Fuck. I don’t need this right now. I don’t need to deal with Ben right fucking now. I wish I could take her straight back to Rockcliffe House and lock her away until this passes. Until she’s thinking straight again. But I need to pick something up. Hugo will have left it for me and I need it out of the office. I can’t take a chance it’ll be found.

Cilla’s on the verge of a breakdown. I feel it. She knows I know, but she won’t face the fact. I’m going to need to make her face it.

Callahan didn’t suffer enough before he died. Not nearly. What I saw at his house was sick. Sicker than I had thought. Sicker than I imagined possible.

She hadn’t lied when she’d told me he didn’t rape her, but I already knew that. He raped her brother. Knew that too. What I didn’t know was what that pervert made them do. The sick bastard recorded everything. Every single sick moment.

Thing is, he’d been abusing kids for years. He had a pattern, like Hugo had learned, and when he was through with the kids, when the boy was old enough to leave the house, he’d promise to release the girl in exchange for silence. But for kids who are abused like that for that long, you don’t need to make deals for them to keep your secret. Shame will do that for you. Shame and self-hatred. Because they think they’re accomplices.

I look at Cilla and she can’t look at me. I try to touch her, but she jumps back. I don’t push. “Let’s go in. It’s cold out here.”

She nods, keeps her head down, walks in.

I wonder how long Ben’s had a key to the club. How long he’s been waiting to get in here when Hugo or I aren’t here. I guess Hugo went home with a girl tonight and maybe Ben found his opportunity. What I want to know is when the fuck did he even get a key to get in here? I’m done with this asshole.

I walk into the dark main floor of the building, switch on a light. Look around. But there’s no one here.

“Whose car is that?” Cilla asks, sensing my mood. “Who’s here?”

At the elevator, I punch in the code and the doors slide open.

“My cousin.” I’m getting more and more pissed off by the minute. If he’s not down here, that means he’s up in my office. That means he’s watched me punch in the code, memorized it. Of all the nights he cannot be in my office, this is it.

Although maybe he’s been there before tonight.

But I stop short. I realize I don’t want her up there, not if he’s there. Because maybe I underestimated him all along. Maybe this isn’t about twenty grand at all.

I walk around the nearest bar, get a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, open it. “Stay here while I handle this.”

She nods, takes a seat on the stool where I set the bottle of water. She doesn’t drink. Instead, she hugs her coat to herself like she’s cold, and her eyes are far away.

I don’t want to leave her alone right now, but I need to take care of this.

“I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

She seems to shrink into herself.

I give Cilla one more glance as the doors close. It’s a short ride up and as soon as the doors slide open and I hear what I hear, all the things I’m feeling take on a different form. Rage. Pure, unfiltered rage.

Cilla. Cilla that night I recorded her.

I almost don’t see Ben for the red.

My fingernails dig into my palms at the sight of my cousin sitting behind my desk, the dim light of the lamp illuminating him. He moves into that light, eyes not on the monitor but on me, the look in them vengeful, ugly. Full of hate.

This is Ben. This is the real Ben. And I’ve been closing my eyes to it all along.

I switch on the lights.

Ben stands. He looks shocked to see me.

His face is covered in bruises, one eye swollen nearly shut, his lip cut. Blood is crusted on his ripped shirt. But when I see what he’s holding in his hand, I know this wasn’t ever about money. There was no twenty grand debt.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Ben?” I take a step toward him but stop when he raises a shaky hand, in it the pistol I keep in my desk. I really need to lock that drawer.

“What are you doing in my office?” But I know when I watch him slip the thing he’s holding into his pocket.

“I told you they’d come after me,” he says.

When he talks, I notice one of his front teeth is broken.

“I fucking told you!” he yells.

“What did you put in your pocket, Ben?”

He’s jittery. Anxious. His eyes wide. I can’t tell if he’s stoned or scared. Maybe both.

“Nothing,” he says.

He’s a bad liar. “Put the gun down. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

“Fuck you. You’re not the only one who knows how to use a goddamned gun.”

I take another step. I need to disarm this fool before he does something stupid. “Put the fucking gun down, Ben.”

“Don’t you mean Benji?” he spits. “I’m tired of you and your goon calling me that.”

“Jesus Christ.” I shake my head, walk to the bar, get a bottle of whiskey.

