"No, I'm not. I'm completely in control right now, and I'm going to figure out what happened to my brother. Not for me, but for my father. He can't get his hands dirty with this Grace, but I can." I turned and walked to the house, counting to three in my head. She jogged up beside me as I hit three, and it took all I had in me not to give her a knowing smile.
She'd never let me drown alone. Not ever.
"Fine, but we're not killing anyone."
"Right." I glanced over at her and smiled. "Erik's going to do that part for me."
13
Nate
"Just relax. They're really nice people. You might actually like them." Ashley gave me a tight smile as we got out of my truck and walked to the front of the mansion. My bike would have helped ease my angst, but I didn't think it would look too good driving like a badass on the rich side of town. Probably have the fucking cops called on me ten times before I parked the damn thing.
"I doubt that, but thanks." I placed my hand on her lower back and reached up to ring the doorbell. "I thought rich people had a valet."
"They do, usually." She glanced around and jerked back stiffly as the door opened. "Daniella. Paul."
I waited behind Ashley as she moved into the couple’s arms and let out a long cry. She broke down into tears and I found myself rather impressed with her antics. I'd never seen her really cry other than the day we found her mother raped and murdered in the old shitty shack where she lived when we were kids. Outside of that, she was emotionally high or fueled by anger. There was no in between.
Had her tears earlier back at the apartment just been a warm-up to her performance in front of the dude's parents? I realized that I didn't know his name. Fuck. I'd have to ask her just in case I got caught alone with one of them.
"This is my good friend, Nate." Ashley moved back and motioned to me. "He came with me today just to be a support unit."
"Well, that's very kind of you." The older man extended his hand and shook mine. "Paul Webb. Nice to meet you, son. This is my wife, Daniella."
The woman was breathtaking, her thick brown hair long and hanging past her shoulders, her body curvy and built for keeping a good man warm most nights of the week. I forced myself to stop being a bastard, though something about her kept driving me toward it. Had I slept with her before? She reminded me of someone. Who?
"Nice to meet you both. I'm so sorry for your loss." I shook the woman's hand and moved back to stand behind Ashley.
"Thank you. Denise here is the one that needs our attention right now. Us losing our son is just horrific, but I feel so bad for you." The gentleman turned his attention back to Ashley and reached for her hand. "Did you have any idea that he was taking illegal substances?"
"No. None at all." Ashley used her free hand to wipe at her face. "It's so lonely in that big house without him." She choked up again, and Daniella moved up and wrapped an arm around her before walking her down the hallway.
"There, there, dear. Let's get you something warm to drink. We'll figure it out."
"I know," Ashley's voice carried back to me, "I just loved him so much, Daniella. He was everything to me. We shared everything. Why wouldn't he tell me about his addiction to whatever the hell this stuff was?"
Paul let out a long sigh. "I never thought the day would come where I would have to bury one of my children."
"I'm so sorry, sir." I slipped my hands into my pockets, feeling beyond uncomfortable. I didn't do people. Ashley would be paying me back handsomely for this shit - in Benjamins. "How many kids do you have? Did you have? Awww shit. I'm sorry."
He gave me a sad smile. "No, it's okay. No one knows how to behave in these situations. I had Darek, and then my two daughters. They're twins, but they look nothing alike."
"Fraternal twins?"
"Yeah. Come on in here and take a load off while the girls visit." He moved in front of me, and I followed him down a long hallway to a brightly lit study. There were windows from floor to ceiling, covering three-fourths of the room.
"Wow. It's beautiful in here." I turned slowly, taking it all in. The pictures hanging on the wall caught my attention, but I forced myself to keep moving. No need to be nosy. I didn't want to know anything more about the guy or his family than I already did.
Ashley was the black widow. I was just the stiff dick that cleaned up her mess or pulled the trigger if she got too scared to do it. We had a good thing going. No fucking way I was going to let my conscience get in the way.
