King finished the espresso, put the empty glass on the kitchen counter and beckoned with a Come on gesture.
Violetta said, ‘No.’
Slater pouted like a child.
King said, ‘You’re no fun.’
‘Forgive me if I don’t want four hundred pounds of muscle coming down on my belly.’
‘We’re not that stupid,’ Slater said.
Violetta cocked her head. ‘Debatable, Will.’
He said, ‘How are you feeling?’
She shrugged. ‘No different yet. It’s a little surreal. It’ll change things. Forever.’
Slater straightened up, realising he was positioned between the couple. ‘I think we need to discuss the next nine months. We’ve been putting it off.’
King jerked a thumb at Violetta and said, ‘We’ve talked. You’re not privy to all our conversations.’
‘That’s a conversation I need to be privy to,’ Slater said. ‘It affects me.’
Violetta nodded.
King said, ‘I never thought I’d be a father. I’m taking it more seriously than you might think.’
Slater said, ‘How’s that?’
‘I’m thinking about going on hiatus for the next year. We both are.’
Slater turned to Violetta. ‘I’d be mad if you still wanted to carry on with business as usual. But him?’
King said, ‘Think about it.’
‘I’m thinking about it.’
Violetta said, ‘We’ve discussed this at length in private. Trust me, it’s for the best.’
Slater said, ‘You expect me to do this on my own?’
‘If you and King go out to fight,’ she said, ‘and you get taken, or wounded… I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I’d go after you. I’d put the baby in danger.’
Slater shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t be that stupid.’
‘Maybe it’s stupid,’ she said. ‘Maybe I love that man beside you too much. But I can’t change the fact that I do. I wouldn’t sit back and let him get tortured and killed if I could do something about it.’
King said, ‘So we’re both out for the duration of the pregnancy.’
Slater shook his head. ‘No you’re not.’
King said, ‘Will…’
Slater looked at him. ‘Trust me. I know you better than anyone. You see someone in trouble, you’re not going to be able to sit back. It’s the same as retirement, and look how well that worked out for us both.’
King said, ‘It’s not retirement. It’s a break. It’ll be easier to cope with if I know I’ll be back in less than a year.’
‘And then you’ll jump back in with a newborn at home? I don’t think so. The same logic applies with a kid. You get compromised in the field, Violetta comes to save you, you both die. Then who looks after the baby?’
Violetta said, ‘You do.’
Slater didn’t respond.
Violetta said, ‘I trust you and Alexis with my life. We both do. If something happens to us, we’d be honoured for you and Alexis to be his parents.’
A poignant silence elapsed, but Slater couldn’t shy away from the questions.
‘What about right now?’ he said. ‘Alexis is out there, doing work. What if she comes back with something?’
‘Then you’ll chase it up,’ King said.
‘What if it takes the both of us?’
King didn’t answer.
A footstep sounded on the villa’s porch.
They all turned.
Alexis stepped inside, her skin a deep bronze. She wore a loose sundress, and her black hair flowed down past her shoulders.
She said, ‘Mickey Ream.’
No one spoke.
‘That’s his name,’ Alexis said. ‘He’s going after Dylan Walcott’s empire.’
3
Slater looked pointedly at King and Violetta, if only to hammer his point home.
They didn’t react.
Alexis took in the room’s atmosphere and said, ‘What’d I walk into?’
Slater said, ‘Actually, you came right on time. Better to discuss this now.’
She grimaced as her mood shifted. He could see the disappearing pride in her eyes, the satisfaction of successfully acquiring intel now dissipated by the dead mood in the villa.
They’d been tracking the aforementioned Mickey Ream for the past week. All they had to work with were scraps of information — an Australian expat causing trouble in Nassau, having fled his criminal past in Queensland to start anew in The Bahamas. Violetta had already found data from his past life in Australia. His real name was Raymond Doyle, but he wasn’t using that identity over here. He was a ghost. He’d come onto their radar almost as soon as they’d touched down in Nassau because he’d gotten reckless. As far as they knew, he was a small-timer running an extortion racket out of coastal bars along the shoreline, with no fixed HQ. But he’d sensed a power vacuum at the top after news of Walcott’s demise spread.
Now he was hunting for the throne.
‘Tell us what happened first,’ Slater said.
Alexis said, ‘He’s a good-looking guy, which helped. It was clear he’d never had trouble with the ladies before — I barely had to look at him before he came onto me. If he was less confident, he wouldn’t have approached, and if I did all the work he would have been suspicious. So I did everything we planned. Sat across the table at his regular brunch spot, ordered the same thing he always did. That was what he first commented on. Our mutual affection for egg burritos. We chatted, he asked if I wanted to sit at his table, I said yes. We chatted some more. I got flirty. He told me his new name, offered to take me to some lobster restaurant tonight. I said it was out of my price range, he said I didn’t have to worry about money, he had plenty. I started prying, but I kept it flirty. He gave away too much. Said he was already very successful, but had something in the pipeline that’d take him to another level. He said he’s moving the pieces into place over the next few days. Said if he pulled it off he wanted to take me to every five-star restaurant on the island. I took him up on the offer, and agreed to a drink tonight at one of the bars he frequents. The one on Bay Street that’s made to look like a speakeasy.’
‘Holt’s Saloon,’ King said.
Alexis nodded. ‘That one. I’ve got a date at
