Tristan was officially in over his head. He didn’t make mistakes. Not big ones at least. And in the past hour, he’d made every mistake in the book. He hadn’t gotten clear of a potentially hostile situation. He’d been distracted. He’d stayed out in the open for way too long, with a stolen car. He’d dragged a civilian into a compromising position. He couldn’t even be discreet about it. Considering Toni knew exactly how far away he was, she was going to be asking why they were delayed. He wasn’t concerned about himself. He could lie, no problem. But he knew the second Toni asked about it, Shae’s face would glow as bright as a Christmas tree. No, the tryst was going to be discovered. Considering Toni already saw them walking down the aisle together, that could only lead to more complications in his life.

Shae was distant the rest of the drive. Tristan didn’t know whether he should be happy about that or not. Who wanted a whole long talking session after sex? He sure as hell didn’t. He was usually the one grabbing his clothes and heading out the door. It wasn’t exactly an option in this case.

He glanced away from the road and at her, but she was firmly looking in the opposite direction. He reached over and set a hand on her knee. She jerked in surprise at the touch and finally looked at him. “I didn’t mean to make things awkward.” It was the truth. He wouldn’t apologize for what happened, but it was not exactly ideal either. She was just so damn pretty, and seeing her walk away from him had hit him so much harder than he ever thought it would. Kissing her seemed like the only option at the time. Considering what followed, he sure as hell wouldn’t have taken it back even if given the chance. But now that they had to sit together in silence for an hour, the consequences were closing in on him.

“It’s fine. I mean, yeah, it’s awkward. I’ve never... I’ve never done a one-night stand thing before.”

He raised an eyebrow, wishing he wasn’t driving so he could stare at her face more intently. “One-night stand?”

“Well, you know what I mean. It might not be night, and I’m not exactly leaving you forever right now, but you and I both know this isn’t a long-term thing. It just happened. Which is good. It was fun and everything. But....”

He couldn’t argue with that. Dating was for normal people. People with nine-to-five jobs and 401(k)s. Not people with hidden accounts overseas. Once again, he was annoyed when he really should be relieved at her words.

“I’m thinking about my father right now,” she said.

Well, that was a Freudian twist. “It didn’t look like you two were that chummy back there,” he said carefully. He wanted to know more information about them, especially considering it was obviously pertaining to their current job, but he’d rather she tell him at her own pace.

“That’s an understatement.”

“What exactly happened between the two?”

Shae rubbed at the back of her neck, and Tristan wished he didn’t have to put her through this. “Well, my dad didn’t exactly throw me into the water to drown, at least not in a physical sense. We didn’t always used to be this way. He used to love me. I was the perfect package. I was smart, pretty. He would show me off to all of his coworkers and business partners, talking about how I was going to grow up to take the world by storm.”

“You decided that’s not what you wanted to do?”

“I decided it wasn’t what I wanted to be. My dad was always nice to me. Loving. But I came to find out that wasn’t actually who he was. He’s good at business because he’s ruthless. He’ll do whatever it takes, even if pesky laws or ethics get in the way. I guess, at one point, he was making a slightly less than legal deal overseas. At some shindig we were attending, one of the accountants approached him and told him he couldn’t go through with it. That it was wrong. And then, as normal as could be and with a smile on his face, my dad told this poor guy that if he didn’t do it, he’d be out of a job and find himself with no 401(k), no pension, and no one would ever hire him again.”

“Yeah, I’d call that ruthless.”

“Well, I wrote it off. I thought he was all talk and no bite. I mean, this is the guy who got me my first bike. He took pictures of me before homecoming. He helped me study for my first business school exams. He was everything to me. And then, when I came to the office a week later to visit, I realized that accountant wasn’t there anymore.”

“You realized?”

“Okay, I asked. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was part of him I’d never seen before. But he wasn’t kidding. The guy was gone, and when I asked the receptionist about it, she told me this horrible story about how he’d been skimming money from the company.”

Tristan nodded. The guy who’d told her father not to do some shady business deal probably hadn’t actually stolen anything from the company. It was a story Manuel Grant had created to make this guy look bad. A smear campaign. “A lot of people wouldn’t have thought twice about their parents doing something questionable.”

