by Maya Banks
“Give it a rest,” Drake roared. “She’s got you all by the balls and you don’t even see it. Jesus Christ. Get the hell out of my office and don’t come back until you’ve decided who you’re loyal to. Your brother? Or the woman who sold out not only your brother but you and the rest of our brothers as well.”
“You destroyed her,” Maddox said quietly, speaking up for the first time since everyone had entered the room. He’d stood back, his animosity and rage a tangible presence in the room. “She was on her knees begging you, for fuck’s sake, and you ripped her to shreds, leaving her no dignity, no pride, and she didn’t care because all she wanted was for you to listen to her. To give her a chance. To have the same faith in her that she had in you.”
Flashes of discomfort mingled with his men’s pissed-off, brooding stares. Stares that all judged and found him guilty. Him. When he wasn’t the one who sold them all out to the fucking cops. And yet here they stood, visibly bothered by the image of Evangeline on her knees begging him for a chance.
God. The entire thing was a blur to him. His entire world had shattered and come to a grinding halt the moment he realized that his angel had betrayed him. What had he said to her? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He’d only known he had to get away from her before he completely broke down and made more of a fool of himself than she had already made of him.
A vague image of her on her knees, reaching for him as he steadily backed away, raw anguish etched on her face, tears streaming in endless rivers.
Please.
It was all he could remember her saying. The roar was too loud in his head, the pain in his heart too overwhelming. From others he expected nothing less. But not from his angel. And he was pissed that he’d allowed the one person past all his carefully constructed barriers to the very heart and soul of him to do what no one had ever been capable of doing before.
Destroying him.
“You’re wrong this time, Drake,” Justice said flatly, anger pouring off him in waves, his entire body tense, almost as if it were taking all his restraint not to launch himself at Drake and beat the hell out of him. “I’ve never questioned you. Never once doubted you. I’ve followed your lead without question. But you just orchestrated the biggest fuckup of your entire life, not to mention committed an unpardonable sin against a woman who loves you more than she cares for her pride or anything else in this goddamn world. You completely demolished a good woman whose only sin was loving and accepting you with no strings or questions. Just . . . unwavering acceptance. Who else can you say that about? Who else can you say has ever loved you unconditionally? Who’s accepted the good and the bad and never left your side, always defended you, fought for you and refused to allow her fear of your world and the life you lead to ever let her leave you? She would have stood by your side and loved you forever, but you just ruined the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to you. All because you’re an unfeeling asshole who wouldn’t even allow her to defend herself. You never once asked her if she betrayed you. You assumed and you judged her, condemned her and found her guilty, and never once did you give her a chance to explain.”
His eyes were raging and his hands were balled into tight fists at his sides. The others looked to be in wholehearted agreement with every word that blew explosively from Justice’s mouth.
“And then you just threw her out on the fucking streets with nothing. Without the job or the place to live that you forced her to give up. She worked herself to the bone to selflessly support her family, and she never once complained. How the fuck do you think she’s going to make it on her own now that you made her completely dependent on you? You’ve broken every promise, the very creed of our lifestyle, by shitting all over the gift of her submission and leaving her to fend for herself.”
Justice shot him another disgusted stare and then he shook his head and licked his lips as if trying to rid himself of a bad taste in his mouth.
“You know what? Fuck this and fuck you. And fuck throwing her out on the streets after you took so many pieces out of her she’ll never be whole again. I’m out of here. I can’t stomach you a goddamn minute longer.”
Justice turned and stalked out of his office and never once looked back.
The rest of his men symbolically turned around, and like Justice, they walked out.
Drake staggered into his chair and then let his head fall into his hands. Had everyone but him lost their goddamn minds? They were defending the woman who’d tried to take them all down? Were they willing to go to jail because they liked her and she was a great cook who was nice to them?
Doubt and a sense of foreboding crept up his spine. Never before had he questioned his instincts, his gut. They never steered him wrong.
But . . . what if . . .
What if they were right? And he’d made a terrible, unforgivable mistake?
But if they were wrong, then they’d all lose everything they’d worked so hard to achieve.
What about Evangeline?
The question whispered insidiously inside his mind.
Hadn’t she already lost everything? Hadn’t he, for that matter? He stared around at the evidence of the empire he’d built from the ground up. Did any of it mean a goddamn thing if he no longer had Evangeline to share it with? To share his life with?
No, he was better off without lies, deceit, betrayal . . .
But again that nagging voice, the one that whispered to him incessantly, the one filling him with self-doubt, struck again.
What if she hadn’t lied, deceived or betrayed?
What if . . . What if she was innocent and he’d made the worst mistake of his life?
27
Evangeline hurriedly let herself inside the apartment Silas was letting her use and set the small plastic bag on the bar of the tiny kitchen. For now, she ignored it, not yet able to face the possible consequences the package would reveal.
Silas had bought groceries when he’d gone out to get clothing for Evangeline, but the thought of food made her stomach twist into knots and promptly rebel. So maybe ignoring the possibility wasn’t the best idea, though that’s precisely what she had done for the last two days. She had to know—needed to know. It was far better to get it over with so she’d know exactly what she was up against.
