Present
I DRAGGED MY BOTTOM LIP between my teeth, every nerve in my mouth craving more of her. Fuck, she tasted good.
I stood up, seeing her disappear on the other side of the waterfall, and Kai turned his head back to me.
“You’re eating off the community plate, brother,” he charged, “and you’re taking more than your fair share.”
The corner of my mouth lifted, and I walked up to him. “You know,” I said, hardening my tone, “this leash you keep trying to put on me is getting tighter. The day I start feeling the need to explain myself to you, I’ll be dead. You got that?”
“I’ll remember you said that.” He pushed off the wall but kept his arms locked across his chest. “The same goes for Will, Damon, and me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
But he only looked at me, a sinister smile in his eyes.
And for the first time, I didn’t trust Kai. Yeah, I’d touched her when I’d told them all to leave her alone. I knew he was pissed, and he had a right to be.
But she’d surprised me. I came in to get Damon off her and found myself losing control as soon she opened that mouth. She got smart, and she didn’t back down.
I saw the Little Monster again. The one who breathed fire and made people see her. I’d needed to touch her. I couldn’t think past that.
But as much as Kai deserved revenge, there was no way in hell I was apologizing to him. I was, however, starting to fear him. Not for my sake, but for Rika’s. I couldn’t help the feeling that his premonition from Rika’s first night in Meridian City was true, not only for Will and Damon but for Kai as well.
Things never go according to plan.
Did they each have agendas I didn’t know about?
“What about her house?” Kai spoke up. “Where do we stand on it?”
“I’m taking care of it.”
“Where do we stand on it?” he demanded again.
But I got in his face, challenging him. “She’s in Meridian City because of me,” I gritted out. “She’s at Delcour because of me, and she’s isolated because of me. We’re on the home stretch.”
And then I walked out, proving one thing. He, Damon, and Will may have changed, but I hadn’t.
I didn’t explain myself.
BY THE TIME I’D MADE IT OUT OF THE CAVE, Rika’s clothes by the pool were gone. After a search of the party, and also noticing Alex’s absence, I’d finally figured out she’d asked her for a ride and left without us.
Will and Damon had stayed at the party, and after the confrontation in the cave, I couldn’t find Kai.
We needed to get this shit done so we could all get on with our lives.
I was constantly distracted from basketball, Kai was turning more and more inward, Damon was a ticking bomb, and I was pretty sure Will couldn’t get through the day without a drink anymore.
I thought they’d slowly start re-acclimating to life and the possibilities of what their futures held, but it was getting worse, not better. This bullshit needed to end, and I needed them back on track. Pretty soon, those three years away would just seem like a bad memory.
They’d been offered jobs, places within their family’s circles to get their lives going again, but none of them wanted to even talk about it. Nothing existed beyond Rika and today. They didn’t even want to see any family or spend time in Thunder Bay.
My friends—my brothers—were dead on the inside, and the more I thought about what she’d done to them—to us—I wanted to rip her apart. I only hoped what we were about to do would bring them back, though.
“Mr. Crist,” Stella greeted as I strolled into my father’s office on the top floor of his building.
I nodded, offering her a half-smile as I walked past. She never tried to stop me, no matter if he was in a meeting or on a call. My brother and I rarely came down here, but the truth was, I think she was just as afraid of us as she was of my father. She didn’t interfere with family.
Even if my father didn’t like us here.
My mother, Trevor, and I learned early on that his life in the city, with us tucked away in Thunder Bay, was just how he wanted things. Family hanging around his work was a nuisance. He kept the two lives separate and didn’t involve us.
And as much as I fucking adored my mother, I respected her less and less for staying married to such a prick.
To them, though, they had a good arrangement, I guess. He gave her the money to buy anything, have the home she wanted, and secure the place in society she enjoyed. In return, she stayed respectable and gave him two sons.
They were both liars and cowards. My mother wasn’t brave enough to demand the life she deserved, and my father would never open up himself to anyone. Not his wife or his sons. And he didn’t have any friends. Not really, anyway.
