I slip on my Ray Bans as I walk down the airplane steps and into the glaring LA sunshine. A car waits for me at the bottom and a driver opens the door as I approach.
“Good afternoon, Mr Ryan.” He bows his head slightly.
“Afternoon,” I reply with a nod before he opens the door wider and I bend my head and climb inside, surprised to see a figure sitting waiting for me.
“Hola, amigo,” Alejandro Montoya smiles widely at me.
“What the hell?” I grin back at him as I sit on opposite end of the back seat. “When you said you were sending a car for me, I didn’t realize you’d be in it.”
“Well, there’s been a change of plan,” he says with a shake of his head. “Jax has had to go out of town and I have some business I need to deal with this afternoon. Then I have to go to some charity thing with Alana later. It’s a last minute deal, but it’s important to my wife, so I’m sorry, amigo, our planned night of drunken debauchery will have to wait. But I have booked you into the best suite at my hotel and everything you indulge in there is on the house.”
“Thank you. And I’m not sure you calling off our night out is a bad thing,” I laugh. “I have a meeting at 8am.”
He laughs too. “Well, my ideas of debauchery these days are much tamer anyway. I am a one woman man. You’d probably think I’m boring now.”
“I’m not sure you could ever be considered boring, Alejandro,” I grin at him. “Besides, I see the appeal.”
“You do, huh?” He flashes an eyebrow at me. “Is this the computer hacker?”
“It’s complicated,” I shake my head. “Far too complicated to explain during a drive to the city anyway.” Thinking about Jessie gives me a pain in my chest. Last night was supposed to just be a game of poker. Strip poker, granted, but just a friendly game. Mikey had asked me to help get Jessie naked, and that was all I intended to do. But I obviously forgot what seeing her naked body does to me. And then when I watched her on that computer making herself come for me, I was tempted to catch the next flight home and fuck her for real. The memory of her smell and the taste of her, of how her cunt squeezes my cock, overwhelm me whenever I think of her. But, I can deal with those. It is the memory of how it feels to be loved by her that I can’t handle.
Alejandro stares at me intently and I realize I’m completely lost in thoughts of her once more. “Women, my friend. Our reason for living and the reason our hair turns gray,” he winks at me before holding up a bottle of Jameson and I nod before he pours us each a glass.
“So, you were asking about this Wolf guy?” Alejandro says as he hands me my drink and settles back against his seat, and I’m thankful for the distraction.
“Yeah. You ever had any dealings with him at all?”
“No.” Alejandro shakes his head. “But he was Russian, right? I don’t exactly get on with the Bratva, Shane.”
“You never used to get on with the Irish either,” I remind him. Before my brothers and I took over, a man named Seamus Finnan ran operations, and Alejandro almost sawed off his head with a steak knife during one particular showdown in a New York restaurant.
“Well, that was in my younger and more reckless days,” he says with a chuckle. “Besides, Seamus was a prick. And you’re not. I trust you.”
“Well, you helped my brothers and me out a lot when we first came to the States. We’ve always got your back.”
“And I yours, amigo,” he says before knocking back his whiskey.
“So, you know nothing about him then?” I ask again. If I didn’t know that he existed, I would think the Wolf was a figment of someone’s imagination, he is that fucking elusive.
“Only what everyone else knows. The Bratva’s top assassin. Disappeared ten years ago after he slaughtered that family and kidnapped your girl.”
My girl. Dammit Jessie!
“I even had Jax do a little digging for you but he came up with nothing.”
I shake my head in frustration. Jax is the human equivalent of a bloodhound. The fact that neither him or Jessie can find the Wolf gives me little hope that we will ever find him unless he wants to be found. And I can’t help that worry her being with me and my brothers makes her more visible to him.
“You worried he’s still out there and he might come after her again?” Alejandro asks, as if reading my thoughts.
“Yep. And if I don’t know who he is, then how the fuck do I protect her from him? I worry about her every time she leaves the apartment. I worry that he’s so fucking invisible he might walk right past me one day and take her from under my nose.”
“You do what you can, Shane. That’s all any of us can do. I used to worry about Alana too. Fuck, I still do. And I had reason to after what happened to her. But, trying to second-guess everything and everyone, trying to keep her in a cage, well it drove both of us crazy.”
“So, how do you deal with it?”
He sucks in a deep breath. “I choose not to let it overwhelm me. Now that we have the kids too, I could worry about all of them all day long, so I have to consciously make an effort not to. She and the boys never leave the house without a bodyguard, and I trust that she does everything she can to keep herself and our children safe.”
“And Lucia?” I ask, referring to his adopted adult daughter.
“Don’t even,” he says with a shake of his head. “That girl can take care of herself and I swear she is even more stubborn than both me and Alana combined, so I let her do her own thing. I have given up trying to give myself an aneurysm arguing with the kid.”
I smile at the image that conjures in my head. Alejandro Montoya is one of the fiercest and most ruthless men I’ve ever met, but he is completely besotted with his wife and children, and there is a distinct change in him when he talks about them. I finish my whiskey and lean back in my seat.
“We chose this life, Shane. We don’t get to make the people who love us suffer for it too. So, we do what we can to keep them safe and then we let them do what makes them happy.”
“I suppose so.”
“Damn. I’ve never seen you like this over a woman,” he laughs.
“Like what?”
He doesn’t reply, simply shakes his head before he pours us each another drink.
“I hate it,” I admit. “I wish I could stop thinking about her.”
“She doesn’t feel the same?” he frowns at me.
“She does. At least I think she does.”
“Ah, love,’ he says with a sigh. “It’s an incredible thing — even when it hurts like hell.”
“So, what’s this business you have to deal with?” I ask him, desperate to change the subject.
