by Angel Payne
I almost chuckled again. “Go ahead. You can breathe. Mom and I don’t have fond attachments to the building itself.” Not with the ghost of Declan lurking in nearly every room. “Razing it to the ground and starting something new might even be therapeutic.”
He nodded, picking up my subtext with his famous sixth sense. “You’ll have the money to erect a castle after we’re done with this deal.”
“Mom’s not the castle type.”
He worked his jaw back and forth as if tempted to spin that comment—toward the subject of a certain princess, perhaps? I whipped back a searing glare, sending a silent message of my own with it. Don’t go there, Stone.
Wisely, he rolled his shoulders. Wiser still, he snapped back to business mode. “I’d like to send out a survey team next, along with an environmental engineering crew. They’ll measure everything out, take a bunch of soil samples, examine the farm’s layout again, that sort of shit.”
I frowned. “Is all that necessary at this point?”
“In this case, it is. I predict things are going to move quickly and you want SGC to broker a deal that’ll make everyone happy, including your neighbors. That means working smarter, not harder.”
I smiled and nodded to mask my jolt of realization. Wow. Shit was getting real.
“Here’s the number for my buddy, Fletcher Ford.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and extended it. “He owns FF Engineering, and will personally supervise the survey as a favor to me.”
My smile grew. “Yeah. I remember meeting him at your wedding. Good guy.” I clapped his shoulder. “Thanks for all this, Kil.”
One side of his mouth lifted in slow sarcasm. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t beat the shit out of me last year?”
I mocked a glare. “Smart ass.”
“Pretty boy.”
“Pretty? What the hell?”
“Hmmm. Good point. Normally, you are much prettier.”
His tone hinted at enough sobriety to yank me back in the same direction. “Sleep hasn’t been abundant lately. Managing a lot of the shit around here, then up and down most nights with Mom…” I shrugged, knowing the rest would fill itself in.
Killian did that—and then some. Damn it.
“Fairly sure those aren’t the only reasons, man.”
I leaned against the wall, glad I hadn’t fully surrendered the glare. The guy was as smooth as his custom leather jacket. Though the rest of his attire—beat-up cargo pants, a faded Henley, and shit-kickers—conveyed a badass vibe, I wasn’t intimidated. “That’s not a subject we’re tromping to, Kil. I invited you up here for advice about our options for rights on the spring. You knew the boundaries coming in.”
He narrowed a contemplative gaze. “Boundaries? You used your mom’s pie as bribery, dude.”
“It got you here, didn’t it?”
He found a sizable boulder and straddled it. “Agreed.” Angled a smirk up at me. “As you know, I do like bending boundaries.”
My shoulders tensed. Screw it—everything else did, too. “Fuck.”
“Oh, come on.” He planted his elbows to his knees then threaded his fingers. “Did you really think you’d get out of this without the get-your-head-out-of-your-ass speech?”
I turned my back on him, ground a fist against the stone wall, welcoming the distraction of the pain. “Too good to hope for, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“God damn it.”
His answering pause was not encouraging. “Stop kicking at the ground like a twelve-year-old. Your game’s already transparent, man.”
“Who says I’ve got a game?”
“The guy who dabbles in playing them for a living.”
Bastard had a point.
I glowered over my shoulder. “All right, oh great and wise enigma. What is my game?”
He squared his shoulders while sliding his fingers atop his thighs. “It’s called your-head’s-up-your-ass, remember? Like that one we played as kids, where everyone gets to pull the little plastic body parts out of the electric holes, only you’re going to need something bigger than those tweezers.”
“Such as?”
“My boot.”
I pivoted, baring a challenging grin. “Little hint? That’ll probably set off the buzzer. Sorry, you lose.”
“Not if I kick so hard your skull pops out your dick.”
He let that one plummet right into silence. Long, unnerving gobs of it.
“Shit,” I finally muttered.
“Something like that.”
