Beau appears in the doorway, taking in the mess of glass shards all over the floor. “Talk,” she orders, closing the door, a silent sign that neither of us is leaving until this is sorted out. Will it ever be? I’ve delved into the deep, and I’m fighting to keep my head above water.
My body as heavy as fuck, I go to the chair at my desk and drop into it with a thud, rubbing at my eye sockets. “The night your mum was killed, I found a phone on the body of an associate of The Bear. A message was sent confirming the hit on your mum.” I look up at Beau and find no reaction. Nothing. “I tracked where the message came from. Another burner. It’s been off since. Untraceable. Until a few days ago.” She still shows no reaction, and it’s beginning to fuck me off. What the hell do I need to say to penetrate her? She’s found out the man who ordered the death of my family also ordered the death of her mother. Where’s her fucking shock? “It was tracked to Nathan Butler’s flat.” And there it is. A recoil. “Your mother hunted me relentlessly, but she and I were after the same people, Beau. We just had different ideas of justice. I killed them before Jaz could cuff them. It pissed her off.” Beau’s reinstated her impassiveness. Shutting down? “I was tailing your mum the night she was killed. I called her. Warned her. She told me to fuck off and die.” If I could, I’d smile. How Jaz would have loved me to fuck off and die. “By the time she realized I wasn’t fucking with her, it was too late.” I see balls of fire in my memories. Hear screams. Feel the heat. Butler must have burst a blood vessel when he saw me at the graveyard with Beau. James Kelly—Beau’s boyfriend—is the man in the footage. The footage that’s been missing for two years. The footage that’s missing from the police report. The footage that, if complete, would have proved Beau’s mother’s death wasn’t an accident. But also would have put my face on the FBI’s radar as a person of interest. I laugh under my breath. Interest? They’d have no fucking idea.
Beau steps back. “It was you on the phone to her,” she says, and I nod. “Why did you contact me? Why did you bring me here?”
“Because your relentlessness would have got you killed too. The investigation you want won’t happen. You won’t get justice, Beau.” I eye her carefully. She looks about ready to bolt. “Not if you play by the rules,” I add gently.
She inhales. Swallows. “But if I play by your rules?”
“I have only one rule.”
“What?”
“No mercy.” Who I really am is still unknown. My motives are a mystery. But the game is nearly over, and it’ll be me who wins.
Her eyes drop to her bare feet. I would give anything to know what she’s thinking. “Are you saying Nath had my mom killed?”
“He’s dirty, Beau. Your mother figured that out.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I get up, resting my hands on the edge of the desk, leaning in. “The Bear’s got an inside man. Nathan Butler. Your mum was a clever woman, Beau. She figured that out. That’s why she’s dead. You want justice? Let me get you justice.”
She shoots her eyes my way, and I fucking detest the pain in them. “You want to kill Nath?”
“I want to kill them all.”
Her chest expands, her eyes darting across the glass of my desk. “And what about us?”
“Us, me and you?” I ask. “Or us, you and my baby?”
She quickly steps back, her eyes wide, her lip wobbling. “I don’t know,” she admits, and it’s crushing. I understand her doubt. Hate it, but I understand it. “What if you’re wrong?”
She’s clinging to hope. I wish it wasn’t so wasted.
“He’s hidden that footage for years, Beau. Why hasn’t he shown you it before now? He knew all along your mother was murdered because he played a part in it. He’s cornered.”
“I’ve trusted Nath with . . . everything.”
I can’t stand the devastation on her face. “I tried so hard to save her, Beau. And I’m so fucking sorry I failed.” I collapse back to the chair, exhausted, wedging my elbows on the glass and burying my face in my hands. My head feels heavy. Heavy with regret, with sorrow, and with fury. And yet I can’t regret stepping in and bringing Beau here. I can’t entertain the thought of what might have happened if I’d left her alone. She would have kept digging. And she would have ended up dead.
I flinch when I feel her touch on my shoulder. “I want justice.” She takes my hand and places it on her stomach, and I look up at her. “I can’t move on until then. I know it’s fucked up, but I have to prove for my own sanity that Mom’s death wasn’t an accident.”