Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

Oliver looks at me with narrowed eyes, ignoring him. “She said she needed a break from the outside. I felt sorry for her—the papers didn’t say much, but it was enough for me not to turn her away. She’s safe here. There’s no press. No prying eyes and ears. I was doing you a fucking favour.”

Shit, I want to bite back at his every word, but I can’t. From the look he’s giving me, he genuinely wanted to do the right thing.

“I won’t sell you my club, Leo. But for what it’s worth, I appreciate the offer.”

This is who we are. It’s who we’ve always been. We do favours in exchange for favours. It’s how we were groomed to thrive in this world. Our expensive education isn’t just a head start in life, it’s a bargaining chip. A buy-in of sorts into the circles that matter.

“How long has she been coming here?”

He takes one last puff of his cigar, swilling the smoke around his mouth before he releases it into the air, throwing the stub of what’s left into the fire.

“A month, maybe a little over that. We bumped into each other, and she looked like she needed somewhere to escape. She sat mostly at the bar at first, but then I had a bit of a problem with one of the admin girls, and she stepped in. I had a situation, and she helped me out.”

“What situation?” Standing, Leo makes his way over to the bar again.

“One of the girls was using the client list for her own business. I got a tip-off, and when I looked into it, it was glaringly obvious. Not everything that happens in these walls points north on the moral compass, but it isn’t a whorehouse. Despite what you think, I care how I make my money.” Taking the drink Leo offers him, he waits until I have mine in hand. “Whatever shit the two of you are up to? Don’t walk it over my floors. I’ll help you, but I won’t risk this for anything.”

“Nobody touches her.”

Touching his glass to mine, he nods before we both take a drink.

“Who’s that guy?” Leo throws him his phone.

Oliver studies it for a while, until he looks up between the two of us.

“Russian billionaire. Tomasz Vassily. His family hold the monopoly on the Russian caviar market. They started off in oil. They’re not the sort of people you want to piss off.”

“How long has he been a member?” I can’t bear to look at the photo any longer.

“Shit…” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looks into the fire.

“Who nominated him?” Leo asks without pause.

“Winterbourne.”

Fuck! Standing to my feet, I can already feel where this is going. My gaze meets Leo’s, and I know exactly what he’s thinking.

I told you so.

Charles Winterbourne is a family friend. He was there when all the shit went down. Leo doesn’t trust him, and right now I’m having a hard time sticking to my argument as to why he would never fuck our family over.

Charles is a man who despite his pleasing tendencies doesn’t have the wits to be duplicitous.

“Why?”

“I don’t ask why when I get a nomination. I have a waiting list that almost spans a decade. There are names on there from when my grandfather ran the club. It’s a matter of what the nominated person can bring to the club. Only a fool would turn his kind of money away. He drops a fucking load every time he comes here.”

“He doesn’t go near my wife.” I lean over the fire, my hands grasping the marble surround.

“He didn’t go near her—she got close to him.”

Gritting my teeth, I push all the frustration and anger into the stone beneath my hands, the hard edge cutting into my skin.

I’m choking on the acid burning up my throat before it even reaches my mouth.

The need to break everything, to destroy all that surrounds me, is overwhelming. I can’t fucking breathe. The heat from the flames. The dark walls. The smoke. It’s all too much.

Clutching at my chest, I grind the rings hanging there into my flesh. I keep waiting for the pain to ground me, but it never does. It never overshadows the ache that’s eating at me.