“Don’t fucking move!”

Ignoring him, I pour a tumbler. Turn to face him. Drink a sip before setting it down. I’ve got another pistol stashed behind the bar, but if things go that far, this will be the last night of Benji’s life, and that’s not what I want.

“I’m going to ask you nicely one more time to put the gun down.” The sound of Cilla coming over and over again is gnawing at me. “And turn that off.”

He grins, cocks his head to the side. “What? You got a soft spot for Jones’s sister.”

I take two steps. He takes a small one back, but the chair is behind him so he’s trapped between it and my desk and his eyes are bouncing between the elevator door and the locked one to the stairwell.

“Turn. It. Off.” I squint to get a better look at him. I’m blocking his way to either exit—he won’t be leaving here until I get what he put in his pocket back. “Antonino’s men do that to you?” I ask, not that I give a fuck, although I realize he’s never been properly beaten before. My bad. I should have taken Hugo’s advice and done it years ago. I’ve been coddling him and he’s taken that for weakness. I made a fucking traitor out of him.

“They’re not done with me.”

“What did you put in your pocket, Ben?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you agree to the beating? Make this look more real in case I walked in on you? Or is that a sample of what they’ll do to you if you don’t give them what you’re stealing from me?”

He starts fidgeting, shifting his weight.

“Are you stoned, Ben?”

He cocks the gun.

I take a deep breath in, exhale slowly, watch him. “Turn that off, put the gun down and we’ll talk. Last chance.”

He gives me a nervous chuckle. “I’m the one holding the fucking—”

I lunge at him, ducking down as I do so when he pulls the trigger, the bullet flies over my head and shatters a bottle of something before lodging into the wall. Knocking Ben down isn’t hard. He’s not a big guy and liquor has only weakened him. We knock the chair over on its side as I take him to the ground, wrestle the gun from him, and slide it across the floor.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask again, taking him by the collar and dragging him up as I rise to my feet. I sit his ass down on the couch, pick up the pistol and set it on the corner of my desk, then turn my attention to the computer. I find the file that contains the recording of Cilla and hit delete.

From the corner of my eye, I see Ben rise to his feet, take a step toward the bar.

I turn to him. “Sit your ass back down.”

He looks at me, fear in his bloodshot eyes. He sits.

I fold my arms across my chest. “What do you think you’re doing here? In my office, behind my desk, on my computer. Aiming my own gun at me?”

He scratches his head, shifts his gaze to the glass of whiskey I’d just poured that’s still sitting on the bar. The bottle is what shattered. It was nearly full and fucking expensive.

“Last chance to tell me what you put in your pocket.”

“I told you they’d come after me,” he says again.

“Antonino?”

He nods.

I hold out my hand. “Give me what you took and I’ll protect you.”

His eyes narrow. “You weren’t supposed to record it, were you?”

He’s talking about the meeting. He knew all along what was going down tonight. And no, I wasn’t supposed to record it, but fuck that. This is my club. My rules. No exceptions.

“I just don’t get one thing. Are you working for Antonino or are you really scared?” I ask.

“Fuck you,” he says, and bolts up, tries to dash past me. I grab him easily, hold him by the throat and dig out the thumb drive from his pocket. Tossing him back on the couch as I slip it into my pocket.

“You don’t know what they’ll do to me if I don’t give them that drive.”

I snort. “You’re pathetic, you know that? Go home. Get the fuck out of my sight before I hurt you.”

“What home? I don’t have a fucking home. Remember, you took it!”

“I took what?”

“Rockcliffe House. This club. My father. Everything.”

I’m out of patience. “Rockcliffe House belonged to my mother. It never belonged to the Black family. You and your father lived there because when my father died and that asshole father of yours was granted custody of Ginny and me, it made the most fucking sense. When your father raped my sister, he signed his own death warrant. Ginny was a kid. He fucking raped her, Ben.”

He knows this, I know he does.

“This club I built from the ground up,” I continue. “You have no part in it.”

“You fund it with drug money.”

“That’s not any of your fucking business.”

“And now you’ve got it all, huh?” His expression changes, his eyes narrow, he leans back almost looking relaxed. “The house. The club. The status. The pretty girl.”

Something about the way he says that last part bugs me.