With icy fingers of dread clutching at her heart, she picked up the bag like it was an offending object that would bite her and walked slowly to the bathroom. She took out the home pregnancy test from its package and scanned the instructions. It seemed simple enough. Pee on the stick and then wait a few minutes for the results.
After complying with the instructions, she washed her hands and laid the stick on the counter and then stared at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t look pregnant, but then did anyone so early in the game? For that matter, she didn’t know how far along she was, if she was even pregnant at all. Obviously she couldn’t be more than three months along because she hadn’t been with Drake for longer than that.
But her periods had never been regular, so she never really knew when to expect her next one. And if that was the case, why was she standing in here like an idiot taking a home pregnancy test when she would likely start within the next week? Wishful thinking? Was that what she was experiencing? After the devastating loss of Drake, was she clinging to any sort of hope of having some part of him? A baby? Their child?
The very last thing she needed was to be pregnant, but at the same time, hope was so keen, so desperate inside her that she realized now that if she wasn’t pregnant, she would grieve not only the loss of Drake but of a child who never existed either. Talk about signing up for self-torture.
She closed her eyes and reached for the stick and took in a long, steadying breath through her nose. Finally she worked up enough courage to open her eyes and look at the results.
It took a few moments to blink away the tears and the fuzziness in her vision but then she saw it. Staring her right in the face was a vibrant pink plus sign.
Her legs wobbl
ed and she staggered, almost collapsing in a heap on the floor of the bathroom. Her heart exploded with joy even as an overwhelming surge of grief nearly flattened her.
She eased down on the floor, no longer trusting her legs to hold her, and she drew her knees in to her chest, wrapping her arms around them tightly as she hugged herself fiercely, rocking back and forth. Tears, this time a mixture of grief and unfettered joy, spilled down her cheeks and she actually smiled.
A baby.
Drake’s son or daughter.
A small piece of him who would live on through her. His legacy.
Almost as soon as the calming, joyful thoughts took over her battered mind, reality crept in and with it, heartbreak and desperation. She no longer had any reason to be here in the city. The one good thing Drake had done was to deposit a large sum of money into her parents’ account as well as buy them a mortgage-free house and a new vehicle, effectively rendering them debt free with plenty of money on reserve to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
Which meant that she no longer needed to worry about working to support her beloved mother and father. She could go to school, like she’d always wanted. Get an education. Earn a degree and be able to support herself and her child.
She could go home and have the support of the two people who loved her the most in this world. They would help her and after the baby was born, Evangeline could enroll in school and enlist the aid of her parents in caring for the baby while she was in class.
They would never be ashamed of her, especially if they knew the truth, but she would never tell them what caused her and Drake to break up. If she told them, then there would be inevitable questions that would lead them to arrive at suspicious conclusions. No matter what Drake had done, that he hadn’t loved or trusted her, she wouldn’t brand him a criminal in her parents’ eyes. For that matter, she had no idea what he dealt in, so she couldn’t be sure if he had illegal dealings or not. And now it no longer mattered because she was no longer in the picture.
Guilt and shame surged to life inside her even as she chastised herself for feeling either. Under any other circumstances she would never dream of keeping her child’s presence from his or her father. But Drake scared her. His power and his wealth and his connections frightened her in a way nothing else did. Because she knew, because of his own upbringing, just how adamant he would be that he be in their child’s life. If that was all he demanded, she’d go face him down tomorrow and tell him the news of his impending fatherhood.
But the fear that because he hated her so much, he would simply take her child from her, prevented her from ever going to him with her secret.
She had decisions to make and they had to be made soon. Closing her eyes, she pressed her forehead to her drawn-up knees and savored a quiet, private moment with her child, whispering promises to always keep the baby safe. Telling her child how very much he or she was already loved.
She rocked in silence with no idea of the passing time. The realization of what she was doing, what she was allowing, was sharp and unforgiving. Once again, she was being kept by a man. The only difference now was that she wasn’t in a relationship with Silas. In some ways that made it worse, because she was taking advantage of his generosity without giving him anything in return.
She reached for her phone lying on the counter next to the sink and pulled it down to her. She opened a browser and typed in the URL for an airline she knew that flew into the medium-sized city just thirty miles from her small town.
The ticket was expensive, given it was a short-notice departure, but oh well. She would use one of the credit cards Drake had given her. The least he could do was get her home. It would be the best five hundred dollars he’d ever spent because it would also get her forever out of his life.
She checked the time and then calculated how long she needed to get to the airport—again, she could use the credit card for the cab fare—in time to check in and board and realized that if she booked the flight and left within the next half hour, she could get out tonight on one of the evening nonstop flights.
She dug around in her purse for the credit card and punched in the number before finishing the transaction. After checking her e-mail for the confirmation and flight number and arrival time, she called her mother next.
