SHANE
With that threat against Emily, Derek’s second issued tonight, anger comes at me, sharp, biting, and immediate, but years of negotiations and courtroom battles serve me well now, allowing me to deny him the heated reaction he seeks. I steeple my fingers in front of me, my eyes narrowing on him. “Careful where you go from here, Derek,” I warn, and while my voice is low, it’s precise, lethal.
“I could say the same to you, Shane. Don’t throw me to the wolves with Martina again. You won’t like the results.” He pauses and then adds, “Brother.”
“You threw us all to the wolves when you got us involved with Martina,” I say. “And there is no ‘again.’ This is over. You heard Father. No outsiders. I’m getting us all out of this.”
“You’re the outsider,” he grinds out, his tone guttural, but he seems to catch himself, inhaling, then exhaling, his voice and demeanor calm as he adds our father’s long-spoken words. “Profit is king to Father. He’ll come around.”
“Father is king to Father,” I say. “Martina is out.”
“Martina doesn’t agree.”
“He will.”
“If you believe that, you’re a fool. This is an opportunity for two parts of one industry to merge in financial reward in a way that has never been done. Martina sees that. He wants that.”
“Illegal drugs and legal drugs are not one industry,” I say. “And Martina only wanted in because you made him want in, but worse. You made him think we could all get away with it, without consequences, with regulations no one can hide from. There’s a reason this hasn’t been done before now.”
“You’re right. There is. The wrong people were involved.”
“Martina isn’t the fool you are, Derek. He wants money on this side of the steel bars.”
“He’s a man who isn’t afraid to take risks,” he says. “You did nothing to dissuade that man from the mission he’s on.”
“I gave him a reason to get out.”
“All you did was make yourself a little bitch willing to serve him. His little bitch.”
“I’m not the one with a bandage on my hand,” I remind him. “And I didn’t offer my services. I offered him incentives to get out of our business.”
“The Martina family doesn’t replace profits. They expand them. Give them something more, and they simply take more. There is no getting Martina out. There’s just getting us all killed.”
“Don’t put this on me, Derek. You did this. Just like you got us into legal trouble. I got you, and us, out of that then, and I’ll do it now, but I swear to you, Derek. You will help me, or there will be a price to pay.”
“You mean you’ll tell him about me fucking his sister? He knows.”
“He doesn’t know that you’re using his sister, which you clearly spelled out in graphic detail in the recording I have of you telling me,” I reply. “Do not underestimate me, brother. I’m done trying to save you.”
“But you aren’t done trying to save Emily.” He pauses and then adds, “And trying might not be good enough. Cross me with Martina again, and I’ll make sure he believes you’re setting him up with the Feds and that Emily is his revenge.”
“If I play him that recording, you’ll be dead before you have the chance.”
Our eyes lock in a collision, seconds ticking by, thick air surrounding us before Derek stands up, and unwilling to allow him to dictate my actions, I stay where I’m at. I don’t stand. I don’t lean back in my chair. He presses his fingers to the table, his spine stiff, his anger palpable, and his expression unreadable. “Seems our chess match is far from over,” he says, and then with nothing more, he pushes off of the table, clearly intending to leave, and turns to walk away, rounding the table and heading in the direction where I’d entered the room with Emily.
Listening to his footsteps, I remain where I am, my mind rooted in nothing but his exit until I know he’s gone. Then, and only then, do I let my thoughts free and they land one place: Emily. There is danger everywhere for her, both from her family and mine, and I’d believed her safer here with me, under Seth’s watch, but the very fact that she is being threatened says that I have done too little to protect her. That shifts my thought process to how I fix this, and fix it now, and I replay my conversation with Derek.
He’s cocky, and that comes from somewhere that isn’t fear. He has someone powerful in his corner. If it’s Mike and my mother he’s in cahoots with, my father and I have a plan for dealing with them in play, but Martina is another story. One knife in a hand does not make an enemy in Martina’s circle. It just makes a punishment or a show. I need to lock down a firm agreement with Martina. I reach into my pocket and remove my phone, doing a search and then dialing the restaurant Martina owns. I’m forced to leave a message with someone I think might be his sister, my brother’s bedmate.
Returning my phone to my pocket, I drum my fingers on the table and think about that recording I have of my brother and how cocky and unaffected he is by it. My lips thin with realization. He doesn’t believe I’ll use it, but him believing I will protects Emily and the company, a situation I need to remedy now. Launched into action, I push to my feet, on a mission to find Derek, heading to the library to find it empty, and then down the hallway to the garage, I enter just in time to find him backing out. Cursing, I make a fast path to the foyer and exit to the driveway, where the garage door has lifted. Stalking forward, I meet Derek’s Porsche as it exits, walking right up to the driver’s door and knocking on the window.
He halts the vehicle and rolls the window down. “Miss me already?” he asks dryly.
I press my hands on the window’s edge, leaning in and crowding him. “You think I won’t use that tape recording.”
“You don’t want me dead.”
“That might be true,” I say, “but I want Emily alive more than I want you alive.” I shove off of the car. “Checkmate, Derek.”
“Checkmate?” He laughs. “I’ll give you Emily, mostly because I enjoy watching you get owned by that woman, but not the company. That game isn’t over. It’s mine, and you’ll figure that out soon.” He revs his engine and pulls away.
Hands settling on my hips, I watch his car depart, confident for now that I’ve set the boundaries that protect Emily. What I didn’t do was check what could be his dangerous alignment with someone else. But I will, I think, and repeating his statement, I murmur, “Soon, brother.”
“Shane.”
