Wrapped in a Donovan

by A. C. Arthur

  “Dammit!” Sean cursed and shook his head. “They’re connected to all this.”

  “More like all this may be because of something they did,” Parker added.

  Dion nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. When we were talking about the window breaking at their homes, the first thing Sam Desdune asked about was enemies. Anyone in our pasts that we’d pissed off that might want revenge.”

  “Wait. Just wait,” Regan said sliding to the edge of her seat, her hands shaking as she lifted them to push her hair back from her face.

  In that second, Savian remembered that his sister was pregnant and that maybe talking about all this in front of her might not be such a good idea. He looked at Parker, who must have been thinking along the same lines and had already stood to move close to Regan.

  “My father and your father,” she said pointing at Dion and Sean. “You think they did something to someone in their past and now that person is back and trying to make us pay for our parents’ mistakes?”

  Dion looked at Parker before he replied, “Considering all that we know now, it fits. But we’re not certain, so don’t get all upset. Trent’s going to look into a few more things. We’re going to try and find more information before we tell Miami PD that we know who the truck was registered to. It would be great if we could find Jaydon before the cops do as well, so you know Trent’s also working on that. He doesn’t want Bailey to know just yet, so he hasn’t pulled D&D into this at all.”

  Regan was already shaking her head and Parker reached down to touch her shoulders. “Listen, how about you call Gavin to come pick you up. Savian and I can fill you in on the rest later.”

  “No,” she said shaking her head immediately. “I’m not leaving and you’re not going to cut me out of this. And if either of you try, I swear I’ll make your life a living hell.”

  “Moreso than you already have,” Sean quipped and received a quick and heated look from Regan.

  “We won’t keep you in the dark, Regan,” Savian said in his calming voice. “But you have to promise to take care of yourself. There’s no telling what we may uncover, but you have to know that my little niece or nephew’s health comes first.”

  He couldn’t believe he was saying that. Sure, Savian loved his younger sister, more than he thought Regan would ever know. Finding out she was pregnant had been a shock and until this moment he hadn’t been sure how he’d felt about that revelation.

  “I’ll be fine,” Regan shot back.

  The comment was no surprise to any of them in that room.

  “So what’s the plan where our fathers are concerned?” Parker asked.

  “I say we keep this between us for the moment and see what else Trent comes up with,” Dion told them.

  “He’s right,” Savian added. “Because if we’re right and they did make an enemy that’s back to seek revenge, then this is far from over.”

  #

  An hour later, thoughts of his father, the murder and the possibility of what might be coming for all of them had Savian about to lose his mind. He needed some relief and immediately thought of her.

  “Gwen let me in,” Savian said as he walked into Jenise’s office unannounced.

  She looked up, surprised to see him.

  It had been a week since they’d returned from New York and he hadn’t seen her since then. He’d called and tried to make dates with her, but her answer had been that she was busy working on another case. Every time he’d called. Today, he’d decided not to call.

  “She should have told me,” Jenise said. She set her pen down but only looked at him for a second before she glanced at her computer screen again. “I’m really busy today.”

  Savian continued to walk, until he was standing right at the end of her desk. “You’ve been really busy since we came back.”

  “Yeah,” she said, still not looking at him. “That’s true. I told you I was thinking of hiring an associate. Well, things have really picked up, so I may have to do that sooner than I thought.”

  He nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  When it seemed she didn’t know what else to do with herself, she let her hands fall flat on the desk and sighed. “I’m going to take care of that. But right now, I really need to—”

  “Stop it,” he said in a voice that was more controlled than he was feeling. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, still not looking at him.

  Savian was not in the mood for this right now. He’d wanted to share a nice meal with her and then maybe watch one of those holiday movies she loved so much. She was obviously not on the same page with him. He leaned over the desk, taking her chin in his palm and turning her head until they were staring eye-to-eye. “Tell me why you’ve been dodging my calls and turning down my suggestions to meet up for the last week.”

  “Savian,” she began with a sigh.

  “No,” he said shaking his head. “We don’t do pretenses, you and I. We put our cards on the table and play the hand we’re dealt. So just say what you have to say. Did I do something wrong?”

  She looked as if she definitely had something to say and Savian took that to mean that somewhere along the line he’d messed up. Well, that was fine. All she needed to do was tell him and he’d fix it. That was simple enough. But instead of doing that, Jenise pulled back from him. She stood from her seat and walked around him to close her office door. When it was closed she said simply, “I can’t do this anymore.”

  He heard the words. No, he’d actually felt them like tiny spiky darts flying into his back. He turned to face her then. “What can’t you do?”

  “I can’t be just your lover,” she stated plainly, calmly, like she’d just given him her lunch order.

  “Why?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest.

  “It’s not enough, Savian.” She took a couple of steps away from the door but didn’t get too close to him.

  Thank god, she didn’t get too close because Savian wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss away the words she was saying. He wanted to touch and feel her until everything bad and painful melted away.