"Have a seat. You like bourbon?" He moved towards a large mahogany cabinet in the far corner of the room.
"Love it." I sat down and sunk into the leather, enjoying myself more than I should have. I was a bastard for wanting to live the poor guy’s life. All the parts except losing my son. I snorted softly as the old guy continued to chatter on about how great Darek was.
Funny to finally know the cat's name. After he's dead.
Would I ever have a son? I let my thoughts sweep me away to a hospital room, Jenna smiling up at me from the bed below. Her hospital gown looked good on her. Fuck, everything looked good on her. The little bundle tucked into the blue blankets in her arms was mine.
"You know what I mean?" The guy stopped in front of me and extended the glass of bourbon to me. "It just doesn't make any damn sense. Give your whole life to this fucked up city, and they take your first born when you're not looking."
I took the glass and nodded at him. "What do you mean, sir? You gave your whole life to the city? What do you do?"
"I'm the DA for the State of New York. I prosecute the criminals that sell this shit, and I'm going to let things die down for a day or two, and then I'll find out who did this to my boy." He lifted his glass as something came over his features that left me with the stark realization that if we got away with this shit, it would be by the skin of our teeth.
"I hope you do." I lifted my glass and drank deeply from it. Fucking Ashley, making me come over and sit with the old man whose son I'd helped her kill for money. For his fucking bank account. I hated myself a little more than usual.
Jenna.
I should just run. I had to run from her. Or force her away from me. What a bastard I'd been. Walking around dreaming about the pretty girl being more to me than a fantasy or a quick fuck for a night.
She deserved so much more than I could ever give. Or rather, more than I would ever be. What would she think if I told her that I was a murderer? That I'd snuffed the life out of a friendly young billionaire four years before? There's no way in all of hell that she'd stay with me.
So don't tell her.
"You close with your dad?" The guy's voice brought me out of my thoughts.
"Not particularly." I glanced down at the dark liquid in my glass, hoping he would move on from the topic.
"Paul? Can you come here, honey?" Daniella's voice reached us, and I held a sigh of relief behind my teeth.
"Sure, honey." He moved from the edge of the couch across from me. "I'll be right back. The bourbon is over there. Help yourself to it. Make yourself at home. You're family now."
"Thank you, sir." I took another drink and waited until he walked from the room to stand up. My stomach ached at the thought of these good people having a clue who I was, or better yet, who the fuck Ashley was. It was sickening all around. And yet... I'd keep doing it until something better came up.
Poverty hadn't left me untarnished, and I would sell the veins from my arms before going back to it. Being poor meant not having the power to fight back when the wolf showed up at your door. And I bent over and ate dirt when he fucked me and mine.
Never. I wasn't ever tasting that kind of weakness again. I'd kill every rich bastard in the city before I did. I'd rot in the state penitentiary and beat mother fuckers from sun up to sun down for coming near me.
"Never again," I whispered and rolled my shoulders before tossing back the rest of the liquor and letting it burn my throat.
I couldn't hear voices down the hall, but leaving the office an
d wandering around the house seemed a little too cocky for even me. I forced myself across the room to check out the various pictures the DA had hanging on his wall.
"Of all people in New York City." I ran my hand down my face and set my glass down on the counter near the liquor. There were tons of pictures, most of them of Paul and some famous person who'd come to New York for something from what I could tell.
The one on his desk was facing away from me, but my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to know what Darek looked like. Was he better looking than me? Better in bed than me?
I scoffed at the thought and picked up the picture as the DA walked back in.
"Oh, that's my family. It's about four years ago, but everyone looks the same." He moved up beside me and pointed at the faces, covering them up as he said their name.
"That's my wife, Daniella, here is Darek, and my beautiful girls. Kayla and Jenna."
My heart almost stopped in my chest as he moved his thick finger off the face of the girls. I pulled the picture closer as my blood ran cold.
"These are your girls?" I forced myself to sound normal. Natural.
