As the last of them stepped into the hallway, Benny nodded for the two men at the door to leave also. They looked at Dani speculatively. Apparently, they were aware she’d had training. At the very least they’d figured out she had some military experience, and were none too happy about leaving their boss alone with her in a room. But orders were orders. They wouldn’t stray far from the door, and regardless of the hold Benny had on them they were going to be listening in from the outside, of that she was sure.
Dani smiled at them nastily, giving her best Joker grin, hoping to pass along the idea that insanity ran in her family. That should have been evident. Benny was forcing her to marry just to kill her father. Her father was a thief and a coward, and had left his children to take the heat for his theft. This was not a sterling reputation for mental health. Even she was starting to doubt her sanity.
“You, too, David.”
“David’s here?” Dani shot up, spinning around and seeing that, sure enough, her brother was stealing cupcakes from one of the pastry tables behind her. She turned from him to Benny and back to her brother, trying to figure out just what game Benny was playing. And why the hell he hadn’t said anything when he’d arrived. She always had his back, why didn’t he have hers?
“My men caught him tearing up the office,” Benny said with a shrug. “He’d gone wild, like he was looking for something, but David won’t say what it is.” Benny gave a long look to her brother. It wasn’t the sort of look most men lived long to enjoy. “Care to tell me now what’s so damn important?”
David looked up. He had frosting on his chin. She realized he’d been sulking.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Markland?” she asked, wondering when he’d had time to tear up the office. The panic set in again deep inside her, bubbling its way to the surface. “Someone has to run the company, David.” She tried to get it through to him that he could take this excuse and run with it. All David had to do was go to work and he could be free of all this. But her hopes of him picking up on the hint were quickly dashed. She wanted to bash him on the side of the head. He was an idiot sometimes.
“The place runs better without me,” he muttered, sounding like a little boy complaining that no one would play with him. “Charlie and Ross are taking over and making choices and decisions. Markland’s doing better than ever.”
“Then what the fuck is your job?” Benny asked sharply.
David flinched, and shrugged. “To stay out of the way?”
“Then you need to do that job right now!” Benny barked. “Out!”
Dani watched David’s face. His demeanor was subdued, even petulant, but his eyes were cold and hard like agates. The hate he repressed in his stance and in his personality shone through his eyes. It was like looking through a peephole and finding the banked fires of Hell on the other side. Like a volcano ready to erupt.
“David,” she said quietly, “would you please excuse us for a moment? It’ll be all right. Okay?”
He snorted. “Really? I already tried to, but they dragged me here. Now I’m here, and you need me to go again? Fuck it. Whatever. Dad made this mess. Not me,” David groused, and stole one last glance at Benny as he swiped a napkin at his face, missing the frosting completely, leaving him with a bright-blue goatee. His glance went unnoticed, but Dani saw the seething hatred in his eyes flare and fall away again as he stood and went to join the others in the hallway.
It’s not me Benny’s guards should be worried about.
But David was a non-entity; he was no threat to their minds. Not with his blue icing beard. He looked like a grown-up kid not getting his way. It was she they feared. They knew she’d been active in places where fighting dirty was the only way to survive. They considered her to be the biggest threat to Benny’s health, while David hatched a million plots like so many snakes weaving their way through his mind.
There’s a cheery image. She suddenly realized that Benny had been talking to her. She wondered what she’d missed.
“...somehow,” he was saying, “I think you’re failing to appreciate what we’re doing here. You’re treating this like you’ve been sent to your room. Like you just have to get past the time when you’re grounded and then everything will be okay again.” He paused, leaning forward to rest on his elbows on the table. “It won’t.”
“What...” Dani looked into his eyes. They weren’t the pits of flame like David’s. They weren’t threatening at all. They were just... dead. In all the years she’d called Benny her uncle, in all the time he’d brought her, and then her and David, some toy or some sweet, she’d never noticed that about him. It was the gaze of a shark: dead, cold, uncaring.
What else had she missed?
“Your father stole from me. I cannot—I will not allow that to go unnoticed.” He took a pause and added, “but that’s not the problem. He betrayed me, Dani, He betrayed me. Me!” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigar. He rolled it around in his fingers, his face a study of concentration. “Betrayal I can’t forgive.” He pulled out a knife from his jacket, a small pocket knife, no more than an inch long. He carefully sliced the tip of the cigar. They were in a non-smoking facility. She wasn’t about to point that out. “Betrayal goes deep. Especially when it’s family. You’re all pouting and angry because you have to marry someone you love, a fine-looking chap. I don’t know why you’re so angry. Most girls would kill to be in your shoes. You have no idea what I usually do to people who betray me. And their daughters.”
Fire leapt from his fingers and Dani jumped. She hadn’t seen the lighter in his hands.
She swallowed hard. Suddenly she was scared, and she never got scared. “What are you saying?” Dani asked in a voice she no longer recognized.
“I’m saying that this wedding better work, because there are other ways to make a man pay for what he’s done. I’m saying that you and David will bring your father to me. You’re the best and surest way to get to him. Just as that young man in the bathroom is the way to get to you.” He drew on the cigar and had the end glowing cheerfully. He released the smoke with a satisfied exhale. “I’m saying that this is something a little more involved than just a marriage. I’ve already kidnapped and threatened your young man, and if this...” he waved to the books displaying bright, happy wedding paraphernalia, “...doesn’t work, then we’ll have to try another way.”
Dani’s heart began to pound in her chest.
“Oh, here.” Benny reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a candy bar. “You’re about to be a married woman, so you’re too old to play games, but one more for old time’s sake.” He handed her the $100,000 bar with a flourish. “But it’s the last one you’re getting.” He leaned back and puffed the cigar, and called everyone back into the room. As they filed back in, he leaned over and whispered, “Remember, weddings are happy. You’re the blushing bride, so get blushing.”