The moment I’ve paid and the woman departs from the register to fill our order, Emily and I step to the pickup counter, no other customers around us. She turns to me and opens her mouth to speak and then snaps it shut. Her gaze narrows on my face. “What’s wrong besides the obvious?”
I’m unreadable to most, a skill that both frustrated and destroyed my legal adversaries, and yet she sees beyond it. My hands come down on her arms. “There’s been a development,” I say softly.
“With your mother?”
“Beyond my mother,” I say. And then, lowering my voice, I quietly and quickly give her the same rundown I gave Seth.
“Okay,” she says, remarkably calm considering we’re dealing with a man who was there the night she almost died. “This is where I’m going to ask what I asked at the wine bar after Agent Dennis left. How bad is this? Should I be ducking behind a wall instead of standing here, talking to you?”
“If you needed to be ducking behind a wall, I would have already dragged you there and thrown myself on top of you.” The words are out before I can stop the memory of Derek that follows. “Martina wants to create a legacy,” I say, pushing past my emotional misstep. “He wants to be the Martina that legitimized his namesake, which means this sports center deal.”
“You really believe that man wants to go legitimate?”
“I believe he’s high on the idea, but not willing to make the sacrifices to remove himself from the crime, or if it would even be allowed by his father if he really tried. Bottom line here: he believes he wants it. I believe that, just as I believe this is a power play. We have to go at him from a position of power.”
“You don’t think he’ll come after me?”
“You are my woman. To hurt you would mean I kill him. That doesn’t serve his cause. Now, my mother … that could be a different story, which is why I have Seth getting her extra protection.”
She blanches and recovers with, “Maybe you should have killed him.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No,” she agrees. “But I wish I did.”
“You don’t mean that either.”
“No,” she agrees. “But I wish I did.”
“Croissants,” the woman behind the counter says, setting a bag down. “Coffee coming in a minute at most.”
“I have no idea why I just ordered those,” Emily says.
“Because you wanted them,” I say. “And inside normalcy is safety. And that doesn’t just mean how you feel. It helps us look unaffected by Martina’s attempted intimidation.”
“Attempted?” she asks. “Did he fail?”
My hand settles at her hip. “Repeat after me. Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Coffee,” the woman behind the counter announces, setting two cups down.
“Yes,” I confirm, going back to our conversation before picking up our coffees and offering Emily one of them. “Try it, like a normal person who loves coffee as much as you do would when they are handed their drink.”
She takes a sip. “It’s good, and just for the record, we are not even close to being normal people and never will be.”
“That is true,” I agree, my lips curving. “But normalcy is overrated.” I hand her the bag of pastries. “Eat these on the walk home. It’ll keep your mind off Martina and make us look—”
“As unaffected and normal as the Addams Family? Or the Kardashians? Or—”
I lean in and kiss her. “The Brandons,” I say, and the minute I say it, the inference that she will soon share that name electrifies the air between us.
“The Brandons,” she whispers.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I confirm. “The Brandons.” I motion toward the door, my hand at her spine. “Come on.”
“Should we tell Seth we’re leaving?”
“He knows,” I say, scanning the dining area before we head toward the door.
“Maybe I should carry that gun you got me,” she says as we step outside. “I haven’t touched it since I got out of the hospital.” She takes a bite of the croissant. “Oh. Wow. You have to try this. In the name of normalcy and all.” She steps in front of me, halting my steps, her hand on my chest, and she holds the croissant to my mouth.
I catch her wrist and take a bite, the sweet buttery flavor touching my lips and tongue, but what I’m thinking about is her, and how, despite her fears, she’s managed to be remarkably calm under pressure.
“Well?” she prods.
“Almost as sweet as you.”
“We both know I’m not sweet.”
“On my tongue.”
Her cheeks flush. “You’re being dirty, Shane Brandon.”
“Should I stop?”
“Right now,” she says.
I laugh, swoop in for a quick kiss, and then take another bite. “And yes. The croissant is good.” I rotate her forward and we start walking again. “We should come back to this place another time.”
“I agree,” she says. “Even the coffee is good.” She glances over at me. “At the expense of really grand small talk about food and coffee, do you really have another investor?”
“I do, but Martina won’t let me replace his investment group. I told you. He wants this. We’re just playing chess.”
We cross the street and approach the hotel. “I’m remembering that day we got home and Martina was waiting at our door, despite all our security.”
“That won’t happen,” I say. “It’s what we expect. Which is why he won’t do it.”
We approach the door and Tai, one of the doormen who is quite fond of Emily, waves in our direction while the double doors slide open to reveal Seth standing just inside the lobby, waiting on us. And since he’s smart enough to know that in his perfectly pressed blue suit with his buzz cut and perpetual hard expression that he looks like security, there must be a reason he needs to be in our path. Freeing my hands, I toss my coffee into the trashcan by the door and then drape my arm over Emily’s shoulder, keeping her body close to mine. Sheltering her, the way my brother sheltered her.
“Martina’s in the bar,” Seth announces at the same moment that Cody steps to my right.
