“That’s fair.” I agreed with her because it was the right thing to do.
“Oh, shut the fuck up with your fair. You should try being unfair for once in your life, Bastian.” She threw up her hands. “Go with the flow and see how it takes a weight off your soul. See where it gets you.”
Caging an animal that was better off free never worked. Still, if I could have tied her to the bed and still had her love me in some way, I probably would have.
Instead, I had to let her go.
On the first day she was gone, I got a call from our lawyer. The shares were almost through probate, and Morina wanted to donate all of them to me. He could draw up the legal documents as soon as possible.
I hung up on him and tried to call her. I’d never take them for free. Morina had better believe I was going to set her up for life and do what was right and fair by her.
Try being unfair, she’d told me and now she was forcing me to.
I grumbled as I took Moonshine downstairs to go to the bathroom. The dog had whined since her mother left and she laid down on the grass instead of walking around to piss. “You’re going to have to go to the bathroom sooner or later, girl. We can mope together later.”
She peered up at me with her brown and black fur shining in the sunlight and whined.
Petting her head, I whispered, “Remember how you took your mom’s side yesterday? I forgive you because I would have taken her side too. I’m a fuck up.”
The dog sighed and looked away from me.
I just needed a few days to make it right.
A few days of hell was what we got instead.
I got the call from my brother as I was boarding the jet to fly to LA for a meeting. “The oil refinery is pushing illegal imports to another terminal. We got a boat full of women over there that the FBI just intercepted.
“I shook that bastard’s hand,” I whispered.
“I know. I think, fuck, man. I don’t know. If I could, I’d kill him myself. They had kids on there that are Ivy’s age.”
“Katie and Rome with you?” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Katie spoke first. “I want the whole refinery to suffer. I want to kill one or two of them myself.”
Cade chuckled. “Bastian’s not going to allow that. We need to be discreet and try to work out a solution.”
My gut reaction yanked me one way. The immediate response was to shut it down but instead, I remembered her words. Morina made these quick decisions all the time, she went with the flow. She followed instinct rather than logical reason.
“I want the man dead,” I said quietly.
“What?” Cade asked, his voice high.
“Rome, you’re retired from this, I know that. You tell me the best man to do it, then, or I’ll do it myself.”
“Bastian,” my brother said, “we can’t–”
“Why can’t I, Cade?” He’d been made an accommodating man because of me; now I had to unmake that man. “They’re killing families all the time. Why can’t I?”
“We’re better than them,” Katie announced. “You’re better than them. You do what we can’t. You see the silver lining, Bast.”
“Morina left.”
“I know,” Cade said. “You’ll both figure it out though. She’s an Untouchable now and she’ll understand.”
“Understand that I shook hands with this man? It’s specifically what she told me not to do.”
Someone sighed over the line.
“What do you want us to do?” Rome said it like he was ready to spill blood again. “We’ll do whatever you need.” He had a little girl though and a family that needed him.
“I want his cybersecurity system breached for the oil refinery. Make it known it’s us and infect the networks with ransomware. If he doesn’t agree to pay five times what he’s made on those families back to them, I will crush his whole business.”
“That type of breach will be deemed a national emergency, Bastian. That’s… are you going to call the president?”
“The president can call me, Cade. I’m done fucking around.”
39
Morina
Day two of driving up the coast and Bastian still hadn’t called.
It was probably for the best, a clean break now rather than later.
I stared at palm tree after palm tree on a coastal road and wondered why I didn’t miss my food truck more.
Instead, I was missing Moonshine and him. I missed seeing his face before I went to bed, and I missed waking up and smelling crepes that he’d made for me. It’d been two days away and I was already considering crawling back.
Sighing, I pulled into another parking lot and hopped from my pick up. I’d been surfing from beach to beach, so just wore a bikini. As I pulled my board out, the sun warmed my skin and I took in this new stretch of sand, not crowded with people at all.
When a black SUV pulled up, I sighed again. Security for life was something I needed to get used to. Bastian had said the words so seriously, I knew arguing was pointless. I had anyway.
I wanted Sebastian to take the reins, to tell me he’d just handle everything, that we could be together and I didn’t have to leave, that he wouldn’t make any side deals.
Maybe it had been too much to ask but I’d asked for so little before, and my heart had wanted it all this time.
All or nothing.
A quick decision that was mine to make. I made it by committing to a wave every day I was out there on that sparkly water. I jumped up on that board and held my body up, trusting my balance and the water to let me ride. If I hesitated or half-assed it, I’d fall.
I was never good at school or jobs or anything really except that. My heart committed to riding the waves.
My tears mixed with the ocean water as I rode them again and again that day. I’d married one man and got two instead. Bastian was a Taurus, strong and stubborn but always dependable. He wasn’t going to let his legacy die or put his family in any type of jeopardy.
He’d submerge his love deep down in the water and suffocate it to make sure he completed whatever he set out to do.
I couldn't be with a man who did that.
I needed Sebastian Armanelli, stubborn and dominating. The man who knew what he wanted and took it.
My phone rang as I threw my board back in my pick up an hour later. I scooted into the seat, the sand still sticking to my legs as I stared at an unknown number on the screen. When you weren’t with the person you loved, your heart dropped getting those calls.
“Hello?”
“It’s Cade.”
I took a deep breath. The mob didn’t make house calls or small talk. “What’s wrong?”
The words whispered out of me, but they built momentum in my mind, my throat closing from the thought of Bastian hurt or gone. Had he done something he couldn't come back from. Had his meeting with Ronald gone too far?
“Is Bastian gone?” I croaked out, tears springing to my eyes.
“What?” Cade cackled into the phone. “Are you crying right now?”
“What?” I glanced around, suddenly aware that he might be watching me. I swiped at my eyes. “No!”