It was mid day when they got to the gallery. The place was just as Gaude had described it: quiet and quaint. It stood between two buildings of smaller statures, and its roof which was flat and square cut a straight line across the sky.Rey and Gaude exited the car and went into the building. There was man at the reception in a blue dress shirt. They told him they were there for Ceneau and he let them up. The elevator made a whirring, electronic noise as it took them up. Gaude filled a large part of the small space with his broad shoulders. They soon found Ceneau at the top of the building. He had his back to them, and he had somehow lost his blazer.How long had the man been there? Reynolds wondered.At the thump of their footsteps in the roof, Ceneau whirled to face them. His tie was missing too. For a man who had a small army of guards ransacking the dirty in search of him, his brother in-law seemed quite at peace with the world."Gentlemen, to what do I owe the pleasure?"Rage,
It was not often that a bridegroom decided against showing up for his own wedding. But at the same time, it was also not very often that people got married for reasons other than love, even if it was merely perceived love and was not true.Mei had arrived at the church at the back of one of the Land rovers the Johns provided when she arrived in the city. She was driven by a female guard, a mountain of a woman, whose hair was cut like a man's. When she overhead the conversation between Kayla and her husband, she’d decided to follow them. Her father complained about this habit of hers often. Her proclivity for following the wind anywhere it led, doing the first thing that came to her mind. It was an inclination she had worked hard to suppress, but when she watched Kayla storm out of the church, she knew going after her was the right decision. Somehow, she just knew.She beckoned to the guard. The woman marched to her. Mei half expected her to salute. "Come," she told her, "I could use
In the elevator, Kayla decided she had to be in a dream. It had to be.She simply could not believe her eyes, or ears. It was the same Ceneau who barely moments ago was so close to biting a chunk out of her face, as much as she wanted to do the same to him. His arm was now linked with Mei's and she stared up at him, lovingly. The woman had once again saved them from a catastrophe of epic proportions. Who would have thought that a person like Mei, simple and unsophisticated for the most part, would act as she did, masterfully using her knowledge of and her feelings for Ceneau to convince him?Kayla blinked and shook her head. 'What in God's name was that?' She asked herself."Cocaine dust," Reynolds whispered to her. He was standing behind her in the elevator, squeezed into a corner to fit in with all their others. His open palm on the swell of her hip was a small comfort."What?" Kayla asked even though she had heard him. The day's chaos made her want to reach back and hold his han
The day could not have gone any better, Hamish thought, suppressing a smirk.He could have sworn that God or whoever was in charge of this shit show called life had a soft spot for him. He had spent weeks feeding Grant with intel, hoping the man with all his hate would make something of it. It turned out that all the man had to his name was that hate. Nothing more. Sad to say, the same applied to his brothers, Sean and Tate. Both were sorry excuses for adversaries. If it were him and not Kayla they had gone after, he would have crushed them before the week was over.All that incompetence and, at the end of the day, it was Ceneau who—even without intending to—threw the family into chaos. If Hamish could see his stepbrother, he could have hugged him.After the call from Mei saying that Kayla was being rushed to the hospital, the wedding guest list quickly morphed, becoming an entourage. The fleet of cars that had graced the wedding raced through the city towards the hospital. Once ag
Kayla woke in the hospital to the news of her pregnancy.She was groggy and tired and she felt as though she had been packed full of anaesthesia. She was attached to a electrocardiogram machine and it beeped. Her heart rate read on the screen in green lines. The room was wholly white like a field of nothingness. The smell of antiseptic permeated the air. Kayla detested hospitals. They smelled unnatural. Insipid and sterile to a fault.After the doctor left her, Rey slipped into the room quietly. He was still wearing his clothes from the wedding, but the hands were rolled up to his elbows. He crouched at the bedside."Hey," he said, hoarsely."Hey there,"He reached out and pushed her hair out of her face gently. His fingers brushed gently against her lips. "You scared me, Kayla," He said. "You had me worried there for a minute, slumping like that. I thought I was losing you."She leaned forward and put her forehead against his, then closed her eyes. Their hearts beat as one."I'm s
When the hospital discharged her later in the day, Lei was waiting to take her home.The Chairman had taken Reynolds to salvage what they could of the wedding and make arrangements for it to be held the next day. She must have dozed off as soon as they hit the road because she woke at home with Lei shaking her arm softly, whispering "Kayla," and she could not remember anything of the trip.Still groggy, she stumbled inside and pulled up short when she found his guard, Jovian, inside. He was cooking, his face calm. The man wore a black turtle neck that stuck to his body and his muscles stood out clearly under the thin, stretched fabric. He was a soldier, by all interpretations of the word, and he looked out of place in her whitewash, silverware kitchen."Ma'am," he said, pausing when he caught sight of her. If Lei was startled, she showed no sign of it. A peek in the pot showed her that he was making veggie garlic noodles.“You didn’t have to do this,” Kayla said.The man gave his v
Somehow Reynolds managed to rouse himself the next morning.After the wild ride in the shower the night before, they retreated to her room and made love again. Reynolds drifted to sleep hoping that he still had enough in him to make it to the wedding by dawn. However, when he woke up, Kayla was gone already, leaving traces of herself with him. Her scent hung in the air like a cloud of moistness. Jasmine and oil of lavender. Reynolds had made sure to place Jovian on her security detail, so he went with her alongside Lei. Knowing that Jovian was with Kayla, knowing what the man was capable of, made Reynolds a tad more comfortable with the idea of her her being around Sean, Tate and Hamish.Reynold sat on the side of her bed and rubbed a hand over his face to clear the last traces of sleep from his consciousness. He had spent most of the night out trying to undo the disaster Ceneau had made of his own wedding. He had managed to secure the venue and appease the priest, but it had tak
Grant Emerson was a shrewd man and he liked this about himself.He had also come to learn in the preceding weeks that Reynolds Sheen was a resourceful man too. Just as resourceful as he was. For days, he had planned how to take the man out quietly without drawing attention until Hamish, that impatient fool decided to rain on his parade with that damn ultimatum of his. The memory of Hamish's words were bile in his throat. 'We agreed that you would take him out, didn't we?' He reserved a special loathing for everything about the man. His tone, his manner of speech, his inflated ego, the way he looked at everyone else form the bridge of his nose as though he was somehow convinced he was a better person that all the rest of them. Grant hoped the day would come when the Johns conglomerate would lie in ruins. His job done, his final act would be to kill the man himself, just for the gratification he would get out of the act. He could almost see it.After the call, he made arrangements t