“At least this is happening here and now,” Emily says, “where we can control the outcome and not wonder what happens next.”
Seth arches a brow at her, obviously surprised at her calm logic, and she follows it up with a glance at me. “How are you going to play this?”
“By ending it,” I say. “I need you to go upstairs with Cody.” I look at Seth. “This needs to be one-on-one. Me and Martina.”
Emily’s hand comes down on my arm, but she says nothing more. She and Cody move away, his existence as her bodyguard driving home the fact that our life is not normal, and while I can’t change that reality, I intend to make it safer. I refocus on Seth. “Have you alerted Agent Dennis?”
“Nick called him,” he says. “And he assured him that he regularly stalks anyone who comes in contact with Martina, and Martina knows this. For him not to visit you would seem strange, and garner attention.”
“Stalks?”
“His word,” he says. “It’s almost like he’s trying to get killed. I told Nick to get him fired, hired, or sent to another country on assignment, one that isn’t Mexico.” He moves on. “Are you armed?”
“No,” I say. “But I’ll trust you to shoot him if necessary.”
He doesn’t react, but then, I don’t expect him to either. “He’s at the edge of the bar by the door, where we have men positioned.” He backs up and steps aside, giving me room to depart.
I step forward, my pace even, unhurried, the long shiny white-tiled floor my path. I’m halfway down the walkway when I spy Martina at a sitting area that is basically a square frame with cushions—chosen, no doubt, for the bird’s-eye view of the entire bar to his right, and the nearby emergency exit. Essentially allowing him to see anyone who approaches, and react, be it by force or departure or both.
He watches my approach, but my experience in a courtr
oom tells me that he doesn’t do it as a weak attempt at intimidation that I wouldn’t feel, but more as a study of his adversary. Experience also ensures he won’t find the answers he’s looking for. I assess him as well, his suit, as always, expensive and pin-striped, which he seems to favor. He’s leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and as I near, I can name the brand of watch on his wrist as a Rolex, while I prefer Cartier. A preference that might seem minor to some, most likely to him, but to me, a Rolex is meant to scream money and power. It’s not subtle. It can scream desperate for power and attention if worn by the wrong person. And Adrian is desperate for the power and attention he feels his father gets. Which is why he wants this sports center deal.
I approach the boxed sitting area he occupies, and while some might feel sitting down with him hands him power, I don’t feel this way at all. I claim a cushion in front of him, my intent to send him the message that I’m at ease, with nothing to prove. Comfort and confidence is my power. The sports center deal is my power.
“I’m surprised you didn’t invite yourself on up to my apartment,” I say. “We could have chatted while I packed for my trip later this evening.”
“I was afraid your security team would erupt in seizures, or I would have.”
“The way yours did at the restaurant the night my brother was murdered and my woman was attacked and nearly killed?”
“Those were not my men, but rather Ramon’s.”
“They were your men. Ramon simply challenged your power and won, while my brother lost.”
His eyes sharpen, anger crackling off of him. “You test me, Shane Brandon.”
“A test indicates me gauging how future interactions with you will play out. I have no interest in further interaction with you after today.” I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “When I look at you, I see my dead brother. That’s not good for either of us. It reminds me that I want to kill you.”
“Is that why you met with Agent Dennis? Because you want me to pay for your brother’s death?”
“Agent Dennis wants me to help him put you in prison, but if I do that, and I decide I really want you dead, killing you would get complicated. And I don’t like complicated.”
His lips quirk, amusement in his eyes. “I’m not easy to kill. In fact, right now, if I snapped my fingers, you’d have a bullet in your head.”
“And you’d fall ten seconds later, and you know it.”
“We’re well matched,” he observes, something that might be admiration in his eyes. “And while I knew we had much in common, we are alike in more ways than I ever imagined.”
“You see what you want to see.”
“I see what you don’t want to see,” he counters. “And mark my words. One day denial will become cumbersome.”
I laugh without humor. “I know I’m my father’s son. Do you?”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Every moment of every day.” He indicates a liquor bottle in front of him. “I owe you a taste of fine tequila.” He reaches for the bottle and I wave off the gesture.
“I’ll pass,” I say. “I have a plane to catch and a deal to negotiate that’s larger than some economies.”
He reaches into his pocket and tosses an envelope onto the table in between us. “Your cashier’s check. The signed contract will be delivered in the next fifteen minutes.”
In other words, I was right. He never intended to pull out of the deal. I pick up the envelope and check the contents, confirm the dollar figure, and, knowing anything too easy for this man will be hard for me, I cast him a hard look. “I’ve moved on,” I bluff, setting the envelope on the table for effect. “I’m getting on a plane and signing a new investor tonight.”
“And why would you do that, with my money in your hand and me to manage Mike Rogers for you?”
“Define manage,” I say.
“He won’t so much as blink in your direction when this deal’s announced.”
I thrum my fingers on the table, seeming to consider the deal, rather than how much I want to kill him. “To be clear,” I say. “I’m the broker on this deal and nothing more.”
“I’m quite aware of how brokering works.”