A hard push off the wall sent me pacing across the packed dirt. “I’m not going to do this, god damn it.”
Kil rose, as well. “The fuck you aren’t.”
“Okay, listen—”
“No.” He arrowed a finger back to the boulder. “This time, you’ll listen.” He cocked his head, flinging our imaginary ball back to my end of the court. “Unless you’re not serious about loving Margaux…about wanting to protect her?”
I wheeled around. “Fuck you.”
“That’s not happening, either.” His outstretched hand didn’t falter. “Sit the hell down.”
I openly snarled.
Then reluctantly sat.
Killian lowered his hand with solemnity that made my teeth grind. Why the hell was he evoking an emo-goth video? The fucker wasn’t the one now contemplating barbed wire atop his property’s border fence, or waiting for a whacked-out band of organized crime thugs to break in and shoot up his home in the name of Declan Pearson’s unpaid gambling debts.
And why the hell are you so pissed about it, wuss? You’re the one who invited him up here. Did you expect he’d show without an agenda of his own for the meeting, dictated by Claire, if not Margaux herself?
No. Not Margaux. Definitely not Margaux.
‘I won’t be back again, Michael. Not like this. Not ever again like this.’
Or for that matter, in any other way.
She hadn’t said it, but she hadn’t needed to. Her tearless sorrow, there in the mist, had conveyed the message clearly enough—and her ensuing eight days of radio silence had congealed the message into reality. There hadn’t been a call, email or text, not even to Mom’s phone. Yeah, I’d spied again. No, I didn’t regret it.
And, yeah, here I sat, maybe a little baffled by it. A little bit more ticked off.
A thousand more kinds of scared.
Why? She was back in the city and she was safe. I knew that much, thanks to Doug’s regular reports. That was the goddamn end of that.
So why the hell did it feel like just the beginning—especially as Killian strode to stand in front of me, feet spread, hands deep in his pockets?
“For the record, both Claire and Margaux think I’m at the LA Auto Show today.”
Time for a double-take. “Why?”
“Because I’m about to force some major reality down your throat—along with a few other tasty morsels of ugliness. Because of that, I’m only going to say it all once—and you’ll never speak of it outside this cave again. Got that, dude?”
I frowned. “Yeah.”
For a long moment, he didn’t speak again. My face tightened. Why did I expect spooky music to pour from the walls, before Kil transformed into an eight-foot giant with a beard like a tumbleweed? You’re a wizard, Michael…
Killian didn’t help the impression by tossing up his head then staring at the ceiling.
“Okay, dude,” I finally bit out. “What the hell?”
“Sorry.” He grunted then sniffed, lowering a look of introspection. “I was reaching for a word to better describe your paranoia, but it’s hopeless. Pearson, you’re paranoid.”
“That’s the classified information I’m supposed to take to my grave?”
“That was an appetizer.”
I rolled my eyes. “Buttering me up to get the boot all the way in?”
“Please. I can do that part by myself.” He rocked back on his heels. “But you ever think that it takes one to know one?”
He was sure as hell determined to milk the double-takes out of me. “Huh?”
He paused again. Pivoted with enough precision to make good in a military parade, and began pacing with equal deliberation. I watched with interest. I’d seen a lot of versions of the Kil Stone pace, but this one was different. It had an end game.
“So…welcome to Club Paranoia.”
“Thanks. I think.” I studied him again. “You been president of this outfit for long?”
He stopped. Linked hands behind his back. “Oh, I’m not president. Too obvious.”
“So you’re the CIA?”
A smile lifted one side of his chiseled jaw. “Sneakier. More like coordinating the SEALs.”
I could respect that. But was still confused. “Where are you going with this?”
“As you might remember, you’re not the only one with evil bats in the family belfry.”
“Whoa.” I let him see my rocketing brows. “Of course.” But not really. Of all the subjects I’d expected Kil to broach, Trey didn’t remotely make the list. The asshole’s name topped even religion and politics when it came to taboo subjects when hanging with the man. The oldest of the four Stone family heirs was the rotten fruit on their family tree, the sphincter who’d been responsible for exposing a family secret so destructive Killian had pulled a Howard Hughes on the world for six months last year.
