Page 82 of How to Kill Your Rival

They’re just a little skewed.

I send over our files, and we sit in silence for a long time. Scanning through data, photographs, and maps for the most likely spots to hunt for my brother.

Alive.

I think about Fraser strapped to a chair somewhere. And Eddie as nothing but bone fragments in a field. His last journey through a pig’s rectum had been so fitting. But not at Fraser’s expense.

You were defending Maggie.

But I could have played the aftermath differently.

I have seven days.

I’m going to use every one of them, even if it means killing every last Stewart in the business.

‘The Kavanaghs keep showing up,’ James says eventually. ‘They’ve been using Declan’s infrastructure to get into everything. Which means Declan knows plenty about how the Stewarts are operating. Which means⁠—’

‘Which means we start with Declan.’ I run my fingers over my knife, strapped to my thigh, when I hastily dress. Declan has always been a slimy go-between with his fingers in Death Council business, never truly with one family, but playing his odds to try to stay with whoever is doing well. And whoever will pay him best.

‘We start with Declan,’ he says.

26

JAMES

The tip comes in at half-nine at night. After a day of chasing down leads to locate Declan.

Every single one seems to lead to a dead end. Which is extra frustrating when the clock is ticking down, minute by minute, on Fraser’s life.

Unless they’ve killed him already.

I try not to let that thought take hold. Can’t go into a rescue mission thinking it’s a body retrieval.

Terrible for morale.

Eliza reads it and is on her feet, grabbing her things before I can get a look at what she’s seen.

‘Stirling. Let’s go.’

Twenty minutes later, we are on the road. Seventeen minutes of that were spent convincing Maggie that she can’t come. That she and Roman need to stay and keep Evan and Mum from finding out until we have answers.

I eventually persuaded them to keep the investigation going from the mansion as a base, and to feed us information on the strict proviso that we keep them updated.

Our drive to Stirling is tense. Eliza stares straight ahead, tight-lipped, her fingers grazing the outline of her knife in her cargo pants’ pocket. She tends to prefer dresses, knowing how they work in her favour to stupefy men. But the combats make her look all the more ferocious. She’s not here to trick and mollify; she’s here to extract and kill.

Every time I try to find the right thing to say, I bite my tongue. What can I say? Give her shallow promises that everything’s okay? No. Not for Eliza. She’d think I was patronising her.

So we drive in silence. Only the hum of traffic as our theme tune.

* * *

Pale-yellow pebbledash covers the exterior of the lonely house as we stand outside, having parked a way off and walked. Always best not to have anyone passing note down number plates. A rusted Vauxhall sinks slowly into the front garden, wheels as flat as pancakes and weeds climbing its wheels like zombies pulling it to its death. Orange light glows through a tatty curtain, and I’m hopeful that it’ll mean Declan is home. And alone.

Eliza doesn’t knock.

She presses on the back door handle, and I shake my head when it swings open. There might be a pastime of leaving your doors unlocked up here, but not when you’re in our business. Not when you’re trying to help dickheads take down the fucking Hamiltons.

Declan is in the kitchen eating Coco Pops. Standing over the sink, spoon halfway to his mouth, his T-shirt stained with what looks like days-old chocolate milk.