His jaw clenches and his attention turns back to our father. “I’ve spent my entire life bleeding for this company. He doesn’t even want to be here.”
“He left his legal career for this company,” Father states, “which makes him the only person other than me who doesn’t want our business to end up under anyone else’s control. The amendment stands.” And then he stands. “End of conversation. End of this dinner for me.” He says nothing more. He just leaves the room.
Another moment, and a charge races around the room, my gaze colliding with Derek’s while my mother makes a small frustrated sound. “Evidently I need to cancel dinner,” she says, in a rare moment of sounding flustered, before she stands and leaves. Sensing Derek and I are going no place good, I reach down and squeeze Emily’s leg, telling her to follow.
Clearly reading my message, Emily pops to her feet, already moving toward the kitchen, and announces, “I’ll help your mother.”
“Yes, help her,” Derek calls out, flicking her departing figure a look. “She’ll like that, I’m sure,” he adds, returning his amused look to me. “She’s fitting right in, now, isn’t she? And she’s beautiful. A beautiful, graceful butterfly with delicate wings. And you know what they say about delicate things?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, doubling down on his earlier threat to Emily by adding, “They get clipped easily. I hear they never survive once that happens.”
CHAPTER THREE
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.