Page 13 of A Trap So Flawless

“What are you talking about?” There’s a tremor in my voice. It matches the renewed jittering of my fingers in my lap. “You can’t seriously believe that.” Mad Dog Darragh. Like a hound with a bone. Doesn’t matter how far I go. How deep I’m buried. He’ll find me.

“The engagement deal I struck with that Irish fuck was built on a foundation of false pretenses,” Papà says. He aims a furious finger at my throat. “He’s a liar. Just like you. He has no right to you now. Not to mention the fact that I’ve spoken with Callum Gowan. We’ve made the prospect of marrying you distinctly unappealing to him now.”

“What?!”

“He’ll be disinherited if he marries. All the Irish business. All that wealth.” He snaps his fingers. “Gone.”

“You… You’ve been in contact with his grandfather? What the hell did you offer him?”

“I didn’t have to offer him shit,” Papà sneers. “He wanted this marriage even less than I did. He figured a little change in his will might scare his batshit fucking crazy grandson straight.” His eyes suddenly fall to the hands twisted together in my lap. His brows draw themselves into a harsh line. His nostrils flare. “What the fuck is that?”

“An engagement ring.”

“Sal never gave me a ring to give you.” Realization dawns, but that dawn is darkness on his face. “It’s from Gowan, isn’t it?”

I nod. A stilted jerk of my head.

“Can’t believe he actually fucking bought a ring,” Papà spits. “And I can’t believe you’d be stupid enough, and stubborn enough, to wear it to your wedding today.” A vein throbs at his throat. He holds out his hand. “Give it to me.”

“No.” The word’s out before I can call it back. I bite my lip, tasting the vanilla smear of my own lipstick. “It’s mine.”

“Everything you have, everything you fucking are, is mine!” Papà explodes. “Until you walk down that fucking aisle and sign yourself over to Sal! Do you understand me?” He takes an uneven breath, then stabs his open palm closer, right below my throat. “Give it to me. Now. Before I break your finger trying to take it off of you myself.”

I clutch my hands together, my left inside my right. As if to protect the glittering ring. It’s bizarre, almost comical, the attachment I have to it now. I didn’t even want it in the first place.

Papà’s eyes flash. He seizes my left wrist. I cry out, trying to drag my hand out of his grip, but I should know by now it’s futile.

At least he doesn’t break my finger. He could if he wanted to. But I think all he really wants is to get the ring off of me. The band yanks harshly against my knuckle, scraping the skin.

“Stop!” I gasp as the ring disappears into his fist. “What are you going to do with it?”

Why the hell does it even matter? Why do I even bother asking?

But I can’t stop myself. I’m suddenly frantic. Like what happens to that ring is somehow even more important than what happens to me.

“I’m going to keep it,” he says, “because this doesn’t even scratch the surface of what he – what both of you – owe me. And if he dares to come within a hundred metres of a Titone after this, or a Di Mauro…” He drops the ring into his suit jacket pocket, pushing it down below the pocket square. “Then I am going to take this ring and shove it down his fucking throat.”

Papà exits the vehicle, and before I can even take a breath he’s at my side, yanking the passenger door open. “Followed,” he adds, his bulk blocking out the sun, blocking out everything, “by a bullet.”

Chapter 5

Darragh

Jim Shaw hasn’t eaten in three days. He’s lost just as many fingers. I keep those fingers in a neat little row on the warehouse floor right in front of his chair, each one aimed at him like an accusation. I wonder how many will be pointing at him like that by the time we’re through.

The motherfucker won’t talk.

Well, he did talk at first. He admitted to killing Callum mere moments after Rowan and I strapped him to this chair under the level grey gaze of Amos. But he won’t tell us why, or who hired him. Jim Shaw is a goddamn nobody. A spineless little weasel who never would have even fucking breathed on my grandda if someone hadn’t paid him off. His greasy head hangs low, his skinny chest rising and falling with whistling inhales and harsh exhales. I think he’s unconscious again, the vile bastard.

Cutting off another finger ought to wake him up.

“I can start doing some more digging on my end,” Amos says. “Look into the banking side. Where any funds might have come from.”

He is here again today. Or tonight, rather, since the one small warehouse window has long gone dark. Amos seems to want to prove himself an ally to me. I have stopped to think once or twice that it’s just a little too convenient that Amos came out of nowhere after Grandda’s death with a name of some fucking nobody conveniently ready to go. But Grandda’s demise seems to be fucking with Amos’ plans even more than my own. Amos al-Khatib is apparently big in fintech and trade, and was looking to move a large portion of his western operations from London to Ireland for tax reasons since it’s still part of the EU.

But clearly, not all of his business is on the up and up. For one thing, he was partnering with Callum Gowan. For another, he seems completely at ease in his multi-thousand-euro suit standing in an abandoned warehouse with a man tied up and bleeding in front of him.

“Do it,” I reply. My voice rouses Shaw from his stupor.

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