CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Will
I sit on the edge of my bed, staring down at the phone cradled in my hands. Since this morning, my associate in New York has left several missed calls but no voicemails. He knows better. But a significant part of me wishes he had so there would be no one to witness my reaction to whatever he found on Teresa.
At least I’m prepared for the worst, right?
Being blindsided is a million times more fucked up in comparison. It hasn’t been long since the last time the fabric of my beliefs was ripped down the middle. In the short space of time I’ve known Teresa, her mere presence has sutured the wounds I’d thought permanently numb. But with one phone call, I could just as easily be creating newer, fresher ones.
Thinking of how she withdrew from me in the bathroom, I push to my feet with a curse, pacing toward the wall. As soon as I make this phone call, everything is going to change, isn’t it? There was guilt written all over her, plain as day. And I can’t ignore the possibility that she’s working for one of my competitors anymore. All I can do is find out the truth, confront her with what I know…and after she attempts to claw my eyeballs out for going behind her back, we can work toward a solution. One that involves me exacting a promise she’ll never lie to me again. Preferably while I’m banging her through the cowhide headboard.
Unable to put off the call anymore, I hit the speed dial and hold the phone to my ear. Just like this morning, a faceless voice answers, keys punching in the background, before stopping abruptly. “Yes.”
“What did you find?”
I close my eyes and wait.
“Nothing.”
My eyes fly open. Disbelief crashes into hope in my stomach. “Nothing?”
“Can’t connect her to anyone at a single New York firm, and that includes employees, family members, known associates. I crosschecked several times, right down to their fucking dog walkers. Still working on getting her airline travel records—give me until tomorrow on that—but she purchased a Greyhound bus ticket online last week. Four more over the course of several days, along with some motel charges between California and Texas. She looks legit.” He clears his throat, a few keys clicking on the other end. “Teresa Valentini. Age twenty-three. Studio City address. Brother Nicholas. Parents deceased. The only information of note is her employment situation. It’s pretty dicey. Underground gambling facility in Sun Valley that has seen an uptick of violence lately, leading to some scrutiny from the police.”
“Violence.” That word—so vile when associated with Teresa—is the first to cut through my shock. She’s been telling me the truth about everything this entire time? Have I become such a cynical prick that believing in this girl was impossible for me? Lightness crawls into my veins, but a weight drops in my stomach, thinking of how I doubted her. I want to kick her bedroom door down, take her in my arms and apologize until I lose my voice. I can’t do that, though, without letting her know about the background check. Right now, all I can do is vow to do better by her. And protect her. “Do what you can about shutting down the den in LA. Gather intel, tip off the feds. Buy the building and tear it down, if you must. Whatever it takes.” The plan is to keep her with me—not in California—but I’m not taking any chances. “She never sets foot in that goddamn place again.”
“Consider it done.” A few more key strokes. “There’s a steady diet of calls in her cell phone records from a number listed for her brother. Los Angeles area code.”
I think of the friend she said she’ll be staying with in New York. “No contact with a New York number?”
“Not as of this afternoon, no.”
That doesn’t mean anything. They could have gone through an internet messaging service—one even I can’t get access to. Overall, the information points to her being truthful with me. God, I need to touch her. Now. I can’t apologize with words, but my hands and body can do the talking for me.
I recall the way she shut down on me in the bathroom. There’s still a lot of mystery surrounding Teresa, but maybe the key is patience. We’ve only been traveling together since yesterday. Expecting to gain her trust in a matter of days isn’t reasonable…even though this thing between us feels like it defies reason.
Trying to shake the intuition that I’m overlooking something, I hang up with my associate and turn to leave the room. But when Southpaw slinks in through the doorway, I stop on a dime. He’s moving differently than he was an hour ago. There’s a pronounced tilt to his body, like he’s compensating for discomfort.
“What’s wrong, buddy?”
When he would normally snarf or head-butt my legs, Southpaw does neither, walking gingerly toward the bed. He turns to look at me when he reaches the side of the king-sized behemoth. And waits.
Realizing he can’t jump the same three feet he could have yesterday is like being socked in the throat. “You need some help up?”
He turns his face away, his tail unmoving.
“All right. That’s okay.” Gravity is sucking me toward the floor, but I force myself to move forward, picking my best friend up as carefully as possible and laying him in the middle of the bed. With an expression I swear is half embarrassment, half grudging relief, he curls up, closes his eyes and starts to snore.
I can hear the barest hint of Teresa’s voice in the other room. She’s on the phone with her brother. It’s the only thing that keeps me from shouting her name.
