Chapter 10: That same day: Finding Little Miss Red

CHAPTER 10

MIKI

THAT SAME DAY – FINDING LITTLE MISS RED

A fter leaving Marko at the hotel to continue collating information on Mathieson, Vlad and I headed off to our meeting with Jim MacArthur.

Since Vlad drove, I sat back and shut my eyes, intending to go over the proposition I was about to discuss with Jim in my head. Instead, the minute I closed my eyes, all I could think about was her; the hot little Scottish lass I was longing to see again.

She'd haunted my dreams all night and as soon as I woke up this morning, I checked in with Marko, desperate for any information he had on her. Thankfully, he'd been hard at it, and now I had not only an address for Little Miss Red, but a name too.

Smiling, I turned her name over in my head; Eilidh Campbell. Very Scottish. I liked it. It fit her well.

While I knew I couldn't get involved in anything long term with the little siren, another brief encounter wouldn't hurt. My cock leapt, making its agreement of that idea known. Eilidh Campbell had information I wanted and when I saw her again, I planned on getting it, but I also planned on taking full advantage of the opportunity and stealing more kisses.

Hell yeah! My libido practically screamed at me as my cock hardened at the thought. I definitely wanted to get another chance to explore Little Miss Red's lips again, along with anywhere else she might let me explore. I had thoroughly enjoyed our brief encounter, and I was sure that the little taste I had of her could be the start of something amazing if we had the chance.

Unfortunately, if anything happened, it could only be a temporary liaison. She was obviously a local while I lived in London. I was a Bratva Pakhan with a lot to deal with and she was, well, I did not know what she was, but unfortunately, it didn't really matter. I had already established that I didn't have time for a relationship, and if I ever found the time, I would have to be careful who I built one with.

Being the head of a Mafia organisation meant that whomever I became involved with would need to be someone I could not only be happy with, but someone I could trust implicitly. My life, my family's life and the rest of the Brotherhood would depend upon it.

It was just such a pity that my Little Miss Red, the only woman ever to have stirred my emotions and set my libido on fire, wasn't someone I could pursue. Disappointment flooded me. That was fucking depressing.

But that didn't mean we couldn't have a brief fling. That thought sent my spirits soaring. My cock jerked in approval, liking the idea as much as me.

"Almost there," Vlad said, breaking into my daydreams.

As we pulled up to the small country pub where our meeting was taking place, I pushed all thought of Little Miss Red and our next encounter aside. I'd let myself think more about the sexy lass later; in the meantime, I had an important meeting with Jim MacArthur to get through, and I needed to concentrate.

A couple of Jim's men greeted us at the entrance to the pub and frisked us.

We might be considered friends, but that didn't mean security would be lax. The MacArthur gang hadn't got as far as they had and been around as long as they had without being both well-organised and careful. That was the main reason we liked working with them, so I could hardly take exception when they continued to display the level of caution I expected from them.

Once the preliminaries were out of the way, we were escorted inside. The pub was empty except for a man behind the bar, Jim MacArthur, and his two sons, who were sitting at a table in the middle of the room, each with a glass of whiskey in front of them.

Vlad and I shook hands with the men before sitting down.

"Bring us another bottle of the good stuff!" Jim shouted to the barman, and he came over with a bottle of Macallan and poured us each a dram. Vlad shook his head.

"Not for me. I'm driving," he said.

"What can I get you?" the barman asked.

"Water's fine," Vlad replied.

When we all had drinks in front of us, Jim lifted his.

"To friends," he said, and clanked his glass with mine as we downed the amber coloured nectar inside.

God, that was good! I wasn't a big whiskey fan, preferring my native vodka, but I did like Macallan with its smooth, sweet taste.

"How are Lisa and the grandkids?" I asked.

Jim's daughter Lisa had just had twin girls, and he was over the moon about it. They were his first grandkids, and he had a tendency to brag about them whenever we talked. So, I knew that chatting about them would relax him and his boys, and make them even more receptive to our negotiations.

"Bloody beautiful! All three are doing well. I'll show you their pictures," Jim said, beaming as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"Now you've done it," Jamie, Jim's eldest lad said, smirking.

"Yeah, once you get him started on those babies, you'll never get him to stop," Drew, his youngest, said, groaning.

"They're all we ever hear about these days," Jamie agreed.

"You'd think he had nothing else to talk about," Drew stated, smirking.

"Shut it!" Jim said, elbowing him.

"Ouch! That hurt!" Drew said, grabbing his stomach in mock pain.

"See, now that he has other babies to coo over, he couldn't care less about us!" Jamie said in an exaggerated sorrowful tone, his eyes full of mirth.

