Seth and I quickly follow, all three of us lining up at the bar, while the bartender flips channels. “There,” Nick says, as the news flashes with an image of what I think used to be a sports car, and at the sight my hands land on the bar, my head sinking low. He’s dead and somehow, some way, it’s related to me and my family. As if confirming my assessment, or driving it home with vicious precision, the reporter’s voice lifts in the air. “I repeat,” a female voice states, “Brody Matthews, star pitcher for the Denver Eagles, is dead at the young age of twenty-eight, and at the height of his career.”
That tightness in my chest is now full-blown anger, an emotion only Derek has stirred in me in my adult life. I push off the bar and walk toward the stairs and I don’t stop until I’m on the street, where I am blasted with freezing cold wind that didn’t exist thirty minutes ago, because that’s the fucked-up way of Colorado. And fucking up everyone else’s life is the way of my family. My hands go to my hips and I look skyward, letting the wet flakes of snow hit my face, the cold doing nothing to soothe the burn inside me. I inhale a chilly wet breath, fighting down anger that wants to go to Derek right now and handle this like we did as kids. Gloves off, balls to the wall. But we are no longer those people and I don’t let anyone force my hand or my temper.
Seth and Nick step to my side, and I lower my head, my voice steady, my mood leveled off. “We all know this isn’t an accident, be it that he was murdered because he was going to talk to me or he was driving under the influence of a drug that traveled a path through my company.”
“It won’t show up on drug tests,” Nick says as if that actually makes this any better. “And I have a man on scene who I’m heading to meet now, though I doubt we’ll know much tonight.”
“I’m headed to Brody’s wife place,” Seth adds. “She’s going to be shaken and I’d prefer she take comfort from me, than the press or the police.”
In other words, her silence is all that matters, not her loss, not the murder of her husband. “Murder” is the word that replays in my mind and I face them both. “I want Emily here, by my side, where I know her brother can’t somehow throw out a web and catch her, which I believe will give her the same ending as Brody. But I need to know if she’s safe here. Can you protect her?”
“We can and will,” Seth assures me, his suit jacket now covered in white flakes. “And I agree. She needs to stay here, under our net, and with the people I trust to protect her. I trust me, and our people, to know if anything shifts with her brother, or the Geminis, that puts her in danger.”
“We also have several safe houses we can move her to if necessary,” Nick adds, “but I do have to urge you to approve the raids. She’s not on Adrian’s radar right now, but that could change.”
“Hire Ted,” I say. “I’ll have my CPA handle the money transfer.” I shift my attention between both men. “But I’m not sitting back and risking this failing. I’m going to go to Adrian right after the raid happens and convince him he has to get out.”
“You do not want to open the door to that relationship,” Nick warns. “It will seal your fate with him.”
“You’re right,” I say. “It will because I am in control of my destiny, not him. And I am going to ensure he sees the writing on the wall, which is me saving him from the jail cell my brother will ensure he ends up inside. I set that stage with him this morning.”
Seth jumps on the warning bandwagon. “This is dangerous territory,” he says, and I don’t miss the edge to his voice that he rarely allows to surface. “The kind you hire me to tread for you.”
“And you do so exceptionally well,” I tell him, true respect for him beneath those words. “But some things need to come from me. How soon can the raids happen?”
Both of them look like they want to argue, the fall of snowflakes now as heavy as the seconds that tick by, before Seth replies. “We need a few days, logistically. I need to get Brody’s wife out of town, which means after the funeral and the processing of her money, which we need to do now, not later.”
The poor fucking woman can’t even grieve for a man who shared part of her life without us shoving her into a hole. “I’ll expedite it in the morning.”
A black sedan pulls up in front of us. “My car,” Nick says. “I’ll drive you both wherever you want to go.”
“I’ll walk,” I say.
“It’s snowing, man,” Seth argues, but I’m already moving, putting space between me and them, but not enough between me and my brother to suit me. I start for the apartment, where Emily calls to me, where she would be my escape, when I rarely need one. But I’m not so sure she isn’t the one who needs an escape, and not from her brother or the Geminis. I turn the corner, leaving the men who are supposed to be a layer between me and pretty much everything behind. I intend to walk off this clawing guilt that Brody’s death stirs in me but I make it a block, and my jacket is sticking to me thanks to the damp snow, my mind on Emily, who I suddenly justneed to know is in our apartment, safe and warm, when I am fucking cold to the bone.
I cover the next few blocks quickly, cutting through the garage to avoid attention, and then I am on our floor, and then our door, in a matter of minutes. Opening the door, I see the apartment is dark. The idea that Emily might have gone out and somehow is now in danger is not a feeling I ever thought to feel or want to feel again. I start for the stairs, perhaps never before in my life needing to know another human being is safe in the way I do with Emily now.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SHANE
I cross the foyer, traveling the stairs two at a time, to reach the bedroom door, darkness beyond. Pausing in the doorway, relief washes over me hard and fast, with the instant awareness of Emily in the room, not by sight, but a feeling. That is how much I am in tune with this woman, how much I feel her, like I have never felt another human being in my life. There has only been family, and they have always been a mix of love and hate that was impossible to reconcile. That made me leave and put distance between us. Love from afar was somehow easier and better. But with Emily, I don’t want her from afar at all. I don’t want to lose her and for reasons I can’t explain, tonight I feel like I will. Like it’s destiny, bound to happen.
“Shane.”
The sound of her soft feminine voice cuts through the empty space between us, and I swear, I can finally breathe when I wasn’t a moment ago.
I don’t immediately speak, my eyes adjusting to the room, shadows replacing darkness, allowing me to trace the outline of her silhouette where she sits in bed, allowing me to see her more clearly, when tonight, I’m questioning if I ever want her to see me the same way.
“Shane?” she asks again, but I know she knows it’s me. I know that she feels me just as I do her.
“I’m here,” I say, and there is a rough quality to my voice that I know speaks of things I do not want to exist, but I don’t seem to be able to escape tonight.