Setting my phone down on the bedside table, I stretch out on the mattress and watch the rise and fall of my dog’s chest.
*
Teresa
Stay in control.
Stay calm.
“What the fucking fuck, Nicky?”
Realizing my pitch is reminiscent of cat having its tail yanked, I march into the bathroom, flip on the fan and close the door. I’m presenting a far different image in the mirror than I did fifteen minutes ago, aren’t I? I’ve gone from sex bomb to atom bomb. My eyes are wide as silver dollars, chest shuddering up and down. The absolute poster child for anxiety.
Or stupidity. Because I have an absurd wish for Will to storm into the bathroom and hold me against his chest.
Which is ridiculous, considering his father is one of two people on the line—and Will isn’t even aware I know his father, let alone that the stakes of my cooperation have just been upped. Big time.
My brother’s voice is choked. “You there, Resa?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.” I shove a hand through my hair, which already looks like a disaster, courtesy of the bathroom floor. “I—we were just going to talk. You and me.” I swallow hard, striving for flippant. “I’m not allowed to talk to my own brother in private anymore, Silas?”
There’s a heavy stretch of silence. “You got away with disrespect once, but you won’t twice.” The whip crack in his warning spears my veins with ice water. “Think hard about the way you address me in the company of my employee.”
He won’t be one for long. My throat aches to scream those words, but knowing Silas is with my brother forces me to swallow them. “I apologize.”
“Good.” Just like that, he’s back to being the grandfather-type who needed eyeglasses to look at Instagram on his phone. “I’m inclined to forgive you, since it appears you have my son moving back in the right direction. I hear Arkansas is lovely this time of year.”
How does he know—oh, right. Instagram. With my brother in reaching distance of that monster, my instinct is to assure Silas everything is going according to plan. That I’m well on my way to having Will back in New York. But God—God—the disloyalty crams into my throat, making my eyes water. Focus. You’re here to save Nicky. That was always the plan, you selfish idiot. His life is at stake. “Yes. We’re moving in the right direction.” Self-disgust closes my eyes for me. “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”
Silas’s laugh is like nails on a chalkboard. “You must be as good as you look, sweetheart.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Nicky snaps. “She doesn’t deserve this.”
I have no time to brace before I hear a sickening slap echo down the line, followed by a pained grunt. Stumbling feet.
“Nicky.” Panic erupts in my chest, but I clamp down on it hard. “Shut your mouth. Do you understand me? Not another word. Not one.” Seconds tick by and all I hear is harsh breathing. “Apologize to him.”
“Sorry,” says my brother, his tone suggesting he’s barely moving his lips. “I’m fine, Resa. I just can’t believe I dragged you into this shit—”
Another thud of bone and flesh. Another. My brother grunts—a harsh, wet sound that tells me he’s bleeding. No. This can’t be happening. Helplessness wracks me in the form of shudders. “Leave him alone,” I whisper, imagining my brother lying on the floor being punched, maybe kicked. Impossible images. He’s the boy I used to hang up in a tree wearing wings and a halo. I’m supposed to protect him. “Don’t you want to hear how things are going here?” I blurt. “Talk to me.”
“Ahh.” Silas is breathing heavily. Winded from hitting my brother. “You’re going to entertain us with details?” I cringe at the leading question. There’s no way I can let him touch these real feelings inside me that continue to build like an out-of-control bonfire for Will. I search for something to say that will distract him from Nicky, but after a moment, he keeps going, sounding perturbed over my lack of response. “I’m more impatient than I realized, you see, Teresa.”
I slump sideways against the bathroom door and slide toward the ground. “What do you mean?”
“Your brother has been lifting an easy load, but as you can tell, that’s changing. And there’s a little problem that needs taking care of on Friday night, Teresa. He’s going to handle it for me. Prove his worth.” There’s a smile in his voice. “I really don’t like problems. You know what I mean by a problem?”
God, I wish I didn’t. But I know the way he emphasizes the word problem, he’s talking about a living, breathing human being. One who needs to be taken care of…by my brother. No. This is my worst nightmare. “Y-yeah. I know what you mean.”
“Smart girl. I might be persuaded to relieve him of the responsibility if Will is back behind his desk where he belongs by then.”
My stomach drops. “You told me I had a week.”
“And now I’m cutting it in half,” he returns. “When a man is holding all the cards, that’s his prerogative.”
I’m missing something, right? “There was no giant rush when we spoke in Staten Island. Now getting Will back to New York is an emergency?” I shake my head, my heart silently apologizing to the man across the hall. “What happened?”
