Chapter Seven
Two days later, Sean was working at his desk when he heard someone walk into the front office and speak with his office assistant. By the time the visitor’s voice had trickled through his working brain and triggered recognition, the visitor was standing in his doorway.
Joseph Nadel.
“Hello, Sean. I hope it’s all right to stop by like this.”
He was getting better at quelling the nervous jitter in his stomach every time he came face-to-face with Emery’s father. “Sure. What’s up?”
The older man smiled. In it, Sean saw hints of his mate’s own handsome good looks. “I have a surprise for you. And for Emery. A good one,” he quickly added. “I promise. Can I borrow you for about thirty minutes?”
Sean glanced at the time. “It’s nearly lunch. You can borrow me for longer than that, if you need to.” He scowled. “Did they find—”
Joseph shook his head. “No, sorry. Nothing about that, uh, situation.” Then, he grinned. Playfully. “Come on. I want to show you.”
Sean saved his work and grabbed his cell phone. “Want me to drive?”
“We can take my car,” Joseph said.
They were soon heading down the road leading toward Manasota Key. “No offense, sir, but where are we going?” If it was to his parents’ house, he was going to be sorely disappointed.
He suspected his father would immediately ask why he wasn’t hard at work in the office and trying to cram twenty-nine hours into a twenty-four-hour day.
“Louise will probably be irritated with me for not waiting on her,” Joseph said, “but everything fell into place this morning at the last minute. I really want to show you the surprise now.”
That was all the senior Nadel would reveal. As they turned north onto the Key, they drove through the Charlotte County portion into Sarasota County. The clear demarcation of cramped barrier island development giving way to thick stands of trees made the county line stand out more than any road sign or a few dashes on a map.
They wound their way north, past Sean’s parents’ home, farther, past what locals had dubbed Middle Beach.
Then Joseph slowed the Lincoln and turned into a driveway leading to a Gulf-side home that Sean recognized as having been a casualty of the housing bust a few years earlier. Sitting under cover and with windows, the three-story stilt home had sat perpetually unfinished.
Now, it seemed, work had resumed in a flurry of activity. Three work trucks from various contractors sat parked in the yard.
“Here we are,” Joseph announced as he shut off the car and got out.
Sean followed him toward the stairs leading up to the first living level. “Are you guys moving from Sarasota?”
Joseph laughed but didn’t answer. “You’ll see.” Halfway up the stairs, he turned and pointed toward a cleared spot in the front yard. “There’s going to be a pool, too,” he said. “Right there. A large one. Screened enclosure. The fence and gate will ensure privacy from the road, and the trees on both sides are plenty of cover from neighbors on either side.” He met Sean’s gaze. “Although the neighbor to the north said they’ve been thinking about selling. So there is that. Might be time to expand my real estate portfolio again.”
He turned and continued climbing.
That answered none of Sean’s now many questions. “Um, okay, you’re still confusing me.”
They arrived at the first floor and Joseph reached for the doorknob, opening the massive front door and ushering Sean in. Through the house, Sean could see all the way out the western sliders, which opened onto a screened lanai with a breathtaking view of the Gulf.
Joseph held something up to him. When Sean finally pulled his gaze from the view and looked, he realized it was a set of keys. Joseph grabbed his right hand and pressed the keys into his palm, closing Sean’s fingers over them.
“Welcome home, Sean.” He grinned and lowered his voice, mindful of the contractors working inside. “The pod Alpha and his mate deserve the best.”
Sean took a moment to process what Joseph said. “We can’t afford this.”
“You can’t afford a free house?”
He wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. “Free?”
He shrugged. “A gift.” He looked up toward the second-floor landing. “The pod paid for it. Three generations ago, the Alpha saw a potential need to have provisions made for future Alphas for expenses related to the pod. Believe me when I say this is a mere drop in the bucket. Insurance and other expenses will be paid for you here.”
Sean looked at the keys in his palm as a slight dizziness washed through him. He sat on the second step and stared at the keys. Many of the interior walls were still just studs. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
Joseph smiled down at him. “‘Thank you, Dad,’ is a good start.”
* * * *
Joseph gave Sean a tour of the place, noting where he’d specified structure-hardening features, storm-mitigation measures to help protect the house during tropical weather events. The house sat back in the middle of the property, behind a rock-reinforced artificial dune. When completed, it would have five bedrooms, three and a half baths, and a kitchen Sean suspected he’d never be able to pry his mother out of once she got started.
The entire first living level would have a screened porch wrapping around the house, and the reinforced concrete pilings supporting the structure kept the house eighteen feet in the air, but would also have an elevator added on the side, designed to easily break away from the rest of the structure with minimal damage should storm surge invade.
When Joseph finished the tour, he turned to Sean. “Like it?”
Sean numbly nodded. “It’s…thank you, Dad.”
Joseph beamed as he hugged Sean. “I mean it. You’re part of our family and our pod. I’ll never forgive myself for Erik trying to kill you.”
“It’s okay. I know you didn’t have anything to do with that. You don’t have to prove it with a house.”
