He’s cocky, and that comes from somewhere that isn’t fear. He has someone powerful in his corner. If it’s Mike and my mother he’s in cahoots with, my father and I have a plan for dealing with them in play, but Martina is another story. One knife in a hand does not make an enemy in Martina’s circle. It just makes a punishment or a show. I need to lock down a firm agreement with Martina. I reach into my pocket and remove my phone, doing a search and then dialing the restaurant Martina owns. I’m forced to leave a message with someone I think might be his sister, my brother’s bedmate.
Returning my phone to my pocket, I drum my fingers on the table and think about that recording I have of my brother and how cocky and unaffected he is by it. My lips thin with realization. He doesn’t believe I’ll use it, but him believing I will protects Emily and the company, a situation I need to remedy now. Launched into action, I push to my feet, on a mission to find Derek, heading to the library to find it empty, and then down the hallway to the garage, I enter just in time to find him backing out. Cursing, I make a fast path to the foyer and exit to the driveway, where the garage door has lifted. Stalking forward, I meet Derek’s Porsche as it exits, walking right up to the driver’s door and knocking on the window.
He halts the vehicle and rolls the window down. “Miss me already?” he asks dryly.
I press my hands on the window’s edge, leaning in and crowding him. “You think I won’t use that tape recording.”
“You don’t want me dead.”
“That might be true,” I say, “but I want Emily alive more than I want you alive.” I shove off of the car. “Checkmate, Derek.”
“Checkmate?” He laughs. “I’ll give you Emily, mostly because I enjoy watching you get owned by that woman, but not the company. That game isn’t over. It’s mine, and you’ll figure that out soon.” He revs his engine and pulls away.
Hands settling on my hips, I watch his car depart, confident for now that I’ve set the boundaries that protect Emily. What I didn’t do was check what could be his dangerous alignment with someone else. But I will, I think, and repeating his statement, I murmur, “Soon, brother.”
“Shane.”
At the sound of Emily’s voice, I turn to find her on the porch, her wrap and hair lifting around her body as she moves toward me in a sudden gust of wind. And damn if she doesn’t look like that butterfly Derek had called her, her delicate wings spread wide. But she’s not weak. She is many things, but never, ever weak. She is strong. Beautiful. Confident. She is passionate in all that she does and believes in. Translation: too damn good for this house and my family. My desire to get her out of here is reignited.
I take several steps, helping her close the space between us, and then she is in front of me, the sweet floral scent of her teasing my nostrils and promising an escape that includes her soft sighs and softer skin. My hands go to her waist, hers flattening on my chest. “I heard what happened with Derek just now. I’m not blood, Shane. I can’t ask you to put me before your family, and I don’t expect you to. If I need to leave, I won’t like it, but I can. I will.”
“You won’t,” I say, cupping her head. “You won’t leave and you’re already first.” It’s a declaration I seal with a kiss, my tongue licking into her mouth, a deep, dark hunger clawing at me, a need that only she can answer, and I want that answer sooner than later. I release her, lacing her fingers with mine and leading her to the Bentley parked in the driveway, opening the door for her.
She moves to climb inside, but I sense torment in her, and I pull her to me, my hand sliding around the back of her neck, our lips close. “I need you here. Don’t forget that.” I drag her mouth to mine and kiss her. “Now, let’s go home. Okay?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Please.”
We ease apart, but just as she’s about to climb inside the vehicle, the door to the house opens, and we both turn to find my mother stepping out onto the porch. She halts there, arms crossed in front of her, unmoving, in just the right spot to hide in the shadows, but I can feel the jagged edges of her emotions. I can sense she needs something from me right here and now. But I need something from her as well, and I don’t know what that is. Perhaps a confession of her betrayal of this family? Or not. I don’t know what I need, and maybe she doesn’t know what she needs from me. She starts walking, but not toward us. She crosses the driveway and walks toward the lawn, and I follow her steps, watching as she fades in and out of the shadows, her destination the swing I often favored as a child. Where she pushed me and sang to me. At a time when we were normal, or at least we did a hell of a lot better job at faking it than we do now.