At the sound of Emily’s voice, I turn to find her on the porch, her wrap and hair lifting around her body as she moves toward me in a sudden gust of wind. And damn if she doesn’t look like that butterfly Derek had called her, her delicate wings spread wide. But she’s not weak. She is many things, but never, ever weak. She is strong. Beautiful. Confident. She is passionate in all that she does and believes in. Translation: too damn good for this house and my family. My desire to get her out of here is reignited.
I take several steps, helping her close the space between us, and then she is in front of me, the sweet floral scent of her teasing my nostrils and promising an escape that includes her soft sighs and softer skin. My hands go to her waist, hers flattening on my chest. “I heard what happened with Derek just now. I’m not blood, Shane. I can’t ask you to put me before your family, and I don’t expect you to. If I need to leave, I won’t like it, but I can. I will.”
“You won’t,” I say, cupping her head. “You won’t leave and you’re already first.” It’s a declaration I seal with a kiss, my tongue licking into her mouth, a deep, dark hunger clawing at me, a need that only she can answer, and I want that answer sooner than later. I release her, lacing her fingers with mine and leading her to the Bentley parked in the driveway, opening the door for her.
She moves to climb inside, but I sense torment in her, and I pull her to me, my hand sliding around the back of her neck, our lips close. “I need you here. Don’t forget that.” I drag her mouth to mine and kiss her. “Now, let’s go home. Okay?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Please.”
We ease apart, but just as she’s about to climb inside the vehicle, the door to the house opens, and we both turn to find my mother stepping out onto the porch. She halts there, arms crossed in front of her, unmoving, in just the right spot to hide in the shadows, but I can feel the jagged edges of her emotions. I can sense she needs something from me right here and now. But I need something from her as well, and I don’t know what that is. Perhaps a confession of her betrayal of this family? Or not. I don’t know what I need, and maybe she doesn’t know what she needs from me. She starts walking, but not toward us. She crosses the driveway and walks toward the lawn, and I follow her steps, watching as she fades in and out of the shadows, her destination the swing I often favored as a child. Where she pushed me and sang to me. At a time when we were normal, or at least we did a hell of a lot better job at faking it than we do now.
Emily’s hand comes down on my arms. “You should go to her.”
A proper son would, I think, and I’ve always been that son. But maybe there’s more of my family’s blood running through my veins than I want to admit, because I don’t move, nor do I have any desire to move. I seem to be done being the “good” brother, and the last thing I need to do right now is rehumanize a family who has no humanity.
“Shane—”
“Let’s go,” I say, turning to Emily. She searches my face, her eyes narrowing in surprise at what she finds in mine.
I don’t know what that is, and I’m not sure I want to know, but whatever the case, it silences any insistence she might have that I join my mother. She slides into the car and I shut the door, rounding the rear of the Bentley, reminded of my father gifting it to me for saving the company once before. I didn’t want the gift. I didn’t want to be here. I’d wanted to save, and reunite, my family. Now my biggest fear is that reunion will be in death, which is exactly why I don’t look toward that swing again, and to the fairy tales of the past that stir emotions I can’t afford.
Opening the door, I slide onto the soft leather and inhale the sweet scent that is so naturally Emily, but when I am about to start the engine, I am slammed with her silent, forceful disapproval. Sighing, I look in her direction to find her watching me, and I don’t even have to ask what’s on her mind. “Anything my mother will say to me right now will be a lie I don’t want to hear.”
“She was shaken when I tried to talk to her. Deeply shaken.”
“Of course she’s shaken. She’s replaced her husband, and my father, in the bedroom, and most likely intends to extend that to our boardroom.”
“As confusing as this is for you,” she says, “you have to know it’s not that simple. Sometimes when people are hurt and grieving, they do things to survive.”
I start the engine. “I’m trying to make sure we do more than survive.” I face forward and reach for the gear.
Emily’s hand settles on mine. “Just know this. She loves him. I see it in her face.”
Love.
The meaning of which I wouldn’t know, if not for Emily. I damn sure didn’t learn it from this family. I put the car in drive and get us out of here before the quicksand that is my family traps us in hell with them. Pulling us around the house and down the driveway, we’re just exiting the property when I note the black sedan one block down, a light flickering in the dark window, which I believe to be a cigarette. Logically, that could be a stranger who doesn’t know us or care about us, or it’s one of Seth’s men who I know are following us, but in this case it’s not. It’s someone else, and my gut says that someone else is a Martina minion, and he’s monitoring Adrian’s investment in this family.
I turn us onto the road and glance at the rearview mirror to find the car’s lights flickering to life. It pulls away from the curb, and we’re officially being followed. Removing my phone from my pocket, I dial Seth. “Talk to me,” I order.
“About your text related to your father’s treatment or the car following you?”
“Both.”
“I’ll have news on your father’s medical status in the next ten minutes,” he says. “We’re about to breech the hospital’s servers. The car following you is driven by one of Martina’s men, who doesn’t seem to care that we know he’s there, which reads like a message to me from Martina. He’s here. He’s watching. He’s waiting.”
“That’s exactly what this is,” I say. “Call me when you know about my father.” I end the connection and look at Emily. “Seth will know the truth about my father’s treatment by the time we get home.”
“That’s good,” she says. “That’s really good.”
But the fact that a drug cartel minion is following us home is not. It’s a detail that would scare her, despite the fact that she’d put on a brave mask and say it doesn’t, when she was already running and afraid when I met her. I want to protect her. I want to make her feel safe. I just need to end this hell with the cartel and tell her it’s over, once and for all. And I need to do it quickly, by whatever means necessary.