“Oh, we’d already planned to buy Emery and his mate a house. That had always been our intention.” He laughed. “I know it’s close to your parents’ house. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not for you two, but when the opportunity arose to grab the property, I couldn’t turn it down. It’s too perfect.”
He turned and swept his arm across the western view. “Steps from the Gulf. Oh!” He turned again, turning Sean with him, to look out toward the east where the Intracoastal ran between the key and the mainland. “It has a dock property there. Deeded access. You could bring your boat over, if you wanted.” He met Sean’s gaze. “Water access for both of you, whenever you want.”
Considering the electrician doing work just a few feet away, Sean didn’t have any trouble following Joseph’s emphasized insinuation.
Emery could swim out easily from the house. Sean could be steps away from twenty-four-seven access to his boat.
“It’ll be ready in a couple of months,” Joseph continued. “Barring any construction delays. And you two can pick your interior, like the paint, flooring, trim, doorknobs and hinges, kitchen cabinets, all of that. Whatever you want. The pool will take a little longer. They can’t really get started on that until after the other contractors are finished with the house.”
Sean jingled the keys in his hand before closing his fingers around them again and squeezing. The metal bit into his palm.
Real. Not a dream.
“So? Do you like it?” Joseph asked.
Sean gave him another hug. “I love it, Dad. Thank you.”
Joseph beamed, eagerly nodding. “I hoped you would.”
Sean suspected from the older man’s reaction that he actually didn’t care what his own son thought of it, as long as Sean liked it.
He felt the last of his trepidation about Joseph disintegrate like a sand castle before the incoming tide. “I do. Very much. I have no words to tell you how thankful I am.”
“Great! Now, let’s go eat. My treat.”
* * *
*
They drove south again, to the Charlotte County end of the key, to eat lunch at a restaurant on the Intracoastal. With a nice breeze and comfortable temperatures, they opted to eat outside on the shaded deck overlooking the docks.
They both spied the three dolphins lazily arching through the water across the bay.
Joseph didn’t take his eyes off them. “Bios,” he murmured, just loudly enough Sean could hear. “Not any of us.”
Sean hadn’t been aware he’d tensed, but as he relaxed at Joseph’s pronouncement he realized he wasn’t as confident about Erik’s departure as he’d originally thought.
“How can you tell?”
He shrugged. “Just the way they’re moving.” He eventually met Sean’s gaze again. “It’ll be okay,” he assured him. “The superpod. Your dad has security more than covered.”
“And the sharks?”
The older man’s posture stiffened. “Yes,” he eventually said. “We’ll have them, too.”
“I get the feeling the news won’t be met with warm and fuzzy feelings by the others. That the sharks are going to help.”
He picked up his menu. “No. It won’t. There are old hostilities and grudges. Natural lines of demarcation between the species that overshadow anything going on between the bio animals of either.”
“Sharks eat dolphins.”
His smile held no humor. “Sometimes. Larger ones who come across either a single dolphin, or a small pod with immature younglings.”
“Humans.”
“There is that.” He looked over the top of the menu. “There was a report of a human mate on a surfboard being eaten at a full-moon swim off the California coast about thirty years ago. But it was a bio-shark, not a shifter. As far as I know.”
That didn’t sound very comforting. “As far as you know?”
“Doesn’t mean grudges aren’t sometimes held against shifters for the actions of their bio counterparts.” His gaze dropped to the menu again. “I can’t say as I blame those who do. We’ve been fortunate not to encounter that here. Bio great whites are rare in this part of the Gulf. In general, it’s too warm for them. Or in winter, the water is too rough and doesn’t provide adequate hunting anyway. The prey is much larger on the Atlantic side, or in areas where the shelf drops off more rapidly. And the bio sharks’ breeding grounds are mostly on the Atlantic side.”
“There are orcas in the Gulf. They’re pretty big.”
Joseph’s gaze flicked back to Sean. “True. Bio and even a few shifters. But again, rare. The larger species tend to favor deeper, cooler water where the larger prey fish are more plentiful.”
Sean picked up his menu. “Unless they’re batcrap crazy, like Erik,” he muttered.
Joseph grimly nodded.
The waitress came for their drink order. In the distance, a sailboat slowly cruised under the Tom Adams Bridge, which the drawbridge tender had opened for it to pass. The weekday lunch crowd was light, allowing noises from the water to drift to them, like the clanging of the bridge bell, the chimes of boat rigging in slips next door to the restaurant, and, somewhere nearby, the obnoxious cries of some sort of parrot or macaw randomly asking if anyone wanted a piece of them.
Tropical Florida at its finest.
Sean decided on a burger and looked at Joseph, still engrossed in his menu. He picked up the tired lines creasing the outside corners of the Alpha’s eyes. No, they hadn’t gotten off on the right foot, but he admired the man’s determination and dedication to his pod and family.
“You know I don’t blame you for Erik getting away, right?”
Joseph looked at him over the top of his menu, his expression sad. “I appreciate that, son, but I blame myself.” His face hardened, brow furrowing. “I should have just taken a gun into Mote and shot him myself while he was in the tank. It would have been worth the fines and jail time. I could have pled dementia and probably been free in a couple of years.”
