Ramsay(55)

Why? Why now? Where are you, Lydia?

My thoughts were interrupted by the muted sound of glass breaking. I  stilled, listening intently and not hearing anything again for several  minutes. Something on the street maybe. Although, since moving here, I'd  worked in a business where instincts could save your life, and right  now, something felt off.

I started to stand when I heard another faint noise, this time closer  and from within the building. I sat back down and reached under my desk  for the gun I kept there. And I waited.

I didn't have to wait long. A minute later, the door to my office  clicked open and Stuart De Havilland entered, looking like death warmed  over, shaking, and pointing a gun at me. What the feck? I kept my hands  on my lap, not moving a muscle. "Stuart," I said evenly.

He lurched toward me and my hand reached toward my gun, but retreated  when he fell into the chair in front of my desk, smirking at me as he  took something he'd been holding between his upper arm and body and set  it on his knees. My folder. My gaze moved from it to his face. I forced  my expression to remain unaffected.

"You were a whore," he said excitedly, letting out a strange, high-pitched laugh.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked.

"My sister gave it to me," he said, watching me closely. Cold sickness  moved down my spine but I worked not to react. Was he lying? But if he  was, why was Lydia gone, and why hadn't she called me? Had she really  betrayed me . . . again? Or . . . for real this time? Confusion and  horror made me dizzy. Surely she hadn't been lying to me. Had she been  working with Stuart all along to try and turn the tables? No.  Impossible. No, no, no.

Visions flicked quickly and painfully through my mind-watching Lydia  seemingly alive with happiness as she'd worked in my office, how others  had softened with her presence, how the young people we worked with had  almost found a mother/sister figure in their life. Someone they could  trust. No, that couldn't have been a lie. I felt gutted by anguish. I  wanted to fall to my knees and weep; the very thought brought a hopeless  rage barreling through my chest.

Stuart twitched and the gun in his hand jerked, causing my blood pressure to spike.

"How about you put that down while we talk?" I suggested.

"No fucking way."

I let out a breath. "Okay then, have it your way. Let's get this over with. What do you want?"

"I want everything you have, you piece of fucking gutter trash."

"You want your company back? Fine, it's yours. I'll sign it over to you in the morning."

He waved his gun around and my hand inched toward my gun. "I don't want  my fucking company back! Fuck my company! I want your money. All of it,  every cent."                       
       
           



       

"Why would I give you my money, Stuart?"

"Because of this," he yelled, picking up my folder and waving it around.

"There's nothing in that folder that would persuade me to give you a  dime," I lied. The truth was, there wasn't anything in that folder that  would do the job of ruining me, at least not in the way Stuart was  counting on. But for it to get out that I'd been a prostitute . . . that  I'd kept the information in that folder at all, filled me with sick  shame.

"You're lying, you piece of shit whore. These people in here-did you  know the husband of one of the women who hired you to be her boy toy is  running for state senate now?" Yes, I had known that. It hadn't mattered  because they were in a different state now because of me. I'd done that  and it was enough.

"The only one you'll affect by exposing what's in that folder is them," I said.

His eyes narrowed, and he twitched so violently he almost dropped the  gun. Jaysus Christ. "You don't care that the world knows what you did?"

"Not really," I lied. But I'd always been a better poker player than him. And he was too far gone to remember that.

Rage contorted his features. "There's information on the mob in here!" he yelled.

"Only on low-level players who have long since moved on," I said. This  was the truth. I shrugged, a slow movement using only one shoulder. I  didn't want to startle him. "There's nothing in there, Stuart. Nothing I  care about. You can go print every piece of information in the New York  Times tomorrow, and it won't matter to me."

"You're lying," he choked out, but I heard the doubt in his voice. His  arm was shaking, and I saw his finger tightening on the trigger. Please  don't make me do this, Stuart. God, please don't make me do this.  "You're fucking lying, you motherfucking liar."

"I'm not lying," I said as calmly as I could. "I can help you, though. I  won't let you blackmail me. But I'll help you. Put down the gun, and  I'll get you the help you need."

"Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!" he screamed, waving the gun at me, and panting as if he was having trouble catching his breath.

He suddenly seemed to calm, chilling me even more and causing my heart  to gallop. "I hate you," he said, and that's when he stilled completely,  pointing the gun at my head.

They say in moments of high stress your life passes before you in slow  motion. But it's also the events of that moment. I saw his gaze shift to  his gun and the brief glance back up at me. I felt my arm raise. I felt  something graze the top of my shoulder. I felt the jolting kickback as I  fired. I saw blood. Stuart's eyes widening in shock. I heard a gun drop  to the ground. Maybe his. Maybe mine. I saw Stuart slump in the chair  and fall to the floor of my office. I saw death.



**********



I was at the police station for hours, telling the same story over and  over. Finally at three a.m., they released me, a clear case of  self-defense.

The evidence that Stuart had broken and entered into my place of  business was clear in the broken glass on the floor of the front room,  the same glass stuck in the bottom of his shoes, and embedded in the  skin of his fist. He'd punched through the glass with his bare hand. It  would take time for the autopsy results to come back, but I suspected  they'd find high amounts of drugs and alcohol in his system. Add to that  the fact he'd fired at me first with a stolen gun and there would be no  charges against me.

I'd told the police I'd recently taken over De Havilland Enterprises in a  deal Stuart was still bitter about. It was enough of a motive. Of  course, I'd picked up the bloodstained folder and put it in my safe in  the back room before I'd called the police. I'd burn it once I had the  chance. It now represented not my salvation, but my utter  self-destruction.

I felt numb as I walked out of the room I'd been in since I'd called the  police last night. Fionn stood up from across the station, causing the  first pulse of emotion to move through my chest since I'd dialed 911. Mo  chara. My friend. He moved toward me just as Lydia walked out of  another room. She froze when she saw me, her eyes large and shocked,  bloodshot. She'd been crying. My heart plummeted. Oh God, Lydia. I  immediately went to move toward her, to take her in my arms, to offer  what comfort I could.

She watched me approach, her mouth open slightly, her head shaking back  and forth as if to say what? No, don't let this be true? "No," she  choked out. "No, don't come near me."

Her words felt like a physical blow and I stumbled, wincing. "Lydia," I  breathed. "Please. I didn't want to. Please listen to me. I never would  have-"

She hit me, pounding her fists into my chest. Her expression seemed to  collapse in horror. "No!" she screamed, striking me harder. "No, no,  no!" Her head shook from side to side as if in denial. "How could you?  How could you?"                       
       
           



       

"Lydia!" I choked, trying to contain her, trying to wrap my arms around her. "Le do thoil. Is breá liom tú."

"You did this on purpose," she sobbed, her eyes pools of stark pain and  bright blue, not even a hint of green. "He said you would. Oh God, oh  God, oh my God." Her legs buckled. The police officer, who had been  leading her out of the room, caught her from the side as she punched at  me again. "I'll never forgive you!" she cried, her beautiful face a  picture of misery, her loud sobs echoing through the mostly empty room.  "Never!" She collapsed against the officer and Fionn gripped my arm.

"Not here, mo chara," he said. "Let her be for now."

"No, Fionn!" I said, panicked, sick, reaching for Lydia.

The police officer supporting her led her away, throwing one scathing  look over his shoulder as the last piece of my world seemed to drop out  from beneath me. Mo Chroí.