In the spider’s web of Thunder Bay, with its endless lies and secrets, its fake smiles and bullshit, I thought I’d found one person who was different. Who saw everything I wanted and craved it with me.
My brother was right. I’d seen that look in her eyes long before I even noticed her face or her body. That look of something being contained and wanting to claw its way out.
Rika and I had always circled each other, even before either of us was aware of it. And her betrayal was as close as I’d ever come being gutted.
I walked straight for the door, and opened it without knocking.
My father was seated behind his desk, the furniture polish of the dark mahogany tables and bookshelves hitting my nose and reminding me of a museum.
His lawyer, Monroe Wynn, sat across from him with his back to me.
“Michael.” My father looked up, tapping his finger on his desk with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “What a rare surprise.”
I shut the door behind me, already feeling the air filter into my lungs like oil. He wasn’t happy to see me, and I hated being in his presence. Our relationship died long ago when I started standing up for myself, so his mock pleasure at the sight of me was merely for his lawyer’s benefit.
“Monroe, you know my son,” he offered, waving his hand between us.
Monroe rose from his chair and held out his hand. “Hi, Michael.”
I took it and nodded once. “Sir.”
I released his hand and crossed my arms over my chest.
“We’re expecting great things from you this year,” Monroe said. “Wife was mad enough I bought box seats for the season, so it better be worth it. Don’t let us down.”
“No, sir.”
“He’ll do his job,” my father assured. As if he had an ounce of fucking control. He hated my career and never supported it.
Monroe nodded, and I turned my eyes on my father.
Sensing the uncomfortable silence, Monroe finally grabbed his files and briefcase, his arms full as he turned to leave.
“We’ll talk soon,” he told my father.
He left the room, and my father leaned back up in his seat, looking at me through annoyed blue eyes. He and my brother looked alike with dark blond hair, pale skin, and narrow jaws. Both of them stood at least three inches shorter than me. I inherited my height from my mother’s side of the family.
“I’m surprised you even remembered where the building was,” he sneered.
“Fair’s fair,” I retorted, leaning my shoulder against the bookshelf. “I’m here as much as you’re home.”
He leveled his gaze on me, looking unamused. “Have you talked to your mother?”
I nodded. “Yesterday. She’s spending a few days shopping in Paris before heading to Spain. You’re meeting her this week, correct?”
“As usual,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”
I shrugged, shaking my head. “No reason.”
Actually, there was a very good reason. I wanted to make sure he was leaving. And soon. Rika believed her mother was with mine on board Pithom off the coast of southern Europe.
No. Pithom was still docked in Thunder Bay, and my mother hadn’t seen Ms. Fane since before she left for Europe, by plane, over a week ago.
Rika didn’t know where her mother really was. I did.
And when my father joined my mother, Rika would have zero support around her.
My parents always left in the fall for several weeks to visit various friends and business partners out of the country. And while my father traveled extensively throughout the year, their annual excursion was always together. My mother was useful with her charm, wit, and beauty, so he insisted she accompany him when he made the rounds in Europe every autumn. It was the one thing I knew I could count on.
The house in Thunder Bay was currently empty, with my mother having already left and my father staying here in the city, at the private fuckpad he kept on the other side of town.
At the very least he had the decency not to keep an apartment at Delcour and flaunt his sluts in a building he owned.
“Have you spoken to Trevor?” he asked.
But I just stared.
He breathed out a laugh, realizing that was a stupid question.
A young woman came into the office with an armful of file folders. She smiled at me, looking sexy in her bright blue dress and perfect blonde hair.
Walking behind my father’s desk, she placed the folders on top and reached over it, taking a post-it and writing a quick note for him.
He didn’t even try to hide his leering as he reclined in his chair and gazed at her ass as she bent over next to him.
“So why are you here?” he broached, and I didn’t miss his hand disappearing up her dress.
She bit her bottom lip to stifle her smile.
