The silence in the office building is almost total.
With Angela gone home for the night, only Uncle Oran and I remain.
The walk down to his office seems long. I can hear every soft thud of my boots on the carpet, as well as the gentle hum of the overhead lights.
Uncle Oran has the biggest office in the firm. Bigger even than Jason Briar’s, or Victor Weiss’s. It’s a beautiful room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with expensive leather-covered books. The walls are covered with vintage maps and framed botanical samples. A massive painted globe sits on a golden stand next to Uncle Oran’s desk, which was built from old ship timbers like the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. The desktop is clean, other than his $1200 Caran d’Ache pen and his letter opener that looks like a medieval broadsword.
His office smells pleasantly of beeswax, cigar smoke, and brandy. The scent of Uncle Oran himself, which has always been one of my favorites. If Uncle Oran was coming over, it meant I could eavesdrop on good conversation and off-color jokes. And secrets, too. Because Oran always had secrets to tell.
His door is cracked only an inch. I pull it a little wider so I can step inside.
Oran looks up at once, his dark eyes deeply shadowed. The only light in his office comes from the lamp on his desk.
I can’t tell if he’s surprised to see me or not. All he says is, “You’re back.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Where’s your handsome bodyguard?”
“At home. In Tennessee.”
“Ah,” he says, nodding and setting down his pen. “So you gave him his walking papers.”
“I didn’t think I needed constant surveillance anymore. Since the Djinn is dead.”
I watch his face very closely when I say this. Looking for a response.
This time I do see a flicker of something in his eyes . . . not surprise. I almost think it’s anger.
“The hitman is dead?” he asks.
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure?”
“I watched him die. Then I buried him in a field. So yes, I’d say he’s pretty fucking dead.”
Uncle Oran leans back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him.
“Always so blunt, Riona. So frank.”
“You used to compliment me on my honesty when I was a child.”
“That I did,” he nods. “Come . . . have a seat.”
He gestures to the chair across the desk from his. It’s a large chair, comfortably upholstered. I’ve sat in it dozens of times. Tonight it looks different. The straight back and stiff arms look stern and unyielding. They remind me of the wooden chairs used to electrocute prisoners.
I sit down across from him.
“I don’t like this outfit,” Uncle Oran says with a tsk. “Or the hair. I’m sorry to say, my dear, you’re not looking your best.”
I could say the same thing to Uncle Oran. The lines on his forehead are the deepest I’ve ever seen them, and the bags under his eyes look like bruises. I think he’s even lost weight. His suit, usually so impeccably fitted, seems to hang off his shoulders.
Instead I say, “It’s been a strange couple of weeks for me. Very strange.”
“Nothing soothes a troubling week like a drink,” Uncle Oran says.
He stands up and walks over to the globe. I know from past visits that several bottles of liquor are concealed within, as well as cut-glass tumblers. He pours himself a glass of brandy, and scotch for me. Those are our usual drinks. But when he passes me the glass, I set it down on his desk without drinking.
Uncle Oran takes a long sip, leaning against the edge of his desk and looking down on me.
“I always thought if I had a daughter, she would be like you,” he says. “There’s a certain ruthlessness, an arrogance in you that I recognize from myself. But the honesty . . . I don’t know where that comes from.” He chuckles. “Certainly not from any Griffin.”
“I think it comes from my father,” I tell him, coldly. “He’ll at least stab you in the front, instead of the back.”
“Fergus?” Oran says, with a little curl in his upper lip. “He’s as conniving as they come.”
“Maybe you and I don’t have the same definition of conniving,” I say.
Uncle Oran drains his glass and sets it gently down on the desk.
“Perhaps not,” he says.
I’m studying his face, wondering how I could have misread it so long. I don’t always express myself as I’d like, but I’m usually good at reading others.
I always saw so much affection there. Now I think it was calculation, instead.
“Shame about Josh,” I say.
