Dani watched Luke leave the table and was filled with a sense of panic. It was an odd feeling, not wanting him to leave her alone with her family. At the moment, he was the only real ally she had in the place. So, of course, she wouldn’t want to be separated from him. It certainly wasn’t for any romantic reason that she didn’t want to see him go. Plus, she was better on her own. Why would she need him?
And yet she did.
She bit her lip and stared at her empty plate. They’d taken away the last course. She couldn’t even remember what it was she’d been served last. She’d been eating on automatic pilot for hours it seemed.
“Would you all excuse us a moment, please?” Benny’s voice broke into her thoughts. She raised her head and watched as he gestured an entire crowd out of the room with the simple act of just raising his hand. The men and women nervously standing behind books of cakes and dresses and bright white lace confections exchanged glances and filed out, creating a little knot of traffic at the door. More than one looked back, as if wanting to ask, unsure of what they were supposed to do when they were being shooed away from the wedding of the century. But when a man with a great deal of money to spend wants the room cleared, you clear the room and pray you’ll be invited back later.
As the last of them stepped into the hallway, Benny nodded for the two men at the door to leave also. They looked at Dani speculatively. Apparently, they were aware she’d had training. At the very least they’d figured out she had some military experience, and were none too happy about leaving their boss alone with her in a room. But orders were orders. They wouldn’t stray far from the door, and regardless of the hold Benny had on them they were going to be listening in from the outside, of that she was sure.
Dani smiled at them nastily, giving her best Joker grin, hoping to pass along the idea that insanity ran in her family. That should have been evident. Benny was forcing her to marry just to kill her father. Her father was a thief and a coward, and had left his children to take the heat for his theft. This was not a sterling reputation for mental health. Even she was starting to doubt her sanity.
“You, too, David.”
“David’s here?” Dani shot up, spinning around and seeing that, sure enough, her brother was stealing cupcakes from one of the pastry tables behind her. She turned from him to Benny and back to her brother, trying to figure out just what game Benny was playing. And why the hell he hadn’t said anything when he’d arrived. She always had his back, why didn’t he have hers?
“My men caught him tearing up the office,” Benny said with a shrug. “He’d gone wild, like he was looking for something, but David won’t say what it is.” Benny gave a long look to her brother. It wasn’t the sort of look most men lived long to enjoy. “Care to tell me now what’s so damn important?”
David looked up. He had frosting on his chin. She realized he’d been sulking.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Markland?” she asked, wondering when he’d had time to tear up the office. The panic set in again deep inside her, bubbling its way to the surface. “Someone has to run the company, David.” She tried to get it through to him that he could take this excuse and run with it. All David had to do was go to work and he could be free of all this. But her hopes of him picking up on the hint were quickly dashed. She wanted to bash him on the side of the head. He was an idiot sometimes.
“The place runs better without me,” he muttered, sounding like a little boy complaining that no one would play with him. “Charlie and Ross are taking over and making choices and decisions. Markland’s doing better than ever.”
“Then what the fuck is your job?” Benny asked sharply.
David flinched, and shrugged. “To stay out of the way?”
“Then you need to do that job right now!” Benny barked. “Out!”
Dani watched David’s face. His demeanor was subdued, even petulant, but his eyes were cold and hard like agates. The hate he repressed in his stance and in his personality shone through his eyes. It was like looking through a peephole and finding the banked fires of Hell on the other side. Like a volcano ready to erupt.
“David,” she said quietly, “would you please excuse us for a moment? It’ll be all right. Okay?”
He snorted. “Really? I already tried to, but they dragged me here. Now I’m here, and you need me to go again? Fuck it. Whatever. Dad made this mess. Not me,” David groused, and stole one last glance at Benny as he swiped a napkin at his face, missing the frosting completely, leaving him with a bright-blue goatee. His glance went unnoticed, but Dani saw the seething hatred in his eyes flare and fall away again as he stood and went to join the others in the hallway.
It’s not me Benny’s guards should be worried about.
But David was a non-entity; he was no threat to their minds. Not with his blue icing beard. He looked like a grown-up kid not getting his way. It was she they feared. They knew she’d been active in places where fighting dirty was the only way to survive. They considered her to be the biggest threat to Benny’s health, while David hatched a million plots like so many snakes weaving their way through his mind.
There’s a cheery image. She suddenly realized that Benny had been talking to her. She wondered what she’d missed.
“...somehow,” he was saying, “I think you’re failing to appreciate what we’re doing here. You’re treating this like you’ve been sent to your room. Like you just have to get past the time when you’re grounded and then everything will be okay again.” He paused, leaning forward to rest on his elbows on the table. “It won’t.”
