by Lexy Timms
Being a man who wasn’t normally stupid Luke raised his arms to signal the fight was over, and the men released him.
“Someone would like to ask you a basic question,” one of the punks said, holding his hand to a very obviously broken nose. “Maybe if you would be so kind.” He swept his arm in the general direction of the door. “After you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dani stuffed the few clothes she’d brought with her into the rucksack without looking, not bothering to fold. She preferred to travel light, and her mother’s money assured her that anything she’d forgotten could be purchased later. With that in mind, packing would take all of five minutes. She added Luke’s shirt and the old half- top she’d found in the house. Those were the only mementos of the trip.
The question was where to go from here. There were countries in Europe where she could live like a queen for a long time off of her inheritance, though castles and crowns were less appealing to her then were combat boots and treks through wild country. Truth be told, the only thing she really wanted to take with her was David.
And Luke.
Furious for even thinking that particular name, she wadded up the next article of clothing from her closet. Lying bastard. She shoved a shirt hard enough into the bag that she thought she heard a stitch give way. Deep breath. What was it about men who valued The Job more than people? Her father was wholly dedicated to The Job, her mother pined away and died alone for The Job, David’s mother, too, fell victim to…
Some jobs are necessary. Some jobs…help people.
Dani set the bag down carefully and stood still, hating the quiet voice of reason. Much as she didn’t want to admit it, Luke was trying to do some good in the world. Was it right to hate him for that?
I don’t hate him.
The voice in her head had turned sullen. It could be reasonable, yes. Even logical. But right now she’d pay good money to make it shut up. Instead, she breathed and centered herself. Tried to remember the Tai Chi this giant of a guy, some former football player, had tried to show her one particularly bad night when she’d gotten herself resoundingly drunk in a gay bar after a particularly bad tour. Billy had cleaned her up and given her a place to crash for a few days. He’d been big about trying to teach her to find her calm.
The movements helped. The breathing helped.
Remembering last night didn’t.
Even if last night had been happy?
She breathed deeper. Tried to clear her mind, even if it smacked of doing the new age equivalent of sticking her fingers in her ears and screaming, ‘I’m not listening!’
Not that it worked.
Happy? Remember that? With him, that nasty little voice reminded her. The last time you were happy was with him. Face it, the only happiness you’ve had on this whole trip has been in his company. In his arms. In his bed.
“ARGH!”
Screams of frustration were not conducive to one’s chi. Dani gave in and flopped down on the bed, pulling her long legs up under her so that she was sitting cross-legged.
“It’s not as though we were ever all that serious,” she told the poster of Matt Damon as Jason Bourne that had graced her wall since high school. “Not like we were, right, Matt?” She picked imaginary fibers from the bedspread. “I mean, I did sleep with him. More than once.” She looked at the poster again. “Okay, more than once just last night. I should have known better, he’s just after me to get to Dad and now he’s even sniffing around David. And David is…”
She buried her face in her hands and tried to hold the tears back, she who never cried. “What did that bastard do to you, David?” she said through her fingers. “What did he do to you when I was gone?”
And about me not being there? That hurt. Damn, that hurt.
“I had to go,” she muttered, hating her bleak thoughts. Hating that he’d taken her back to that moment, to that particular time. She stared down the memory, facing it. Not that it was hard to picture. The whole thing was as vivid and real as if she were watching home movies, as if she was that girl again. That girl who had stood in this very room, flinging clothes into a suitcase in the same way she was tonight, desperate to get out, to escape from under her father’s thumb.
Not that I fought all that hard to stay.
“It was college. I graduated high school, I was accepted early, I had the money and the time…” And was glad to get away. Me. Not me and David. Just me.
But he was being sent away to school. So what would it have served anyone for her to stay? He was going away, and she couldn’t have survived living with just her father. The mere idea of it even now gave her chills.
Jaw set, Dani leapt to her feet and started gathering toiletries from the bathroom, randomly shoving them in with her clothing. She had a very limited number of items she’d carried with her, necessities for the most part, but she had what she called her ‘vanity allowance,’ and for this she included a round hairbrush she’d never found anywhere else, shoving it down hard in among everything else. Even then she couldn’t zip the bag. Everything stuffed every which way took up way more room than packing neatly would have. She stared at the bag with a certain amount of frustration, debating whether to take something out or to repack the bag. She started rummaging in the bag for something to leave behind.
So I escaped. Alone. Big deal. He wasn’t my responsibility.
