“Your son?”
“Don’t play dumb. This is not a game. You sent his decapitated head to Mr Carver along with pictures of his wife’s affair.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Did we?”
He threw his hands up.
“Look, you can sit here and deny your involvement all you want. We know what you’ve done whether or not there is proof.”
I sat back and tapped my fingers on the table.
“Is that why you came alone? You don’t have evidence we were involved in any of the things you and Stuart have accused us of. We’re innocent until proven guilty, Commissioner. You, of all people, should know that. So tell me, are you here to arrest us for a crime you have evidence for or did you just want a little chinwag?”
He slammed his hand down on the table, making Prescott jump.
“You killed my son. I can’t prove it, but I know you did.”
There we had it. The real reason he’d come in person. He wanted to look us in the eye and see if we’d admit or deny it. The thing was, we didn’t kill Mason, we’d just covered it up for our girl. Just like we’d made sure Penn covered up the man we’d made her kill. There was no fucking way we would ever allow our girl to be arrested for any of this shit. We’d always been thorough when it came to killing and knew exactly how to get away with it.
“I’d bet you’d love to pin it on us,” Francis said, giving Garrett a cold, hard stare. “Just like you tried to pin Stuart’s kids disappearing on four sixteen-year-olds who witnessed their best friend almost die.”
Garrett didn’t look cowed at all by Francis’ statement, but his expression turned grim.
“What happened to that girl was a tragedy. It doesn’t change the fact you had it out for the twins and are the only ones with motive.”
“That girl, huh?” Prescott interjected. “She has a name. I’m pretty sure you’re fully aware of it.”
I gave him a look, but Prescott ignored me, continuing to stare at Garrett with disgust written all over his features
“Scarlett.”
Prescott gave him a sweet smile and his gaze fell on Francis, who picked up a photo from the pile of documents in front of him and slid it across the table towards Garrett. It took a minute for him to pull it closer and stare down at it. His eyes narrowed. It was the photo of him standing over her bedside with Stuart.
“You remember when that was taken, don’t you?” Francis asked with a hint of reproach in his voice.
Garrett said nothing.
“Well, let me enlighten you.” Francis slid another photo across the table, showing Garrett and Stuart in low conversation near Scarlett’s bed. “You being there shouldn’t raise any eyebrows, but him? Well, he should never have been anywhere near her.”
Garrett looked up at us then, after eyeing the second photograph.
“This proves nothing.”
“Are you going to deny you knew he took her?”
We’d always planned to turn this around on him, but they were meant to let me lead the conversation. Clearly, Francis and Prescott weren’t in the mood for placating the Police Commissioner. No, they wanted to go on the offensive.
“Because if you are, we have plenty more proving you not only knew he took Scarlett, but you also aided him in stealing her from the hospital and made sure no one ever found out where she went.”
Francis slid more of the pages he held across the table. Garrett made no move to take them. Mason had quite the damning evidence against Stuart and his father. We weren’t going to show our full hand, but we had enough here to get him to back off. At least, that was the aim, anyway.
“What do you want?”
I smiled and leant forward.
“We all know Stuart will never stop coming after us. He wants us dead and no doubt if he does succeed, you’ll make sure he’s never prosecuted for it.”
Garrett didn’t acknowledge my statement, but it was the truth. He wouldn’t allow his best friend to go to prison after all the shit he’d done. He was just as embroiled in the sordid affair as Stuart. They were as bad as each other. Too many fucking skeletons in their cupboards.
“You have as much to lose as he does if any of this becomes public knowledge.” I waved at the pages in front of us. “We’ll keep this from coming out provided you turn a blind eye to what happens next.”
He looked down at the pages. Then he pulled out a chair and took a seat, steepling his fingers together.
“This is blackmail.”
I shrugged.
“You didn’t come here today as the Commissioner. If you had, it would have raised a lot of eyebrows. This is personal for you, just as it is for us.”
He pulled the rest of the documents towards him and rifled through them. The more he read, the more incensed he looked. We had pages upon pages proving he’d helped Stuart kidnap Scarlett. How he’d covered up everything Stuart had done. How he’d made sure the site where Scarlett’s accident happened was kept cordoned off until the developers went bankrupt. We knew who owned the land and the surrounding buildings now, after doing a little research. No doubt that was a deal Garrett made in exchange for turning a blind eye to money laundering.
I almost shook my head. I hadn’t cared about that fucking site until recently. To be honest, I wanted to forget it ever existed, considering it was an ugly reminder of the worst night of my life. Discovering it was owned by none other than Zayn Villetti put a whole new spin on things.
Everyone liked to think the mafia wasn’t a big thing in this country, but they kept a low profile. Knowing the Met Police Commissioner was likely in bed with the kingpin himself, Gennaro Villetti… well… it was obvious how they flew under the radar now.
Garrett leant back a moment later, staring down at the table for a long moment before he met my eyes.
“You’re asking me to turn a blind eye to what, exactly?”
“What we do about Stuart.”
He tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair.
“I don’t owe you any loyalty.”
“No, but you do want to keep your job, don’t you?”
If he had been any other man, we would have butchered him to get him out of our way. We didn’t kill members of the police force. That was just asking for trouble. It took enough coordination to kill a normal citizen and not get caught. It would be infinitely more difficult to kill an officer of the law and get away with it.
“We’re fair men, Commissioner. We understand betraying your lifelong friend is no easy matter, but you would be stripped of your position and go to prison for all of this. Do you really want to destroy the reputation of the force?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, but I knew I had him there. Besides, if he refused, we would go public with not only this but everything else. We would ruin his reputation for good. We could do that to Stuart too, but we wanted him dead. He deserved it after the way he’d treated Scarlett.
Garrett stood up and straightened his sleeves. His eyes went to me again.