“How so?” Uncle Oran raises one eyebrow. “I thought you despised each other.”
“We did. But it was very inconvenient of him to blow his head off before Dante and Callum could talk to him.”
“Or before we could recover the money he took,” Uncle Oran says, smoothly. “How much did you say it was? Twenty million?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I ask him.
Uncle Oran smiles, thinly. “You’re the forensic accountant. I’m just the man humiliated by the fact that all that money disappeared on my watch.”
“My father will be very angry about that,” I say. “But not as angry as he’ll be when he finds out that his own brother’s been stealing from him.”
Oran’s face darkens. It’s like watching clear water grow cloudy—his real emotions muddying his smooth facade.
“That’s a very serious accusation, Riona,” he says. “Especially from my own niece. What evidence do you have?”
That’s what he really wants to find out. That’s the point of this game—to discover what I know.
“It never made sense that Josh hired the Djinn,” I say. “He only found out that I was working on the purchase agreements that afternoon. But you knew long before—with more than enough time to put out a hit. And you knew better than Josh what time I swim laps every night. You even saw how late I was working that particular evening. You told me I should go home . . . but I stayed. Did you have to wait down on the street, watching for my light to go out? I’m sure that was annoying.”
My uncle’s eyelid twitches, and I’m sure I guessed right. He really must have stood down there on the cold street, cursing my attention span.
“You took the purchase agreements off my desk. You put them in Josh’s office. But I went in and grabbed them again. And I took them home with me.
“Of course, that wouldn’t have mattered if I’d drowned. That’s why it had to look like an accident—so no one would come looking for the killer, or even wonder why I’d been killed.
“I’m assuming the Djinn took my phone so you could check my emails and calls. See if I’d tipped anyone off about the properties. You thought I already knew . . . but that’s the irony, Uncle Oran. I had no fucking idea. I hadn’t figured it out. You thought I kept taking those purchase agreements because I was already on to you . . . but that wasn’t it at all. I just wanted to impress you! I just wanted the partnership.”
His lips tighten in irritation. He’s not answering me, but I already know that everything I’m saying is true. As much as it contradicts everything I thought I knew about my relationship with my uncle, it’s the only explanation that makes sense. This man who was my friend and mentor, this man that I thought loved me like a daughter . . . he’s the one who tried to kill me. To save his own skin.
“You still needed those files gone, so you had the Djinn incinerate my apartment. You hoped that would get rid of me, too. Unfortunately for you, I had digital copies on my computer. Lucy sent them to me. I’m guessing you figured that out later, because they’re gone now. All deleted.
“You knew there was another layer of protection, though—you had Josh sign all the documents. That’s why you were always passing all that work to him. Because you knew he wouldn’t notice the discrepancies. He’s a decent lawyer, but he’s a much better ass-kisser. He wouldn’t question anything you told him to do.
“He was the perfect patsy. Everybody saw that he and I were enemies. We were rivals for the job, and we hated each other’s guts. It seemed believable that he would hire someone to kill me.
“But you knew if Dante and Cal got their hands on him, Josh would sing like a bird. Did he know about the embezzlement? Was he in on it?”
Uncle Oran’s impassive face gives away nothing. Only the glitter of his dark eyes shows that he’s still listening intently.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “You had to get rid of him. So you sent him home early, before Dante and Cal could show up here. Told them he’d been off sick all day. Then you drove out to the airport with him and forced the gun up under his chin. Or did you hire someone for that messy little job? I can’t imagine you getting blood and brain matter all over one of your suits.”
Oran’s lips twitch with distaste, which makes me certain he did it himself. He’s older than Josh, but he’s taller, and he had surprise on his side. Josh didn’t expect to be betrayed by Oran any more than I did.
“No,” I say. “You did it. You couldn’t risk some so-called hitman fucking up the job again. Once Josh was out of the way . . . I assume you wired some of the money into his accounts to make him look guilty. Not enough to put a serious dent in what you stole, but enough that we’d know Josh hadn’t saved it from his salary.