Emily’s hand comes down on my arms. “You should go to her.”
A proper son would, I think, and I’ve always been that son. But maybe there’s more of my family’s blood running through my veins than I want to admit, because I don’t move, nor do I have any desire to move. I seem to be done being the “good” brother, and the last thing I need to do right now is rehumanize a family who has no humanity.
“Shane—”
“Let’s go,” I say, turning to Emily. She searches my face, her eyes narrowing in surprise at what she finds in mine.
I don’t know what that is, and I’m not sure I want to know, but whatever the case, it silences any insistence she might have that I join my mother. She slides into the car and I shut the door, rounding the rear of the Bentley, reminded of my father gifting it to me for saving the company once before. I didn’t want the gift. I didn’t want to be here. I’d wanted to save, and reunite, my family. Now my biggest fear is that reunion will be in death, which is exactly why I don’t look toward that swing again, and to the fairy tales of the past that stir emotions I can’t afford.
Opening the door, I slide onto the soft leather and inhale the sweet scent that is so naturally Emily, but when I am about to start the engine, I am slammed with her silent, forceful disapproval. Sighing, I look in her direction to find her watching me, and I don’t even have to ask what’s on her mind. “Anything my mother will say to me right now will be a lie I don’t want to hear.”
“She was shaken when I tried to talk to her. Deeply shaken.”
“Of course she’s shaken. She’s replaced her husband, and my father, in the bedroom, and most likely intends to extend that to our boardroom.”
“As confusing as this is for you,” she says, “you have to know it’s not that simple. Sometimes when people are hurt and grieving, they do things to survive.”
I start the engine. “I’m trying to make sure we do more than survive.” I face forward and reach for the gear.
Emily’s hand settles on mine. “Just know this. She loves him. I see it in her face.”
Love.
The meaning of which I wouldn’t know, if not for Emily. I damn sure didn’t learn it from this family. I put the car in drive and get us out of here before the quicksand that is my family traps us in hell with them. Pulling us around the house and down the driveway, we’re just exiting the property when I note the black sedan one block down, a light flickering in the dark window, which I believe to be a cigarette. Logically, that could be a stranger who doesn’t know us or care about us, or it’s one of Seth’s men who I know are following us, but in this case it’s not. It’s someone else, and my gut says that someone else is a Martina minion, and he’s monitoring Adrian’s investment in this family.
I turn us onto the road and glance at the rearview mirror to find the car’s lights flickering to life. It pulls away from the curb, and we’re officially being followed. Removing my phone from my pocket, I dial Seth. “Talk to me,” I order.
“About your text related to your father’s treatment or the car following you?”
“Both.”
“I’ll have news on your father’s medical status in the next ten minutes,” he says. “We’re about to breech the hospital’s servers. The car following you is driven by one of Martina’s men, who doesn’t seem to care that we know he’s there, which reads like a
message to me from Martina. He’s here. He’s watching. He’s waiting.”
“That’s exactly what this is,” I say. “Call me when you know about my father.” I end the connection and look at Emily. “Seth will know the truth about my father’s treatment by the time we get home.”
“That’s good,” she says. “That’s really good.”
But the fact that a drug cartel minion is following us home is not. It’s a detail that would scare her, despite the fact that she’d put on a brave mask and say it doesn’t, when she was already running and afraid when I met her. I want to protect her. I want to make her feel safe. I just need to end this hell with the cartel and tell her it’s over, once and for all. And I need to do it quickly, by whatever means necessary.