“Wouldn’t it be a shame if even one of those things were to be taken away.” He says the words taken away with special emphasis, his teeth gnashed together, like it’s a threat.

I’m still processing when he continues.

“What’s the matter? For the first time in our lives, have I got the last word, Cous?” he asks, standing.

I hear the elevator doors slide open then. Surprised I turn toward it. Find Cilla standing there, her eyes wide as saucers.

I take a step to her. “What are you doing?”

She looks from me to Ben. “I heard—”

Before she can finish, Ben leaps toward the desk, grabs the gun. I whirl around as he raises his arm, aiming the weapon at Cilla, cocking it. She screams at the same instant as the gun fires, as I tackle him to the ground, close my hand around his, the one that’s holding the weapon. But he’s cocked it again and it’s pressing against my chest. I manage to move just as it goes off once more, ripping flesh apart, sending blood and tissue against the walls, the desk, the carpet.

I fall backward as I hear Cilla scream. I look to my shoulder, my jacket is shredded, there’s a deep gash in the skin beneath. It burns like fucking hell and when I turn to Ben, he’s staring at it too, like he’s more shocked than anyone.

“Give me the fucking gun,” I say, not waiting for him to comply but taking it from him. He falls backward, he doesn’t even put up a fight. I stand, empty it of bullets and put it in the waistband of my pants.

“I’m sorry. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Stop your fucking rambling.” I look at Cilla who’s pressed against the far wall. She’s staring at the wound in my arm. I go to her. “Are you hurt?” She can’t seem to drag her eyes from the mess of my shoulder. I look her over, she’s not hurt. Just in shock. “You should have stayed downstairs.”

I pull my phone out from inside my pocket, dial Hugo. He answers.

“Where the fuck are you?” I bark into the phone.

“Just pulling in. Fuck.” He must see Ben’s car.

“My office. Now.” I disconnect the call, take Cilla to the couch, sit her down. “Stay.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“It’s fine.” I turn to Benji who’s managed to get to his feet and is cowering in the corner. I go to him, take him by the collar of his shirt.

“How dare you come in here threatening me in my own club, with my own fucking gun? How dare you threaten my girl? Aim a fucking gun at her?”

“Cous—Kill, please.”

“Did you watch it?” I ask, referring to what I know is on the USB stick.

I know he did from the look in his eyes.

“Fuck.” The elevator doors close, then a few minutes later, open again with Hugo. He steps inside, looks around.

“Take him downstairs.” I need to figure out what to do with him.

Hugo moves.

“No! Get off me! You can’t do this!” Ben yells.

Hugo drags him out. The doors close, leaving me with Cilla. She’s staring at me wide-eyed, her mouth open. She looks a mess, what’s left of her makeup is smeared, her hair half out of its twist, my blood on her dress.

I realize I called her ‘my girl’ but she isn’t that. She never was.

She could have been hurt tonight. Or worse. Her brother is lying in a hospital bed attached to too many machines after trying to kill himself. Is she better off for knowing me? Or is she in danger because of it? Is she a target for my enemies?

I rub my face. My neck. I know what I have to do. There’s only one thing.

“Are you…are you going to hurt him?” she asks.

I don’t answer. What I need to do to Ben is separate of this. Separate of her. And if I wasn’t sure before, I am now.

“You’re free,” I say.

She looks at me, confused. “What?”

“I’m releasing you from your contract. You’re free.”

“I don’t—”

But I think of something. “With one condition.” She stands. I go to her. “You stay away from The Black Swan.”

I’m not breathing. Not blinking. I need to memorize her now because I have to let her go. I can’t ever see her again.

When the elevator doors open again, Hugo steps into my office.

I drag my eyes from Cilla. “Take her to her apartment. We’re done here.”

Before anyone can speak, before I can change my mind, I step onto the elevator and I don’t look back when the doors close. I don’t look back when I’m downstairs or when I walk through the main room. Not when I step out into the bitterly cold, clear night and get to my car. It’s once I’m there I stop. I take a deep breath in, have to force it because the weight pushing against my chest doesn’t leave room for air. I force myself to move, to get in the car. To start the engine. To drive. I’m on autopilot, I can’t think. I drive. I head back to Rockcliffe House without her.

Without her.