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“I’m glad you’re suffering, the same way you made Lester suffer.”

Hamish wagged his finger at Sebastian. “You murdered him.”

Sebastian hung his head. “I did, and I wish I could turn back time and change that, but I can’t. What I can do is make your life crumble, the same way you did to him, all to get him to set me up.”

“You helped terrorists, gangs, criminals, and you got rich off it. You’re the lowest of the low, and someone had to take you down. Someone had to stop you, and I’m proud that it was me.”

“I ended up inside because of my anger. My stupidity. Not because of your cunning. I’ve served my sentence, and I will regret what I did for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t let you get away with it.”

Rory turned when he heard a car. Morris got out, made her way through the crowd, then stood next to Sebastian.

Hamish gaped. “Wh…what are you doing?”

“Sebastian’s an old friend of mine,” Morris said, placing her hand on Sebastian’s shoulder.

Hamish shook his head. “No.”

“The things I do for my friends,” Morris mumbled before shuddering.

“I left my wife for you.”

Morris smiled. “And by the looks of her social media account, she’s loving every minute of her new-found freedom.”

“It was your idea I buy the farm.”

Sebastian raised his hand. “Actually, it was my idea. Morris made it happen. How much debt are you in now?”

“You bastard.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Hamish turned his attention back to Morris. “Your career is over—”

“My career? What about yours? You’ve fiddled with test scores on more than one occasion, and you didn’t have clearance to put Rory in that prison. You went rogue, and when the chief inspector finds out, it’s your career that’ll be finished.”

“I’ll take you down with me.”

“What evidence do you have? I thought it was legit, I thought it had been authorized, me and Rory were the unlucky ones that got used, and you can’t prove otherwise. We’ll probably get compensation.”

“You bitch…”

“Now if you don’t mind,” Sebastian muttered, “kindly get off my property. I apologize in advance for the noise tonight.”

One of the men watching the exchange passed Sebastian a bottle of champagne.

“See, I’m celebrating with a pop…”

The cork blasted into the air, and fizz bubbled from the top. Sebastian took a long glug, then sighed in pleasure. Rory frowned, then remembered Sebastian’s words when they were inside the prison. The last thing Hamish would hear before his world came crushing down would be apop.

“And a big bang…” Sebastian added.

Rory knocked his head back into the house at the sound of the first firework. They went off like no display Rory had ever seen, hundreds of fireworks exploding into the sky. He thought of the barrels Sebastian had got his friend to store, the powders, the chemicals, and glanced back up at the sky.

The big bang wasn’t a bomb, but fireworks.

Hamish looked at the sky in dismay, then back at Sebastian. His gaze drifted, and he found Rory against the farmhouse. The sky lit up with sparkles of red, green and gold, flashing on Hamish’s face as he approached.

Rory couldn’t hear what words were growled his way, but Hamish’s face folded with angry lines, and his lips pulled back with his furious words. He marched at Rory, but Sebastian side-stepped in front of him, forcing him back.

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