CHAPTER FOUR
EMILY
I don’t push Shane to talk during the short ride downtown to our apartment. I understand him well enough to know that he’s waiting on Seth’s call, battling inner demons he must first name before he can even think of defeating them. It’s something I know well from the many demons that consumed me after my father’s death. And Shane’s demons are clearly holding the same emotional blade on him that mine had on me, ready to cut him deeper and deeper if he lets them, with the worst demon of all, the one coming to claim his father: death. No, I amend silently. It’s not the worst. Guilt is the worst. All the guilt you put on yourself for everything you should have, could have, might have done differently with the person but can’t now.
I sigh, and sink deeper into the leather seat of the Bentley, letting the demon-filled silence speak to me, letting Shane speak to me. Because the truth is that, despite his silence, I do not feel shut out at all. Not when he allows his emotions to whisper darkly in the air, viciously taunting him and me with the way they affect him. Speaking to me in a way he would let them speak to no one else, and I am eager for that moment when we will be naked and next to each other as he’s promised. When I know I will fully understand what he is feeling and, then soon after, what he is thinking.
An eternity later, it seems, though it is only minutes, we turn into the parking garage of the Four Seasons, and Shane wastes no time finding us a parking spot in the private residence section. He kills the engine and we’re about to exit when his cell phone rings, and I swear every muscle in my body tenses, my nerves on edge with whatever news it will hold. Shane answers it, and almost immediately I surmise from a few words that again he’s speaking with Seth, who is not only the man who sees to our protection, but the man I know will have answers about Shane’s father’s treatment.
The communication is short, with Shane querying, “And?” and then: “Are you sure?” Neither of which tells me much. Finally, he says, “Make sure,” before he ends the call and slides his phone back into his pocket. But rather than turning to me, or getting out of the car, his hands settle on the steering wheel, and those demons of his aren’t whispering now. They’re shouting. Actually, I’m pretty sure they’re holding knives and jabbing them in his chest and mine right along with it. “What happened?”
“The treatment program is real,” he says, without looking at me, his voice a tight band. “But the success rate isn’t eighty percent. It’s twenty. Seth had the records hacked to indicate eighty, to ensure that if Derek or Mike investigates, they feel like my father is going to make it.”
Oh yeah. Knives in the chest, all right. “Shane—”
“I need out of this car and garage,” he says, popping his door open. “I’ll come around and get you.” He doesn’t wait for a reply, exiting the Bentley.
I don’t wait on him. I don’t bother with my wrap, opening my door, and I’m on my feet, shutting it again by the time he’s standing in front of me, his expression stark, shadows clouding his gray eyes. We stand there, seconds ticking by, neither of us speaking or moving, his tormented emotions standing between us like one of those demons, and I hold my breath, waiting for his cue to what he needs or wants right now, afraid he will push me away.
“Come,” he finally says, his voice a rough, gravelly tone, his arm wrapping around my waist as he sets us in motion toward the lobby, our hips aligned, his instinct, thankfully, to keep me close, not push me away. So much so, in fact, that he holds on to me as we enter the garage elevator, and I have this sense he’s holding on to me to protect me. As if he feels like I’ll be gone soon too, and this affects me. Because he cares about me. Because he’s hurting and I want to take away his pain. There are so many things I want to ask him and say to him right now, but I know this isn’t the time or place. I’m not even sure this night is the right night for these things.
We reach the entry door and exit to the lobby, where one of the staffers greets us. Shane manages a polite, even friendly, reply, displaying a skill for appearing unflappable and unaffected by life that speaks to his success as an attorney. It also drives home the fact that he chooses to allow me to see the real him. He gives me that trust willingly, as I do him, and it’s not something either of us has with anyone else in this world. It matters in ways I don’t believe I even knew could matter before meeting him.
We continue our walk to the elevator, and while Shane still appears cool and casual, like he’s living any other night, he jabs the call button a little harder than normal, an edge of anticipation clinging to him as we wait for the doors to open. One second, two, ten, and when finally they part, Shane wastes no time guiding me inside the car. Still holding on to me, he punches in our floor and our security code. The doors close, and the moment we are alone, Shane’s hand comes down on the back of my head, and he’s leaning into me, his breath warm on my cheek, on my mouth. And my hand is on his chest, his heart thundering beneath my palm, and mine answers, pounding against my rib cage, his sudden lust for me overwhelming, contagious. I need him. I want him.