There was little point in trying to hide anything from her mother. It wasn’t as if she’d be clued in when Evangeline told her she would be arriving that night. She just hadn’t planned on sobbing all over her mother over the phone. As a result, it took the better part of twenty minutes for Evangeline to explain the situation. By the time she hung up, she had only ten minutes to get on the road. Then she laughed. It wasn’t as though she had anything to pack. She’d take the jeans and shirts Silas had bought for her. Those could be packed in a carry-on bag.
After dropping the pregnancy test into the trash by the toilet, she hastily stuffed what clothing she could into a gym bag she found in the closet. Then because Silas—and Maddox—had been so sweet and kind to her, she wrote a note addressed to them both, thanking them profusely for their friendship and their caring. She explained that it was best if she moved on and left New York, and she closed the note by saying that they were her two best memories of the city.
Sad that after living here for as long as she had, the best she could come up with for the entirety of her life here was Silas’s and Maddox’s friendship.
With a long sigh, she went to the door and then stood on the other side, glancing back as though ensuring she wasn’t forgetting anything. She almost laughed, and would have if her heart hadn’t been in little pieces all over the floor.
That was the only thing she’d leave behind in this city.
Her heart.
It would always be wherever Drake Donovan was, and she didn’t try to fool herself into thinking otherwise.
28
For three days, Drake had barely left the solitude of his office at the club, choosing even to sleep there at night. It wasn’t as though he was sleeping anyway. He lay awake, long after the club had shut down, into the early hours of the morning, thinking . . . dreaming . . . about an angel. His angel.
Everyone steered clear of him, for varying reasons. His club employees avoided him like the plague because he bit the head off anyone daring to venture into his lair. And it did resemble somewhat of a lair with the lights dimmed to nearly nothing, the couch rumpled from him tossing and turning on it in an attempt to sleep.
He just couldn’t make himself go back home. He couldn’t even think about sleeping in the bed he’d shared with Evangeline. The idea of being without her, in the place she’d lovingly called home and made into a home, was repugnant and offensive.
Even as he reminded himself over and over that she deserved none of the respect he was affording her, or rather the memory of her, he couldn’t do anything other than what he was currently doing. Living. Breathing. Existing. Minute to minute. Hour to hour. Day to day. One day at a time.
It was a miserable existence he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, and yet that damn voice that mocked him and whispered to him until he was dangerously close to losing his mind constantly reminded him that it had been his choice. That he had driven Evangeline away. He could have listened. Could have given her a chance to explain.
But he’d done none of those things, and it was a miserable price to pay.
His door opened and he turned, a torrent of blood-scorching expletives poised to let fly, when he saw it was Silas, whom he hadn’t so much as seen, much less heard from since the night he’d taken Evangeline from the club—at Drake’s orders.
His lips burned with the need to ask Silas how she was doing. What she was doing. Where she was. Was she all right?
Silas’s jaw was locked, a sure sign he was pissed, but his eyes were glacial, submerged in ice, fixed on Drake so that he could almost feel the chill from Silas’s stare over his skin.
“Silas,” he acknowledged in a clipped voice.
Silas sent him a lo
ok of disgust. “Still holed up in here clinging to that lame-ass story you’ve talked yourself into believing, I see.”
“Don’t start with me,” Drake warned. “I am not in the mood for anyone to start shit with me. Especially not something you can’t finish.”
“Only because I know that when the truth comes out, you’re going to be crawling on your fucking belly begging everyone’s forgiveness, will I allow you to slide. But my patience is wearing very, very thin. Don’t push me, Drake. Swear to God, I could kill you for what you did to Evangeline New Year’s Eve alone.”
Drake snarled, his lips curling so his teeth were bared like an angry predator. “You’re so sure she didn’t sell us out. I wonder why? Maybe because then the rest of you will have to admit what I’ve already admitted? That I got my ass handed to me by an innocent-looking, beautiful woman with big blue eyes that make her appear every bit the angel she was?”
Silas shook his head in disgust. “You make me sick to my stomach. And you’re talking out of your ass, so just shut the fuck up. I’m telling you, Drake. You will regret your actions and your words. If you had any sense, you’d be on your fucking knees begging her for forgiveness before the truth comes out, because then she won’t give a fuck because you didn’t trust her when it mattered.”
Alarm splintered up Drake’s spine. Silas’s words were laced with conviction, and he was one of the most suspicious bastards Drake had ever met in his life. And he wasn’t the only one. If Silas were the only one charging to Evangeline’s defense, he could blow it off. But every single one of his men?
He was gutted and racked with indecision, something he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. He was decisive in all matters, never questioning his actions, and yet everything about this whole thing felt wrong. He sank down into his chair, grief consuming him for all he’d had, and lost, just three short days—a lifetime—ago.
Even if Evangeline had betrayed him, could he really blame her? The cops had filled her head with God only knew what kind of shit, and he was sure they’d spared no detail, even embellishing his sins—while he’d been closed-mouthed, refusing to give her anything, to trust her, instead asking her to ignore it and look the other way. She would have imagined all manner of horrific crimes, aided by his own secrecy and the fact that he dodged the issue at every turn.
