An irrational thought. He didn’t give comfort. Sure, he’d always protected people who needed protection, defended those he considered his. When he’d ridden with the club, the cops in his neighborhood had deemed him a vigilante and he’d never been unhappy with the label.
But wanting to hold someone? Comfort them? That meant he had to care, and he couldn’t afford that distraction.
Jesus, he was getting soft. The Reverend would be turning in his grave.
“I … don’t believe this,” Honor said after a long moment. “How do you know any of this is true?”
“I trust my contacts. And believe me, I know a scam when I see one.”
She was silent, staring down at the phone, at the evidence sitting there in electronic black-and-white. Then abruptly she handed it back to him. “Thank you for this,” she said tonelessly. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t stay. I have things I need to sort out.” Gripping her purse, she leaned forward to open the door.
Oh no, she wasn’t going anywhere. Not when he hadn’t finished.
Gabriel pressed a button near his seat and the doors locked with a click.
Honor looked sharply at him. “What are you doing?”
He couldn’t let her leave. He had more to tell her, plus he needed to make doubly sure she wasn’t involved in this, that she wasn’t going to go running off to Tremain to warn him. And also he still hadn’t got the information out of her.
It’s not the information. She’s upset and you don’t like that.
Ignoring the voice in his head, Gabriel leaned forward and took Honor’s hands in his. Her fingers were cold like they’d been by the lake in Vermont, so he rubbed them gently with his thumbs.
“Stop,” she said thickly. “What are you doing?” There was tension in her fingers, in her arms. “Let me go, Gabriel.”
“We need to discuss this properly.”
“The person I need to discuss this with is Dad.”
“You’re going to tell him he’s been found out? No, I don’t fucking think so.” He stroked his thumbs up and down her chilly hands, smoothing her skin, keeping his gaze firmly on hers. “Besides, there’s more I have to tell you.”
She stared at him, her face so white it was the color of the fresh snow on the sidewalk outside. “What more?”
Shit, he didn’t want to tell her. But she had to know. When Zac had traced back the money, he’d found out something else. Honor’s father didn’t just have a drug problem and gambling addiction. He had a whole other life.
“My contact followed the money trail back and discovered where it was coming from. Who’s paying him.” She’d gone very still. Silent. “The money’s coming from a casino. The Lucky Seven casino.”
“But isn’t that the one my father…?” She stopped dead.
“Yes.” Gabriel tightened his fingers around hers. “Honor, your father wasn’t a patron. He owned the whole fucking casino. He ran it.”
She said nothing, staring at him, her hands motionless in his. Then something in her face shut down, shock fading from it, becoming utterly expressionless.
She withdrew her hands from his, sitting back in her seat, smoothing her skirt down and collecting her purse again. “You said you had more evidence on your computer at home? Show me. Now.”
* * *
Honor barely took in Gabriel’s Tribeca apartment when they finally arrived. Shock was still coursing through her system, the world around her dim and unfocused.
She turned as Gabriel came in behind her.
“Your evidence,” she said flatly. “I want to see it.”
He gave her an unreadable look. “Sure. Give me a minute to get the memory stick and I’ll bring up the files on the computer.”
Down one end of the open-plan room stood a massive, rustic-looking dining table made out of some kind of dark wood. A sleek silver laptop was open on it.
Gabriel left the room for a minute, coming back with something in his hand. He moved toward the table and bent over the computer, pushing the memory stick into the drive then tapping a few of the keys. Honor followed him, the cold shock that had gripped her in the car slowly spreading through her body. All except her hands. They were still burning from where Gabriel’s fingers had touched her.
She felt like she had to move slowly, as if the world had suddenly been revealed to be made of glass and it would shatter at the slightest movement. The same way it had after her father’s death and the repo men had turned up. Come to take away all her precious things. The possessions she’d always thought were hers and yet turned out not to be after all.
Just like the stepfather she’d always thought to be a good man wasn’t.
Just like her father ended up being worse than she’d ever imagined.
He owned the whole fucking casino. He ran it.
She didn’t want to believe it about Guy. She couldn’t believe it of her father. How was it possible that an eminent lawyer could own the kind of place Gabriel had told her about? Where anything could be bought and sold?
No one knew he had a drug problem. No one knew about his debts. Why the hell shouldn’t he run the casino as well?
She could feel a bubble of hysterical laughter pushing against her throat. Her father and stepfather had been old college friends and now, apparently, they were also criminals. What were the damn chances?
Honor swallowed down the hysteria as Gabriel stood back, letting her see the screen. Part of her didn’t want to look but she made herself, looking down at the series of files he’d brought up. E-mails. Accounts. Financial records.
The cold inside her froze into a hard lump of ice.
It was true. All of it was true. Guy was laundering money through his hotels. Money that appeared to have come from a legitimate Vegas casino, but in actual fact had come from … She scrolled through another file with a shaking finger … a company called Seven to One Holdings. A shell company that according to yet more e-mails was a front for the Lucky Seven casino.
