“You can tell them anything,” Anjelica says.
She can tell them anything. They love her, probably more than they love each other and only slightly less than they love their wives. Anjelica is our glue, always has been. Without her, Bastard Capital would have dissolved under the weight of our differing personalities in the first few months.
“I’m not telling them,” I say. “But I told you and now I need your help. You understand people. You know what they want.”
“Not Fuchs. No one knows what he wants except for maybe Minerva. He’s not even human it seems. You—” She snaps her mouth shut tight, guilt staining her cheeks.
“I’m not human either, so I’d understand him?” I suggest quietly. I know she doesn’t actually believe that, so I won’t allow her words to wound me.
“That’s not what I meant. You run in the same circles. You’ve actually spoken to him. You know the people who might have had contact with him.” She crosses her arms as if she’s scored a major point.
I shake my head. “I’ve talked to them—no one’s seen or heard from him. His houses are empty, his phones are dead, and he’s gone off the grid. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Why not start at the beginning?” She bites her lip like she wishes she could take that back.
“The beginning?”
“Where he’s from. Where his family still is.”
“Opole, Poland,” I say without thinking.
She raises her eyebrows. “You know that?”
“I’ve memorized a lot about him.”
I know where he was born, the date of his birth, when his family came to the States—I even have his elementary school report cards. But I need Anjelica to help me assemble these facts into a search pattern. She understands people in a way I can’t. Algorithms are easy. People are impossible.
Except for Anjelica. She’s one of the few people I want to take the trouble to understand.
“I always thought he was German,” Anjelica says.
“He is. There are still some ethnic Germans in Poland. But the family came here when he was only eight. To Chicago.”
She lifts her palm. “There you go. Two places to start looking.”
This is a dismissal. She’s going to pass this off as “helping” me.
I’m not going to let her. I need more. I need Fuchs, and I need to find my parents. She’s given the other Bastards their heart’s desire—why can’t I have mine? Why do only I get half measures from her?
“You asked me what I want.” I harden my tone. She has to understand how serious I am. “Well, I want this. Will you help me or not?”
She exhales through her nose, slow and resigned. “If this is really what you want, then yes. But I have a condition too.”
She doesn’t give anyone else conditions when they ask for her help. Just me. But I nod anyway.
“You don’t know what I’m going to ask for,” she warns.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
I mean that as deeply as I’ve ever meant anything. From the moment I first saw her, all she had to do was ask, and I’d make it hers. Things she didn’t even ask for too—raises, a bigger office… and my heart.
Her mouth tenses. “If we find out about your parents, you have to tell the others about this. Maybe not all of it, but the important parts.”
She’s so sure that if I pour my heart out to the guys, everything will be forgiven. That I’ll suddenly have the same kind of relationship she does with them.
I’m not convinced, but once I find my parents, it won’t matter. I’ll be able to tell them whatever Anjelica wants because then I’ll finally have a story of my own.
And when I do that, give her what she wants, things will change between us. I can already see it.
“Sure.” I hold out my hand. “You’ve got a deal.”
She lifts her hand, then hesitates. The way her fingers curl, half toward me, half toward her, reminds me of a bridge, one connecting across the space between us.
But it’s not a bridge, because she doesn’t want to touch me.
I let my hand drop, flex my fingers. “Or not a deal. There’re no binding terms or anything.”
Her mouth purses. “No.” She shoves her hand at me. “When you find your parents, you tell them everything. That is binding.”
This time I hesitate. “But what do you want?”
She wants me to make amends with the Bastards, to fix everything between me and them… but that’s not specifically for her.
“That’s what I want.” Her eyes are screwed up in confusion like she really doesn’t understand.
I take her hand, pull her closer. Her eyes widen, but she comes.
“No.” I’m rock firm, because she’s not wriggling out of this. “You. You personally. That’s what you want for them. I’m talking about you.”
She so rarely asks for things for herself. She’ll give others everything but won’t take a crumb for herself. It’s a damn crime in my opinion.
We’re so close I can see the flutter of her eyelashes, the tiny quiver at the corner of her eye, the flare of her nose with each inhale. She’s beautiful, so beautiful, but these small, private bits of animation in her features make her radiant.
“That’s all I want,” she says. “Nothing else.”
I can’t tell if she’s lying or if that’s what she really believes. Anjelica always focuses on others, on their wants, their dreams, but what about hers? Is becoming partner all she ever wanted? Is her life complete now?
I can’t ask her that. And now that she’s told me that she wants nothing else, I have to respect that.
I let go of her hand. “Fine. If we find my parents, I tell everyone everything.”
She doesn’t step away as quickly as I expected. “Good. It’s agreed.”
Our eyes lock and—
I shake my head, step back. We have to stop doing that. I can’t believe in the things I see in her eyes. She already said it wasn’t going to work.
Chapter 7
We fly into Kraków and stay the first night there. The city is charming, beautiful, and filled with the kind of antiquities you just don’t see in America. History is right in front of you, always in a place like this. There are main squares and public markets and massive monuments and old churches and even a castle. It’s all too delicious.
