“You say that like you feel no remorse.”
“I say that like I’m a survivor and a winner, and so are you or I wouldn’t be here.” He glances at his watch, and I have the impression he does it to break eye contact. “And on that note, I have a naked woman in bed waiting on me who will get pissy if I don’t get back to her soon.” He glances back up at me, any emotion he might have been hiding now sheltered behind an unreadable mask. “And she’s a vicious bitch when she wants to be.” His lips quirk. “And since I looked into the eyes of your little Emily and saw ice you’ll have to warm, I suspect you’ll have a long night ahead of you as well.” With that accurate statement, he reaches into his pocket and hands me another card, which I accept. “My private numbers,” he explains, “which I’ll assume you will use with discretion.”
“You mean don’t copy them, hand them out, and tell people you’ll get them a good fix if they need one?”
He laughs. “I can think of a few people I’d like to do that to, but no. Please. Do not do that to me.”
“You’re apparently thinking I have that sense of humor you claim to lack,” I say, sticking the card into my pocket. “Which in itself is amusing, considering that’s the last thing anyone who knows me would call me. Focused. Yes. Driven. Yes. Vicious, by more than a few of my courtroom opponents. Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Sometimes,” he agrees, “being vicious is the only way to win.” We stare at each other, another of those battles of will between us, until he says, “But there’s no reason to go there for us.”
He’s wrong. There is every reason, and that’s exactly where this is going, a detail I’m too smart to voice to a drug lord’s son without a survival plan, but then I don’t get the chance anyway. He starts for the door and I watch his departure, having no intention of stopping him. I want him out of my apartment even more than I want him out of my company, but almost as if he’s replying to those wants with defiance, he isn’t quite ready to leave. He reaches the door and pauses, turning to face me, a dark, sharp shift to his energy.
“No one likes to believe their own blood will betray them, but denying that they will is a good way to end up dead. Your brother’s your enemy, not me. Watch your back and keep your woman close.”
He lingers just long enough to allow those words to punch through me, before he pulls back the door to depart, leaving me with one certainty. Veiled threats are unnecessary for a man like Adrian Martina, who has already been quite frank about his character, and that of his family. No. That was a genuine warning, and I’m not sure what bothers me the most. The fact that my brother is willing to kill me, or the fact that I have far too much in common with Adrian Martina for comfort. I know that man. I understand him. I even respect his intelligence and manipulation skills, skills that every attorney worth their salt must master. But then, you have to respect the abilities of your opponent or they defeat you, and I can only hope he underestimates me in a way I won’t him. Because no matter how much I sympathize with his unique plight, his actions and my certainty that he would hurt those close to me to win his own war have made him my enemy.
He disappears inside, and I follow in his footsteps to ensure his rapid departure, entering the apartment to find him already halfway across the living area, his pace steady as he turns the corner and heads for the door. He pauses at the door, hand on the knob, heavy seconds ticking by, but he never turns. He inhales sharply on whatever words he seems to think better of speaking, and exits the apartment.
The instant he’s out of sight, I dig my phone from my pocket, dialing Seth as I walk to the door, where I flip the lock into place. “He’s gone,” I announce when he answers. “You want to tell me how he got to me with no warning?”
“I’m working on that,” he assures me. “What did he want?”
“That’s a conversation I’m not having with you over the phone.” And knowing I need to talk to Emily before I leave, I say, “We hired Nick’s team to do a job, and as far as I’m concerned, they failed tonight. I need to see him in person. At his facility, where we can speak frankly.”
“He’s expecting as much. When and where?”
“Have a car waiting for me in the garage. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but I make no promises as to how fast that will be.” I end the connection and slip my phone back into my pocket, and a tight ball of emotions in my chest has me leaning against the hard surface of the door. Instantly, my mind is processing, trying to analyze and store things in a way that is logical, not emotional, but instead I bob and weave through it all: my father’s cancer. My mother’s infidelity. My brother’s defiance and, most important, Emily, who has to be shaken by Martina’s visit.
Shoving everything but her aside, I straighten and then walk down the hallway, turning toward the stairs, only to hear, “Shane,” from behind me.
My jaw clenches at Emily’s voice, and the realization that she isn’t upstairs has me mentally cringing with the memory of Martina exiting the door that wasn’t shut completely. Emily heard everything that was said, and I have a feeling I’m about to be in damage-control mode all over again. Turning toward her, I find her standing in the living area, on the other side of the couch, her hand pressed to the glass window, her complexion pale. Her brown hair is in sexy disarray, which is ten kinds of fucked up considering it’s a creation of her nervous fingers, not my eager ones. Worse, though, it’s not the desire I’d come home seeking in her eyes but rather the exact thing I never, ever want her to feel: fear. And I don’t think Martina is the one who’s scaring her. It’s me. It’s my family. It’s this world I live in that is so much like the one she ran from. She’s afraid I’m like her brother, my brother, and my father. Like everyone in her life and mine who ever let either of us down. She’s afraid the path I’m traveling is taking me to the hollowed, dark places where they already live.
She’s afraid of what I might become. Or perhaps already am, and she just doesn’t know it yet.
CHAPTER SIX
SHANE