“What about my father?” she asked in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. “Where’s your evidence he owned that place?”
“Here.” Gabriel leaned past her, closed down one file, and opened another. “His ties to the casino have been extremely well hidden but my contact managed to turn up this. His name is on the building title.”
She stared at the screen, at what looked like a scanned-in version of a hardcopy property title. And sure enough, there was Daniel St. James’s flamboyant signature at the bottom. “But just because he owned—”
Gabriel calmly opened up another file. “Records of deliveries of various different things. Alcohol. Food. A liquor license. Your father has signed off on all of them. On the surface it looks like a bar going on there, but it’s not.”
Honor couldn’t take her eyes off the numbers on the screen. Off Daniel’s incriminating signature. “Didn’t your club used to do security?”
“Yeah, we did.”
She looked at him. “And you didn’t know this already?”
“Like I told you, we weren’t allowed inside. We weren’t important enough to meet with the head guy.”
“So this is news to you, too?” That bubble of hysteria was threatening to burst. “What about Alex? Did he know?”
“I don’t know. But we did some more digging,” Gabriel went on relentlessly. “Turns out the casino was losing money under your father’s management. We found records that suggest he was using his own money to pay it back, hence his supposed ‘gambling’ debts. It was all covered up, of course.”
Honor swallowed. “By whom?”
Gabriel stood beside her, his tall figure absolutely still. “Tremain.”
Of course. It even made a weird kind of sense.
“What’s their connection?” Gabriel continued quietly, a thin thread of ice running through his voice. “Tremain and your father. Because it’s too much of a coincidence that they’re complete fucking strangers.”
She sucked in a breath, the feeling that the world
was slowly breaking apart around her intensifying. “They went to college together. They were friends.”
“You didn’t think to tell me this earlier?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.” The hysteria expanded, threatening to spill out. “We should contact the police,” she said, needing to say something. Anything.
“No.” The word was final, no room for argument. “No police.”
She turned sharply. “But this is illegal. I can’t—”
“You’re an investor in Tremain’s company, Honor. You’ll be implicated. There’ll be police coming into your office. Seizing your computers. Looking through your files. Do you really want that kind of shit?”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“Are you sure?” The look in his eyes was suddenly frightening. “You’re not going to go straight to Tremain and tell him what we’ve found?”
The shock redoubled, a thick coating of ice slowly crawling over her skin. “You really think I’m involved?”
Gabriel’s expression was implacable. “You’re loyal. I think you’d protect him no matter what. Like you said, he’s more of a father to you than your real one ever was.”
She took a step toward him, shock beginning to turn into anger. “I would never do that. If he broke the law, he has to answer for it. But he was a good man, Gabriel. He helped Mom after my dad died. He got her better, able to cope again. And he was good to me, too. God, he even tried to talk me out of investing in Tremain.” She faltered. “He said it was his mess and he’d handle it. But I … didn’t listen. I went ahead anyway because he hated asking for help.”
The hard look on Gabriel’s face eased a fraction. “This isn’t your fault. You invested in good faith.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I put money into his company. And now Dad’s going to bankrupt himself and me in the process.” She swallowed. “I still don’t even know why.”
A silence fell, heavy and thick.
Honor turned. “I should go. No, I’m not going to warn him but I need to see him at least…”
“No. You don’t know what he’ll do if he thinks you know about all this.”
She glanced up at him. “He wouldn’t hurt me. I’m like a daughter to him.”
“People do all kinds of shit you think they won’t do, Honor. Especially if they’re threatened. Believe me, I know.” His eyes glittered, the darkness in them suddenly deeper and more infinite than she’d ever imagined.
Of course he’d know. If the rumors about him were true, he’d probably been an even bigger criminal than Guy was.
Than your father was?
Honor looked away, nausea clenching hard inside her. Secrets and more secrets. “I should see my mother,” she said. “I should ask her about Daniel…” She stopped because no, she couldn’t see her mother. What would she say? Did her mother know? God, maybe her mother was even involved, too …
Honor raised a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, feeling even sicker.
She’d thought this was over. That after her father’s death there wouldn’t be any more shocks. And there hadn’t been until this. Until Gabriel had come into her life and broken it all apart, spinning it into chaos.
“Honor,” he said softly, as if knowing the thought the moment she had it.
She dropped her hand, opened her eyes. “I need to go.” She didn’t know quite where to go but she had to do something to regain control of her own damn life.
He turned, his big body squarely in front of her. “You should stay. I know this is a hell of a shock, but we have to discuss where we go from here.”
“Later. I can’t … I can’t deal with this right now. Okay?” She stepped to the side, only to have him step with her, blocking her exit.
Blinking, she looked up at him. The darkness in his eyes burned all the way through her. Right down into her soul. Fear tightened in her gut, the same kind of fear she’d experienced back in Vermont whenever he’d gotten close. Along with the sharp excitement that always came with it.
“You’re not leaving,” he said quietly. “Not until you tell me all you know about Tremain and your father.”
“I told you. They were friends.”
