Colour Series Box Set (61 page)

“I will show you.” Megan pipes up. As she drags me from the room by the arm her grip, is painful on my already bruised flesh.

She locks herself in the bathroom with me, not what I had in mind as an escape. “Do you have fucking death wish? Callum O’Reilly! Are you shitting me Shan?” She genuinely actually cares for me - I think. I lift my skirt and lower my knickers to pee, she luckily doesn’t look so she cannot see the bruises and lash marks on my skin.  “I didn’t get a choice in the matter Megan. He loved my sister, the sister that I look exactly like.”  I sigh, saying it sounds stupid, but I know it’s the truth. “He isn’t a man you say no to Megan and he isn’t going to leave me alone even if I try to avoid him.”

I cover myself up again and stand next to her at the mirror. “He scares the shit outta me Shan, did you see what he did to Joel?”  Now she is like a dog with a bone, she could join the wolf pack outside. “It’s too late to fix Megan, just help me navigate my way with the women, Callum I can handle.” She gives me shallow smile her concern filters through and I can see she isn’t happy at all.

“No one could handle
that much man
Shannon, but alright. The women are not going to like you –simple. I can’t really help you there they don’t like me much either.” Well, at least we could be on their shit list together. She shakes her head and winks at me in the mirror. She is such a child sometimes. I wish we could be real friends, but she is one of them and I am not.

We return to hushed whispers of gossip in the kitchen they are talking about me no doubt. Megan coughs announcing our return and the fakeness resumes.

What seems like forever later Callum comes into the wolf den, he greets the ladies with cold, empty words. He puts a glass,
his glass
down right in front of me, it’s empty.
He drank it
. My heart beats a little faster at that notion. He hugs the widow of the brother he had killed. Then swiftly without a goodbye drags me from the room and out of the house. It’s evening now and the air is cold. I don’t have a coat as he stomps us down the sidewalk to his car. I am shivering by the time he opens the door for me and the cold is biting at my face. I can feel how pink my cheeks must be right now and I sniffle as my nose wants to run from breathing the icy air.

Callum gets in the car and his tyres screech as we speed away, he obviously had as much fun as I did today.  He is in another place as I sit shivering in my seat.

He doesn’t even notice me freezing beside him. He is gone and the monster is back. My heart sinks and soars at that notion. Something has changed. I still have butterflies – he drank the whiskey I poured, what is he trying to tell me?

BEING AROUND MY FAMILY is worse than torture for me, their small mindedness about how this world works has me dumbfounded. The whole world has evolved, but this little group of mobsters refuse to move with it. They are stuck in their ways, stubborn and stupid. All of this works to my distinct advantage, but I still cannot abide being around them. They drivel on and on about keeping the family safe. The family will never be safe; they should be focused on business. This isn’t a family anymore it’s a billion pound a year business. None of them will ever be safe again. I am the devil in their midst and they don’t even see me.

I listen to their annoying thug plans, I keep quiet they don’t want my opinion and I’m not going to offer it. I won’t be nice. Shannon brought me a drink, but there is no way I am going to take a sip of it, as desperately as I need a drink to get through this I am not playing roulette. I saw Neil communicate to her with his eyes and I am still not too sure I should trust her yet or at all, she is a self-confessed serial killer who I know wants to kill me. I watched Joel die this morning, there is no way I want that death. It was beautiful to watch but horrific at the same time.

This shit is giving me a headache and I need fucking sugar so bad right now. I stand in my corner watching each of them, I am good at watching people looking for their tells. It is why I am so good in business - I am good at people. My mind is wondering; I am bored by this trivial crap. I eat a chocolate bar from my pocket and absorb the information they unknowingly give me. The way, Neil bounces his foot, lets me know just how unsettled he is right now. I enjoy watching him squirm.

My mind floats back to the ghost house, turns out I had a home all along. The flashes of my nightmares are right there at the surface when I remember the front door and the cold concrete of the front steps. I hear the screams that stole my sleep for years. I am not so sure living there is a good idea. The monster, I am now, was born in there. Those cold hallways took all the good right out of me a long time ago. Living there will upset this bunch, something I am hell bent on doing. I want them to be fucking miserable. And dead, mostly just dead.

I am not ashamed to claim my Spillane name. My mother was a fucking angel.

Shannon’s face when we arrived at the house was priceless she lit up, I knew before I even saw it that was the house she wanted to live in. I want her to live with me, which makes no sense, she could kill me and I am a dick to live with, not even Rowan could hack it. He nearly did kill me. I miss him. I miss home, my real home. My real family not this bunch of idiots. I have had enough of this I want to leave. Those bitches are probably ripping Shannon apart right now. I saw Megan come in so she might be alright for a bit longer.

I would murder for a drink.
I have a drink
, but I cannot drink it. Neil keeps eyeing the glass I haven’t touched. Would she have the balls to kill me here? She didn’t have a bag with her where would she hide poison? I need a fucking drink, do I risk it and live to see my brother’s face or die a horrid death on the dirty carpet? Fuck it, she won’t kill me, she just killed Joel. I reach for the glass, Neil swallows a lump in his throat as he watches me, he loses his place in the conversation. His eyes lock with mine as I drink the life- saving liquid down quickly, it burns my dry throat and I feel instantly better. I also feel like I just cheated my brother and death. I knew she wouldn’t kill me, well it’s a bit early to tell if I’m still standing here in twenty minutes I will go get her and leave. I want to fuck her again only in a sweet, gentle and non-murder inducing way this time. I need to know she wants me. Last night wasn’t about want it was what I needed, what my monster needed. We both got what we needed now I want her to want me. I am so fucked up. Why do I continue to chase the idea that I will find love? And why would I choose a serial killing monster?