“What...” Dani looked into his eyes. They weren’t the pits of flame like David’s. They weren’t threatening at all. They were just... dead. In all the years she’d called Benny her uncle, in all the time he’d brought her, and then her and David, some toy or some sweet, she’d never noticed that about him. It was the gaze of a shark: dead, cold, uncaring.
What else had she missed?
“Your father stole from me. I cannot—I will not allow that to go unnoticed.” He took a pause and added, “but that’s not the problem. He betrayed me, Dani, He betrayed me. Me!” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigar. He rolled it around in his fingers, his face a study of concentration. “Betrayal I can’t forgive.” He pulled out a knife from his jacket, a small pocket knife, no more than an inch long. He carefully sliced the tip of the cigar. They were in a non-smoking facility. She wasn’t about to point that out. “Betrayal goes deep. Especially when it’s family. You’re all pouting and angry because you have to marry someone you love, a fine-looking chap. I don’t know why you’re so angry. Most girls would kill to be in your shoes. You have no idea what I usually do to people who betray me. And their daughters.”
Fire leapt from his fingers and Dani jumped. She hadn’t seen the lighter in his hands.
She swallowed hard. Suddenly she was scared, and she never got scared. “What are you saying?” Dani asked in a voice she no longer recognized.
“I’m saying that this wedding better work, because there are other ways to make a man pay for what he’s done. I’m saying that you and David will bring your father to me. You’re the best and surest way to get to him. Just as that young man in the bathroom is the way to get to you.” He drew on the cigar and had the end glowing cheerfully. He released the smoke with a satisfied exhale. “I’m saying that this is something a little more involved than just a marriage. I’ve already kidnapped and threatened your young man, and if this...” he waved to the books displaying bright, happy wedding paraphernalia, “...doesn’t work, then we’ll have to try another way.”
Dani’s heart began to pound in her chest.
“Oh, here.” Benny reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a candy bar. “You’re about to be a married woman, so you’re too old to play games, but one more for old time’s sake.” He handed her the $100,000 bar with a flourish. “But it’s the last one you’re getting.” He leaned back and puffed the cigar, and called everyone back into the room. As they filed back in, he leaned over and whispered, “Remember, weddings are happy. You’re the blushing bride, so get blushing.”
Behind the troop of thugs and wedding designers and planners, David shuffled along like a child bored out of his mind. Someone must have pointed out the frosting, for it was gone now.
“I’ll try to get what you want, Uncle Benny.” Dani’s voice came out quiet. She hated how scared she sounded, but anger wasn’t the way to go at the moment. She watched Luke stride in—she swore his clothes looked more rumpled before he’d left. Had he gotten into a fight in the bloomin’ bathroom?
“Where’s Samuel?” Benny asked Luke, peering over his shoulder, as though the bully boy were hiding there somewhere.
“He had to take a dump,” Luke said, walking straight over to her as if she were the only person in the room and kissing her soundly, whispering something against her lips.
Dani’s eyes widened. His hand rested on her chest, fingers splayed. Surely, he would be able to feel how hard her heart was pounding.
Benny chomped his cigar a moment, staring at Luke, and began to laugh.
And just like that Dani seemed to see things more clearly than ever. Benny, the smallest man she’d ever known, who used to be so grand to a small girl, she now saw was petty and weak. Her brother, who she’d protected and nurtured and cared for, had turned out to be petulant and sullen. And Luke, the quick fuck she’d jumped on for the hell of it... turned out to be someone who made her smile just by walking into a room. The image of him warmed her, even when Benny had chilled her to the bone.
She really did love him.
And, of course, he hated her.
***
LUKE CROSSED THE ROOM to where Dani was standing. The entire lot of people had been shuffling in the hallway, going back inside as he arrived. It was like a fire drill for idiots, everyone evacuating—but only to the hallway. He hurried his pace as he wondered if Dani was all right.
He wasn’t sure who all had been left in the room. But seeing that Dani and Benny were the only two people not finding seats or places to stand and glower, it looked like he’d come back at the tail end of a very private discussion. He strode directly to her and leaned over, the words “we need to talk” slipping out moments before he pressed his lips to hers and put his hand on the top of her chest.
Benny, for a wonder, was still laughing. He’d given a nod of his head and one of his men disappeared, probably to go check on Samuel. Good; maybe he could wake the creep up. Not his problem.
