loch lemach gives zero fucks (cutandthrust) wrote in emillion, |
Loch raised her eyebrows and let out a low whistle. “Well, fuck,” she said. “Starting to think I missed all the fun.” The story explained the guards’ skittishness, and the tough’s attitude. It wasn’t like Loch was a stranger to Ash, and usually her bodyguard or whoever would have just stepped aside, but not tonight. Not on a night when no one knew who the fuck might turn traitor next. She’d known the org wasn’t a big happy family and many opposed Cian―Loch herself had been rooting for Ash to take over when the old bastard had finally kicked the bucket―but this had to be the first time someone had tried to take both of them out in one go. And if she knew Cian at all, whoever the entrepreneurs had been, they’d be regretting their initiative pretty damn soon. “Your soon-to-be-husband hiding in a corner or something?” For a brief minute, she thought Loch was talking about Cian. Then she remembered Phillip, rolled her eyes, and shrugged. “Who the fuck knows. Ci punched him pretty good. Probably turned tail and ran off.” Good riddance, as far as Ash was concerned. She hadn’t thought much about him since shit had gone straight to hell in a handbasket. She’d been more worried about Cian, and pretending that she hadn’t just nearly kicked the damn bucket. Again. “Getting really fucking sick of people trying to take me out,” she muttered, leaning back against the wall. “Where’d loverboy go, anyway?” Loch shrugged. “Probably watching the match somewhere else. I ain’t his keeper.” Long fingers withdrew the cigarette case from a concealed pocket and she frowned. At the door, they’d look about ready to ask her to empty the case and inspect it for some kind of concealed weapon, or poison, or who the fuck knew what kind of amateurish trick from a memstone they’d watched as teenagers. She lit one up and offered the case to Ash. “Curious to know how someone got a gun past your security, though. Bulky weapons are hard to conceal.” “Vanish or an insider. No fucking clue,” she sighed. She was betting on a combination of both, though; Ci thought it was Vanish. All Ash knew was that she was going to have to up security and pull in the reins for a while. A fucking annoyance, but if it kept her alive, she’d do it. She didn’t have a death wish. “I still can’t fucking believe that that motherfucker got me DQ’d. Least he could have done was shot the fucker after we took ‘em to the back. But no, Ci has to prove a fucking point,” she spat. Her answer was distracting her from everything else, and she held on to it. It was almost like she’d flipped a switch - one topic to the next, quick and without segue. But she needed something to anchor her; Ci was in the back, she’d nearly gotten killed, and her fucking gut was still killing her. “For once,” she muttered, “it’d be nice if shit went right.” Ash made no move to take a cigarette, and Loch shrugged and pocketed it again. “Don’t think your overzealous friend in the back’s getting through the night like nothing happened,” she said. “It’ll be bad, and it’ll be known that it was bad. ‘S how you keep others from trying the same thing.” “Hasn’t stopped anyone,” she pointed out. “How many times, in just the last fucking year, has someone tried offing me?” She pushed away from the wall, agitated. “Bitch at the Ring last Leo, Conti, Sforza’s assholes, and now Marek and Tybir. That’s not even counting the fucking bastards that keep trying to off me in my Faram-damned sleep.” She ticked each one off on her fingers. “Whole lot of fucking good him shooting Marek in the fucking leg is going to do me.” |