I never wanted anyone other than Cassie. When she died so did the slither of my heart that was left. I never believed men like me could find love, real love or any love. Rowan taught me a lesson in that. We can be these criminal men and still love. Now that he has
that love
- I want it. I want her, I want the poisonous ghost that I should not want, but I do. I want her so badly it hurts.

I am watching the minutes tick past slower than usual as I wait to see if she has killed me. I know she hasn’t, but my brother watches me like he wishes she had. I want to kill him right now, but now is not his time. There is a plan I need to stick to it.  Watching him watch me
not die
is worth the risk I took as his face falls and he shakes his head slightly. He is distracted from the arguing men around him as we stare at each other.

Tick, tick, tick, twenty long ticks later and I am still alive. She didn’t kill me… yet. I take a deep breath and acknowledge to myself that I am in the deepest shit when it comes to her.

I go retrieve her from the kitchen where the chatter seems to be on my new home. I greet Orla, the grieving widow. I never cared who my brothers married, Orla was around long before I left, Pop picked her out. Her daddy was a banker and then he died. I fucked her at their engagement party just to spite Warrick. She is a whore to me, always was. She has seen my madness and felt the pain left behind. She knows what I am under this suit and tie.

I drag Shannon from the house so I can breathe, think and escape.

I am a time bomb right now, a ticking time bomb. I need some space between me and her, but needs and wants can be very different things. I want her close; I want her under my skin. I want to be inside her again, claiming her body and making her mine.

I’m going to hell and most likely she will send me there personally. I look over and see her shivering in the seat next to me, she is cold. I didn’t even notice the cold. I switch the heated seats on feeling like an asshole.

I am going to take her home and leave her there, I need some time to work and think and fit her into my plan. I need her in my plan; I need my plan to be her plan too. I want her! It’s not often there is something I actually desire in this world I have everything at my fingertips. Shannon is someone I want and I am not going to let her get away. I take what I want that’s why I came home.

I stop at the surgery, she looks confused and a little hurt as I park in the ambulance parking bay and switch off the car. I don’t know how this stuff is done; I haven’t had the same woman hang around me for more than a few hours for as long as I can remember. She grabs for the door handle her expression is a little wounded that I have brought her home, and in an instant it goes from that to rage. We need people to believe this shit is real. Fuck it is real. She slithers her body out of the seat before I can even register what she is doing. I grab at my seatbelt to follow her out of the car. I am not going to just drop her on the pavement and leave. I am an asshole but not that much of an asshole. I should walk her to the door at least.

Besides the view of her sweet backside through the car window, has me thinking I might stay a little while. I know that under those clothes she is wearing the marks of what I did to her last night. I haven’t even seen her flinch once today; she is as tough as nails. Or at least she pretends to be, I think beneath the murderous tendencies and the deep need to appear powerful that she may just have softness in her. I saw it when she looked at the house this morning just for a brief second she let her guard down. She was happy for a second.

I move over the concrete to stand close behind her as she unlocks the door that leads straight upstairs to her home. I follow her up the stairs and her ass is level with my face and my hand itching to smack it. I can smell the subtle scent of her perfume she is so close. We enter the living room of her home. The furniture looks like a time warp back to the eighties, she hasn’t changed anything or made the space her own, and it feels as if she merely exists here. The space is stale and dated and damp. This whole fucking city is wet - I hate it. It is toxic to my mood it seeps into my mind turning it dark and vicious.

She ignores my presence in her space completely and kicks off her heels before she moves through a doorway into the old kitchen. Her red hair is a little messy from the wind outside and her eyes look tired. She opens the fridge and removes a bottle of wine; the bottle of light pink liquid is only half full as she pulls the old cork from the top it swishes around. She reaches up to the cupboards above her head to get a wine glass that clinks against the stone counter tops. The glass fills up the cold wine that makes it frost over with condensation. She glugs the whole glass in one go before refilling it. Turning to where I stand in the doorway. She reaches into the same cupboard stretching her short frame as she stands on her toes and pulls out a tumbler and a bottle of Jameson from the very top shelf. I notice the bottle is sealed as she shoves the glass and bottle at me to pour my own drink. I have an instant
can I trust her
moment, before I open the bottle, snapping the seal as I twist the cap. Pouring the liquid gold into my glass before I follow her out of the room in silence. Her bare feet are silent on the old carpets as she stomps into the dining room and sits at the antique table. Her actions are almost childish now. She is a brat and I fight the growing urge to smack her.

I sit down opposite her not quite sure how to react to being ignored completely. She looks so utterly broken, have I done that to her already?

Is it the ghost of Cassie that I want so badly or is it the murderous woman who actually sits at the table? I am drawn to her in a way I cannot explain even to myself.