"Yeah. Kayla stays here with us, but my Jenna... she wants to make the world a better place all by herself. She refuses our name, our money and most of our invitations to come to dinner. I love her so much, but I wish she would stop fighting against the grind and let me help her."
I couldn't find enough air in the room. "Does she work for you now?"
"Me? No." He chuckled and took the picture from me before placing it back on his desk. "She works at De Luca. It's this little-"
"-shitty hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. The coffee is terrible." I reached out and gripped the edge of his desk.
"Yeah." His brow contorted. "Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah. I just need to go to the restroom. Something I ate last night is-" I rubbed my stomach and followed him out into the hallway, my eyes wide, my senses on full alert. Was Jenna in the fucking house with me?
No goddamn way we offed her older brother. No way.
"It's just right down here. No rush, okay? I'll check on you in a few minutes, and-"
"Is Jenna here?"
"Um. Yeah. She was." He glanced around and turned back to me. "Do you know her?"
"No, but I go into that coffee shop all the time. Just odd coincidence." I shrugged and moved toward the bathroom. "Thanks again, Mr. Webb."
"Sure, son."
I closed the door behind me as the room spun. Jenna Webb? The billionaire heiress to a fortune bigger than anything we could have imagined was working as a coffee barista on the shitty side of town? And her father was DA?
The girl I'd spanked the night before?
The one that cried my name?
The woman I wanted to drop to a knee for?
My Jenna? This shit couldn't be happening. It just couldn't.
14
Jenna
Three Days Later
It rained before Darek's funeral, leaving the ground wet, and the smell of clean in the air. It was a vast difference from inside the stuffy church where it smelled like mothballs and old books. My mother was beyond decked out in her finest funeral garb and my father looked like a knight, standing beside her as if he would guard her with his life, and he most likely would.
Kayla held my hand through the whole service, and Denise sat on the other side of my sister, crying loudly the entire time. Some part of me wanted to believe in the emotion behind her wailing, but I couldn't.
The trip to my brother's apartment with Grace on Saturday was cut short by a group of cops stopping by. We barely slipped out the back door without getting caught. I needed to give it a few more days and then I could go back over there.
My understanding was that the police department had assigned several detectives to my brother's case if nothing else, to honor who my father was and all he'd done for the city.
"I can't believe we're doing this," my sister mumbled as some of our cousins and some of Darek's good friends got up and moved toward the casket with my father.
"It's so horrible. I feel like I'm in a fucking nightmare." Denise glanced over toward me as she reached out and gripped mine and Kayla's hands as they lay intertwined together.
Bullshit. Lying bitch.
I leaned around my sister and narrowed my eyes at her. "My brother wouldn't have taken a drug without either being forced or promised something of great value for it. You don't know anything about that, hmm?"
Her eyes widened and she reached up and pressed her hand to the base of her throat. "Are you saying that you think I had something to do with this?"
"Not now, Jenna. Shit," Kayla mumbled and glanced between the two of us as the guys carried my brother's casket out the back of the church.
"You're fucking right I do." I leaned over and laid my free hand on top of hers, squeezing softly. "And when I find the evidence that says you were in the middle of this, get ready, Denise or Candy or Martha. Whatever your fucking name is because I'm coming after you. And you'll never feel the knife slide in between your shoulder blades, but when it does... just know that it was me."
She yelped and jerked back, feigning fear. "I can't believe-"
"Ignore her. It's part of the act." I turned back to the front of the church and forced myself to stare straight forward as Denise left the church wailing even louder.
No one had the balls to threaten the widow of a dead man, but someone should have. Nothing added up, and as far as I was concerned, all signs pointed to her. I just needed to link the signs together and lock down my story before going to the cops or to Erik. I hadn't decided which route I was going with. Time was changing my mind. If that was good or bad, I wasn't sure just yet.