“I didn’t think twice about it. I thought a thousand times. Millions. I tried to pretend it never happened. I tried to go on like everything was normal, but I had dreams, even nightmares about it. And I finally decided I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live a life where I was plagued by guilt. Or even worse. What if I stopped feeling guilty?”

Suddenly her accusations against him made a lot more sense. When she asked whether he felt any guilt at all. When she asked how he could do the things he did. Apparently she asked herself the same question and had come up with a vastly different answer than he had for himself.

“So I decided to do something completely different, and also the same. Real estate. Instead of doing the big game like he was by investing in different properties on the million-dollar scale, I went smaller. I’d be a one-woman business and focus on local housing. It was risky, but I figured I had my dad’s expertise, and my own expertise I’d gained from being around him for so long. I told him what I was going to do, and he seemed super supportive. He helped me to find a property and fronted me the money for it.”

Tristan frowned. That was vastly different from the story she originally told him about the first house she’d gotten super cheap in Miami. “I’m assuming things didn’t go like you planned?” he asked.

“That’s an understatement. It was my plan to go out on my own and make it, but it was always my father’s plan to have me work with him. He knew he couldn’t just tell me no, because that would make me more determined to do what I wanted. So he told me yes, and behind my back, he did everything he could to sabotage me. He hired people to vandalize the place constantly, so every time I’d sink money into a repair, I’d have to do the whole thing over again. I ended up losing thousands of his money on the place.”

“How do you know it was him who did it?”

“Well, I didn’t for a long time. I was so embarrassed that I was failing so heartily, I didn’t even mention all the issues to him for a long time. When I finally decided to come clean, I kept everything vague. But then he started to mention details I never said. Things he shouldn’t have known. I asked him if he’d been checking up on me, but he’d never been a good liar. He didn’t hold out long. He apologized, and told me he’d just been trying to help. That I’d be happier and never have any worries in the world if I stayed with him.”

“But you didn’t stay with him.”

“Some worries are worth it. So I took what little remained of my trust fund that he hadn’t blocked me off from and bought that house in Miami, and that’s what I consider the true start of my business. Nothing was holding me back this time.”

“That was really brave of you.”

“I didn’t feel brave at the time. It felt like I had been backed into a corner, and manipulated, and used.”

That one hit him hard. Those were all the words she’d used to describe how he made her feel. He squeezed her knee a little tighter, offering the only comfort he really could at the time.

“And now he’s back. And now he’s dealing with the guy who’s trying to kill me.” Shae glanced over at him, and he could see the tears forming in her eyes. “Do you think my father knows he tried to kill me? Do you think he’s in on this?”

“I think that’s a big assumption. I don’t like working on assumptions.”

“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “My father’s proved over and over again that he’s a bad person. I just don’t know if I can ever believe that he’s anything besides that.”

Tristan nodded and slowly removed his hand from her knee. Once again, he was comparing himself to her father. He’d also proved over and over again that he was a bad man. And she would be stupid to ever believe otherwise.

––––––––

––––––––

Everyone gathered in the main room, and, for the first time, Shae didn’t feel quite as much like an outcast. Obviously they hadn’t intended for her to be a main part of the team, but thanks to her unfortunate family relations, she felt for the first time as though she could help. She and Tristan had gotten back to the mansion about two hours before, and each had gone their separate ways.

She’d changed out of the suit she’d been provided. The expensive material had been more than comfortable, but the reminder of her old life had made her feel dirty. The fact that her shirt had literally been thrown on the gravel on the side of the road didn’t help that dirty feeling. Luckily when she reached her room again—or, rather, Tristan’s room—she found some more clothes Toni had provided her. This time she found some loose yoga pants and a black tank top. She felt rather like a cat burglar now, but she supposed that just meant she fit in better here.

She wished Melissa was here. Apparently she and Gage had gotten into it for some reason, and Melissa decided it would be best if she were running errands far away from the mansion. She really needed to get the truth about what was going on between those two....

Melissa was the only one who she felt like she could talk to honestly. With every other member of this odd team, she felt as if she were seeing some sort of false facade. Even with Tristan. Especially with Tristan.