Everyone is friendly too, although I get a lot of stares, way more than I get at home. I guess retro really isn’t a thing in Europe.
Dev rents a car, driving confidently through the streets, shifting like he does it every day. We’ve talked very little during the flight, the both of us working on our laptops. But there’s nothing to distract me now from his sheer physical presence. He moves… he moves like no one I’ve ever seen. Elegant, but precise. No gesture wasted. It makes his every motion all that much more potent.
“I don’t think I would’ve been brave enough to drive.”
The look he sends me is quick, to the point. “You would have.” He brakes when a truck swings out in front of us, downshifting without looking. “You can drive a stick?”
Memories flood me, of the engine stalling out yet again, Kaleb’s gentle, encouraging smile. He never got angry, not once. I was the angry one.
I pinch my lips together. “Nope. Never had to learn. Where’d you learn?”
His brow furrows. He looks for a moment like he won’t answer. “I needed a way to get to campus in college. All I could afford was an old beat-up stick shift. So I taught myself in a parking lot.”
I can see him doing it too, forcing himself over and over to get it right, to try again, wearing that exact same furrowed brow. “How many clutches did you burn out?”
His mouth twitches. “Two. So I had to learn how to replace those.”
Something I’ve never forgotten about him is that he used to work in an auto-parts factory. I think I might be the only person in his life who knows that. “Did you make the clutches yourself? When
you worked in the parts factory?”
Surprise splashes over his face, like he never thought I’d remember. “No, they made specialty parts. Not clutches for old beaters.”
“Oh.” I want to ask him if he’s fabricated anything recently—he told me he used to like to make things in machine shops, at the same time he told me about the factory job. But that would be too personal.
Personal is dangerous with us.
He upshifts, passing a slow, hulking van. I can’t seem to look away from how his hand curls over the shifter knob.
“I lied,” I say suddenly. “I do know how to drive stick. Or at least I learned once.”
Immediately I regret it, turning to face the window. I don’t want to talk about Kaleb, not with anyone, but especially not with Dev. Except my lie was sitting like a rock in my stomach.
I wait for him to press further, to ask who taught me, when I learned, why I lied.
But I forgot that’s not how Dev operates.
“Do you want to drive then?” he asks, completely serious.
I laugh. It bursts out of me, popping open my mouth. “No, I don’t. When I said learned, I definitely meant past tense.”
There’s something like a smile pulling at his mouth, but not quite, and then the tension between us recedes a bit, lets us both breathe. And enjoy the views of the city.
We pull up in front of a gorgeous castle, or at least something designed to look like a castle. But it’s more on the Brothers Grimm end of the fairy-tale spectrum than the Disney one. I immediately love it.
“This is a hotel?” I ask as we walk inside.
“I didn’t make reservations,” he says as he hauls our luggage into the lobby. “But they should have something.”
“You’re not going to pull the old ‘only one room left in the hotel’ trick?”
He stiffens. “I’d never do that to you.” He sounds offended. Shocked.
“I was only joking,” I say softly. I realize suddenly that I don’t joke with him. Everyone else, yes. But when he and I decided we’d never act on our attraction while we were working together, easy friendliness went right out the window. Things were too brittle between us for anything but strictest professionalism. “I know you wouldn’t.”
He ducks his head, his mouth tightening. “I don’t— Sometimes I don’t know how to act around you. I want you and you said no. I need…” He draws in a long breath through his nose. “I would never disrespect your wishes.”
He’s never this vulnerable. Not ever. He’s either inscrutable or something close to it.
I suck in a breath, my heart stuttering. Never being vulnerable might be his way of hiding his uncertainty. To disguise that he doesn’t know how to act sometimes. I can’t let him see my reaction because he’ll mistake it for pity.
But he does make jokes. I’ve seen him do it with the other guys. So he understands humor.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have made light about the hotel situation,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Why did I never realize his cool blankness might be a cover for something else? Probably because I was too busy trying not to look at him at all.
Someone official-looking comes up to Dev then. “Mr. Arman, so glad to see you again! It’s always a pleasure when you stay with us.”
I cut a glance at Dev. So this isn’t his first time here. And why would he have been here before?
“Poland is the Silicon Valley of Europe,” he explains. “A start-up I invested in has a team here. I come to check on things occasionally.”
I know the part about Poland’s tech industry but not about his start-up. Or his numerous trips here. Which is a silly thing to keep from me—why hide a business trip? Is the secrecy unthinking on his part or purposeful?
“Your usual suite?” The manager discreetly clears his throat. “Or will you need two suites?”
“Two suites.” I hold out my hand, cutting through the awkwardness. “I’m the newest partner at Bastard Capital. Anjelica Caprice.”
He shakes my hand with more enthusiasm than finesse. “Ah, how lovely.” The way he runs his gaze up and down my body says he finds me personally lovely too. “We hope you enjoy your stay.”