I fisted my hands under my arms. God, I fucking hated him.
“To talk about my future,” I replied.
He cocked his head, narrowing his eyes on me.
I hated this. I didn’t want to deal with him for another second, which is why it’d taken me so long to deal with what should’ve been settled long ago. I hadn’t wanted to come here.
His lips curled. Pulling his hand out, he gave the girl a pat on the behind. “Close the door on your way out.”
She walked around the desk, casting one last glance at me before leaving the room.
He exhaled a heavy breath, peering over at me. “I seem to remember trying to have this conversation with you many times. You didn’t want to attend Annapolis. You wanted to take a full scholarship to Westgate.”
“They had a superior athletic program,” I reminded him.
“You didn’t want a future in this company,” he continued. “You wanted to play basketball.”
“I’m a professional athlete,” I responded. “I’ve been in more magazines than you.”
He snickered. “This isn’t about making better choices, Michael. This is about you consistently defying me. Whatever I want, you do the opposite.”
He stood up from his chair and took his glass of what I assumed was his usual Scotch and stood next to his floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. “As you grew up and became a man, I thought you’d be more agreeable, but you haven’t stopped. At every turn of the hand, you—”
“Back on topic,” I cut in, straightening my back. “My future.”
We’d had this conversation—or fight—several times. I didn’t need a rehash.
“Fine,” he allowed. “What do you want?”
“You were right,” I admitted, swallowing the bitterness in my mouth. “In ten—fifteen—years I’ll be looking for college coaching positions, and as I look ahead, my career loses its luster. It doesn’t have a future.”
He inhaled a deep breath, looking as if he liked the sound of that. “I’m listening.”
“Let me try something on for size,” I suggested. “Let’s see what I can do with some of your interests.”
“Like what?”
I shrugged, pretending to be thinking, as if I hadn’t come in here with plan. “How about Delcour and fifty thousand shares of Ferro?”
He laughed as my audacity, which is exactly what I wanted. I knew he wouldn’t go for it.
“Fifty thousand shares would make you a partner,” he pointed out, setting down his glass and taking a seat again. “Son or no son, you don’t get those kinds of perks just handed to you.”
He fanned out his suit jacket, leaning back in his seat and pinning me with a stare. “And not in Meridian City,” he demanded. “If you embarrass me, I’d like it less visible.”
“Fine.” I nodded. “What about…FANE then?”
Rika’s family had given their jewelry store the family name when it’d been opened years before she was born.
He pinched his eyebrows together, looking suspicious. “FANE?”
Shit. I’d moved too fast. He was going to say no.
I shrugged, trying to downplay it. “Everything is tucked away in Thunder Bay, isn’t it? Out of sight? Let’s see what I can do with the shop, the house, and the Fane’s holdings.”
“Absolutely not,” he answered. “All of that will be your brother’s someday.”
I stilled. Trevor’s? Not Rika’s?
In his will, Schrader Fane had named his daughter as his sole heir. Rika would inherit everything upon either, her graduation from college, or her twenty-fifth birthday, whichever came first. Mr. Fane had named my father, Rika’s godfather, the trustee until that time, which had been just fine with Rika’s mother. She took no interest in business, nor was she capable of even running her own household, let alone a multi-million dollar estate.
If everything went to Trevor, though, that meant—
“You must realize by now that they will eventually be married,” my father told me when I didn’t say anything.
Married.
My muscles ached, every single fucking one tight as I stared at my father and fought not to lose my shit.
What did I care anyway? She and Trevor deserved each other, and I was sure we’d be more than done with her by then.
“Makes sense,” I agreed trying to unknot my stomach.
“It’ll be sometime after they both graduate,” he told me. “We can’t have her spreading her wings too wide and taking off. He’ll marry her, put a Crist baby in her, and everything Fane will be ours, including Little Rika. That’s the plan.”
And I’d bet everything I had that she wasn’t aware of any of this, either. Sure, we all knew the family had been trying to push Rika and Trevor together, even though she’d broken it off.
