My mother’s brow furrows. “Isn’t it unsafe to take the elevator in a fire?”
“There is no fire,” Seth explains. “We’re cleared to use the elevators, but we’ve been asked to move quickly. Once we’re on the ground level, we’ll be keeping you under lock and key until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
My mother lifts a frustrated hand. “I don’t even want to try to read between the lines. I won’t like what I find out.” She grabs my father’s arm, and he seems to recover, eyeing me and Derek.
“I’ll expect an explanation,” he says. “A good one.” He turns and heads to the elevator, strong enough now that he has my mother in tow.
“A good one,” Derek says dryly, stepping to my side, his voice low, biting. “The irony of that statement stretched continents. I’ll be taking the next elevator down.” Seth motions us forward, and Derek lifts a hand. “Shane and I need to finish a talk we were having.”
Seth gives me an arched brow that I answer with a confirmation nod, hoping like hell Derek has some confession that will help me end this nightmare. Seth inclines his chin, his eyes reading his understanding. “I’ll be waiting on the ground level,” he says, disappearing into the car and allowing the doors to shut.
Derek puffs out a breath and rubs his hand on the back of his neck, punching the call button for another car. “How insane is it that I can’t stand the idea of being around Mom right now? And yes. I know I’m a grown adult, but that doesn’t seem to matter right now either.”
“Been there, still doing that,” I admit, “even after Emily logically reminded me that Mom’s not only human, but that good ol’ Pops has worn her down with a pocketful of women over the years.”
Derek shoves his jacket back, hands settling on his hips. “I just saw our mother naked in our father’s office, on top of him, after finding out she most likely was naked with another man last night. I’m a couple of bottles of Father’s best Scotch, which I plan to swipe, away from logic working right now.”
Small talk, no matter how reality based, doesn’t suit us, and the minute the elevator dings, we face each other, that unfinished business between us demanding a conclusion I welcome. “Leave Teresa out of this,” Derek warns. “Involving her will only lead to more trouble.”
“This from the man who fucked her to get to her brother?” I demand, instinct driving me to push him, wanting to take him over the edge and hoping like hell I can be the hand that pulls him back to the top.
“I did fuck her,” he says. “And I am fucking her and I will keep fucking her. Which is exactly why I know that any path that involves her leads to no place good for you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a dangerous territory, brother. One you don’t want to face with Adrian Martina.”
“You want reality? I’ll give you reality. He wants to take what is ours. He’ll kill you and he’ll kill Emily and who knows who else. I won’t let him take our company. I won’t let him take the people I love, and he needs to know I will cut where it hurts. And if that means I involve Teresa, I will involve Teresa.”
His eyes flash with challenge. “Now which one of us is in dangerous territory?”
“You paved this path I’m forced to travel to keep us all alive.”
“Leave,” he urges. “Go back to New York and then it’s on me.”
“You aren’t the first to make that recommendation,” I say, leaving out Emily’s name. “But this is Adrian Martina we’re talking about. Do you really think he’ll let us walk away alive?”
“You mean you don’t want to walk away from your newly inked CEO position.”
“The one I may never assume? Martina wants me involved, and if I walk away, he’ll kill you to get me back.” I fix him with a hard look. “Our division is our weakness. I’m choosing family. When are you going to do the same?”
“Like you did when you left your legal career?”
“Yes,” I say. “Like I did when I left my legal career.”
“Like you did when you tricked me into signing a document that named you as CEO in the event Father was incapacitated?”
I feel those words like the whip they are intended to be, but with no regret. “I’d explain my reasons for that decision, but you won’t hear me, and this isn’t the time or place for us to fight personal wars. They have to wait or there will be nothing left to claim in victory. We have two mutual enemies. Adrian Martina and Mike Rogers.”
He stares at me, his gray eyes cutting, sharp, before he walks to the panel and punches the button again. The elevator opens and we both walk inside, turning to face forward, side by side, every word we say now recorded, but as I watch him punch the button for the lobby level, that bandage still on his hand, I issue one final warning. “A blade in your hand now. A blade in your heart, or back, later.”
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t reply. He simply steps into the spot next to me, both of us instinctively curling our fingers into our palms. Alike and so fucking different. The doors slide shut and we don’t speak, a band of tension wrapping around us, tightening with each floor that passes, until we are at the lobby level. The elevator dings, the doors starting to open when Derek says, “I find myself wondering who is more likely to shove that blade into my heart. You or them?”
I don’t have the chance to ask who “them” is. He steps out of the elevator, and the sound of shouts fills the air. Derek looks over his shoulder at me and I’m by his side in an instant, both of us jogging toward the noise and rounding the corner to the main lobby, where we both stop dead in our tracks. People pour in through the doors, running toward us and away from the thick smoke quickly overtaking the front of the building. My gaze scans and catches on a security guard and several men I recognize from our security team near the entrance, and they actually seem to be urging people in our direction.
“Out the back door!” a police officer shouts over a megaphone. “Proceed out the back door!”
“Whatever this is,” I say to Derek, “it’s on us, and we have to make it right.” I don’t wait for his reply. I start walking toward the problem, not away, trying to ensure everyone who could be affected is being supported and is safe.
Derek is instantly beside me, keeping pace, and for a moment, I contemplate that he might be part of this, whatever it is, and that is why he’s staying with me. Maybe that’s why he kept me upstairs, and I foolishly played into his hand. I do not like this idea, but I focus on getting to the front of the building, my strides longer now, quicker. Derek’s stride matches mine as well, his energy too, my worries of moments before fading with them. He senses what I do. He fears what I fear. And we don’t know what that is. The crowd is now behind us, and the smoke calls to me, to us, neither of us slowing, until we are standing just outside the wall of glass that encases the front of the building. I watch then as the smoke begins to dissipate, and in its depths sits an ominous-looking six-by-six wooden crate.