“One last thing before I go, sweetheart,” Silas drawls, talking over me. “Did you happen to catch the visitor I sent you today?”
My stomach plummets at the confirmation that Silas is having me—no, us—followed. I wasn’t just imagining things. The man on the highway this afternoon was the same man I saw outside the tavern in Dallas.
I haven’t managed to formulate a response when Silas speaks again, in a tone that brooks zero nonsense. “You have two days. I’ll be watching.”
Sensing he’s about to hang up, I speak in a blur. “Nicky? Is my brother okay? Please, just let me talk to him.”
“Resa…” A cracking cough. “I’m fine.”
The line goes silent.
My hand drops to my lap, the phone skittering across the floor. Instead of bursting into hysterical tears, though, I feel eerily numb. I’m sitting on a bathroom floor in Arkansas, I just realized the vanity lights are in the shape a cattle horns, and my brother is physically hurt. Out of my reach and at the mercy of a sociopath. I have two days to ensure he doesn’t become a murderer.
How am I supposed to walk out of this bathroom and act normal? How can I set aside what I just heard over the phone and not have Will see right through me to the terrified sister beneath? It has been years since I tried and quit yoga—everyone in Los Angeles tries at least once—but I call on those breathing exercises now. In through my nose, out through my mouth. I imagine a marble rolling down from the top of my head, gliding down the curve of my throat, over my arms, hips, legs. There. I’m here and I’m fine. In two days, once I’ve completed the god-awful task in front of me, I will shatter and break for a little while. No way around that. But I will not break now. I won’t let my parents down and I won’t let Nicky drown in the life we escaped.
Standing on shaky legs, I reenter the bedroom, intending to change my clothes and go check out the balcony. Maybe the fresh air will help center me more than an imaginary marble and get my head right. But I find myself stopping halfway between the bathroom and the bed, my attention drawn to the door leading to the hallway. Will said he needed to make a phone call, but I don’t hear his voice. I don’t hear Southpaw’s usual shuffles and grunts, either.
I have this paralyzing thought that Will overheard me and left to call the police from the front desk. But no. If Will found out about my duplicity, there would be an argument. A loud one. He might leave afterward—that certainty makes me miserable—but there would be yelling first. Hate sex, too. Definitely hate sex.
With that conclusion in mind, I step into the hallway and jerk to a stop. Will’s back is to me and he’s lying in the bed with Southpaw. They aren’t touching, but they’re cuddling from a distance. And if my gut wasn’t telling me to worry, I would laugh at the silly picture painted by these two hulking creatures spooning.
“Will?” I whisper.
His shoulders stiffen, but he doesn’t turn around.
My worry increases. Taking a deep breath, I move into the dim room. Twilight has turned to night and no lights have been turned on. As soon as I reach the bed, though, I can still see that Southpaw seems…off. Curled in on himself instead of sprawled out, as is his usual default.
There’s a painful twist inside my ribcage as my gaze slides to Will.
He doesn’t look back.
“Can I do anything to help?”
His voice is made of smoke. “No.”
I should leave the room. Already I’ve formed a dangerous attachment with this man. After the phone call with Silas, my budding hopes of coming clean are out the window. There’s way too much at stake and I’m not in New York to prevent the unthinkable from happening if Silas finds out I’ve revealed myself to his son. Comforting Will and getting in even deeper will only intensify the hurt racing in our direction, won’t it?
Yes. Yes, but I couldn’t be dragged from this room by a sumo wrestler. I’m a part of this. I’ve been painted into this picture and I can’t let Will lie here hurting alone. We’ll both be doing enough of that in the very near future.
“Hey,” I murmur, kneeling on the bed behind Will. When he still doesn’t look at me, I begin massaging the stiff muscles of his back. It doesn’t help. He only grows more tense, especially his jaw, which flexes in the muted light. But I keep going, dragging my thumbs up his spine, digging them into his neck. Circling. And gradually, slowly, his breath starts to come easier, his big body turning until he’s lying on his back and my hands are smoothing over his chest, his face, my fingers tracing his cheeks and eyebrows. “Hey,” I whisper. “You want to talk about it?”
“No,” he says gruffly, capturing my wrists and tugging me down beside him so I’m wedged between Will and a sleeping Southpaw. “I want to talk about anything else, baby. Help me out with that?”
There’s always sex in Will’s eyes when he looks at me, but it’s overshadowed now by the plea there. He needs me right now. He’s letting me see how much, and it sends my heart into a marathon. “Anything else?”