But there was only so much a person could take. They’d continue to pressure her, including Trevor, and Rika would eventually fold.
“She doesn’t love him,” I pointed out, wanting to burst his little bubble.
He raised his eyes, meeting my challenge. “She’ll take him back, and she’ll marry him.”
“And what if he can’t get a baby in her?” I argued.
Rika didn’t want Trevor. They may get her down the aisle, but there was no guarantee she’d be pliable in the bedroom.
“If he can’t,” he said, looking at me pointedly, “then maybe you will. As long as it’s a Crist, I don’t really care.”
He tipped up his glass, taking another sip. “Hell,” he continued, a hint of a grin on his face, “I’ll do it if I have to.”
Motherfucker. Her life was already as good as over.
I fixed him with a sarcastic smile. “So you need me then.”
“Yeah, but I don’t trust you,” he retorted.
“But I am your son,” I shot back. “And I know that scares you, because you can’t control me, but you know why that is? Because we are exactly the same.” I tipped my chin down, challenging him as I stood my ground. “The same qualities you hate in me are the ones you prize in yourself. And whether or not you want to admit it, you respect me a lot more than you do Trevor.”
Pushing off the wall, I kept my arms folded across my chest as I approached his desk.
“It’s time I joined the family business,” I stated. “I’ll keep nothing. FANE belongs to Rika, as well as her property and finances, when she graduates college. That’s in her father’s will and can’t be changed. Let me manage it until she and Trevor are ready.”
He narrowed his eyes, turning it over in his head.
What did he have to lose? I couldn’t keep anything. The law protected Rika. And as far as my father knew, I had no reason to mismanage her estate. Why would I want to seize her house, close down the business, freeze her assets…?
“FANE,” he said, finally coming to terms with the idea.
“And the house and all their other holdings,” I reminded him. “And if I do well, I get Delcour and the fifty thousand shares.”
I didn’t give a fuck about Delcour and the shares, but I wanted to keep up the pretense that the Fane estate wasn’t the real prize.
He paused but finally nodded, accepting the deal. “I’ll have Monroe change over the power of attorney and fax you the papers later today.”
And then, looking at me sternly, he pointed out, “You’re getting a chance, because you’re blood, Michael. And only because you’re blood. If I were you, I’d prove my worth by not fucking this up. You might not get a second chance.”
I kept my smile to myself. I wouldn’t need a second chance.
I turned and walked for the door, ready to leave, but then I stopped.
“Why not me?” I pivoted back around, looking at him. “Why didn’t you consider me to marry her?”
“I did,” he answered. “You’re too volatile, and I need her happy and pliant. You’d make her miserable.”
I cocked an eyebrow, looking away. Well, he was right, wasn’t he? I had every intention of hurting her beyond repair.
But he didn’t know that. He was reading into something else. Knowing nothing about the bad blood between Rika and me, my father thought I wasn’t good for her.
I walked out of the office, slamming his door closed behind me with a loud thud. Anger coiled in my gut, and I hardened my jaw. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered, I reminded myself.
He thought he’d secure the Fane money and connections and that he would control everything through Trevor. He had no idea that I was going to drive everything into the ground.
And he had no idea that my plans had just now changed. He and Trevor would never get their hands on her. I’d see her dead first.
I stepped into the elevator, pushing the button for the lobby and feeling my phone vibrate inside my suit jacket.
Pulling it out of my breast pocket, I clicked on a text message from Will.
No more house.
And my eyes rounded, seeing a picture of the foyer of the Fane’s home covered in flames.
What the fuck! My heart filled my throat, and I stopped breathing. They’d acted without me.
We planned to take the house, not burn it down!
I worked quickly, dialing the security office at the community.
The night guard answered immediately.
“Ferguson!” I growled. “The Fane’s house!”
“Yes, sir,” he rushed out. “I already called 911. Fire trucks are on their way.”
I hung up and instantly twisted to the side, slamming my fist into the elevator wall. “Goddammit!”