More recently—and even worse—Trey had attempted to blackmail Margaux for her own cut of the Stone fortune. When I’d discovered he was in league with Andrea Asher, the person responsible for fucking up Margaux’s head the most, I’d worked with Kil to report their deceit to the FBI. But as the saying went, good deeds didn’t go unpunished. Before the Feds could close in on Trey and Andrea, the pair fled the country, where, as best I knew, they remained—and as much as I cared, could stay. Regrettably, Kil had a bigger stake than I in hauling them back to the States to face justice—as he confirmed the next second.
“You’re a smart guy, Pearson. Do the math. You think I’d be satisfied with the spooks having all the fun of locating my brother and his sweet lady love?”
I snorted. “Just point when you want me to laugh at all that.”
“Better indulge now,” he advised.
I leaned forward. “Why?”
“Because my boys are damn good at what they do—which means I had no trouble redeploying them to a new assignment two weeks ago.”
Shock tumbled through my gut like a knot of barbed wire. “Declan Pearson.”
“Like I said…smart guy.”
Acid started eating at the wire inside. I didn’t waste time asking how he even knew about the mess with Dec. It didn’t matter, and was actually a relief. Perhaps he’d been able to give Margaux some comfort and advice about it over the last month. For that, I was thankful. Killian’s discretion was better than a priest’s.
But for this—
I had no idea how to feel.
No answers came. Only a slew of new questions.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Why the hell did you waste money on watching that douche? And how long has this been going on?” More critically, had Declan caught on to the tail by Kil’s ninja boys? Was that why he hadn’t shown at the farm?
Killian’s spine stiffened so much, he gained at least an inch in height. “I didn’t get to be one of the world’s most successful sonofabitches by wasting my money, Michael—especially not on scum like your uncle. But know this”—his eyes narrowed and his jaw hardened—“I’ll go bankrupt in a heartbeat if it means defending the people I love and ensuring their happiness. Couldn’t do much about the latter when you shattered my sister’s heart, but I sure as hell could tackle the security issue with a waste of DNA like Declan.”
“Which is still an issue.” I refused to let him sway me from the decision I’d made about Margaux. “Declan’s still alive and well and ready to cause havoc somewhere, I’m sure of it. If he wasn’t, Mom and I would’ve been informed as next of kin.”
I didn’t expect the slight incline of his head, giving wordless respect for my conviction—but that surprise was kicked to my rearview after he spoke again. “Well, you haven’t been informed…yet.”
I pushed up, hands on thighs, the barbed wire in my gut slicing to my nerve endings. “What the hell?”
His mouth quirked. “Let’s just say the Principals aren’t the memento book sort.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “So you know about them, too?”
“Impossible not to, under the circumstances.”
My reaction to that was a weird mesh. Part of me abhorred the confirmation that Dec was still in bed with those bastards. It had been easier to hope he’d just gone to ground on his own, staying away from the farm so they wouldn’t track him there. The other half seized at the crazy clue Kil had just dropped…
“What…circumstances?”
His answering stare was like diamonds glittering on coal. “My guys picked up the asshole’s trail about ten days ago. Found him poolside at the Belmond Copacabana, in Rio.”
Screw the nerve endings. Shock went straight for the center of my chest. “What the hell?”
“He was there with a couple of the Principals’ big ponies, burning through blow and babes like the world was ending.” He lifted both hands. “Whoa there, tiger. Breathe. The story’s not done.”
“I sure as fuck hope not.” The growl calmed me enough to keep my ass planted.
“My guys were just as shocked,” Kil went on. “They assumed Declan had signed on totally with the dark side and was being set up to run an operation in Cidade Maravilhosa for the organization.”
“And?”
“Well, a set-up was the idea.”
