by Izzy Sweet
“What the fu—” I say, raising my voice as the girls begin screeching at me.
“If you finish that sentence, Simon, I’ll have Matthew insist on you babysitting the children for the day. That includes little David.”
She would too. Not that I wouldn’t slit my fucking wrists the moment they left me in the room with the children alone.
Growling quietly to the girls, who keep trying to play tag around my legs, I say, “Dear young ladies. If you stop and do this around somewhere else, I will give you each a one-hundred-dollar bill.”
Pulling my wallet out of my pocket, I get a very odd look from Lily. “You’re so very strange, Simon.”
The girls, spying the money, stop in their tracks with open mouths. I suppose they’ve never been bribed before. Never too young to understand how it works though.
Handing each one a bill, I watch as they race away from me, giggling like little hyenas.
“Simon, I should be mad at you,” Lily says with a frown.
Grinning, I say, “Yes, more than likely.”
Rolling her eyes, she motions to the stairs. “I set myself up for that. Somehow I know I did. This is going to set such a bad precedence…”
Heading up the stairs, I keep a brief eye on Lily’s back as I ascend. Once I’m fully out of sight of her, I roll my eyes.
She’s just lucky I didn’t offer them a thousand dollars.
Walking the long hallway towards Lucifer’s office, I can’t help but think about the conversation with Lily. She’s right about Paul and Evelyn I suppose. Ever since his death, she’s been a little more…clingy to me. Like she needs a new person to torment.
Paul was her own personal guard when Lucifer wasn’t using him, and she knew she could count on him to do anything for her. He even went so far as allowing her to use him as a big doll. Painting his nails. Putting barrettes in his hair.
I think it was his paternal instinct or some other foolish nonsense. I’ve obviously never had one of those. He did though.
Being maudlin about the situation though will do no good. Onwards and such. What else can we do, we know the lives we’ve chosen.
I stop outside of Lucifer’s office and knock on the doorjamb. He’s staring at his computer screen and waves me into the office.
Adam sits across from Lucifer. Even now he’s a carbon copy of the man. Both wearing dress shirts, ties, slacks, and slicked back hair. They’re often confused by outsiders as real son and father.
If I didn’t know better, I would be inclined to agree.
“Are you sure about this, Adam?” Lucifer asks Adam with a raised eyebrow.
“Positive, Father. I know what my peers at school are using right now. If we invest now in the stock, we will see a large return,” Adam says with a smile.
Adam. Now this is a child I can understand. He’s a brilliant prodigy. As smart at mathematics as any I know, and probably more than half.
Under our tutelage, he has blossomed in his schooling. Lucifer has already had the school he attends advance him to sixth grade. I’ve no doubt he will be out of high school before he hits fifteen if things progress the way they have been.
“Excellent!” Lucifer says. He stands up from his desk and comes around to wrap his arm around Adam as they walk to the door. He hugs him tight to his side for a moment before saying, “I’m proud of you.”
Adam beams with pride as he walks out of the office and heads back over to his own office.
Lucifer closes the door behind him and then turns to me, his smile sliding off his face like snow off a sliding off a hot roof.
“What the fuck happened?” he growls out to me as he walks back to his desk and perches on the corner.
“Someone blew up our fucking club,” I snap at him as I slam myself down in a seat in front of the desk.
“I gathered that from the fucking fireball in the sky,” he snaps right back.
Closing my eyes, I try to blink away the pounding tension headache I feel coming on. I have to take my glasses off to rub gently at my eyes.
“As it stands right now, I’ve got feeds in a five-hundred-mile radius in and around the city running. I have my programs tapped into all our government databases, combing through them as well as Interpol’s. If the two men in the video I sent you show up, we’ll find them.”
“How is it that we missed the placement of the bomb?” he asks as he walks back to his chair and sits down.
“Perfect timing and opportunity. If you watch the feeds and pay attention to Cherry, you can see she’s running interference for the two men.”
“Damn,” he swears as he slaps his hand down hard on the wooden desk. “How did we miss her getting turned? Especially after Bartholomew?”
“The payments were in such increments that it looked like it could be extra deposits of her own. And when I look hard enough, she started making those deposits in cash after a couple of installments.”
“Simon, this is something you should have fucking caught,” his voice is almost growling as he stares at the screen on his computer.
Whatever he’s seeing there isn’t about this though. He’s just staring at it, not reading it.
“Agreed,” I say and place both palms on top of the shiny wooden surface.
The desk I rest my hands on is older than both of us put together. It came over sometime during the late eighteenth century. Its hard surface, while shined to perfection, has multiple scars from use over the years.
It was brought up by Lily once that he should have it refinished. That will never happen. This desk has been used as a warning to his men. As evidenced by the large gouge lines right were my wrists are sitting. He’s taken more than one hand since he bought this desk and I’ve no doubt it will see many more in its future if Adam takes over the family business one day.
“Take your fucking wrists off the fucking desk, Simon,” he says with a long sigh.
“It’s not an offer you should take off the table so easily, Lucifer. I fucked up,” I say.
