“It’s beautiful. But I love it in Edinburgh too. That castle is something else…”
“I love both places,” he said. “Italy as well.”
“How are Crow and Cane doing?”
His eyes fell, and all he did was shake his head.
I hoped that didn’t mean what I thought it meant. “They couldn’t save Vanessa?”
He shook his head again. “She’s dead.”
“Oh…” Unexpected tears filled my eyes, sorrow for a woman I never knew. I didn’t even know what she looked like. There was no face to put to the name. “I’m so sorry…I feel so terrible for them.”
“Crow told me what happened but didn’t say much else. He got off the phone, and I haven’t heard from him. I called him a few weeks ago, and he didn’t answer. I’m sure he just wants to be alone right now.”
“How can you do business with a monster like that?” Bones raped and killed innocent women for pleasure. “You’re better than that, Crewe.”
“Business isn’t personal,” he said simply. “The second you make it about morals is the second you go out of business. I did what I could to help the Barsetti brothers. I’m not responsible for what happened to her.”
“But your hands are still dirty.”
“Bones gets me a lot of intel about the weapons arena. He’s vital.”
I couldn’t agree with him. “You can’t do this forever. One day, you’re going to have a wife and children. You can’t risk their lives with this secret business of yours.”
“When that time comes, I’ll rethink a few things. But for now, it’s nothing personal. Please don’t forget that I never claimed to be anything else but a bad guy. I never gave you any reason to have high expectations.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “But you are a good guy, Crewe. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
“Maybe I’m a nice guy to you, but that’s it.”
I didn’t believe that. I’d seen his moral compass, and it pointed straighter than most. “You have more money than you know what to do with. Why do you need this business at all?”
“It’s not about money. It’s never been about money.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“Power.” My tears stopped falling, so he wiped his thumb across my cheek, catching the last drop that clung to my skin. “Information is the most powerful weapon you can have. I managed to discover there was going to be an assassination attempt on the queen’s life. If I’d never uncovered that, she could be dead right now. I use information for leverage, but I also use it appropriately.”
“But you’re never going to get any good information out of a man like Bones.”
“Actually, he was the one who told me about the queen.”
Since Crewe had a response to everything I said, my points didn’t come across well. “I still think you should walk away from that life now—not later. I’m sure you make enemies that way.”
“Life is boring without a few enemies.” He smiled in his typically handsome way.
I didn’t appreciate his words, but nothing I said would make a difference.
He dropped his smile when he saw my annoyance. “I used to live a boring and mediocre life, but I lost my family anyway. I treated Josephine like a queen, but that wasn’t enough to make her stay. I treated you well, and I still got shot in the chest. I don’t play it safe because it doesn’t guarantee anything.”
My hand moved up his arm as the pity rose in my heart. “Just because the world turns dark doesn’t mean you have to.”
“Yes, it does. Making everyone fear you is the best way to keep people in line. The second I go soft, bad shit happens. In order for a king to rule over his kingdom, his subjects must fear his wrath. That’s just how it goes.”
That made me feel worse for him. “You know what I think would be nice?”
The only encouragement I got was a stare.
“Living in solitude on Fair Isle. No connection to the outside world, no people. Just the two of us. We don’t need power or wealth, just a roof over our heads and Finley to cook for us. There would be no subjects, no reason for power. It would just be quiet…all the time.”
His hand loosened on mine, but he didn’t pull away. His callused thumb brushed over my soft skin, and his eyes were trained on my face. He glanced at the spot where he wiped a tear away before he looked me in the eye again. “That sounds nice…really nice.”
Now that we were together, I kept blurting out things I shouldn’t. I said things that I didn’t realize I thought about. I talked about a future we could never have together, a future I didn’t even know I wanted. I wanted to practice medicine, to fulfill the dream I’d had since I was a little girl. But the longer I stayed with Crewe, the more I sacrificed the things I wanted. Now I was moving to Scotland to enroll in a medical program I couldn’t apply to America. I was changing everything around for one man.
But I didn’t mind it.
Everything was changing—including me. I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
He tilted my face toward him and placed a gentle kiss on the corner of my mouth. The scruff from his jaw was always coarse, but I liked the way it felt when it brushed against my skin. He let his mouth linger there, absorbing my attraction through his lips. When he pulled away, his eyes were lidded with disappointment like he wanted to keep kissing me.
But he didn’t.
Maybe it was because we were on a plane with some of his men lingering about, or maybe it was for a different reason altogether.
“Can I ask you something? I’m not sure if I want to ask it or not…”
“Ask it. But I’m not sure if I’ll want to answer it or not.” The corner of his mouth rose.
“It’s about my brother. What does he do, exactly?”
“For a living?” Crewe asked.
“Yeah. He’s not like Bones, is he?” Joseph had been planning to take Ariel as a prisoner, and I hoped it wasn’t to do horrific things to her. Maybe he’d just wanted to keep her as a hostage for ransom or something…at least, I hoped.
“We’re all like Bones, honestly.”
“No, you aren’t.” Being with Bones was standing in the presence of evil. I never felt that way about Crewe, even when I was locked in a cage in his basement on Fair Isle.
“You really want to know? I’m not sure you’re gonna like it.”
“Just tell me he doesn’t kill people.”
He shook his head. “We all kill people, Lovely.”
“But bad people, right?”
He shrugged. “That’s subjective. Joseph makes his money by hacking bank accounts. He finds out when there’s going to be a large deposit from an Arabian prince or a Chinese CEO. When he figures that out, he intercepts the wire transfer. It’s complicated cyber-robbery. He relies on my intel to know when big deals are going down. But he burned that bridge.”