"What are you doing here, kiddo? You really should be with your family." Sam lifted his hands in the air and let out an exasperated sigh. "I told you to take off a week, Jenna."
"I know." I reached up and worked my hair into a ponytail. "And where I appreciate that a lot, I need this right now, okay? It's the only place I feel like I belong. Don't take that from me. Please?"
He reached for me and studied my face before nodding. "All right. I would never do that to you. You know we love you up here. I'm just worried about you." He pulled me close and kissed the top of my head. "Leave when you're ready and show up when you want for the next little while, all right?"
"You promoting me to manager?" I moved back and smirked.
"No, not today, but soon, I'm sure."
"I heard that," Cynthia grumbled playfully as she walked from the other side of the shop and gave me a quick hug. "I'm glad you're here. It's boring without you, and Mr. Hottie Tattoo man doesn't stop by when you're not here. Has he got eyes on you or something?"
I laughed and glanced around the shop. "I hope not."
"I wouldn’t mind him having eyes on me. Or anything else if we're being open."
"We're not." I lifted my eyebrow playfully and enjoyed the sound of her laugh. "I'm okay, really. Just needed to be around you guys."
"I totally understand." She squeezed me one more time before heading back to the pick-up side of the counter. "Sorry for your loss, Jenna."
"Thanks," I mumbled and bent over to grab my apron from below the cabinet. I put it on and tied it around my back as a group of college kids walked through the door, laughing loudly.
They moved up to the counter, and the cute guy in front leaned toward me and smiled. "Hi, pretty girl. I'm Pete. What's your name?"
"It's Barista to you, sir." I smiled as his friends laughed. The smile on his face was sweet, kind. He was the kind of man I should have been watching for to come into the shop and steal my heart, not the thug I was after.
But was Nate really a thug?
He worked as a bouncer in one of the worst clubs for prostitution and drugs in all of New York. He finger fucked me in an office. He was a complete thug, and yet, I was crazy about him.
Whatever he was, I missed him like crazy. It'd been almost a week since I'd seen him
. In the middle of all of my brother's shit, I'd forgotten about how good it felt just to look up and see him walk in the door. Maybe today.
"It's gonna be like that, hm?" The guy's smile widened.
I smiled back. "What can I get started for you?"
"How about your number?" He wagged his eyebrows.
Thomas' voice surprised me as he walked toward the front of the counter. "Not happening, playboy. She's mine." He glanced at the guy and squared his shoulders.
"Oh, damn. I'm sorry, Thomas. Forgive me, man." The kid lifted his hands, and I couldn't help but wonder how the hell the young guy knew Thomas. He was a friend of my brother’s, which put him at twenty-six at the youngest. The guy working hard for my number couldn't have been nineteen.
"No problem, pledge. Get out of here." Thomas patted the guy on the back and turned to me. "Hey. You got a second?"
"Yeah. Sure." I looked over my shoulder as Sam glanced up from counting inventory.
"Go on. I'll watch the front for a few minutes for you."
I stifled a groan and walked around the counter toward the hallway where we kept our storage unit. Memories of Nate sneaking up behind me and grabbing the coffee I was after all off the top shelf rolled over me. His thick body pressed to the back of mine, his hands on my hips, my stomach.
"You all right?" Thomas tilted his head to the side and studied me.
"Yeah. Just trying to get back into the swing of things." I let my eyes move toward the door as a soft prayer rose up in my head. I just needed to see Nate for a few minutes. Just feel his arms around me. It was stupid. Silly. Ignorant, but I didn't care. The secondary brush with death mixed with the odd fight with Darek's widow left me wanting comfort - Nate's comfort. Something about him made me forget everything else around me. I craved the power he had over me.
Thomas reached out and ran his hands over my shoulders. "I understand that completely. I still can't believe Darek is gone."
I glanced down and nodded. "Me either. Hey, how did you know that young guy that was hitting on me?"
Captain Hotness: A Single Father Bad Boy Novel Page 67