She pulled out a sweatshirt and flung it on the floor, zipping up the bag with relief, hoping that simple action would quell the voice in her head. As though she could trap that doubt in the bag with her underwear and muffle it all the way to…
Dani sighed. To where? That was the real question. Once…someplace…she could get lost, she could find respite in the actions of day to day living, in exploring, in finding her place. Alone. She simply couldn’t figure out where to begin.
She slipped her passport into the back pocket of her shorts where the USB stick had been. Well, Luke could have whatever it was. He would know what to do with it, how to use it.
And if he uses it against David? He seemed pretty frantic to find it.
She looked around the room once more for any stray item she might have missed that might prove more important than something else she’d packed. Finding nothing, she chose a random paperback from the shelf to read while waiting for her flight and went to the door. She turned off the light and surveyed the room one last time in the afternoon glow coming through the windows.
I’ve lost him. She gripped the knob, but couldn’t turn it. I wasn’t there for him and now he’s not my David anymore. I wasn’t here to protect him.
Dani slowly crumpled to the floor, sliding down the rough door to the carpet, tears streaming from her eyes. She made no sound, but her heart had been torn, and her breath was fire itself. She clenched her fists and cried for the loss of all the men in her life. For David, certainly. For her father, though that surprised her. Still, what girl doesn’t have her first crush on Daddy?
And lastly she cried for Luke. And that one hurt the worst, though she’d known him the least amount of time. Somehow, in leaving him she was losing a part of herself. With all the wisdom of one who had lost before, she knew this was one of those pains that would always be there, that would never go away, like losing her mother had been. It would be a dull throb to an old woman on a rainy night, a reminder of clear skies and halcyon days.
Maybe, in a sense, there was good in that. Love should never fade away.
Dani pulled herself to her feet, clenched her jaw, and finally left her room, closing the door on a life left unvisited for ten years. May she never come back.
Dani had thought to creep down the stairs but found it wasn’t necessary. No one seemed to be around. Still. It was just plain weird. Weren’t there supposed to be a couple guys with her brother at all times? Somewhat puzzled, she realized that instead of slipping away quietly it seemed as though she was simply going to leave unnoticed. It was anti-climactic. But perhaps more appropriate? She’d been invisible wh
ile within this family, so ghosting away seemed only fitting.
She reached the foot of the stairs and headed for the door, when it opened, admitting every last person who should have been in the house all afternoon but wasn’t. A flood of men in suits poured through the door, several shouting for her brother, and three dragging one very familiar individual.
“LUKE?!” Dani stumbled back against the stairs, dropping the rucksack and thinking for the millionth time since she’d come home that she should have armed herself after leaving the fucking airport, before even coming through that damn door.
Luke looked pissed. He was also bleeding from the nose. Four of the men with him were similarly bleeding. But they had guns drawn. Luke was surrounded by her father’s… by David’s thugs, and any one of them was pissed off enough to pull the trigger.
“Hey, Dani!” Luke tried to wave, but the trapped arm wouldn’t unbend. When he tried, the thug holding it twisted it back up again. Luke’s neck muscles strained, but he didn’t cry out. “Heading out?” he managed through clenched teeth.
“What the hell?!” Dani grabbed the closest man to her. He wasn’t expecting an attack from the lady of the house, and stumbled into two other guys who similarly lost their footing momentarily. Luke seized the opportunity to head-butt the guy holding him. A gun clattered to the floor. Carnage ensued.
A shot rang out.
It was probably just as well. One of the thugs had her arm twisted behind her back, and it hurt like hell. Luke was sagging between two men, while a third guy with cotton stuffed up his nose used him as a punching bag. In short, they weren’t winning.
On the other hand, a guy was down with what was probably a broken collarbone, a couple more noses were likely broken, everyone had gained a few new bruises, and her father’s—no, David’s—damn lackeys were giving her something of a wide berth.
All eyes riveted on the figure at the office door. David, holding one recently-fired pistol, looking seriously ticked. Men scrambled up from the floor, trying not to groan. Dani stomped the instep of the man holding her arm and was immediately released.
“Better?” Luke asked as he was dragged past, groaning.
“Loads,” Dani muttered, feeling along her ribcage until she was satisfied that her ribs were only bruised and not broken. Giving the men there each a nasty glare she stomped along right behind him, trying to ignore the way it was hard to breathe. After more than a few awkward glances, not a man there dared to stop her.