“Emily,” he whispers softly, a gruff, affected quality to his voice, and then he’s kissing me, the taste of all his emotions bleeding into my mouth: Anger. Guilt. Pain. More anger. It’s a kiss of dark chocolate, bitter but somehow addictive, sinful. It consumes me. He consumes me, and I lose track of time and place. I can’t think of anything but how he tastes and how his hand feels when it slides up my waist and covers my breast. I moan with the intimate touch, the tease of his fingers over my thin blouse that pebble my nipple, my hand covering his, my mind reaching for sanity. “Shane,” I pant out, trying to pull myself back in check. “Shane, I—”
He reaches behind him and hits the button to stall the elevator, and my already racing heart starts to thunder. “What are you doing?”
“This,” he says, maneuvering me into the corner, his mouth already back on mine, his hands sliding over my backside, where one hand cups and squeezes and the other makes its way back to my breast. And while my mind tries to reach for reason, my body, my emotions, respond to the dark hunger inside Shane. The animal quality that I’ve never felt in him consumes him now and claims me. His need feeds my own. I taste it. I crave it. I burn for it and him. He answers those sensations by creating more, his powerful legs framing mine, his tongue licking into my mouth. His hands travel my body, and somehow my blouse is open and my bra is shoved down, nipples hard as pebbles against his fingers that are tugging and pulling.
I am wet. I am hot, but when he reaches for my waistband, when I’d let him further undress me, the sound of a buzzer permeates my mind, and reality hits me. We’re in an elevator. The alarm is going off. “Shane,” I say, grabbing his wrist, only to have his fingers stroke my sex through my slacks, sensations rolling through me, my body all but demanding I forget objections. “Shane,” I say again, somehow staying focused. “There are cameras.”
“I’ll have the security feed destroyed,” he promises, and he’s already kissing me again, and with one deep stroke of his tongue against mine, which I feel everywhere, I want his tongue, and I struggle to find resistance. I even let him unbutton and unzip my pants. Still, though, that alarm is sounding, seeming to get louder, insisting that I hear it, reminding me w
here we are. “Shane.”
He answers by nipping my bottom lip, a deliciously rough, sexy bite that he follows with a lick. With just that easy of a distraction, I am not thinking, but feeling again, my tongue seeking his, every soft spot on my body wanting every hard part of his. But when his warm palm flattens on my naked hip, skimming my pants downward on one side, the idea of being naked in the elevator sparks one thought: we are being watched, an idea that shakes me fully back to my senses with the hard, cold reality, and I grab Shane’s shoulders. “Stop.”
“After you come.”
“Before,” I hiss, and when he leans in to kiss me again, I pull back. “Damn it, Shane. Stop. Not here.”
The fierceness of my voice fills the car, and he jerks back, looking down at me, his gray eyes glossed over with lust that quickly sharpens into understanding. His chest expands on a deep breath, his hands leaving my body to settle on the wall on either side of me. “You don’t like the elevator.”
“It’s not about the elevator,” I say, grabbing his collar and stepping into him, my voice low, for his ears only. “It’s about who might see us before you clear the tape. Like your brother or father who could be watching us right now.”
He lowers his head, tilting it low, all but burying it in my neck, and I can sense him battling to tame the beast this night has unleashed in him, softly murmuring, “What the hell is wrong with me?” He inches back to look at me, his eyes clear now, control restored. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. This isn’t me.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I murmur softly back. “You’re human too, Shane, and I don’t want you to stop being human any more than you want me to. But no one else needs to know that right now but me.” I flatten my hand over his chest. “Let’s go do this in private.”