Ignoring the remark, I continue, “Once I receive your paperwork, I’ll send our executed documents to everyone involved, and I’m out. You’ll be a weighted stockholder and in charge of setting up your board and operation.”
“Excellent,” he says. “And then we can get to work on that basketball team we talked about buying or recruiting to our city to compete with Mike’s team.”
“What part of ‘when I look at you, I see my dead brother’ do you not understand? I’m done when this is done. You knew that. That hasn’t changed.”
“We’ve done well together.”
“My brother doesn’t agree.”
His expression tightens, and he picks up both glasses on the table between us and offers me one of them. “To good-bye.”
I accept the glass and say, “To good-bye.”
Our eyes lock, and in unison we down the tequila, the liquor sharp as it goes down, nothing compared to what I feel by making a deal with this man. He sets his glass down with a thud and motions to the window. The emergency door opens, but the alarm doesn’t go off. “Have a good life, Shane Brandon,” he says, standing and walking outside. The door shuts behind him and he’s gone. I wait to feel something. Relief. Success. Anything.
I don’t. I don’t think I’ll feel any of those things for a long while. Until the loss of my brother isn’t acid burning in a wound.
I pick up the cashier’s check and stick it into my pocket, standing as I hear, “Mr. Brandon?”
Turning toward the voice, I find one of the hotel doormen I know in passing standing in front of me. “Yes?”
He indicates a large yellow envelope in his hand. “I was told you should receive this urgently.”
I reach into my pocket, remove a bill, and palm it to him before accepting the offering. He walks away and Seth appears in his spot, arching a brow. I open the envelope and find the signed document. “It’s done,” I say. “And now part two begins. Build him up, make him the stadium king, and then make sure he loses everything. Destroy him. That’s what I want you focused on. Which gives you a small window to find Emily’s brother, solve the problem that he is, and then focus on Martina.”
“By next week—”
“We’ll have a Band-Aid. That’s not an acceptable answer. I did too little too late to protect Derek. I will not repeat that with Emily. Find Rick, even if you have to dig him up from a hole somewhere.” I step around Seth, starting back down that shiny, white tile that might as well be splattered with my brother’s blood, the reality of making a deal with the very devil who’s responsible for my brother’s death a blade jabbing in my heart over and over and over again. The idea that I had to do it because I didn’t get rid of him before Derek died adds insult to injury.
That’s the thought that carries me to the elevator and all the way to our apartment door, where I pause, Emily’s words in my head. We’re not normal. And while, yes, normal can be overrated, I want her to feel safe. I want her to walk out of our door without a bodyguard and not need to wait on me with one by her side. I want her to know that tonight we’re a little closer to that place.
I open the door and enter the apartment, shutting the door behind me. “Shane!” she calls out, exiting the kitchen and hurrying to me, her gaze going to the envelope in my hand. “Is that it? Is it done?”
“It’s signed,” I confirm, about to explain the details of funding the deal, but I never get the chance. She flings her arms around me, hugs me, and then pushes on her toes to kiss me, whispering, “Checkmate.”
I laugh. “Yes, sweetheart. Checkmate.” And suddenly, in Emily’s relief and excitement, I find the success I denied myself downstairs.
“Now we celebrate,” she says, the mischief in her eyes inviting me to places I can’t go while Cody lurks somewhere. But his presence doesn’t stop me from cuppin
g her head and kissing her, my resolve to protect her never stronger than in this moment.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ready for the final details to seal the sports center deal, I’m at the office early, making phone calls, while Emily and Jessica arrange the delivery of the executed documents to the entire group of investors. By three o’ clock, and just before Emily and I leave for her medical checkup, it’s officially done: the deal is not only funded, Brandon Enterprises has been paid and paid well. Between the pharmaceutical and transportation branch sales that we managed to turn a healthy profit on, and the brokered sports center deal, we’re sitting on better financials than we were a year ago. And that’s not including the hedge fund operation.
Ironically, considering my father’s obnoxious need to know everything yet again, he chose today to skip the office job, and in an effort to avoid yet another of his incessant phone calls, I buzz Jessica. “Call my father and tell him we’re done.”
“As in completely done?”
“Done is done,” I say.
“Actually, that’s not always true.”
I end the connection, my hand going to my silver tie, which I’ve paired with the gray power suit I bought to celebrate winning my first case, a story I shared with Emily this morning. My lips curve as I remember her excitement that had followed, as well as her insistence, that I wear it for good luck today. I shake my head and wonder how the hell I’ve gone from a man who wanted women only in bed to smiling at the idea of Emily picking out my clothes? But then, it’s rather appropriate, considering she’s now running a fashion line. A role it’s time to make official in all ways.
With that thought, I stand up and grab my briefcase, as well as the file on my desk that I’ve been saving for Emily. Crossing my office, I flip out the light, and considering Jessica’s recent long hours, I exit my office and say, “Go home,” as I walk past her desk.
“We must really be done,” she calls after me, and I shake my head at her smartass comment, holding up my arm to point toward the lobby just before I step inside Emily’s doorway.