Benson Security for him. Can’t be that hard and I’m kinda unemployed right now.”
“Julian is a good guy,” Silas rebuffs him. “Or is there an actual reason you don’t like him?”
“Nah. Never really met the guy before.”
Silas sighs.
“You’re gonna have to deal with the fact that you were gone for fucking years, man,” he tells Rowan bluntly. “You can’t just storm into town after fuck knows how long and expect everything to be the same and to know every player in the game. Julian is important. Besides,” he adds on a grin, “do you really wanna do prison security for George’s youth detention centres? I sure as fuck don’t. Sounds like a ball ache.”
Rowan makes a ‘forget it’ gesture.
“Ain’t gonna happen. I know he’s put the tender in, but I’m also pretty sure he’s gonna withdraw when he realises it’s a boatload of work for a lot less return than he is used to. I’ve had a look at the numbers. The return is as bad as on any other regular honest investment.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
Rowan shrugs.
“I like watching him when he goes off on his tangents. And I think it sounds kinda fun, actually. Looking after a bunch of fucked up kids.”
“You’d be good at it,” Raven says to him gently, stroking his arm, and he smiles back at her lovingly.
But then his face falls.
“Shit!” He scrubs a hand over the back of his head, looking at Silas. “I need to go apologise, don’t I?”
Silas nods.
“I knew you’d get there eventually. Go!”
Diego
When I step into Santos-Benson Security, Lila is not at reception.
I expect her to have gone home, but instead I find her standing with Julian by the window in his office, Isla sitting by his other side, all facing me when I enter, bathed in an orange glow by the sunset outside. It’s like they’re posing for a picture to hang by the fireplace and I’m the photographer.
Isla gives me one of her practically inaudible, happy greeting barks that only very close people get and pounds the ground with her tail when she sees me. It’s a reminder that to her I’m part of her pack. Julian strokes her head and then crosses his arms in front of his chest, feet hip-width apart, looking me straight in the eye. We call it the stance. Lila has one hip hitched against the windowsill, with a hand resting on the other one and glowers at me.
There is a long moment of silence while I rasp my hand down my throat and back up again.
“I’m sorry, Julian,” I finally say slowly. “Adrenaline was running high. I apologise for the way you were treated earlier.”
He relaxes a little at that, but I can tell he’s not remotely satisfied yet.
“You need to get shot of the O’Brien brothers, Diego,” he responds with urgency. “They’re loose cannons.”
“Cormac and Callum? Yeah, I know, Jules. It’s my vendetta, remember? I’m not gonna lose sight of that, don’t worry. But when your girlfriend is threatened with rape by your father and he breaks her fucking nose, that takes precedence. I’m surprised you of all peopl
e can’t see that. Imagine that had been Lila. We’ll get to the O’Briens eventually. It can wait. Tell Arlo to go home for the weekend. It’s all good. I’ll take care of Kalina for a couple of days, make sure she doesn’t suddenly develop a brain bleed, you know the drill, and then we’ll get back on track after the weekend. Few days aren’t gonna make a difference to anyone. If we’re right and they’re cooking meths up there, then they’ll probably still be doing that next week, too. What’s the rush?”
He looks at me dumbfounded for a moment and then shakes his head as if he’s looking at an imbecile.
“I don’t mean Cormac and Callum. I’m talking about those O’Brien brothers,” he says and points at the ceiling.
“Those O’Brien brothers up there?” I enquire, mimicking his gesture, just to make sure I’m getting it right.
Julian nods.
I shake my head and stare silently at him for what seems like minutes before I speak. Not because I’m evaluating what he’s saying but simply to keep the fury roaring inside me under wraps. How dare this arsehole make any demands on me? How dare he try and tell me what company to keep? Who the fuck does he think he is? When I finally speak, though, it’s in an even tone. Matter of fact. Cold.