Luke kissed her long and deep, taking revenge in the form of a tender kiss. It was her fault they were in this mess. It was her family that kidnapped him. Her brother who had Luke beaten. If there was such a thing as revenge through a passionate kiss, he was going to take it. Right now, for this moment, she was his and he would do what he damn well pleased.
She bit his lip. Hard.
He pulled away and smiled at the anger in her expression. He turned to Benny as the man he’d sent to check on Samuel returned and whispered in Benny’s ear. Luke watched the older man’s face transform from amusement to anger, to something more along the lines of respect, and then back to amusement. The man had absolutely no poker face.
Maybe when you were Benny Bianchi you didn’t need a poker face. Who the hell would try to beat him at cards?
“I hear Samuel took a bad fall,” Benny said after a moment, puffing on his cigar.
“Bathrooms are the most dangerous room in any home. All that water everywhere,” Luke said, his gaze steady on Benny’s face. “I hope he’s not injured.”
Benny’s mouth lifted on one corner. “Cracked his head on the tile, so I’m told.”
“Oh good.” Luke seated himself, his eyes never leaving Benny’s. “I’m glad he didn’t injure anything important.”
Benny drew deeply on the cigar that flared bright red, fueling the temperament of the smoker. “I can see what she sees in you,” he said after a moment, using the soggy end of the cigar as a pointer.
Luke made a point of checking his fly. “Really? It’s all closed up.”
Benny fell into another paroxysm of laughter, and nudged the goon nearest him. “This guy’s good. He’s got a big mouth, but I like him.”
“Listen,” Luke said as they sat down again. He placed his hand on Dani’s knee in a familiar way. Dani stiffened under his touch, but kept still. Whether for his sake or Benny’s, he couldn’t tell. “Uncle Benny...” He let that linger. If he was to be married into the family, Benny would have to get used to it. Plus, he could play the game as well. He was no idiot. “You remember when you were young and in love with a goddess? We just need a little time together.”
“Maybe,” Benny said slowly, “maybe. But we’ve already kept these good people here long enough, I think. There’s a wedding to arrange and not enough time. You!” He turned and pointed to the nearest vendor, seemingly at random. “You’re up!”
The poor man fairly jumped out of his shoes, but ran to the book he had on display. Wedding cakes. Luke rolled his eyes, but waited patiently while the man tried to explain the virtues of icing and cake structures and... why the hell was David here? Luke looked at Dani’s brother, seeing the man for the first time, not liking that he was hovering over his left shoulder. He glanced at Benny and at Dani, but neither of them seemed to be concerned about David suddenly showing up like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.
Luke tried to concentrate again on the babbling man nervously fingering the laminated pages of his book of cakes. An assistant was fussing with sample cakes. Different cakes from what they’d seen before. Good grief, how many people were vying for the right to feed them at this farce of a wedding? He looked around the room, noting more cake bakers. Designers. Whatever the hell you called them. A half-dozen at least. Five of them would go away disappointed. What was the point of this whole thing anyway?
He glanced over at David, who was chatting up a photographer. He kept finding a reason to lay a hand somewhere on the tiny brunette. She kept finding excuses to duck out of his range. It was a warped and twisted dance that everyone seemed to ignore as if it weren’t happening. The brunette finally stomped on David’s instep, sending him leaping backwards with a howl that was lost in discussion of flower arrangements.
Dani never so much as looked up.
Was she still that blind in regard to her brother?
Stupid question. What the hell kind of family was this anyway? He watched as David retreated, his eyes stormy. The brunette started packing up her portfolio. Luke couldn’t blame her. Some things weren’t worth it no matter how much money was at stake.
The fear in her eyes, the wary glances she cast at David were almost impossible to ignore.
Except, somehow, Dani missed it all.
His jaw ached with the strain of holding it clenched. He watched the girl leave. She at least had the forethought to ask one of the servers to accompany her out. She’d chosen the biggest guy there. Luke leaned back in the chair, arms crossed, and watched her go. David ignored the whole proceeding. He was already chatting up one of the waitresses. She didn’t seem to mind him quite so much, and laughed when he planted a hand on her backside.
Luke shook his head and turned his attention back to the wedding planner. They’d moved on to... what? He’d lost track. He sighed and shifted in his chair, trying to find a comfortable position on something that was designed for someone half as tall as him.
Look alive; you’ve got to see this thing through. There’s no other way to stay close to her.
He leaned in as if interested in china patterns and place settings. As it turned out, they really didn’t need him at all. His half-hearted comments were ignored. In fact, he was starting to suspect that there wasn’t a person in the place, save Samuel, who was paying him any attention at all.