“It’s not entirely your fault her deposits went unnoticed. She was trusted. She could have fucking been another member of the circle if we had groomed her right.”
Pulling back from the table, I sit back in my chair. I’ve thought about the consequences of what happened last night, and while I must agree it wasn’t entirely my fault, I should have been on top of it. He pays me to be on top of things like this.
Has my head been too far up Meredith’s ass to notice the things I should have?
Meredith, yet another larger issue I need to discuss today. Wonderful. Perhaps I’ll just put my neck on the desk.
“I’m happy we decided against that. Especially now,” I say with a smirk.
“Yes, me too. Now, where are we at with this whole mess?” he asks with a frown.
“I’m going through every aspect of Cherry’s digital life. Her social media and such. Emails, texts, phone call dates and times. Peter is over at Cherry’s house with a few of our security staff. They’ll have it packed and trucked to one of the offices. We’ll go through it all with a fine-tooth comb.”
“Excellent.”
“Hopefully it turns up leads we can chase down. Maybe the priest’s call has something to do with this. I doubt it, but we could be lucky.”
“Simon, are you believing in luck?”
“No, I’d rather not. But right now it wouldn’t hurt to have some turn our way. Something is going on lately. Things are too quiet,” I say, and they are.
Quiet can be good, I suppose, but when it gets too quiet I start to wonder what monster is out there scaring everything silent.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Lucifer says. “The priest has his ear to the masses. Let’s see what he can come up with.”
“Soon enough, I suppose.” I don’t like waiting for answers, not when it’s something like this.
“Now on to a more familiar matter. What’s going on in the life of my dear sister?” he asks me, and I can see a small smirk tugging at the
corners of his mouth.
Why do I feel like the fly in the spider’s web? Shouldn’t it always be me who’s laying the trap?
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I say, “She put us in quite the situation with whatever her part was in the sudden death of Prince Ahmed.”
“Has she given us any information we don’t already know?” he asks, leaning back into his chair, his fingertips steepling in front of him.
“None. I wasn’t able to question her last night after we got home, nor this morning. She was quite piqued. I should be able to get more information out of her this evening, or tomorrow at the latest,” I say.
“Why weren’t you able to question her, Simon? Was she that unruly?”
Just the memories of last night bring frustration to my crotch and an annoying twinge of pain to my shoulder. “She bit me quite thoroughly last night. After that, I was more inclined to be a bit warier of her.”
“Surely she didn’t bite you that badly, Simon? I thought you were joking with me,” he says with a small laugh.
“Lucifer, how many fingers on your right hand does it take to count the times I have made a joke?” I ask in annoyance.
“So, she caused you so much damage you really did need stitches?”
“Of course, your sister is…”
“Simon, Simon, Simon… If we need to rid ourselves of an issue…” he says, but stops as I shake my head at him.
“She’s not an issue we need to take care of like that. She can be brought under control. She’ll reach enlightenment soon enough,” I say carefully.
Lucifer looks at me for a long time. I can see the gears moving behind his eyes as he studies me. He’s figuring out what my words exactly mean. He’s trying to get a read of the way I react to him.
“Simon, how much of an influence are you under with her?”
“Some,” I admit.
“Will this further complicate our business arrangements? I would truly hate for a second business to be blown to the ground because of something we missed.”
“Hindsight is a bitch, Lucifer. You know that as well as I do. But to answer your question, no. Now that I have her here, under my thumb, things should be much easier to manage.”
“Shouldn’t you have said now that we?” he asks and there comes that slight smirk of his lips at the corners of his mouth.
He’s playing me like a damn violin. He’s gotten me to admit things I shouldn’t have, and I feel too damn simple to have caught it.
“Stop it. I’m not some damn enemy, Matthew,” I say as I lean forward with a growl.
Suddenly he leans far back into his chair, mouth opening up in a raucous laugh. “Simon! You of all people!”
“Yes, me, dammit,” I say with a sigh.
He keeps attempting to look at me with a straight face, but each time his lips pull back to bear his teeth in laughter.
Shaking my head at his humor, I stand from my chair and button my suit jacket back up.
“I need to get going, the priest was quite adamant—” I say before I’m cut off by my phone ringing and buzzing against my side.
Glancing down at the screen, I see it’s one of my own security team calling me. “Give me a moment, Lucifer.”
I lift the phone to my ear. “What?”
“They fucking took out the house, Simon. It’s a ball of fire!” he shouts into the phone.
“Terry, who did?” I ask back quickly. “Why are you fucking calling me and not Peter?”
“Peter was finishing up… inside the kitchen. He saw something that spooked him and told us to run. He’s gone, sir! Something blew up the house!”
“Gods below and above,” I hiss out. “Get the truck with the belongings to the warehouse! I’ll put extra security on your tails and they’ll meet up with you.”
“Yes, sir! We’ll try to get there now. There’s a lot of sirens coming our way.”
“Just go!” I shout into the phone before disconnecting it.
“What the hell was that about?” Lucifer asks as he rises from his chair and comes around the desk.
