Present
A feathery touch caressed my face, and I stirred, realizing I’d been asleep. My head was like dead weight, and I couldn’t lift it.
Blinking, I saw light pour into the room and Banks lying next to me. I grinned. I’d always hated sleeping with other people—like actual sleep, in the same bed.
She was so quiet, though. And I liked seeing her the moment I woke up.
Reaching out, I snaked an arm round her waist and pulled her in close.
But she was stiff, and something was off. I closed my fingers around her skin, but it wasn’t skin I was feeling. It was clothing.
I opened my eyes fully and saw that she had her head turned toward me, watching me.
Her eyes looked sad.
“What is it, baby?” I pushed myself up on my elbows and turned toward her, keeping my arm around her. “What’s going on? Why are you dressed?”
She was wearing the same outfit she came in a couple days ago.
Her whisper was small as she brushed the back of her hand across my cheek. “Don’t forget how this feels.”
I dug in my eyebrows. “What?”
Pushing myself up, I sat on my knees and noticed her phone in her hand. An unsettling feeling hit me. What did she mean?
I grabbed her phone, and she let me, quietly watching me as I read the screen.
Look out the window.
I didn’t recognize the number, and she didn’t have the contact saved. No name. A single text.
I looked at her, searching for an explanation, but she seemed paralyzed.
I slid off the bed. Walking to the bedroom window, the one facing the city in the distance, I looked out, my stomach immediately sinking.
A cloud of black smoke poured into the sky, and it was coming from this side of the river. From Whitehall. I could hear the faint siren of the fire trucks from here, and a helicopter even hovered close.
“What is that?” I asked, turning my eyes on her. “What’s going on?”
She swallowed, sitting up with her head bowed. She wouldn’t even look at me.
“What is that?” I yelled, grabbing her and hauling her up.
Her breathing quickened. “Sensou.”
No. I released her and bolted out of the room, running down the stairs. But the front door opened before I got there, and I looked up to see Michael, Will, and Rika bursting through.
Will caught me, trying to keep me from running outside.
“It’s too late. It’s gone,” he said, pushing me back and looking pained.
My hand shot to my hair, and I stared out the front door, seeing all the smoke blacken the sky.
God, no.
Rika cried softly in the foyer, and I thought of everything I had built in that place. All my father’s weapons he’d donated when I opened it up. Gone. All the records and leases, everything was there! I did all of our business out of there.
And the clientele we’d built up? Gone. It would take months to rebuild.
I clenched my fucking teeth together, the pain of the loss damn near unbearable.
“There will be more fires,” I heard Banks say.
My sadness morphed into anger, and I whipped around, seeing her walk slowly down the stairs.
Damon had texted her.
“And he’ll bring them to Thunder Bay, too,” she warned. “It’s out of Gabriel’s control.”
How long had she let me sleep? Just long enough for the fire to wipe out everything?
I held up the phone, checking the time on the text.
Six minutes ago.
I pressed the Phone icon on the message and brought it up to my ear, letting it ring.
But a voice recording came on, saying the line was out of service. He was using a burner. I ended the call and spun around, launching the phone out into the driveway and into the brush beyond the gate.
After a moment, Michael chimed in. “Fire trucks are already there. Get dressed.”
But I approached Banks as she cautiously stepped to the bottom of the staircase.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
“Would you have stopped him if you did?”
Hurt flashed across her eyes, but her silence said everything.
A shadow fell over the room, blocking out the sunlight, and I turned to see Gabriel’s guys, the same ones who collected her from Michael’s party that night, standing right outside the door.
The shaved head one—David, I think—looked past me and tipped his chin at her. “Let’s go.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” I turned, putting me between them and her.
“Vanessa is gone,” David said, stepping into the house. “Someone got to her. Scared her off. She wants no part of this.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I growled back, gesturing to Banks. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“The wedding is off. No deal,” he repeated, and I moved to advance on him, but he opened his jacket, putting his hand on his hips.
It was a causal action, but a gesture with purpose to make sure I saw the gun he had tucked in a holster under his arm. I moved for him.
But Michael shot out his hand, stopping me. “They have guns. We have nothing. Be patient.”
Every fucking muscle tightened, and I balled my fists, squeezing them so hard they hurt.
“Don’t worry.” David smirked. “We won’t force her to go if she wants to stay.”
I turned, meeting her eyes, and when she faltered, I knew what her decision was. My blood boiled.
Fuck you.
Maybe she was actually choosing them or maybe she thought she could keep Damon away from us if she left, but I was done trying to be the man I thought I should be. The man I was in high school.
No begging. If she liked men who took, I could take.
She walked past me, and I turned, watching her leave with them.