The manager is still holding my hand when Dev says without inflection, “Give her my usual suite. I’ll take the other one.” His face is made of stone and is just as unmovable.
He’s jealous. The thought hits me with a pulse of delight. I smoosh it under the thumb of my better sense. It doesn’t matter if he’s jealous, because we’re business partners only. In fact, it’s better if he isn’t.
“Excellent.” The manager releases me and claps his hands together. Instantly several uniformed employees are taking the bags, ushering us toward the elevators.
I’m impressed, even after all the luxury hotels I’ve stayed in on Bastard business. Dev, however, looks as if he’d be happy never speaking again.
The porters show us to our rooms, mine right next door to Dev’s. The suite is on the smaller side but amazingly charming. There’s a sitting room, an attached bedroom with a canopy bed, and a fantastic bathroom with a marble tub I could do laps in. Maybe I will later.
I go to the windows and look out on the square beneath us. There’s a patch of green, some vendors selling food, and plenty of people visiting and chatting. No one seems in too much of a hurry, which is such a nice change from the City.
I’m not sure what the plan is for tonight. We’re not supposed to go to Opole until tomorrow, so I’ve got a few hours to kill. And some jet lag to sleep off.
And a tub worthy of a princess waiting in the bathroom.
As I head for it, my phone buzzes on the coffee table. The notifications tell me that Dev has texted me.
Did that manager bother you?
I roll my eyes. He might have asked me that to my face. And besides, I didn’t reach the ripe old age of twenty-seven without figuring out how to handle overeager guys. Or at least endure them.
It was fine. He was harmless. Really, eyeballing me while he drew out the word lovely was even less than harmless. I’ve heard much worse.
It didn’t seem that way.
If you were so bothered, why didn’t you say something then?
I didn’t want to embarrass you.
If I’d felt unsafe, you would have known.
Safe is the bare minimum here. That’s…
I wait, but nothing more comes. Not a correction, an addition, nothing.
This might be another one of those moments where he doesn’t know how to act with me.
I set my phone aside and try the connecting door. It opens easily and right into his room, no second door there.
He blinks at me, his phone still in his hand. He’s got his concentrating face on, like he’s trying to translate what he wants to say. Well, he can say it to my face. We’re both adults.
“I was fine,” I say. “I appreciate your concern, but all he did was stare at me for a little too long and shake my hand for a little too long. If he does it again, you can flatten him then.”
“I don’t flatten people.”
But he could. Those lean muscles don’t fool me.
“No, you get Finn to do it for you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And you don’t?”
My face falls. “You know about that?”
“Fuck.” He tosses his phone down. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Finn, he needed some help with hacking into the banking stuff.”
My knees go wobbly. “The… the banking stuff? Finn never said anything about banking stuff.”
Dev pulls out a chair for me. “He deserved everything we did to him.”
I sink down into it. About two years ago, this guy I dated once—once—decided he was going to stalk me. On the web, in real life, everywhere. I got emails, DMs, posts on my Facebook profile, even good old-fashioned snail mail. All begging me to give him one more chance. And threatening to kill himself if I didn’t.
I ignored it for a week. And then he ha
cked my email.
So I called in Finn to see if he could help. Finn never told me exactly what he did, but I got shiny new accounts for everything, a PO box, and better security at my house. And I never heard from the guy again.
“What did you do to him?”
Dev’s mouth flattens. “I don’t know that Finn would appreciate my telling you. But he’s never coming back.”
I lift my hands. “Okay, if this involves concrete shoes or unmarked desert graves, I changed my mind. I don’t want to know.”
Dev snorts. “Give us some credit. We’re much more elegant than that.”
Elegant. Yes, he is. Not Finn, but definitely Dev.
He catches me staring at him. “It wasn’t that bad,” he says. “I promise he’s still alive.”
“I believe you,” I say. “It’s just… I never knew you helped Finn with that.”
He looks away. “We would do anything for you. You know that.”
That’s not what I meant. I meant him personally, not the rest of them. But he clearly doesn’t want to take any credit.
“Sorry.” I get up, inch toward the door. “I shouldn’t have barged in.”
“I left it unlocked.”
Which means what? I can’t see his face, and there’s nothing in his voice to read. It’s like trying to put emotions and motivations onto a blank page.
Except he went after that guy for me. Did something so bad to him that Dev won’t tell me. His face might be blank, but his actions aren’t.
“Still, I shouldn’t have.” I slip through the doorway, safe on my side of the rooms. “I’ll just lock it then.”
He doesn’t stop me.
Chapter 8
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, strong-arming Anjelica into helping me, but it’s a fucking disaster so far.
Not her personally. She’s amazing and beautiful and making friends everywhere we go even though she doesn’t speak any Polish. She’s happily posed for a ton of pictures—I guess no one’s ever seen someone who dresses like she does—and traded Instagram handles and tasted sausage and beer and rye bread and stuffed cabbage leaves. All with a wide smile and an open heart.
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