“They took out Cherry’s house and Peter was in it.”
His face goes completely blank as he says, “How?”
“Bomb. Peter tried to do something, but was unsuccessful. He was able to get the security team we had with him out. That’s all I know.”
My phone starts going off again. Glancing down at it, I see it’s the security cameras at my house.
Fuck.
Walking towards the door, I am moving before I even speak back to Lucifer. “My house has movement on the inside. Probably your sister, but I need to check.”
“I’ll send Andrew to get the truck to the warehouse,” Lucifer says to me as he follows behind me.
“I’ll get James over to Cherry’s to play coordinator. He’ll have to speak with the police and the fire department. I’ll have him take a supply of cash to keep people quiet.”
“Good, but if people connect the names of Cherry and Lucky Tails, we won’t be able to contain the mess,” Lucifer says quickly.
“No chance of that. She never had her real name on anything she did at Lucky Tails,” I say, as I rush down the stairs.
“Make sure of that.”
“I’ll try to get to the warehouse tonight if I feel Meredith will be safe.”
“Make sure we put extra security on the warehouse. I don’t want another explosion.”
“Will do. I’ll get Johnathan to bring in some of his old contacts if I can. We need more men and now, Lucifer.”
“Push on the Governor. We need him now.”
“I will,” I say with resignation. “God help me.”
Looking at my phone again, I watch as Meredith moves through the house. She’s searching for a way out. Her movements are hesitant but deliberate. She won’t be able to get out though, not without my help. But I can tell from the damage she did to her bedroom door, she sure as hell will try.
“Simon, this isn’t the Russians,” Lucifer says as we reach his front door.
He grabs me by my arm to turn me towards him.
“No, it’s someone else. We’d know if it was them by now,” I say, nodding to him.
“Find out who it is. I want this over with,” he growls out at me.
“I have an idea I need to hunt down. Give me a bit. Can you get the priest to wait for me?”
“Of course, do what you need. Don’t forget what else I’ve said. If she’s a problem…”
“No, she’s mine,” I say as I pull my arm from his hand, turning to open the door.
“Then keep her ass under control.”
I nod my head. “I plan on it.”
Rushing out to my Escalade, I stop before entering.
Turning back towards the door, I yell to Lucifer, “I’m going to get a bomb squad out to the other men’s houses and wherever we’re most vulnerable.”
“I’ll be keeping the children at home for a while. Perhaps it is time for private tutors,” he says as he shuts the door.
Taking a quick moment, I go through the interior of my car. Then I check the engine and underside of the vehicle. There’s no way someone has had a chance to put one on me, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.
Driving up to the gate, I keep getting buzzes on my phone the entire way out. She’s moving throughout the house. Checking the surveillance, I can see that she is sitting at my computer desk.
As she looks up, I look up at the camera facing the compound’s gate.
“I see you, Meredith,” I say to her.
Turning my attention to the guard, I say, “Inspect every vehicle that comes through these gates. Double guards on the compound from here on out until further notice.”
“Will do, sir.”
Pulling out the gate, I gun the massive engine. I don’t see any movement on the outside of the house. That’s good.
But I need to make sure that she’s safe with my own eyes.
Pulling up to the garage, my eyes scan
around the outside of the house. I see nothing worth my suspicion, but I can’t be too careful.
Stopping outside before I open the garage door, I step out of the car and pull my gun from my hip holster.
A quick tour of the surrounding perimeter of the house shows me nothing out of place. I run the feedback from my computer to my phone and double-check the last twelve hours to see if I’ve had any visitors.
Nothing. Good. I don’t need to be blown up myself.
Walking back to the Escalade, I get it into the garage. Then I take a long moment to center myself.
I’ve seen her moving about the house. I need to be ready for anything.
Stepping out of the Escalade once I feel centered, I walk up to the door and stop again.
One more long moment of peace before the battle doesn’t hurt.
Stepping into the mudroom, I can smell from here the disharmony of her actions. Once I walk into my kitchen, it’s easy to see the evidence. It’s everywhere. Mustard and honey is spread on top of the counters. Sugar and white flour bags have been dumped on the floor. Things like pickles and jelly have been dumped into each other’s containers. All of my silverware and food preparation utensils are scattered about the room in a huge mess.
She’s gone too damn far. Too fucking far.
I walk slowly out of the kitchen and work on untying my tie. Lucifer’s words ringing loudly inside of my head.
Each stair I take sets my body on fire as I head up to my room. She’s in the computer room again and I swear if she has touched my children in that room I will…
I spy her sitting there in front of my monitors.
“Meredith, I know you’re older than me by a couple of years… Don’t you think by now that you should stop acting like a spoiled little brat?!”
10
Meredith
I’m playing my final hand and this could either get me exactly what I want or blow up in my face. From Simon’s fiery eyes and furious expression, I’m more inclined to believe my antics are about to blow up in my face.
But what other option do I have? I’ve tried the doors. None would open. I’ve tried breaking the windows by throwing things at them. The chair bounced back and almost broke me.