“Not gonna happen, Jules. I trust them more than I trust you, or you,” I add, jerking my chin out at Lila. “And even her.” I indicate to Isla. “And she’s a dog.”
Julian breaks stance and starts pacing.
“What the fuck? Really?”
“Yeah, really,” I tell him. “So you can either get on board with that, or you can pack your things and I’ll arrange a generous enough severance package, so the three of you can take a year off and re-orientate yourselves then invest in something else. No hard feelings.”
Julian stops pacing and looks at me, aghast.
“Wow. You’re serious.”
“What? You thought I wouldn’t call your bluff?” I ask, laughing.
“We know things,” Lila throws in but stops elaborating when my gaze snaps to her.
“You’re trying to blackmail me? I’d be very careful with that, Lila. I can prove things about your husband that will land him in the can for a very long time. I don’t work without insurance,” I cut her short.
She blanches and loses her pose.
“No, that’s not what I meant. Not at all. I meant we know things about...”
I shut her up once more with a gesture and look back to Jules.
“You’re a good guy, Julian, and I don’t want to lose you. Or you for that matter,” I say, looking at Lila again. “I think we make good business partners. But those guys, up there? They’re my family. So no matter what you think you know about them, I don’t care. I trust them. I love them.”
“What? Even me?”
Rowan’s voice reaches us from reception, just before he steps through Julian’s open office door.
“You left the door open,” he says with a shrug when he comes to a halt next to me. “Anyone could walk in, you know,” he adds and turns to my profile. “We’re gonna revisit that little declaration of love in a minute, but first I need to do something.”
He marches towards Julian and sticks a hand out.
“Hi, I’m Rowan. I’ve known Diego since way back, when he was still George Junior, and I hate the fucker because he’s my brother’s best friend, which means he’s fucking competition for my brother’s affection and my brother’s affection is like the best thing ever, other than my woman’s affection. But back when George aka Diego aka the fucker behind me and I met, there was no woman yet, so my entire love life revolved around my brother. But, and that’s a big but, I also kinda love the fucker behind me because he’s my brother’s best friend. And because he’s kinda sexy and because he’s a dreamer who keeps our collective lives interesting. So I would die for him. And I mean that literally. But not if I had to chose between Silas and him. Then I’d die for Silas. But so would Diego, so no points. Point being, I’m sorry I behaved like an arsehole to you. Silas reckons I’m jealous because you’ve been around my guys for all those years that I wasn’t around. He’s probably right. He usually is. Bottom line, I behaved like a prick and I called you a soldier boy and that’s not on. I apologise. Maybe we can start over?”
He delivers his speech with the biggest, sincerest smile on his face, while Julian just looks up at him as if a tornado were going through the office. Which is kind of what’s happening. At the end, Rowan’s hand is still suspended between them, but Julian hasn’t taken it. Lila, in the meantime, has gone soft on Rowan. I can tell by the look in her eyes. She nudges Julian with her shoulder and finally Julian unfreezes, smiles thinly and takes Rowan’s hand.
They shake, and while they do, Lila focuses in on me.
“I didn’t mean what you thought I meant, Diego. I meant...”
“...we have info on your girl,” Julian finishes his wife’s sentence.
“You have what?”
“Uh-oh,” Rowan says, his head briefly falling forward before he straightens up again. “Go on then, what have ya got?”
“No!” I declare. “I don’t want to know. She’s already told us who she is and what she does, Julian. We know she’s a P.I. and she’s here investigating some missing kids cases. In actual fact, she was just going to share more information with us when you decided to pull your little ‘I’m quitting if you don’t come down immediately’ stunt.”
“She also gonna tell you that she’s been looking into your shit?” Lila interjects triumphantly, and my blood runs cold.
“What?”
“Come, take a look at this,” Lila says and marches over to Julian’s desk.
