Page 139 of Convict's Game

Chapter 46

Mila

Bright sunshine hurt my eyes, and I shielded them to scan the road outside my apartment block. He wasn’t here. Convict hadn’t been in the living room when I’d jerked awake, fell off the sofa, knocking a pile of paperwork to the floor, then stumbled blindly to the bedroom. He wasn’t there. Nor the bathroom or anywhere. His car was missing, too.

He’d gone. I finally lost faith in him coming back.

Worse was that I’d overslept and had to rush to throw on clothes and get ready. I’d called my brother, and to my relief, he’d shown up.

Kane opened the car door and gestured for me to get in. “Aren’t ye?—”

I threw myself inside. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He shrugged and slammed the door.

We drove across town to the lawyer’s office without speaking. I jabbed the radio to try to drown out my thoughts. ‘I hope you hate me’ by Dead Poet Society blasted out. I stabbed again at the screen to turn it off.

For weeks, we’d been building up to this moment, except it was meant to be me and Convict, side by side. He’d abandoned me. Hadn’t I caused that? I’d been angry at him. I’d refused togive him what he wanted. I loved him, and he’d left me despite all the promises that he wouldn’t.

My lost boy had done what they always did and returned to his own world.

Tears welled, and I dashed them away.

Thank God my brother didn’t comment on that.

We entered the chilly reception of Cochran Family Solicitors and were shown into a meeting room so thick with people, Kane had to carve a path through.

They argued around us, the noise deafening. Complaints, decisions about how the morning would go.

Like they had a say.

Because of the intricacies of the legal situation, everything needed to happen in a sequence. The will reading came first, hence the long queue of relatives who all wanted their slice of the pie, their voices raised and clamouring for attention. After that was done, we could get on with the meeting that finally decided the future of the business.

If my senses weren’t muted by a wall of pain, it could’ve overwhelmed me.

Yet it felt like a dream, and I was a spirit drifting through it.

With low energy, I scanned the room for my grandmother. She wasn’t here yet, but the Marchant-Smythes and a dozen other family members sat around the polished conference table or stood with their backs to the wall like the world’s greediest peanut gallery.

“Move,” Kane snapped to a couple of people taking up seats at the table they weren’t entitled to.

They grumbled but left. He settled me in one before taking the other himself. In black leggings and one of Convict’s skeleton crew shirts, I was nothing like the woman who used to work so diligently for Marchant Haulage. With all I’d learned andsuspected, I couldn’t bring myself to be her anymore. I’d stared at the smart blouses and pencil skirts but couldn’t choose them.

The version of me who would do anything to save this business no longer existed. I might not have the whole truth, but I was certain of the lies.

A lawyer entered the space, followed by two flunkies. He took a seat directly opposite us. “If we could bring the noise level down, please.”

The buzz of angry chatter simmered.

The lawyer peered over his glasses to take in the attendees.

At the end of the table, a woman lurched to her feet. “In light of the unbearable situation after Austin dying on us, I feel?—”

“Madam, sit down. I will outline the agenda, and if there is a need for input, I will ask for it.” The lawyer shuffled his papers, his annoyance plain.

“You have your agenda, but we are the family who no one thought about for weeks,” she griped. “Listen to me?—”

“Shut it,” Kane intoned.