Finally, he just sat back in the chair and let the discussions go on around him.
He was never sure how the decisions were finally made. Benny simply urged people to pick something and move on, Dani was distracted, and Luke certainly didn’t care. Still, the cake was chosen, and most of the planners left happy and took the miles of fabric with them, undraping it from the chairs and tables and whatever else hadn’t moved. He suspected they’d all been paid off just to show up. Interestingly, a couple of them looked positively giddy to not be chosen for the main event.
Apparently, Benny’s reputation had preceded him.
As for the dress, that was something Dani would be trying on later, though they did take a great deal of measurements. That was the sole part of the day where Luke wasn’t bored silly. The little dress she wore showed off her long, strong legs, and to have her stand still while being measured was a thrill to watch. It didn’t hurt any at all that she was obviously embarrassed by the whole process, so in that regard Luke particularly enjoyed making suggestions on measurements.
“Do you mind?” she hissed when a particularly delicate measurement checked her inseam.
“You’re not getting pants,” he said to her, but was looking at the seamstress.
“No sir,” the girl said, and slid her hand up Dani’s leg, measuring tape flying behind her.
“I withdraw my objection,” Luke said, and sat down to enjoy the show.
During the fitting and measuring, Luke looked around the room and smiled and waved to Samuel. The man was seething, a lovely bruise blossoming on his face. It looked good on him. He’d made an enemy, but there was nothing the goon could do about it. By now, everyone in Benny’s outfit knew Luke was capable of taking out someone of Samuel’s caliber. He’d made his own escape that much harder, but he couldn’t regret it.
Still, he had to get Dani alone, tell her about Randy, and get the USB stick from her again.
Maybe I shouldn’t have hit him quite so hard. I’m never getting out of this room now. He clenched and unclenched his fist. It ached from where it had connected with Samuel’s head.
What he needed was a plan.
And a way to carry it out.
***
DANI FELT LIKE A DAMN fool. She wouldn’t have worn a short dress if she’d known she was going to be set in front of a crowd and measured. It was bad enough holding her arms out while someone called out her bust size for the world to hear, but to do it in a short dress that tended to ride up with her was a little past her comfort zone.
She had just reached a state of mind where she could do whatever was required and just not be there, when Luke started with the catcalling. If Uncle Benny wanted a blushing bride, he certainly had one now.
She’d never been busty, which had turned out to be a blessing, as it freed her for the martial arts she’d loved and which had saved her time and again. But there had been a time when she’d been self-conscious about it. Kids had a way of homing in on the one thing that made you insecure, and she’d endured more than her fair share of teasing at school.
Luke took all that to a whole new level.
Seriously. Water balloons? Emergency air bags? What was he, twelve?
“Do you mind?” she hissed at him after a particularly nasty comment had actually brought chuckles from the peanut gallery. Hearing Benny’s henchmen laugh at her bra size was something she seriously didn’t need right now.
“Of course I don’t mind, sweetheart!” he called cheerfully from across the room. “I love you just the way you are.” He lifted a champagne flute in a mocking toast.
She tried to ignore him. Truly she did. But as the comments continued, some of those statements were getting out of hand. Enough was enough. Her chin came up as she stepped down from the platform where she was getting measured, and stormed over to his side of the room. “Come here,” she said through clenched teeth, stopping just short of him.
It took a minute.
He sat, doing that fucking man-sprawl thing with his legs spread wide, like he owned the entire freaking universe. He’d been leaning his chair back against the table behind him, arms crossed behind his head. He looked for all the world like an overconfident football jock, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was suddenly in the role of spinster teacher, trying to take the bully down a peg or two.
She seriously considered kicking the leg out from under the chair to see if a concussion might improve his personality.
Apparently he figured out her thought process, because he stood, the chair coming down with a bang. Though it didn’t stop the huge grin from spreading across his face. “As you command, Honey-Bun,” he said, and sketched a quick bow.
Even in ridiculous heels that left her trying to balance on tiptoe she was at his side in in instant, her hand buried in the material of his shirt. She yanked him in close, hearing the fabric tear. “What the hell are you doing?”
He leaned over and put his arms around her as if she hadn’t just snarled at him with all the venom of a cobra. “He’s watching,” he warned her against her ear. “If he thinks we’re just talking, he’ll break this up.” He pulled her to him and buried his face in the nape of her neck, nibbling as he went.
He smelled wonderful. Why did he have to smell so wonderful? She shook her head to clear it and grabbed his arms, digging her nails into the thick corded muscle.
