you’ll-pay-for-that smirk should have made him regret his smart mouth, but he had to keep their focus on him. Always on him.
‘I am pleased to hear it.’ The guard paused outside the kid’s cell and Finn felt the familiar toxic churn of foreboding right in the pit of his empty stomach. ‘And your friend?’
Already halfway up from his cosy spot on the floor, Finn almost lost his precarious stance. ‘He’s sick. Can’t even walk. So leave him alone.’ Then he smoothed the edge off his harsh tone and kicked up his lips, offering the legendary St George smile as he straightened to his full height. ‘It’s me you want, anyway. Isn’t that right?’
Another smirk. Another churn of unease and sickening revolt in his stomach.
‘Boring when they don’t fight back.’
‘There you go, then. Let me out of here.’ He jerked his chin towards the kid. ‘The view is depressing.’ Or it would be for the kid pretty soon.
‘Finn?’ Tom croaked. ‘Let me—’
‘Shut up, kid.’ Every muscle in his body protested as he coerced his legs forward as if two of his ribs weren’t cracked and his shoulder wasn’t dislocated. Piece of cake. ‘I’m feeling cooped up in here.’ His door swung wide. ‘Give him some water, would you?’
The guard grinned, flashing a less than stellar set of teeth, eyes brimming with calculation. As if he knew something Finn didn’t. As if the last four days had been foreplay to the main event.
Darkness seeped through the cracks in his mind and threatened to rise like some ugly menacing storm. ‘You leave the kid alone—you hear me? Or no money.’
The laugh that spilled from those blood-red lips made his guts wrench tighter.
‘Boss says the only thing I leave alone is your pretty face,’ the guard said, and slapped said face with enough force to sting. ‘Get moving.’
‘Speaking of my generous host, I want to talk to him again.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
Somehow he doubted that. Nevertheless, ten minutes later a big palm pushed on his shoulder—the dislocated one, thank you very much—and he fought the wince as he was slammed down into a black plastic chair in the corner of a room that looked like an interrogation hotspot out of a gritty cop show. But, nope, this was no TV set. Proof of which sat in the chair opposite, with a rickety steel-framed table separating them.
Face-to-face with his captor, it wasn’t in Finn’s nature to beat around the proverbial bush, so he kicked off today’s festivities.
‘Let’s barter,’ he managed to say through a throat that felt serrated with sticks. ‘I’ll trade you another five million if you let him go. Now.’
Eyes as black as his soul and sunk into a battered, rock-hewn face stared back at him. ‘That’s quite an offer, Mr St George. But I was thinking of a different kind of bartering altogether.’
‘I’m getting tired of these games. What exactly is it you want?’
‘Right now I want you to make a choice, racer-boy. The first of many.’
Behind him, the iron door ground open with a chilling squeal and a frigid bite swept through the room—so cold his bones turned to ice. The kid was behind him. He knew it.
‘Forget choices. Make it another ten mill and let. Him. Go.’
‘You don’t like him being touched, do you, pretty boy?’ he said silkily—in striking contrast to the sharp crack of knuckles that caromed around the room. ‘So shall I play with him? Or will you?’
Finn’s breath sawed in and out of his lungs. ‘Twenty. That will be sixty million, transferred from my Swiss bank account within the hour. You can do what the hell you like with me. Deal?’
MONTREAL BASKED IN the warmth of a glorious dusk, the sky a canvas of fluffy spiralling ribbons tinged with orange and red, with only a blaze of yellow on the curve of the earth, where the sun kissed the horizon.
Its beauty failed miserably to improve her ugly mood.
‘You’d better be in, Finn,’ Serena muttered as she stormed across the endless blanket of tarmac towards his glossy black motor home.
Never mind the prescient darkness that had clung to her skin for two weeks since Monaco, like some kind of impending doom, Michael Scott—aka dear old Dad—had just pulled a number on her! As if the day hadn’t been enough of a stress-fest.
The day? Who was she kidding? The last two weeks, working with Mr Death-Defyer, had been a roller coaster named persecution; emotions had dipped and dived all over the place, to stretch her patience endlessly. Was it any wonder she could hear the clang of looming disaster?
Still, she’d never forget this afternoon as long as she lived.
Another close shave as Finn scraped second place after going silent on the pit-lane channel for over two minutes. Heart in her throat, she’d snatched the headset from the chief engineer in the end. Not exactly the done thing, but she’d had to snap him out of it somehow.
He was getting worse. Darker. Harder. Taking unnecessary risks no other man would dare to chance. Why? She couldn’t understand it. Unless… Unless Serena had made him worse. By storming into his life and throwing Tom’s death in his face when he’d been trying to deal with the loss in his own way. Burying it. Just as she had.
It boggled the mind to think they had something in common.
God, she felt sick.
But had he been worried when he’d nearly obliterated himself? Heavens, no. While she’d popped migraine pills like chocolate drops he’d supplicated and beguiled the masses with his glib tongue and legendary rakish smile, standing atop the podium as if life was a fun park and darker emotions were aberrant to him. When she knew they were anything but!
Then—then he’d swaggered into the Scott Lansing garage, again, and drawled in that sinfully rich, amused voice, ‘What do you think, baby? Was I awesome?’
As if he hadn’t just phased out while driving at over two hundred miles per hour!
Fist balled, she stomped up the metal steps and rapped on his door until her knuckles stung.
If she was an ace at burying pain and masking it with a brave face he was a pro—a grand virtuoso. But now Serena could see it. Feel his darkness more acutely.
Oftentimes behind the charming, irrepressible smile lurked a guilt-drenched agony she still couldn’t bear.
Last night hadn’t helped matters either. Bored—okay, plain nosey—she’d searched the internet for a peek of his sister and got a lot more than she’d bargained for. Not only was Eva Vitale the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen, but together with Finn she ran a huge charity for breast cancer in honour of their mother. Another death that must have crippled him.