“And I suppose you thought the Djinn would get rid of your last loose end in Tennessee. It would look like Josh never got a chance to call off the hit. All the evidence would be gone. I’d be gone. Josh would take the fall. And you’d . . . what exactly? What in the fuck did you even want that money for?”
This is the one part where Oran can’t keep silent. His eyes are narrowed to slits and his yellowed teeth are bared as he hisses, “I wanted it because it’s mine. It was owed to me.”
“How do you figure that?” I demand. I know Uncle Oran gets a 50% share of the profits of the law firm, which is a hefty amount of money. Double what the other partners get. “You get paid plenty for running this place.”
“I shouldn’t be paid at all!” he cries. “A share in the law firm . . . I should get half of the empire! Or more! I’m the eldest son, not Fergus.”
“You’re the bastard son,” I say, coldly. I never cared about that, but I’m bitterly angry at Oran and I want to hurt him if I can, like he hurt me. “This empire is ten times the size it was under grandfather, because of my dad. He’s the one that built it up to where it is today. You didn’t do that. You couldn’t.”
“You have no idea what I can do, girl,” Oran hisses.
Maybe he’s right. Because faster than I can blink, there’s a gun pointed at my face.
I scoff. “You’re going to shoot me? Right here in the office? You don’t have anybody else to blame it on this time. You kill me, and my father will hunt you down like a dog, and cut the flesh off your bones an ounce at a time.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Oran sneers. “You’re going to kill yourself.”
He reaches into his desk and pulls out a bottle of pills. My stomach squirms as I read the label. It says, “Riona Griffin”. He got a prescription in my name.
“You’re not going to get away with the same trick twice,” I tell him.
“I don’t know about that . . . ” Oran says. “I don’t think anybody believes you’re happy, Riona. Not really. What do you have in your life besides work? Nothing.”
When he asks that question, for one wild moment my brain responds, Raylan. Until I remember that I don’t have him anymore. I only had him for a brief moment. Then I shoved him away.
Oran pops the lid off the pill bottle and shoves it toward me. He brandishes the gun in my face. The muzzle looks as dark and empty as Uncle Oran’s eyes.
I don’t know what the pills are, but it doesn’t matter. I can puke them up after. For now, I have to pretend to cooperate. Or else he’ll just shoot me.
Oran is hanging by a thread. I seriously underestimated my Uncle’s desperation.
I came in here to confront him, thinking he was still the man I knew. I thought I could reason with him. At the very least, I thought he would recognize that it was over, he lost.
I didn’t realize how much hatred was simmering below his skin. Hatred against my father . . . and against me. He never loved me. He never respected me. He used me when it was convenient. And when I got in his way, he tried to drown me like a rat.
I trusted him. But he never deserved that trust.
Raylan did. I wish I could scream for him, like I did outside the barn. I wish he could swoop in and save me. But he’s five hundred miles from here. I spent all damn day driving away from him.
I’ll have to save myself, if I want to survive.
“Pick it up,” Oran barks at me.
I pick up the pill bottle. It’s small and light. The white pills rattle around inside.
“Swallow them,” Oran hisses.
I shake a few pills into my palm. Then I swallow them down with a gulp of scotch.
The clock is ticking. I probably only have thirty minutes or so before these start to kick in.
“Take them all,” Oran orders.
It probably doesn’t matter how many I take. I’ll have to puke them all up anyway. Or Oran will shoot me—and the pills won’t matter for a completely different reason.
I swallow the rest of the pills with the remainder of the scotch.
Tik tok, tik tok.
“What now?” I say to Oran.
“Now you write your suicide note,” he says.
“I need paper.”
Oran rummages in his desk. He pulls out a sheet of thick, creamy parchment paper. Only the best for Uncle Oran.
“What do you want me to write?” I say.