"You're thirty! You haven't been a baby in a long time," Jim laughed and shook his head.

Their good-natured ribbing brought a smile to my face. They were a close family, just like mine, and that was one reason I felt an affinity with this gang.

"Besides, if you want me to coo over you, get the hell on with finding a wife and making me some more grand weans, and I will be more than happy to coo over them, and you!" he said to Jamie, giving Vlad and I a wink.

"Nae chance!" Jamie huffed, looking almost horrified at the thought.

Drew sniggered at his brother.

"You, too!" Jim said, sounding more serious this time.

That shut the pair up, and I bit back a laugh.

"Anyway, I was about to show you the grand weans," Jim said, ignoring his boys and opening his phone.

Vlad and I spent the next ten minutes smiling and nodding as he showed us every photograph he had of the ‘weans'.

Apparently, they were two of the most beautiful babies there ever was. They just looked like any other babies to me, but I took his word for it.

Despite their words to the contrary, it was easy to see both of his sons were just as enamoured by the newest members of their family, if their own cooing over the twins was anything to go by.

When the photographs finally dried up, our talk turned to business and the reason for the meeting.

"What did you think of the proposals?" I asked as Jim poured us another whiskey.

We'd worked with the MacArthur gang for years and they'd proved trustworthy. In fact, Jim had run the Scottish side of our drugs route since before my folks died, but his involvement stopped just at the border with England, where my guys took over.

I was hoping to persuade him to expand into the English side as far as Manchester, where another of our allies could assume control. Hence the reason for our visit.

I'd already sent my proposals to him overnight to look at, so I didn't need to go over everything today. This was more a time of questioning and deliberation to determine if expansion was possible for him.

Jim nodded slowly and his eyes turned shrew before he answered.

"It seems like a good proposition, but we'd need to discuss the logistics more, and the other players, both in situ and the ones you hope to bring into play," he said, sipping his drink. Gone was the doting grandad of earlier, and he was all business now.

Negotiations got underway in earnest after that and about an hour later, Jim and his lads excused themselves to go talk in the backroom. It was a big proposition, but one I felt they were ready for, otherwise I wouldn't have offered them the opportunity.

"Do you think they'll accept?" Vlad asked.

"I think they'd be fools not to, given that Jim's sons are both old enough now to take on more responsibility and they already run this side of things. They certainly have enough men to control the route and with their knowledge of everything, it's less of a learning curve for them than it would be for another player," I replied.

"Besides, if we offload the English side of things from Manchester upward to anyone else, they need to work with the new people too, and that is a hit and miss. No, I believe Jim will do his utmost to secure this expansion for himself."

Vlad nodded his agreement and sipped his water. Pouring myself another shot of whiskey, I thought things through once more. My proposal was a good one and Jim would accept it. I was confident about that.

Of course, it wasn't without problems, but the MacArthur gang was already well versed in dealing with those, anyway. Expanding their operation with our help really shouldn't cause them anymore issues.

Bringing drugs into the UK was a dangerous business, so we utilised several methods of transport, changing them regularly to avoid detection. We also had various points of entry, all of which were scattered around the south of England. However, once they entered the UK, they were moved through London, then on to Manchester and distributed to the rest of the UK from there.

My Brotherhood ran all the operations until the Scottish border, where Jim took over, the Welsh border where another gang took control, and Liverpool, where the Irish Mafia then transported them over to Northern Ireland and then into Eire.

That meant I needed to dispose of everything until those points. I hoped that today would see the start of that.

Jim and the lads returned wearing grins.

"We'll see how it goes with the first three shipments and if there are no issues, you've got yourself a deal, Miki, lad," Jim said, shaking my hand.

My stomach churned with excitement, and I grinned widely, relishing the thought that my dreams were finally underway.

To seal the deal and celebrate our closer union, Jim ordered some vodka, and we downed a shot together. Its taste exploded in my mouth, and my mind immediately flashed to the memory of a kiss which had done the same thing.

Suddenly, I had an overwhelming desire to share my news with my Little Miss Red. Dismissing the idea as foolishness, I told myself to get a grip and turned my attention back to the MacArthurs.

With the business out of the way, we discussed Mathieson a bit more.

"He's as corrupt as they come, and bloody smart with it. The polis cannae pin anything on the slimy wee git," Jim told me, his accent becoming thicker the more he drank.

"That's because he's got so many of them in his pocket!" Jamie said.

"Yeah, rumour has it that the DCI himself is one of Mathieson's men," Drew added.

Interesting!