“Meaning what?”
“On their third night there, Declan met on a couple of reps from one of the biggest cartels in the city. The face-to-face took place on a yacht, with full suits, champagne toasts and shit. My guys assumed it was a deal-sealer on an alliance with the cartel and the Principals—until the yacht returned a full two hours later, and only the fancy boys from the cartel disembarked.”
My eyes flared as my jaw dropped. “Huh?”
Kil kicked up a brow, his version of ‘that’s not all, kids’. “After the crew cleaned up and left, one of my guys snuck aboard the vessel for the full scoop—but there wasn’t one.”
“At all?” I pressed.
“Not even a stray drop of bubbly,” he countered, “let alone any weapons, signs of a struggle, or a thread of evidence that Declan had been aboard.” He hitched the brow again. “But while my first guy searched the yacht, his buddy found the marina’s trash bins. Surprise, surprise—there was a wiped diving knife stashed in one of the bags on top, along with two pairs of bloodied work gloves.” He paused, hands behind his back again. “Just a guess, but I think the sharks off the coast of Brazil were happy campers that night.”
For the first time, I was glad my ass was still parked on the rock. Even so, the strength drained from my legs as all the air rushed from my lungs—and a weight lifted from my conscience that was damn near a religious experience. As I looked back up, the cavern tilted in my vision. And I’d always thought dizzy with relief was just a stupid expression.
“Shit.”
I blurted it on a laugh. Was it really all over? Here, in the beauty of the cave Declan had fought such ugly battles for…was this the moment I’d actually get to finally spit on his memory and accept my final justice?
It was eerie.
And poetic.
And so fucking cool.
“I don’t know what to say.” I looked up, hoping Kil would see that glaring truth in me. Thanking him seemed like taking a bite from an elephant—meaningless and stupid. “I just thought—”
“You were in this alone, because you’ve never known things any other way?” One side of his mouth kicked up, confident he’d bulls-eyed that one. “At the risk of sounding redundant, takes one to know one, man.”
I leaned over, letting
my head fall while trying to wrap logic around that. Since Killian had finally done right by Claire I had no problems with the guy, but seeing parallels between his life and mine was like staring at one of those eye trick paintings they sold on the boardwalk and never getting the bigger picture.
“So what now?”
He angled his head—eyes narrowed the same way as ten minutes ago, when wondering how to spin my castle comment. “You remember the part about me promising to pull your head from your ass?”
“Fuck.”
He growled loud. “Sit the hell back down.”
I took another defiant stomp from the boulder. “Why? To have you make a point that still isn’t valid?”
“Cut the fuckery, dickwad,” Kil snarled. “You think I didn’t see this mass of crap coming from you, either? That I didn’t know what a hardhead you’d be even after learning your uncle’s black heart has been ground into shark loaves?” He whipped up a hand, Sermon Jesus style. “I can already write this script for you. It goes something along the lines of, ‘Damn it, Kil. This doesn’t change a thing. That ship has sailed. Margaux Asher has cut me free and she’s all the better for it.”
I closed my jaw with an audible whump. “And what if she is?”
While lowering his hand, he turned it into a fist. “You know, I’d crack you across the face right now, Pearson—but I’m enjoying the sight of that chicken beak sprouting from your pretty nose.”
“Excuse the hell out of me?”
He leaned over with unblinking accusation. “Go ahead, man. Keep making this about her welfare, her best interests, the fear you have of fucking up her life—but you’re not fooling the original chicken-shit-for-brains on this.”
I reared back. “You have no goddamn idea what you’re talking ab—”
“Shut up. I’m not finished.” His glare turned darker. “Not by a long shot.”
As comprehension hit, my own stare flared. Was the weirdness on his face…shame?
“You’re the only person I’ve ever told this to—and so we’re clear, this shit will go to your grave with you.”
Damn.
I sat up straighter, unsure whether to be honored, freaked or both. “You haven’t even told Claire?”