Oran tilts his head back, eyes closed, as he thinks about what it should say. I lift his gold-plated pen off of its stand.
“Dear family,” he begins. “I’m so sorry to do this to you. But I think it’s for the best. I’m in so much pain. I just can’t take it anymore . . . ”
He continues to dictate, and I scribble nonsense on the paper, pretending to write it down word-for-word. His suggestions are dramatic and ridiculous—not at all what I would write. Not that I would write anything at all, because I’d never fucking kill myself. Cal would know that, and Nessa too. No matter what happens, they’re not going to believe this bullshit.
“Sign it, Love, Riona,” Oran orders.
I scribble a signature that looks nothing like my own.
“Is that what you wanted?” I say, sitting back so he can examine the paper.
Oran leans on the desk, bending over the page so he can read what I wrote. I see his eyes scanning, then angry color coming into his face.
“No!” he cries. “That’s not—”
I grab the letter opener and stab it down onto the back of his hand. The tiny medieval sword goes all the way through his hand, pinning it to the desk.
Oran howls and swings the gun toward my face, but I grab his wrist with both hands and shove it upward. He jerks the trigger, firing into the ceiling three times. Plaster dust rains down on our heads.
I stomp on his foot hard with my cowboy boot, and then I bring my knee up into his groin. Oran doubles over, groaning and swearing.
I wrench the gun out of his hand.
Oran may not have actually been in the IRA, but he does know how to fight. As soon as I yank the gun away from him, he punches me right in the face. The blow knocks me backward, and the gun goes skittering out of my grip, disappearing under my chair.
Oran tries to rip his hand free from the desk, but it’s stuck. He howls with pain, then grabs the hilt of the letter opener to pull it free.
Meanwhile, I’m down on my knees groping under the chair, trying to feel for the gun. I don’t know if it’s because of the haymaker from Oran, or because the pills are starting to kick in, but my head is swimming. The floor seems to rock back and forth underneath of me, and I can’t find the gun.
Uncle Oran jumps on top of me, slamming me into the carpet with his full weight. He knocks the air out of my lungs so I’m gasping for breath, my head spinning worse than ever. Then he tries to drag me up again, pulling me away from the gun.
Right at that moment, my hands close around something cold and hard. I grip the handle and curl my finger around the trigger.
As Oran yanks me up, I swing the gun around and point it right at his face.
He freezes, his hands locked on my shoulders.
“You wouldn’t shoot your Uncle . . . ” he says, his yellowed teeth bared in a stiff rictus of a smile.
“I absolutely would,” I say.
I pull the trigger, shooting him right between the eyes.
Oran’s limp hands release me, and he falls backward. I tumble back as well, unsteady on my feet. When I fall, the back of my head hits the carpet with a thud.
I roll over, and the whole room rolls around me. I jam my fingers down my throat, trying to make myself vomit. I gag, but nothing comes up.
Shit.
I try again, but my hand feels numb and floppy on the end of my wrist. My throat is swollen. Maybe that’s why I can’t throw up.
I try to get to the phone instead, but it seems a million miles away on Uncle Oran’s desk. I’m crawling and crawling, but not actually moving anywhere. My knees slide on the oriental rug.
Oh my god, I think my idiot uncle is finally going to succeed in killing me, when it won’t even help him anymore.
I think I’m still crawling toward the phone, but my cheek is pressed against the carpet, so I can’t actually be moving.
I feel cold. Very cold.
I wish Raylan were holding me. There’s nothing warmer than his arms.
Goddamnit. What a sad way to go. With so many regrets in my heart . . .
Suddenly, I feel myself float upward. I’m still freezing cold, but I’m pressed against something warm. I hear a steady thud against my ear.
I open my eyes again, and I see Raylan’s face. That’s impossible, so I know I must be dreaming.
If this is my last dream, I’m going to enjoy it.
Raylan’s strong arms are locked around me, carrying me out of the office . . .