He nods.
“What did you mean?” I slide closer and inhale the scent clinging to his collar. “When you said you’ve been told a lot of shitty things lately?”
His exhale comes out in a rush. “You couldn’t ask me my favorite movie or something easy.”
I lay my head on his shoulder and it’s the single most divine position I’ve ever been in. Bar none. “Tell me that instead, if you want.”
“No.” He brushes my hair away from my face, looking fascinated by how it moves. “No, it’s just the kind of story that will make you look at me with sympathy. I don’t want that.”
“How do you want me to look at you?”
“Like I can spin the world whatever direction you want.” His thumb drags along my lower lip. “Like you’re frustrated and want me to fuck it better.”
So protective. God, if Will knew we’d been followed here from Texas by one of his father’s associates, he would shit a brick. Or would he throw me right to the wolf himself? This is a man who takes my safety seriously. Checking into this place proved that. Not telling him of an immediate threat? I’m not sure he could forgive it so easily. “I-I’ll have to practice my fuck-it-better look in the mirror.”
“Nah, you’re wearing it right now. Try to keep it from slipping while I tell you this story, all right?”
“All right.”
He nods, his hand beginning to coast up and down the hill and valley of my side, leaving goosebumps behind. “It was just me and my mother growing up, and she was constantly telling me stories about my father. He worked for the government. Some…” He shakes his head. “Some secretive, military operations bigwig who traveled the globe, taking down bad guys. Living with us wouldn’t have been safe, so he only came once a year. On my birthday.”
I’m frozen to the mattress. Why did I ask him this question? Didn’t I know where it would lead? Now he’s trusting me enough to reveal secrets I have no right to know. But I can’t make him stop. I can’t. Because I’m desperate to learn everything I can about him. It’s a compulsion and…God, I think my heart has started calling the shots.
“It sounds ridiculous now, but when you’ve been told something—over and over again—from birth, it becomes this unshakeable fact. You know?”
I nod, unable to speak around the knot in my throat.
“When I was younger, the visits were fun. He’d take me to Hersheypark or to the movies. But when I got older, they mainly consisted of lectures. About school, my grades, my future. And even though I hated school and wanted to use my fists for a living, I fucking listened to him. Because he was this bright, shining military hero who sent money to my mother, wishing he could be with us, but knowing our protection was more important. He was a presence in our house without even being there. A god.”
He pauses to swallow, his hand turning into a fist on my hip. I’m fighting a battle to keep from stiffening, but I see what’s coming now and I’m outraged on his behalf, whether I have the right or not. “The day I found out Southpaw was sick, I got an anonymous file in the mail.” His eyes shift away from mine. “There are men on my payroll who deal in information and I’m sure it came from one of them. Looking out for my interests so I’ll remain in a position to continue looking out for theirs.”
For a long time, he doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches so long, I have no choice but to prompt him through parched lips. “What did it say?”
A muscle jumps in his cheek. “I didn’t always want to wear a tie to work, Teresa. I was a fighter and I loved it. It suited me. My father…he’s the reason I quit the sport I loved and started studying so hard. He’s the reason I’ve been living this life that makes me feel like a stranger in my own skin—and it turns out he’s nothing more than a criminal. Not a small-time one, either. He’s done horrific things. All this time, I thought of him as this noble superhero and he’s been lying to me, along with my mother. I built myself into the man I am for him. And he’s not even real, Teresa.” Shrewd eyes shift back to mine. “You want me to fuck it better. That’s how you’re supposed to be looking at me.”
“S-sorry,” I rush to say, willing the pressing heat behind my eyelids to disappear. Doing my best impression of a pouty Revlon commercial, I tug him closer by the collar. “Is that better?”
“Hell yeah.” He drags his lips side to side along mine. “That’s the stuff.”
“Will?”
“Yeah, woman?”
I rub my hand up the center of his chest. “He didn’t touch the man on the inside. He didn’t even come close.”
We breathe into each other’s mouths, eyes open and locked. The intimacy of the moment, the way he looks at me like he’s half in awe, half grateful, is something that will probably haunt me forever. Now that I know what Silas did to Will, this betrayal of mine is so much deeper than I thought. But not tonight. Tonight I’m the woman who’s falling for him and his dog, heart, body and soul.
As I turn over and snuggle into the curve of his body, our fingers laced together, I say a prayer that he’ll think back and remember us falling asleep together beside his sleeping dog.
And know deep down it was real.