He flashes his eyebrows at me. “Why? You in that much need for a distraction? You want in?”
“Does it involve breaking bones?”
“It can,” he answers with a grin.
“Then I’m in.”
“Great. Maybe with your help I won’t have to get blood on my best suit,” he says before pouring us each another drink.
The whiskey burns my throat as I swallow a huge mouthful. Staring out at the LA skyline as I roll the glass in my hand, I wonder what my brothers and Jessie are doing back home. Mostly I wonder about her. What she is wearing. Whether she is happy or sad. Whether she is thinking about me. With a shake of my head, I put the glass onto the table and sit on the sofa. I’ve drunk too much tonight and it’s making me far too reflective and melancholy for my own good. Even breaking some faces with Alejandro today wasn’t enough of a distraction. Sitting here alone in my hotel room night after night isn’t helping either. I should be down in the bar. I haven’t had sex for three long months and I have never gone this long without fucking before. The last time was with Jessie when we kept her a prisoner in our basement. The memory of that day makes my cock stiffen in my pants. Damn, that woman gets under my skin like no-one I have ever known.
The women in LA are hot, and the women who stay in Alejandro’s hotels are rich and hot, which means they take good care of themselves. I shake my head, pissed at myself for even thinking about it. So, clearly I’m not that wasted because I know that is a line I can’t even think about crossing. Not until I’ve figured out what the hell is going on with Jessie and me.
As I glance at the table, I see my cell phone sitting there, daring me to call her and tell her that I can’t stop thinking about her. I pick it up and dial Conor instead. It rings and rings, but he doesn’t answer. It’s after midnight in New York so he’s probably working in the club, so it’s not that unusual that he doesn’t pick up, but it still sets my nerves on edge not to be able to speak to him. I end the call without leaving a message and dial Mikey instead, who picks up on the fourth ring.
“Hey, bro? How are things in sunny LA?” he asks.
“Boring as fuck.”
“Oh,” he laughs softly.
“Where is Conor? I can’t get a hold of him?”
“Well, he caught one of the new bar staff creaming money from the cash register so he is enjoying firing his ass in true Conor style as we speak.”
“Ouch,” I wince at the thought of what the bartender is currently being subjected to. Not that the piece of shit doesn’t deserve it. You have to be a special kind of stupid to steal money from our club right under our noses. “How is Liam doing?”
“Great. He’s sleeping loads still, but the doc says that’s a good thing to let his body heal. He should be on back on his feet in a day or so. He can hobble to the bathroom on his own now, so that’s good. And when he’s awake, he’s good. Jessie spends most of the day with him, playing cards and watching TV. So the lazy fucker is living his best life really,” Mikey jokes, but I know that no-one is more relieved than he is that Liam is okay.
“Glad to hear it. And you?”
“Tired. But all good, bro. Looking forward to you coming home though. It’s not the same without you.”
“I’m looking forward to coming home too,” I tell him, and then we are silent for a few moments until I’m forced to speak again, if only to break the tension that has edged into what was supposed to be a lighthearted catch up with the brother who is the least likely of all of us to talk about feelings with me. “How is she?” I swallow the ball of emotion that is lodged in my throat.
“Ask her yourself, bro,” he sighs.
“But I’m asking you, Mikey,” I snap, and then I feel bad for taking my frustration out on him. “I mean after yesterday. Is she okay?”
“Why? What did you two do? Because she was pretty happy, and dripping wet, by the time she came to bed.”
“You’re welcome,” I smile and can’t help experiencing a sense of perverted satisfaction and pride at what he just told me. “But I meant after what happened with Vlad.’
“Ask her yourself,” he repeats. “I told you what went down yesterday at the park. And I’m not getting any more involved than that.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“And it sounds like you’ve had too much to drink. So, get some sleep and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Are you really trying to be the responsible one here?”
“Well, one of us has to be, Shane. Because you are losing your edge,” he replies, and I can’t tell if he is joking or being truthful, or maybe a little of both. I end the call without saying anything else and let him go back to whatever he was doing before I disturbed him. Scrolling through my contacts, I pause at her name, my finger hovering over the call button. She is probably asleep. But what the hell? I dial her number anyway.
After a few rings, she answers. “Hi. What’s up?” she asks quietly and sleepily.
“Did I wake you?”
“Yes. But it’s okay. Is something wrong?” she whispers.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Because Liam is sleeping. Hold on, let me go into the den,” she says and I hear her soft breathing as she climbs out of bed and walks to the other room. “There. I can talk now,” she says louder now. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I admit in a drunken moment of weakness.
I hear the breath catch in her throat. “Why? Has something happened? Shane?” her voice goes up a few octaves too and the concern in it gives me a perverse sense of satisfaction. Not that I needed proof that she cares for me. Despite everything that has happened between us, I do believe that.
“I’m fine,” I lie now, not wanting to cause her any distress when she is thousands of miles away.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Yes!” Fuck! Do I really sound that drunk?
“Do you need something?” she asks, and I can’t tell whether it is frustration or something else creeping into her voice.
“Yes.” You.
“What is it, Shane?” she says, softer now.
I love you, Jessie Ryan. “I’m think I’m homesick, is all.”
“Homesick?” she laughs softly. “Then come home.”
“I have a meeting tomorrow. And then…” I trail off. “I’ll be home in a few days.”
“I wish I could do something to make you feel better.”
“You already have.” I say that out loud, even though I only meant to think it. “Night, Jessie.”
“Night, Shane.”
I throw my phone onto the sofa beside me, and I lean back before closing my eyes. Was Mikey right about me losing my edge? Maybe I need to cancel my meeting in Vegas the day after tomorrow? Maybe I need to get my ass back on a plane to New York.