  “It was fine in the beginning. You were my client so I shouldn’t have been sleeping with you in the first place. Besides that, I’d told myself these last seven years that I was better off with the minimal amount of contact with men. Just have sex, have fun, keep it moving, that was my motto. It was my therapy and it worked for a really long time. But just like I’m over what Wes did to me, I’m over trying to rehabilitate myself for something I didn’t do in the first place,” she told him.

  “Okay,” he said with a slow nod. “I get all of that. What I don’t get is why you think hiding from me is the best answer.”

  “It’s the best answer because for whatever reason you subscribe to the no-strings attached relationships, you’re not ready to move past it. Case in point, you haven’t even shared with me the reason why you hold yourself so distant in relationships. Why do you not want to be committed to a woman, Savian? Why don’t you want to fall in love?”

  Again with those words that felt like weapons. He felt like he was being ambushed and he hadn’t come here prepared for that. With everything he’d just learned about the people Savian was sure he loved, he couldn’t imagine feeling that way about someone else. It just wasn’t worth it, was what he’d always thought before. Now, he didn’t know what the hell to think.

  “I like you, Jenise. I like you a lot,” he admitted, and knew instinctively that would not be good enough.

  “I said ‘love’, Savian. Not ‘like’,” she snapped.

  He sighed. “New York was a big thing for me,” he told her. “I knew it would be special for you and so I did it. I’ve never planned a trip for another woman before. I’ve never slept in bed all night with another woman.”

  She was nodding as he spoke. “I won’t thank you for the trip again. We’ve been there, and done that. And I’m not going to thank you for making me the first
woman you slept with, although I’m sure some would consider that a magnificent feat.”

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked her solemnly because Savian really did not understand. He couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why it was suddenly harder to breathe.

  He’d thought things were changing between them and he’d decided that he was comfortable with that. He wasn’t going to keep questioning what was happening, but instead had planned to embrace it, for as much time as he could. Now, she was changing the rules and he wasn’t sure he could keep up.

  “Because I have to,” she told him. “I have to be better and demand better for myself. What Wes did to me was totally messed up, but I didn’t know he was married. If I had, I would have never started sleeping with him. I didn’t have any control over that relationship and instead of actually asserting control over what I wanted from the next guy in my life, I allowed myself to find a safe spot and I hid there. Well, I’m tired of hiding now. I know what I want and if a guy is not willing to give it to me, then he’s not worth my time.”

  “So I’m not worth your time?” he asked, the words like lumps in his throat.

  “You’re worth so much more than you think you are, Savian. And that’s the problem for us. I’m ready to move forward and you’re not.”

  “I have moved forward,” he insisted. “I just told you that New York was a first for me.”

  She nodded. “It was a first and it was a step in the right direction, but then you turned yourself right back around.”

  He dragged his hands down his face, helplessness not a good feeling for him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You begged not to fall in love with me,” she said abruptly. “Like you were wishing on that mistletoe you so romantically had tacked up along that bed. You enjoyed New York. You enjoyed having sex with me. But you don’t want to love me.”

  Jenise was shaking her head now, folding her arms over her chest in a move that warned him to stay far away. “I cannot continue to give myself to someone who has no intention of giving me anything in return.”

  He did not know what to say, or how he felt about what she’d just said. He’d had no idea that she’d heard him that night because he’d thought she’d been sleep. He had wished he wasn’t falling in love, had been wishing it with every fiber of his being, because he knew that it just wasn’t possible. It could never be. But how did he say that to her? How did he tell her that now without sounding like a complete jerk? Everything she’d just said made absolute sense. She did need to do what was best for her and Savian wasn’t sure he was it.

  “I understand,” he said finally.

  “Good,” she said with a nod. “I’m glad you do. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I really have to get back to work, Savian.”

  “Yeah, I guess you should,” he said because really, there was nothing else to say. There was nothing else for him to do. Not this time.

  Chapter 12

  By Saturday night Savian was in a crappy mood. How he made it through the rest of the work week he had no idea, but this was the third weekend that he’d disregarded his routine of going into the office for a few hours. Instead, he’d spent hours this morning working out. He’d run on the treadmill and done so many sets of leg and arm weights that his muscles had all but screamed for mercy.

  Eventually, he’d showered and walked into his kitchen dressed only in basketball shorts in an attempt to find something to eat. The shopping service had dropped off his weekly order yesterday, so the refrigerator was fully stocked. Still, his stomach growled as his mind thought of cheesesteak eggrolls with spicy chili sauce, instead. With a huff, he slammed the refrigerator door, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl in the center of the island. After finishing the fruit he’d gone into the living room where he sat until falling asleep. He had no idea how long he’d been sleeping when the persistent ringing of his cell phone woke him.

  “Yeah, hello?” he answered groggily after rolling to the other end of the couch to grab his phone from the end table.

  “This is Devlin. I’ve got some news.”

  Savian sat straight up on the couch, his eyes now opened completely, his mind instantly awake. “What is it?”

