“Okay, see the guy in the gray polo shirt?”
I scanned the crowd. They all looked like bankers and golfers, guys who were out cheating on their wives. I pinpointed the guy Bax was asking about and gave my head a little nod.
“Do you recognize him?”
Why he thought I would recognize the guy confused me, so I opened my mouth to ask him what was going on when the older man suddenly lifted his head like he could feel me staring at him. I felt like the very ground under my feet slipped away. I had never seen him before, didn’t know him from Adam, but I saw those eyes in the mirror every morning when I got up. He looked a lot like Race and clearly he was where my dark green eyes came from. But he was a stranger.
“Lord Hartman.”
It wasn’t a question and I saw a grim line flatten the older man’s mouth when he caught sight of who I was with. I stiffened up and went to pull away from Bax, but his hand tightened on my spine and his dark eyes pinned me in place.
“Don’t.”
“What do you want with him? Why did you want him to see us together?”
I was mad. I didn’t want him to use me. I wanted whatever was going on between us to be more than that. I was fooling myself. Now I understood why he had been so willing to let me come with him on this excursion tonight.
“Stop. He’s the one Race was asking about. Somehow he’s tied into Race’s disappearance and my trip to the joint. I wanted him to see that even with Race gone, someone has your back.”
“Why?”
“Because that rich asshole wanted you gone.”
I jerked away from him and moved so we were face-to-face. I felt all the blood bleed out of my face and I started to get dizzy. Yeah, I knew Lord Hartman had no use for me, didn’t particularly want to acknowledge that I was a living, breathing human being, but wanting me off the face of the earth seemed a little extreme. What bothered me most was the matter-of-fact, chilling way Bax gave me the information. Talking about a threat on my life should bother him, crack that icy exterior he always had, but there was nothing. His eyes were as black and as infinite as always.
“Great, so my brother is missing and the guy responsible for my birth wants me dead. This was a fun date, Bax. Can we go now?”
“No. I need to talk to him. I need to find some of the missing pieces, and he’s bound to have them.”
“I’m not going over there.” I hated that my voice squeaked in alarm.
He leveled me a hard look.
“I need to talk to him. Either you come with me or you fend for yourself until I’m done. Benny’s bound to show once someone lets him know I crashed the party, so you need to keep your eyes peeled.”
If only he knew how many times I had heard that very warning where he was concerned lately. I backed away from him like I couldn’t get away fast enough. I purposely avoided looking at the man who had already paid one person to get rid of me before I even took my first breath, and now it sounded like he was trying to finish the job. I made my way up to the bar and found an empty seat. The bartender gave me a look and I rolled my eyes. I looked younger than my twenty years but I needed something to calm my nerves, so I hooked a thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of where Bax was winding his way through the crowd.
“I’m with him.”
The girl gave me a “yeah, right” look but gave me a shot of Jack on the rocks while I tunneled my fingers in my hair and tried to sort out the live current of emotions flowing through me.
“Back again.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t bother to answer, but when the stacked stripper that had been rubbing up on Bax from my first visit here slid into the empty space next to me, I was forced to look up at her or appear like I was scared of her and hiding. “That’s surprising.”
I wished she’d looked run-down and tired like so many other strippers in the District, but now that she wasn’t naked and dry-humping Bax, I could see that she was startlingly lovely. I bet she made a fortune.
“Why is it surprising?”
She snagged a plastic sword from the bar and stabbed a couple of olives from the drink station. She popped them in her mouth and met my gaze directly.
“Because you looked scared shitless and disgusted when you left last time. Plus, Bax isn’t known for being available for a repeat performance, if you know what I mean. His dance card is full.”
I slammed back the whiskey and blew out a stream of fire that followed it hitting my gut. “We aren’t dancing.”
The pretty stripper laughed a little and pointed the end of the sword to where Bax had gone. “Oh, yes you are. You should see the death glare he’s giving me right now. If I didn’t know for a fact that he doesn’t hit chicks, I would be so freaked out.”
I rubbed my forehead and looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “What kind of name is ‘Honor’ for a stripper anyway?”
She took a couple of beers the bartender handed her. “Honor . . . on-her . . . get it?” She laughed a little. “My real name is Keelyn.”
I let my head drop back down. How did I end up here?
“I don’t know what I’m doing here.” I didn’t mean to blurt it out to her, she didn’t like me. She had been naked with the two most important men in my life and I didn’t really think she was any kind of ally, but the words just tumbled out. She tilted her head a little to the side and her artfully painted mouth kicked up in a grin on one side.
“When you are connected, even in the most basic way, to a guy like Bax, this is where you end up, honey. I know he makes the ride worthwhile, but the destination leaves a lot to be desired. Do yourself a favor and remember falling in love with a guy like him is about the stupidest thing you could do. It’ll make your life here even harder, and we all know how rough it is already just to get by.”
“I’m not going to fall in love with him.” I wished I’d sounded stronger, more sure of the fact.