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Detective Chief Constable Roy Allen. If the rumours are true, he's been working with Mathieson and the Thomas gang for years. Since so much of the evidence against them is lost or destroyed. I'd say that was likely true," Drew further clarified.

"He's not averse to planting evidence for Mathieson, either. That's how several of our men are rotting in jail right now," Jamie told me.

We continued to talk about Mathieson and his pet police officer a bit more before it was finally time to leave, and we said our goodbyes.

Back at the hotel, I called Ash to check on things in London and quickly updated him on my productive meeting with Jim. Ash had everything under control. Simpson was under twenty-four-hour surveillance, and Marko's guys had hacked his phone and email to ensure he didn't double-cross us and warn Mathieson that we were on to him.

The rest of the afternoon I worked on my laptop answering emails and looking over reports, but I couldn't stop my thoughts from drifting to Little Miss Red and wondering what her reaction would be when I sneaked into her house tonight.

Hopefully, despite the unorthodox entrance I had planned, she'd be amenable to providing me with whatever information she had on the guy.

We'd played back the video from the break in and saw exactly what she'd done. Breaking into Mathieson's safe was impressive. Little Miss Red had skills.

She certainly does! The little voice in my head agreed, making me smirk.

My mind took me back to the encounter we had, and I licked my lips in anticipation of spending more time with the hot little Scottish lass I was longing to taste again.

My daydream was just getting to a good bit when Marko mumbled, "Shit!"

"What is it?" I asked as his curse pulled me from my thoughts.

"Your Little Miss Red is a cop!" he stated, sounding shocked.

"What?" I asked, looking at him sharply. He was kidding, right?

"Yep, a cop, one of Police Scotland's finest," he said, a grin spreading across his face.

Shit! A cop? Surely not?

"You were kissing a cop!" he teased, waggling his eyebrows at me.

"No, I wasn't," I said, glaring at him. Not believing him. He had to be teasing me.

He laughed.

"Oh yes, you were. And loved every second. We heard you, remember?" he teased me again, grinning and making stupid kissing sounds which reminded me of Sonia.

I sighed, trying to stop my lips from twitching at his stupid antics. Sometimes I wondered if I was the only grownup in my family.

"What's going on?" Vlad asked, emerging from his bedroom where he'd gone for a nap.

"That woman Miki was kissing is a cop," Marko said.

"He's kidding," I told Vlad, desperate for it to be true.

"Nope," Marko replied, shaking his head, and his wide grin showed just how much he was enjoying this. Little shit!

"Meet the newly promoted Detective Constable Eilidh Campbell," he said, as he turned his laptop to face us with a flourish.

"Shit!" Vlad said, voicing my thoughts.

Aw hell. It was true. There on the screen was my Little Miss Red, wearing a police uniform!

That sexy little kisser was a cop?

I couldn't believe it.

No other woman made my body react the way she did. I bit back the bitter sting of utter disappointment. Getting involved with a cop was not on my to-do list, not now, not ever. In my line of business, it was a dangerous move. Cops were the enemy. Okay, some, the bent ones, were useful obviously and you might do business with them, but you didn't fuck them.

Any idea I had of fooling around with Little Miss Red while I was here in Glasgow was out of the question now. Damn it.

Fuck my life!

"So, what do you think a detective constable was doing breaking into Aiden Mathieson's office?" Marko asked.

"No idea. I guess that is another question for Little Miss Red to answer when I visit her tonight," I stated in response.

"You're still going?" he asked incredulously.

"Hell yeah," I replied.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Vlad questioned me, the look on his face showing he thought I was making a big mistake.

"She still has information which could be of use to us. We don't know why she was there, but her actions were not normal for a detective. So, either she was looking into Mathieson unofficially, or she's a bent cop. Whichever it is, the little siren was there illegally, just like us. It can't hurt to ask what she knows. She doesn't know who I am, and I'll keep my balaclava on to ensure it remains that way," I replied.

"She's police. It's too big a risk," Marko argued.

"What's she going to do, arrest me and risk me telling her secret? No, it won't be an issue. Getting her to share any information might be, however, but it's worth a shot," I told him, making it clear I'd made up my mind.

"If you say so," Marko mumbled unhappily.

Anger filled me, and narrowing my eyes, I shot him one of my death stares. He was becoming as annoying as Ash.

It was rare for me to have to justify myself as Pakhan. My argument was the truth. I wanted to know what she had on Mathieson and if it was of any use to us.

And you need to see her again! A little voice in my head said, but I refused to acknowledge its presence. No good would come of thinking such thoughts. My visit was business. Purely business!