She turns the computer screen around, so I can see it, and wriggles the mouse. The screen pops to life. She scrolls down and I realise I’m looking at a long list of words and phrases, interspersed with chunks of writing, before my brain does that thing it does when it’s confronted with a whole load of letters and no spacing, and all I see is a jumble of ants.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’ll read for you,” Rowan says and steps to my side, taking the mouse off Lila.
Julian and Lila know about my dyslexia. They have to, to do their jobs. But sometimes people forget in the heat of the moment. They are also both well aware that barely anyone in my life knows the truth and that they are dead if they ever disclose. So it probably comes as a shock to them when Rowan comes to my assistance. I think this, more than anything, rams home to them how close we really are. I can feel the air shift as Rowan rattles off individual words and phrases to me, mostly to do with missing people. Names. Places. Events. Dates. Stuff you’d type into Google. Callum and Cormac come up. Repeatedly.
“Just gimme the upshot,” I tell him after a while, “‘cause I’m just not following.”
“It’s internet searches, I think. And then there are email transcripts here...”
I don’t hear the rest as it finally dawns on me what I’m looking at and my head snaps around to Julian.
“You’ve been spying on Kalina’s computer?”
Julian glares at me. It’s then that I realise he is pissed off way beyond Rowan taking the piss earlier. He’s right on the cusp of losing his shit.
“Yes, we have. And before you go all boss man on me, hear me out, yeah?” he responds, and starts pacing again. “You bring this kid in, Diego, who you know fuck all about. Suddenly, she’s in the building. She has a key to the penthouse. She knows about the club, she turns up at the fight of the decade, she’s seen the faces. She knows about fucking everything. And you have no checks done on her, nothing. Just blindly let her follow you around.” He takes a breath and stops pacing to go toe to toe with me. “Thing is, if she is here to bring you down, we are going down with you. And I ain’t re-homing my dog and waving at my wife from behind prison bars, just because you couldn’t fucking keep it in your pants.”
“Stupid girl,” Rowan mutters behind me.
I can tell from his voice and the clicking of
the mouse that he is still engrossed in the computer.
“Does she not know how to use a password?” he adds under his breath.
“Oh she does,” Julian stupidly says, leaning to the side to talk around me. “And VPN. She’s quite the security fiend, actually, another reason you shouldn’t trust her. But Lila went old school on her,” he adds with pride. “Put a little bug on her actual machine. Doesn’t even need to get into it. Tells us what she’s typing as she’s typing it in. We have every word she’s typed into her machine in the last five days.”
Julian has at least thirty pounds on me, and army training, but he’s shorter than me, and that thing they say about rage appears to be true. Without thinking twice, I pick him up by the collar and shove him up against the window so hard, a crack appears on the inner pane. He’s lucky the office is double glazed, otherwise his head would be sliced open now. Behind me Lila screams, Isla starts barking and suddenly there is a sharp pain in the side of my thigh as canine teeth dig in deep. But I don’t let go of the fucker in front off me.
“You went into my apartment? You fucked with my girl’s computer?”
I spit in his face as I shout at him. Isla’s growls get more menacing and her jaw shuts down harder, piercing my skin as she tries to drag me off Julian.
“Enough!” Rowan’s voice booms through the room.
“Diego, let the arsehole go. He’s got a point. Julian, call off the fucking dog or I’ll choke her out. I’ll try not to kill her, but no guarantees.”
I let go of Julian at the same time as he tells Isla to back off. Isla whimpers as she lets go of me and goes to her blanket as told. I can feel blood trickle down my leg as soon as she unclamps her mouth, but I don’t pay it any attention, as I take a couple of steps back.
Julian holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture before he comes forward and rubs the back of his head where it made impact on the glass. Unlike me, he’s blood free.
“I’m sorry, man. But you just wouldn’t listen,” he says defensively, the anger he was brewing seemingly evaporating with the pain in his skull. “I tried to tell you a couple of times to be careful, but that girl has you wrapped around her little finger. So, yeah, I took the liberty of watching our backs. You can thank me later.”