She just gave me a look that was full of knowing and pity. Great, like I needed a stripper to feel sorry for me.
“Honey, you’re already halfway there if you forced yourself to come back here.”
“What’s going on?” Bax’s deep voice was hard and suspicious as his hands landed on my shoulders.
“Just making nice.” I sounded like I had been sucking on a lemon.
“Yeah?”
Honor laughed and sauntered away, making sure to shake her ass in Bax’s direction as she left.
“Yep. You have so many charming friends, Bax.”
He grunted at me and took my arm in his hand. “Let’s go before the welcoming committee shows up.”
I slid off the bar stool and my knees wobbled a little so he had to hold me up.
“Did he help you? Do you have all the answers?” Like there was ever a justifiable reason for wanting your own flesh and blood dead.
“Some of them.” I let him pull me out of the club like a rag doll. “Granted it took a little force and he doesn’t look so much like the king of the castle anymore.”
I looked at his hands and noticed that his knuckles were bloody. My stomach should turn at the thought of him beating the answers out of the man that was half of my DNA, but all I could feel was a solid ball of anxiety and disappointment. “Tell me.”
He looked down at me and sighed as he pushed some of my wild hair away from my face. “It isn’t pretty.”
“It never is.”
“Let’s go to the house.”
I recoiled at the idea. The cute little bungalow was so nice, so removed from all the ugliness that filled the Point. I felt like hearing all about my father’s plans to off me would somehow taint it.
“Let’s go to my apartment. I cleaned it and it’s closer.”
“Your furniture was trashed.”
I rubbed my arms and shivered even though I wasn’t cold. “Fine; let’s go to your place in the city.”
He pulled back and narrowed his eyes at me. “Why?”
“Why not?” Maybe seeing his crash pad, I would get the i
dea that there really was no Shane, that he was always just Bax and I would never, ever be foolish enough to hand my heart over to that guy. Maybe he knew exactly what I was doing, because all his barriers snapped into place.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 11
Bax
I DIDN’T WANT TO know what Dovie thought about the place that I called home, but really it was just a place to store all my stuff and catch a few z’s in between all the stuff I usually had going on. It was a crap hole. A studio in an apartment complex that was only half a step up from her own. I actually had a security door that worked, but other than that, between the dirty hallways and loud, disruptive neighbors, the two places could’ve been on the same block.
I didn’t have much. Just a bed that hadn’t been made, ever, a flat screen that I was always amazed to see when I opened the door, a black leather chair that had rips in the arms, and posters on the walls that were of mostly naked chicks and badass cars. I liked the cars better than the girls most of the time. It was dirty, musty, and I felt like she was seeing inside of who I really was as she followed me in the door, those wide green eyes taking it all in. This was where I belonged; not that bungalow so far out of the city.
“Have a seat. You want a beer or something?”
She shook her head, those red curls slipping and sliding across her pale face. She surprised me by sitting on the edge of the bed instead of taking the worn-out chair.
“Who paid for this place while you were in prison?”
I looked at her over my shoulder and got myself a beer out of the tiny fridge. I didn’t like her here. She didn’t fit in, just like she deserved something better than that shithole she lived in at the Skylark.
“My mom.”
She made a noise in her throat and caught all of her hair in one hand and pulled it off of her neck. She looked so young, so lost. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just let her go when I knew I was going to end up taking all of that shine off of her.
“What?”
She lifted her eyebrows at me and bit her lip. I wasn’t going to like what she had to say. I was starting to recognize that as her tell.
“Your mom . . . who can’t even pull it together enough to get sober and live in that amazing house you bought her somehow managed, for five years, to make sure the rent was paid on this place? And what about your car? That thing had to have been somewhere secure, somewhere expensive. You really think she was the one paying the bills, staying on top of things when you couldn’t?”
I glared at her and flopped down in the chair. It groaned under my weight as she continued to watch me unwaveringly.
“Who then? Race?”
She gave her head a tiny shake and fiddled with her hair. “No. He didn’t have any extra money and we were laying pretty low after he first came and got me. I don’t think he would’ve risked drawing Novak’s attention by taking care of your car.”
My eyes narrowed even more as she verbally led me to the only possible conclusion, which she was drawing.
“You think it was Titus?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Titus doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but himself. He dropped out of sight before I could figure out how to survive on my own and all he’s done since is make my life hell because I didn’t end up all perfect and law-abiding like he did. We didn’t have the same opportunities, and I think it’s bullshit that he thinks he can judge me for making do the only way I know how.”
She looked at me with emerald shadows drifting over questioning eyes. Just like always, she was trying to paint me in a better light than I deserved. The reality was much darker and uglier than I think she could handle.
“That’s not exactly true, Bax. Parents are supposed to love their kids, provide for them and guide them into adulthood. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen across the board anymore. Titus made the choice to let your mom go and build a life for himself; you made the choice to stick with her and provide for the two of you the only way you could. You could have let her go, just like she did the two of you. You could have given yourself other opportunities. It wasn’t entirely Titus’s fault.”