She spun around, walking backwards as she spoke to me with tears in her eyes.
“It was all so easy,” she said quietly. “All you had to do was ask my name.”
I faltered. What was she talking about? I knew her name.
They left, and the four of us stared after the black SUV as it sped out of the driveway.
The smoke from the fire had drifted up into the hills, and I could smell the burning wood and tar from the roof. There would be more fires, and this was just the start. Devil’s Night didn’t even start until midnight.
I turned to Rika, seeing her eyes dry but red. “Now do you see?” I told her. She had to stop expecting better of him. That was our place. Our business. My livelihood.
“So, Devil’s Night is coming no matter what we do,” Will chimed in.
I nodded. “And we have one piece of leverage,” I said, turning to Michael. “Do we want to use it?”
But strangely, he smiled. “Actually,” he said. “You have another card to play.”
I do?
He leaned in, crossing his arms over his chest. “Her name…is Nikova,” he told me. “Think real hard. It will come to you.”
Nik.
I thought maybe Nikki? Maybe Nicole?
Nope.
Nikova.
The female variant of Nikov. As in Gabriel Torrance, born Gabriel Nikov, whose family adopted the more “American” surname of Torrance for their business dealings when they immigrated.
Gabriel still used Nikov, though. From time to time.
And it seemed he wouldn’t allow his illegitimate daughter to have his family name, so the mother, to spite him, gave it to her for her first name.
Clever, really. It probably pissed him off, but he couldn’t stop her.
“What are you doing here, boy?”
I walked into Gabriel’s office, Will and Michael at my side.
Two of Gabriel’s guys stood off to the back, guarding the door we just entered through, but my eyes flashed up to Banks, who stood at her father’s side dressed in Damon’s clothes again.
So much made sense now.
But it didn’t make anything better.
“I’ve come for my bride,” I said, staring down at him in his chair. “Let’s get this over with.”
But he just sat there. He didn’t bark or yell like I thought he would.
Instead, he just shook his head, looking weary and lost in thought. “Damon…” he trailed off, breathing hard. “I thought he would grow out of his impulses, and learn that expending energy on small potatoes like you was a waste of time.” He took a puff of his cigar. “He has far more patience than I gave him credit for, though, and he is singular in his desires regarding his friends.”
“We’re not his friends.”
“He won’t stop,” he assured, actually looking regretful about that. “And he scared Vanessa off, so the contract is null and void. You should be happy.”
I leaned down and placed my palms on his desk, feeling Michael and Will close in behind me. I stared at him, waiting for him to meet my eyes.
But Banks was watching me. I didn’t have to look at her to know that.
He finally put his feet down and looked up.
“I’m not relishing being let off the hook,” I replied calmly, biting out every word. “I’m singular, as well, and I’m not running. A deal is a deal, and you’re stuck with me.”
“Well, I have no more nieces to give you.”
I glanced at Banks and then back at him. “You have a daughter,” I pointed out.
His eyes flashed to me, I heard Banks suck in a breath, and goddamn, I nearly smiled.
“And I don’t care if she walks down the aisle in those grungy jeans she’s wearing right now,” I told him. “Get her ass to the church tonight, and you have my word that I won’t hurt your son. But if she’s not there…”
I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out a cell phone, holding it up.
His eyes narrowed. “What is that?”
“Is that…?” Banks stared at it and then looked to me. “You didn’t destroy it?”
I stood back up, tucking it back into my pocket. The cell phone was our yearbook in high school. It held pictures and video of all our deeds, good and bad, including the videos of the crimes that sent Damon, Will, and me to prison.
After Damon escaped last year, we intended to destroy it, but then we decided a little leverage wasn’t a bad idea. After erasing the videos that incriminated us in any further crimes, we loaded a couple flash drives with the ones of him.
And saved them.
The phone was for effect.
Of course, I could use the videos to threaten him like he was threatening me, but I still needed to know where Natalya Torrance was. I needed it dealt with.
I turned and walked for the door, my friends following.
“She’s a bastard,” he called out. “One of my many. What makes you think marrying her gives you any power over me? You know I don’t give a shit about her.”
We stopped, and I turned my head over my shoulder, my eyes instantly locking on Banks.
She stood unmoving, staring at the desktop in front of her. Instinct told me to take her out of here right now. Take her home, and make sure she never had to hear anything like that again.
But she’d made her choices.
“You may not,” I replied, “but Damon does. He cares about her very much, doesn’t he? You could be dead in five years, but I’ll have your son—and sole heir—exactly where I want him.” I met Banks’s eyes. “If I have her.”
He took something I loved today. Now I take what he loves.