“That wouldn’t have done anyone any good.”
“Would have put my mind at ease. And Emery’s.” He set his menu down. “And, unfortunately, no telling how many other people have paid, or will pay in the future, with their lives because Erik is free. That is something I cannot forgive myself for.”
Joseph changed the subject to the house, wanting Sean’s input and ideas. He refused to talk about Erik or the impending Samhain superpod anymore.
“I want to enjoy this,” he insisted after their food arrived. “Because this is what life should be about. Celebrating family.”
* * * *
Joseph returned Sean to his office after they finished lunch. “I’ll let you tell Emery about the house,” he said, smiling and waving as he drove off.
Sean reached into his pocket for the new keys and stared at them before finally thinking to add them to his key ring.
It didn’t feel real.
Especially when compared to his very first encounter with Joseph Nadel, where the man tried to bribe him into leaving Emery.
I really need to stop thinking about that. He walked into the building and straight for his office. What happened then was the past.
This was the present, and Emery was his future.
Chapter Eight
Erik sat at a wrought iron table, under the shade of a tattered umbrella. As he drank his beer straight from the bottle, he stared at a table on the far side of the beachside bar’s veranda. Set under the permanent shelter of an overhanging roof, the three men sitting there leaned forward, deep in discussion.
The young woman sitting with them didn’t join in the talks. In fact, she looked pointedly unhappy to be there.
Hell, she looked pointedly unhappy, period.
Her oversized, cheap sunglasses, floppy hat, and long brown hair left loose didn’t completely hide the bruise high on her left temple, either.
It also didn’t hide her identity from him. Marisela Esparza, twenty-one, and the younger half sister of Hector Esparza.
Hector, if he was correct, was the man in the middle of the two others.
After getting another beer, he picked it up and walked over to the table, standing there with one hand hooked through an empty belt loop on his shorts until the three men finally looked up at him.
They spoke Spanish. Erik’s was a little rusty, but he could get by well enough.
“What’s your problem?” the man in the middle asked.
Erik smiled. “My problem is your solution.”
The man sat back, frowning. “I don’t have any problems except a nosy gringo sticking his nose into my business.”
Erik’s smile broadened. “Ah, but you do.” He dropped his voice so only the four could hear. “You’re looking for a way to expand your distribution into the States. I know of a pod you can use for just that purpose.”
The two men flanking Esparza reached for what Erik assumed were guns, but he didn’t flinch, guessing correctly when Esparza put out his hands, stilling the men.
He sneered at Erik. “What would you know?”
Erik indicated an empty chair at the table and waited until Esparza curtly nodded. He sat and leaned in close. “There are plenty of miles of mangrove inlets along the southwest coast of Florida. It would be simple to move your…product using dolphins.”
He purposely took a long draw of his beer to let his words sink in. “I know a vulnerable pod. With my help, we can both get what we want.”
Esparza’s eyes narrowed. “What, exactly, is it you want?”
Erik studied the label on his bottle. “Revenge.”
* * * *
After letting them frisk him for weapons, Erik followed Esparza to his compound on a hill overlooking the small town. It had taken Erik a couple of weeks to track down the wily pod Alpha, but he knew it would be well worth it.
The small, tightly knit pod was considered an outcast by most others in the region, from what he could ascertain.
Another reason Esparza suited his needs perfectly.
Once they were settled in a
shaded interior courtyard cooled by an ancient ceiling fan, with cold beers in front of them, Esparza sat back and templed his fingers together.
“Tell me.”
A man of few words.
Erik quickly and without holding back detailed the Placida Pod, the fact that Emery had thrown him over for a fucking human mate, and that the Samhain superpod convening in the area in just a couple of weeks was the perfect opportunity to cement a new power structure.
And no one would have to be the wiser. It could easily be made to look like a legitimate change in power, not a coup.
Esparza sat, motionless, contemplating. Finally, he leaned forward. “How, exactly, do you propose I take over the pod?”
Erik hooked a finger over his shoulder in the direction the cowering Marisela had scurried, followed by one of Hector’s men, once they’d settled at the table to talk. “Her. She’s unmated. She’s a dolphin. I’ll help you with the implementation. I know the people involved, can help you and your men get within striking distance. Simply abduct someone close to Emery, and I guarantee you he’s weak enough, he’ll cave to any demand we make.”
Esparza grinned. “You’re a ruthless bastard, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
After a moment, Esparza slowly nodded and extended his hand, but then drew back. “What is it you want from all of this?”
“For starters, I want that fucking human he’s mated to dead.”
“Do you really think your lover will welcome you back with open arms after helping engineer his mate’s death?”
Erik shrugged. “You’ll get what you want, which is control of the pod, through your sister. I want Emery, but I’d rather see him dead than with a fucking human. As wife of the pod Alpha, if Emery dies, Marisela can declare a successor.” He pointed a finger at Esparza. “Or you can eliminate Emery after he knocks her up, and then once the baby’s born, kill off Marisela. And you’ll be in total command. Unless, of course, you have a moral issue with putting your sister in that position?”