Page 71 of Cruel Games

I looked at the back of the banquet hall. On the final row sat Sammy, Nichelle, and Billy Fucking Hancock. Each of them looked like they wanted to skin me alive.

Chapter 25

Every ounce of blood drained from my face, and I swayed on my feet, fighting the urge to vomit.

I would have asked how they had found me. Mother wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to arrange for Mr. Burgh to hide me from her violent, jailbird husband only to tell him my location. And I couldn’t see either Sammy or Billy Hancock getting the information out of Ms. Reddy from social services.

No, there was a reason why they knew I was in Scotland, and why they knew to find me in Glasgow, in the Glasgow City Chambers, and on this precise date.

That wretched Elizabeth Liddell had known all along about Sammy. She had called him a pedophile because someone had told her I’d moved in with him when I was nearly fifteen. But I never would have guessed she would tell him where to find me to exact his revenge.

The bloody bitch.

Sammy looked gaunt, as though his time in hospital had robbed him of half his vitality. That or the stab wound.

I clenched my jaws. Why wasn’t he in prison or on remand? Had he told the police I had been the cannabis grower?

His gaze swept down my body, and he bared his teeth in the kind of growl that meant he wanted to eat me alive. This time, I didn’t think it was going to be in the way I used to enjoy.

I let my gaze skip over Nichelle, who was more than welcome to Sammy, and focused on the man who had terrorized my childhood.

Prison had honed Billy Hancock into something harder than he had been when I’d arranged his arrest. Gone were the round cheekbones and bulky frame, replaced by cheeks sunken in like bodybuilders, along with the hard, muscled body of a man trained to kill with his bare hands.

A shudder ran down my spine. I was beyond screwed.

“Lilah,” hissed Maeve. “You’re blocking the line.”

Her words were the jolt in the heart that got me moving again. I spun on my heel and power-walked back to the stage.

If the First Minister of Scotland was here and the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, it guaranteed the existence of an army of plain-clothed police officers in the banqueting room to protect them. Jimmy and Sammy had to know this, which was why no one had dragged me off by the hair.

Yet.

The rush through the changing rooms was a blur. I lost sight of Elizabeth and her stolen wedding dress. The rancid cow had probably disappeared so I couldn’t get myself a police escort out of the building by being arrested for beating her to death.

I threw off my dress, pulled back my hair, and threw on a pair of jeans I’d bought on a Glasgow weekend, a pullover, boots, and my winter coat.

“What’s wrong?” asked Maeve.

My trembling hands rifled through the contents of my case. I shoved aside the sheath dress I planned on wearing to the Glaswegian Hotel restaurant, placed my mobile in my pocket, while my mind scrambled to determine a way out.

Billy Hancock would have placed men on all the exits. There was no way I would leave the building without getting snatched. A shudder ran down my spine at the thought of the single threat Billy made to me if I ever misbehaved.

He wouldn’t stab me. Wouldn’t shoot me. Wouldn’t kill me with his bare hands.

He would feed me to his dogs.

“Get out,” screeched the voice of an old woman. “No members of the public allowed.”

Adrenaline lanced through my heart and exploded into sparks of cold panic. “Shit.”

“Lilah?” Maeve whined.

I turned around, grabbed her by the shoulders, and gave her a hard shake. “Stop calling out my name. I’m in deep shit.”

Her eyes widened, and her mouth clicked shut.

I said, “If anyone asks where I’ve gone, tell them I went to the ladies’ room. Alright?”