“I want more.”
Her mouth dried. “You can’t stop me from leaving.”
“Can’t I?”
“Unless there’s another handy button you can press to lock the door from here, then no, you can’t.”
“I don’t need to lock the door.” He didn’t move, didn’t come any closer and yet still it felt as if he was looming over her, overwhelming her. “Because you’re not going anywhere.”
Anger shot down her spine. He was the one who’d shattered her life. Who’d brought Alex back. Who’d revealed her father’s secrets. Who’d exposed the man she’d come to love like a father. Whose very presence cracked the armor she needed to wear in order to feel like she had control over her life.
She’d been right to be wary of him. He was chaos. Everything she didn’t need in her life. And she didn’t want anything more to do with him.
She stepped to the side again and he blocked her. Breathing fast, she feinted to the other side but he seemed to know exactly what she was doing because her side step only brought her up hard against his chest.
Honor gasped as his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her there. Her heart thudding, she snapped her head up, looking into his face. There was no mercy at all there. No softness. His expression was unyielding, his eyes almost black. “Like I said, you’re staying here.”
She wouldn’t demean herself with a struggle, especially since any kind of movement only made her even more achingly conscious of the leashed power in his big, muscular body. Of the heat pressed against her. The sheer force of nature that was their chemistry. She didn’t want anything to spark that particular conflagration, not now.
“So, what?” she snapped. “You’re going to bring out the spotlight and start water boarding me?”
“You don’t want to know what I could do to get you to talk.”
She gritted her teeth. “Look, if you’re wanting to know about Guy’s business activities, I don’t know any more than you do.”
“It’s not just his business activities. I want to know about his private life, too.”
“Why? What use is that kind of information to you?”
“Anything you can tell me will be useful.” There was a savage-looking glint in his eyes. “I was looking to invest in good faith, Honor. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people thinking they can fuck with me and my money.”
For a second, anger was stamped all over his brutally handsome features. A hot, molten kind of rage that, for some reason didn’t frighten her the way it should have. Mainly because she got the feeling that he didn’t often show genuine emotion. The only other time she’d seen anything like it had been when she’d taken him in her mouth. She’d caught a glimpse of it then, too, a flash of the real man behind his cold, hard exterior.
Desire began to tighten inside her along with a kind of panic. God, why was she feeling this now? After everything he’d told her? She was supposed to be getting away from him, not wanting to get closer.
“Let me go, you bastard,” she said, her breathing coming faster, harder. “I don’t have to tell you a thing.”
His other hand slid along her jaw, behind her ear, his fingers curling in her hair, forcing her head back. “Why are you protecting him?” His voice was a soft kind of growl that sent whispers of heat over her skin. “You said you wouldn’t.”
“He’s my stepfather,” she gasped. “He’s not a bad man and I won’t do anything that will see him hurt.”
“No matter if he takes you down with him?”
Honor closed her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see the truth she knew she was going to have to face sometime. That Guy wasn’t the man she thought he was and hadn’t been for a long time. That he and her father had knowingly led a secret criminal life
. A life that had also somehow destroyed Alex.
Too many links. Too many coincidences. Too many secrets.
“Please,” she whispered hoarsely. “Let me go.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Then the hand in her hair and the arm around her waist tightened almost imperceptibly. And his mouth covered hers.
Deep down, she’d been expecting it, a part of her longing for it. Craving it. In fact, it seemed to be the most natural end to their meeting. Heat to combat the icy grip of shock. God, one of the most intriguing aspects about Gabriel Woolf was that on the surface he could be so cold, like ice. Like granite. Yet, under that, he was a furnace hot enough to melt metal.
Certainly enough to melt her. Burn her to ashes.
Are you crazy? You can’t do this with him again.
Yes, she could. And she would. He was a drug she couldn’t refuse, an addiction she couldn’t resist. And right now, still reeling from everything he’d told her, all she wanted to do was get high. On him.
So she didn’t fight. She opened her mouth under his instead and let his kiss take her. Fill her up with desire and hunger. Replace all the shock and the questions with pleasure, with sensation. Anything so she didn’t have to think, if only for a moment.
He made a deep, hungry noise in the back of his throat, thrilling her right down to the bone. His fingers curled painfully tight in her hair, pulling her head back even farther, the kiss becoming deeper. Harder. Consuming her.
She dropped her purse and pressed her palms against the wall of his chest, loving the feel of hard, hot muscle beneath the cotton of his T-shirt.
He broke away all of a sudden, his eyes glittering, a stripe of color on his cheekbones. “What are you—” she began, only to have her question cut off as he took her hands and held them behind her back, locking his fingers around her wrists. Then he forced her against him again, gripping her chin in his free hand and taking her mouth in another annihilating, savage kiss.
Somehow it felt different from what had happened between them in Vermont. He’d been slow then. Almost methodical. But he wasn’t either of those things now. She could taste desperation in his kiss. Hunger. A wild edge that had her own desire stretched to the limits of control.
Mine To Take (Nine Circles) Page 17