“I contacted my boss, or possibly, my old boss,” he said, attacking her ear with his lips. “He’s got us under surveillance. Okay, that’s starting to hurt...”
“Wimp,” she hissed in his ear. “This is all your idea, you know.” She ground her thumbs into his elbows. He bit down on her earlobe hard, increasing the pressure until she backed off. They broke apart for a moment. She was aroused, and hated him for it. Her breath came in short gasps. Suddenly she lunged for him, and grabbed the back of his head so that they could lock lips.
“So what? Everyone and their brother has us under surveillance,” she muttered against his lips, tasting the champagne and feeling her stomach lurch at the taste. This was too dangerous, too close to putting her over the edge. Even that much made her want a drink and she needed to punish him for that, too, for this failure that she hadn’t wanted to be reminded of, though Benny had tried several times to get her to drink a toast to the couple, despite her protests.
Her fingernails tore into Luke’s scalp as he picked her up and slammed her into the wall, never breaking off the kiss.
“All right, you two... No need for the honeymoon display now,” Benny said, sounding like a proud, indulgent parent. His voice seemed to come from a million miles away. When had pain become so exquisite?
“I need to get that USB stick back,” Luke said against her skin, his own breath seeming a little ragged.
Dani’s arms traced down his back; her knee rose between his legs and nailed his crotch. She altered the movement to wrap her foot around his leg, and shifted her grip to hold him upright as he gasped and tried to double over. “That was my USB stick! You took it from me.”
His thumbs drove in under her ribcage and she gasped. He covered it with another kiss. “You dropped it, I took it. Right now, it might be the only thing that can save us. I need it back; I have to get it to...”
“Enough,” Benny said, laughing, from somewhere too close. Right behind him. He was right behind them, and she needed to think, but she couldn’t.
“I get your point; you need some time together like the little love birds, but not now.”
Benny was an idiot. How could he not see what this encounter meant to her, to Luke? Why didn’t he see that they were plotting right under his nose?
Maybe because the passion is there. Much as you want to deny it, you’re positively dripping with arousal. You left ‘blushing bride’ at the altar eons ago.
Luke pulled away, his eyes alight, but she doubted it was from passion. It was probably trying to keep them in their sockets. He’d taken a pretty solid blow to his groin. He stepped back and looked at Benny and smiled. “As you say.” He made a little half-bow. It gave her some satisfaction to see that his face was a little pale. “But it is a wedding, and she just couldn’t restrain herself. You know how some women are.”
Dani felt the heat rising to her face. At that moment, she could have kicked him till he stopped moving. “You...” She looked at Uncle Benny and smiled, the outrage coming out in a heavy whoosh of breath. This was a man who could kill her. Who would kill them both in an instant. She needed to remember that. “You know how it is.” She smiled, but the grin fled her face when she turned her attention to Luke. “There’s just something about him I can’t seem to control.”
The rest of the day dragged on tediously. So the cops were watching. Benny still didn’t realize who he’d kidnapped. If he had, he’d have had a heart attack. Despite Luke’s complaints about his boss, he was a cop and they didn’t leave their own. They looked out for each other.
Dani envied that just now.
She’d always been the one who looked after others. While it was true that the work she’d done had necessitated a team, the men and very few women who were part of that were loners. They were a special breed, those who were attracted to that kind of work. People who preferred to be isolated, alone. It made for fewer complications, less chance of losing someone that means something to you.
Several times over the past days she’d wished she could call some former friends, but in her world things didn’t work that way. In Luke’s world, having backup was apparently as normal as breath or water. She envied that. There were those who would have come, some for loyalty. Most for a price. Business was business after all, and even friends didn’t work for free.
She thought she’d had Luke, though. Maybe she was wrong about that as well.
The rest of the measurements taken, the cakes and décor ordered, flowers arranged, and the caterers chosen, they headed for the cars again. This time David rode with Dani, Luke, and Benny.
Normally, a girl would’ve had to run all over town to plan a wedding. It would take months to organize and plan. But Benny? They come to him, they wait for his pleasure and they “yes sir” and “no sir.” He’ll do anything to get at Daddy. And worse, he’s willing to kill Luke to get to me. That little display we put on isn’t helping either. Now he’s convinced that Luke is the love of my life, and he’ll use that against me.
Dani watched as the road vanished under their tires.
He’s right.
She stared uneasily out the window the entire way home. Benny tried to engage her in conversation but, really, there was nothing left to say. Whatever happened now, she didn’t care about risking her own life. But no one was going to hurt Luke. She just had to figure out how to get him out of this.