A few minutes ago, Scott had stopped by her room to announce that Toni was calling a meeting. However, even though Toni was the one who called it, she wasn’t ready. Instead, she had her back to the group and was clicking through seemingly random screens on her computer. A lot of black backgrounds and bright-green coding that meant nothing to Shae.

Tristan stood across the room, and she could feel his gaze continuously touching her. She had to admit that she’d been looking in his direction a few too many times as well. Who could blame her? After that intense orgasm he’d given her on the side of the road, this was the first time she didn’t feel embarrassed for thinking about him so much. In fact, she’d be crazy not to think about him as much as she was.

Of course there were a lot of jumbled thoughts, between her repeating to herself the reasons why they never should’ve been together in the first place, along with her still shaking knees telling her exactly how right everything had been. But then when the other guys would notice them looking at each other, she’d rip her glance away. She was hardly being subtle, but that wasn’t her specialty. She wasn’t like everyone else here. She wasn’t used to hiding what she’d done, and who she’d been with. She prided herself on being an open book. Life was much simpler when you didn’t give yourself reason to lie. At least that’s what she’d always said. And now look where she found herself—getting death threats from the most powerful man in the state and hiding out with a bunch of criminals who were trying to keep her safe. Not exactly where she thought she’d be a week ago.

Apparently some of the other guys were getting impatient about the wait. “You know, I can come back later,” said Hunter.

“Hold your horses,” muttered Toni as she continued her frantic typing.

Hunter rolled his eyes.

“If any of you guys want to leave, I can just give you a brief summary later,” said Scott in a tone that obviously implied exactly how displeased he would be if anyone decided to leave early.

Hunter didn’t respond, but he didn’t leave either.

The waiting continued until finally Toni put her finger down on a key with a tad extra emphasis and spun around in her chair. “I’m sorry about the wait, guys. Damask’s phone was like a virtual treasure trove. You have no idea all the shady shit his hands have been in.”

“Does that mean we’re good?” asked Hunter. “I mean, that’s the point, right? Is it enough to take him down?”

“Patience,” said Toni. “I found things that let me know what he’s been up to. But as far as the justice system is concerned, it’s all just circumstantial. A good attorney could wiggle him out of a lot of stuff. He’s meeting with shady guys who do shady things, but there’s no proof he’s working with them. A guy that powerful has meetings with a lot of people. It doesn’t mean he’s doing illegal shit with them. We want the entirety of the FBI and IRS to swarm around Blackthorne and make sure everyone they screwed over gets back what they deserve. That requires a bit more time. And namely, paperwork.”

“What kind of paperwork?” asked Shae. “Didn’t they get the homes relatively legally? Like illegal, but they had paperwork to back it up. Or else the foreclosure process never would’ve happened. So what can we possibly do to bring him down legally?”

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. There are a lot of illegal things we could do to bring down Damask. But I’m hoping that a guy like him will act like most criminals do.”

“What does that mean?” asked Shae.

“It means he’s paranoid, and paranoid criminals always have a backup plan. You know what they say. There is no honor among thieves. If Damask goes down for any reason, he’s going to try to take a bunch of others down with him. It’s how he would protect himself. So, if I can find his secret stash, then I can find a way to bring him down.”

“That’s ridiculous. He’s not going to keep location to his stash on his phone.”

“You’d be surprised at all the stupid shit people keep on their phone. It just takes some logic and digging. Either way, this isn’t my only plan. This is plan A. We still have plan B, C, D, E, and F.”

“What are those?”

Toni let out an exasperated sigh, apparently finished with this line of questioning. “I’ll let you know when we need those plans. Until then, this is what we’re doing.”

“That’s all great,” said Gage, “but what’s the meeting for? We already knew you were digging through his phone.”

“The meeting is because I may have found something. It might be nothing, but it’s worth looking into. Damask has a safety deposit box at a bank in St. Pete.”

Shae blinked in confusion. “He banks in St. Pete?” It seemed so far from the cities he’d be doing the most business in.

Toni shrugged. “I think he used to live there. But the point is that safe deposit boxes always have some juicy stuff hidden in them. I figure for us it should be easy to get in, and if it’s nothing, we can always rule that out as a stash.”

Shae scoffed. “Breaking into a safe deposit box is easy?”

“It depends on who you know.” Tristan winked.

She nodded. “All right. What do I need to do?”