“I was a kid, Dovie. What were my options? Starve? End up in the system? Find some nice, rich family to take me under their wing like a charity case while my mom drank herself to death? You tell me how any of that would have been better than becoming a thief.”
She cleared her throat and I could have sworn there was a sheen of tears in her gaze when she looked back up at me.
“You wouldn’t have ended up in jail. You would have never had to sell your soul to Novak. You wouldn’t have to fight for Nassir and end up getting stabbed. I don’t know what the exact answer is, Bax, but I do know you made the choice to be a bad guy and you can make the choice not to be.”
I thought her point was moot. I had only ever been this way. It was how I survived, how I lived, and aside from getting out from under Novak’s thumb, it was a life I made work for me. It wasn’t my problem that she not only wanted but deserved someone better than me. I was going to have to exist here long after she was gone. She didn’t get to come in and dismantle my entire world for the short time she was a visitor in it, even though that was exactly what she was doing.
I needed a cigarette but she always gave me a look when I lit up inside, so I chugged back the rest of the beer and changed the subject to why we were here in the first place.
“Hartman wanted Novak to kill you. Your mom got locked up for intent to sell and blackmailed him. She wanted him to bail her out and get the charges dropped, which of course he had no control over. When he told her that, she lost it and told him she would tell the wife, that she would plaster it all over the society pages because that junk still mattered to people on the Hill. Hartman freaked out, tried to put a contract on you, only Novak is smart and has plenty of money. A rich man in his pocket was a much better tool.” I shook my head at her. “I don’t know how you feel about looking into where your mom is at, but I would bet good money she’s not breathing anymore or that Novak somehow arranged to keep her locked up and quiet in order to keep Hartman under his thumb.”
Her eyes darted away and then came back to me. She looked a little paler than normal, but she just waited patiently for me to keep going even though her chest was now rapidly rising and falling.
“Hartman wanted you dead, but turns out Novak wanted to keep me on the leash even more. I guess he knew I was getting ready to bail, so he told Race about you and the contract on your life. He also oh-so-generously gave Race a recording of the old man trying to arrange for your death. That’s how Race blackmailed your dad into claiming his parental rights and pulling you out of foster care. It’s also how he got control of his college fund, which he used to support you guys while you finished high school.”
I saw her shiver. I wanted to go wrap her up in a hug, but this was ugly, and offering her comfort wouldn’t make any of it easier to swallow. “What did Race have to give Novak in return?”
“My undying loyalty and some kind of guarantee that I would behave and follow the rules from here until eternity. The old guy Race pulled out of the house that night was in business with Novak. He was some retail giant, worth more money than you and I will ever see in our lifetime. He took Novak’s dirty money and made it clean. I guess he was getting ready to go to the feds because he was tired of being owned by a gangster. Novak wanted him out of the way and wanted me to be the one to do it. Race was supposed to grab the old guy, we were supposed to meet up at the spot, and I was somehow supposed to end up putting a bullet in his head. Novak was gonna tape it, use that as leverage to keep me tied to him or face serious jail time for murder and kidnapping, only Titus and the heat showed up and things went to hell.”
“Why did Novak think you would shoot the guy? What could he have done to make you go that far?” Her voice was quiet, like she was scared of my answer.
I sighed and threw my head back and closed my eyes.
“Because if I didn’t do it, he would’ve made Race do it, and he knew there was no way I would’ve let it go down like that. He had you as leverage to work Race like a puppet, and he had Race to pull my strings. The asshole didn’t get to be king of the city by being stupid.”
I had to say she was taking the news that she had narrowly escaped being the target of a murder-for-hire contract pretty well.
“So when you went away and Race was of no use anymore, why would he come back? What is this all about? Why is Race so sure he can take Novak down and why is he flashing pictures of Lord Hartman around?”
“The old bastard had no clue about any of that, but if I can read between the lines, I think I know.”
“So?”
“I told you a rich guy on the hook is better for a guy like Novak than money any day, and his launderer died the night I got busted. Not in the way he intended, but the guy still got smoked. That means Novak was in the market for someone else to spit shine all his dough, and nobody is better for that than someone he already has a bunch of dirt on.”
“You think Novak is blackmailing Lord Hartman to launder his money?”
“I do.”
“And you think Race figured that out and that’s why he brought us here, why he threatened Novak, and why he was asking all those criminals if his dad had been around?”
She was quick. “I do,” I said again.
I lowered my head so I could look her in the eye. She was messing with her hair and worrying her bottom lip.
“Just ask, Dovie.”
I saw her chest rise and fall under the thin material of her T-shirt. I had to admit, she always impressed me with her self-reliance. She never just folded.
“What does that mean for me, Bax? How does it all end for us?”
For me, it ended in blood or more time behind bars. For her, I would like to promise that it ended with her back at her crappy apartment, waiting tables and finishing school so that she could help kids like she wanted, but I wasn’t going to lie to her like that.