  “Part of running a background check includes looking into financials. I ran bank statements on each of the Senior Donovans. General consensus—they’re all rich,” Devlin said dryly.

  Savian did not respond.

  “When I didn’t come up with anything I decided to go back a little further. The Seniors have been reputable citizens for years. If there was some dirt to be found, it would have been well before this last generation of Donovans began to make their mark on the world,” he reported.

  “Right,” Savian agreed. Whatever the Seniors had done, it had to be a long time ago. But who would hold a grudge that long? And what could have possibly happened to make someone that angry that they would bide their time like this before striking?

  “Fifteen years ago,” Devlin said. “There was a wire transfer from Bernard Donovan’s account in the amount of $83,333. That’s an odd amount, don’t you think?”

  “An odd amount indeed,” Savian replied.

  “On the same date, Henry Donovan also did a wire transfer from his personal account. It was for the same amount,” Devlin told him.

  “And the others?” Savian asked when a sickening feeling began to swirl in the pit of his stomach.

  “I had to use my contacts at the Federal Reserve to go deeper into all of their accounts. Each one of the Senior Donovans made a wire transfer for the same amount, on the same date. And that’s not all,” Devlin stated. “One day after the wire transfer, Reginald Donovan opened a safe deposit box. It’s the only one he has and it’s only in his name. His wife Carolyn’s name is on two of his accounts at the same bank, but not on the safe deposit box.”

  Holding the phone in one hand, Savian used his other to squeeze the bridge of his nose, hoping the pressure would stop the quickly developing headache.

  “My father has an account at Sunbright Limited National Bank here in Miami. It’s in his name only. My mother has her own account there too. I didn’t know about the safe deposit box.”

  “I figured as much,” Devlin said. “That’s why I contacted one of my old Navy buddies that happens to work at the bank’s headquarters down there. I flew in yesterday and we went into the bank after hours to open the safe deposit box. I’m emailing you a copy of the only thing found in that box now.”

  “What was it?” Savian asked Devlin.

  “It’s an agreement,” he replied. “Between the Senior Donovans and someone named Roslyn Joyce Ausby.”

  Savian cursed. He thanked Devlin for his help and then he threw his phone across the room and cursed again.

  Before he could think better of his actions, Savian was up and going into his bedroom. He dressed quickly then came back into the living room to figure out where he’d thrown his phone and just how much damage had been done to it. The screen was cracked, of course. He was frowning as he stuffed it into his pocket, not even thinking about how much he’d paid for the phone for its screen to shatter as if it were only worth about twenty dollars. Now, cell phones probably weren’t built to withstand being thrown against a wall, but that wasn’t the point.

  As he left his apartment and rode down on the elevator, he thought, there were much more pressing things going on than his broken phone. Pressing, as in, like a vice that was slowly being tightened at his temples, squeezing until he wanted to scream in agony.

  His father was definitely connected to this Roslyn Ausby person. And she was the mother of Dane Ausby. And Dane owned the SUV that carried Jaydon away from Morelli’s house. And all this meant his father was in big trouble. His father, and the rest of the Senior Donovans, he might add.

  Savian drove so fast he was certain he would be pulled over by a cop at any moment, and wouldn’t that just be grand. He’d have a speeding ticket to add to all the other stressful events in his life. The
heavens must have been shining down upon him because he made it to Jenise’s apartment building without incident. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d parked on the same floor as her apartment and stepped off the elevator heading directly down the hall without a moment’s hesitation. The second he was at her door, he knocked.

  He needed to talk to someone about this, to get a fresh and non-emotional reaction to the facts. Jenise was the only other person, outside of his siblings and cousins that he trusted. So when she opened the door he only said, “Hi. I need to talk to you about something,” before walking straight into her apartment.

  That wasn’t the smartest thing he could have done. Then again, he hadn’t expected what he saw when he came to an immediate stop in her living room.

  “Hello?” the tall, dark-skinned man said as he stood from the couch where he’d been sitting with a drink in his hand.

  “Hello,” Savian replied slowly, before turning around to look at Jenise in question.

  “You should have called first,” she told him.

  That’s when Savian noticed she was wearing a robe. The white silk robe he’d purchased for her when he’d taken her to New York. He’d bought her lots of things to prepare for that trip. Negligees, underwear, two outfits including shoes, and a coat. He’d been at her place so much in the weeks before they’d left that he’d had an opportunity to see what sizes she wore. But it had never occurred to him that anyone besides him would see her in that robe, or in the sexy little nightie that had come with it.

  “I should have called?” he asked, feeling now like one of the weights he’d been lifting earlier was sitting in the center of his chest. He couldn’t breathe and he could barely see straight.

  That’s what it was, he wasn’t seeing things correctly. There wasn’t a man sitting in Jenise’s apartment as if he were ready to take her to bed and peel that robe from her delectable body. No, that man was definitely not sitting in her living room, enjoying a drink after having peeled that robe from her delectable body and made sweet love to her. No! No! No!