“Hey, I’m all for you helping,” said Toni. “But I think you can sit this one out.”

Shae was still adamant that she wanted to help, but she couldn’t fight with that one. There was nothing she could do to help break into a bank, and, frankly, she didn’t know that she wanted to put herself in that position. “Have you looked into my father?”

“Your father. Yeah. He’s a peach.”

She was more than aware exactly how her father came off. “Do you know what he’s doing with Damask?”

“From the emails I’ve read, it looks like they’re doing a deal. A pretty big one from what I can tell. Your father and Damask have roughly similar net worths. Blackthorne has a larger annual revenue than your father’s company, but that’s not saying much. If they’re doing a deal together, it would be a big deal.”

“They’re not being subtle about it if her father is showing up to Blackthorne events,” said Tristan.

“They’re kissing each other’s ass,” said Shae. “If they’re both the same size, each of them has something to gain and lose with the deal. They both want it to go through.” Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged. “I know how these things go. A lot of compliments and wining and dining and tax-deductible meals. It’s all a big show of self-importance.”

Shae sounded calm about everything, but the more she thought about it, the more uneasy it made her feel. She knew her dad wasn’t exactly a good man, but thinking about him being in business with someone like Damask was starting to get to her. It’s funny that he accused her of letting him down, but she felt it was the other way around. She was supposed to have this strong and respectable father who was a highlight of the business world. She was supposed to brag about him and tell people how great he was. About all the wonderful things he’d done for the industry, and how smart he was. But he wasn’t smart. He was playing the system. One more crook making it harder for anyone honest to succeed in the world. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. “So am I done here?” she asked. “It’s not like I can help anyway.”

Hart looked at her questioningly, but he ended up nodding. “You don’t need to be here for the rest of this. But if you want to stay and keep updated on what we’re doing, you’re more than welcome.”

She’d had enough for one day. She gave a quick, insincere smile before she turned and left. She was just out of the room when she heard footsteps behind her. Footsteps that she recognized. In fact, she was pretty sure she could recognize Tristan’s footsteps anywhere now. It was as if she were tuned in to him. “What?” she asked without stopping.

“I figured you might be hungry. Want to head to the kitchen and raid the fridge? I think Toni went shopping today.”

“You can’t just give me brownies every time I’m in a mood.”

“Well, that’s silly. I don’t see why not.”

She let out a little laugh. “Listen, I am in a bad mood. I’m probably going to be in a bad mood all night. You really don’t need to hang around out of pity to make me feel better.”

“I don’t know what part of this read pity to you. Besides, I’m good at cheering people up. I always know the right thing to say.”

“Is that how you get people to trust you when you rob them?”

“Well, it started with me getting people to like me when I was on the streets, begging.”

Shae narrowed her eyes. She thought back to how little she knew about him. He’d mentioned his father and how he’d pushed him into the water, but that had been back before she knew who he was. She didn’t know what was just a fabrication to get her to like him and what had actually happened. And at what point did the begging come in? Before or after he’d been thrown into that water?

She just didn’t know what to do with him. “Look, Tristan, I don’t want to be cheered up right now. I want to be angry. I want to feel bitter. Considering you might very possibly have had a worse childhood than I did, I’m not in the mood to have my pity party with you.”

“You keep using that word,” he said. “Pity. I don’t know why you think I pity you.”

“Of course you pity me,” she said. “Hell, I pity me. People trying to kill me. I’m hanging around with a bunch of people who don’t even want my help, but I’m too afraid to go home. I really don’t see anything that’s not to pity right now.”

“Well, do you want to know how I see it?”

“Not really.”

“Too bad. I see one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known, who is surrounded by people who like her and want her to be safe. I see someone who came from a privileged background and let that go even when it was one of the hardest decisions she’s ever made. I see someone who’s too smart for her own good, too pretty for her own good, and feels things even when anyone else would tell her to push those feelings down and just do what’s expected of her. I don’t see one damn thing to pity here.”

Just when Shae was about to throw herself into his arms and tell him that was the nicest thing she’d ever heard, Hunter showed up behind him. Shae shifted her weight and tried to act normal. “What’s up?” she asked.

“You’re not going to like this. Your dad’s here, Shae.”