Luke was thrown onto the carpet in front of the desk. Someone had cleaned up the papers, she noted, though there was a stack of books next to the bookcase that looked the worse for wear.
Dani started toward him but was brought up short by a guy she knew as Leo, who put out a restraining arm. “You sure you don’t want someone to stay?” he asked, directing the question at David.
“No, I’m sure Mr. Milligan will be civil,” David said, smiling. “Just don’t let anyone in.”
Smiling? Dani stared at him, seeing for the first time the cruelty in her brother’s face. She looked uneasily at Luke, remembering their last conversation…their argument. For the first time, she was ready to concede that maybe he’d been right. Shouldn’t Marcus be here somewhere?
Leo turned to go, looking at her rather pointedly.
She stared pointedly back. “I’m not leaving, David.”
Leo noted her clenched fists and looked back at David again, visibly deflating. His eye was rapidly swelling shut. Dani had proved to have a pretty solid right hook. “Sir?”
“It’s all right.” David’s smile wavered just the littlest bit. “Just don’t let anyone else into the office, okay?” He smiled larger, almost a grimace. “Can you do that? Huh?”
It was like watching Heath Ledger playing The Joker. Too real to be comfortable. Dani didn’t even wait for Leo to leave before she was at Luke’s side, helping him to sit up, protesting his need to stand.
He vetoed that particular decision, getting to his feet without any help from her though he winced mightily and wasn’t putting a lot of weight on his right leg, she noticed. “Enough. That’s enough. You can play doctor later.” The look he gave David was one he might have given Satan himself. By this point Dani wasn’t altogether sure it wasn’t undeserved. Especially when he opened his mouth to speak.
“Tell me something, big sister: did you intentionally sell out your family or were you played for a fool? I really, really would like to know.” David walked to the bar at the corner of the room and poured himself a scotch.
“What?” Dani shook her head. Was this actually happening? All these dramatics, this over-the-top reaction. It was like a nightmare, a bad movie that she couldn’t walk out on. “David, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“You said—” he took a big drink and poured another. “You said that Father had stolen a lot of money, Dani.” He turned to her and for a moment it was her father standing there. Her father’s eyes, cold and shut off. Her father’s mannerisms, calculated and quiet. It was her father telling her that she was to be proper and circumspect, and that no daughter of his was going to be a whore. “How did you know that? No one knows about that. No one. You said he was leaving the country; again, information that no one else but you knows.” He pointed to Luke. “So I thought about it. I thought, that’s how you know. He told you. Now I want to know how he knows. What secrets have you stolen from us, Mr. Milligan? What have you been doing at work these past weeks?” David perched at the edge of the desk and looked from one to the other. “If either of you knows where I might find a memory stick, this would be a really good time to confess.”
“Confess? To you or Uncle Benny?”
David stood in an instant, his drink and arrogance forgotten. “What did you say to Uncle Benny?”
“Nothing,” Dani said carefully. “But you need to ask better questions, little brother. You need to ask what Uncle Benny said to me.”
“What?” David looked around the room nervously, ran his hand through his hair. “Are you double- crossing me, Dani?” The vein in his forehead pulsed and throbbed.
Luke made a small movement next to her. He’d seen it. He knew as well as she did that, regardless of the fact that he was her brother, David was a dangerous, unstable man.
He’s almost killed Luke…he still might. And here I want to run to him and hold him and tell him everything is going to be okay. What is wrong with me? “No, David,” she said, trying to reach that little boy. Trying not to feel the pain of losing him despite the fact that she could feel him slipping away beyond her reach. “It’s Dani, David. It’s me. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
“It will never BE OKAY AGAIN!” David yelled through gritted teeth.
“What will never be okay again?” Benny asked as he walked into the office.
Chapter Twenty
“Uncle Benny.” David straightened. He looked like a little kid caught with his hand in the candy dish. In a day of weirdness, being saved by the biggest gangster in the country was the perfect topper. Luke still wanted to punch David in the nose, but he could kind of see the hold he held over Dani. He really did look like a scared little kid. A very dangerous scared little kid.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Benny growled. He actually growled, his voice coming out like a junkyard dog with mange. David flashed his eyes to Dani. He’d gone from tough criminal mastermind to a kid begging. Pleading with her to bail him out. Again.
“Uncle Benny, I thought… I thought you’d left, that you’d gone home…” David’s drink sloshed over the rim of his glass, spilling down his hand.
Luke watched Dani. The poor girl was torn. He could see it in her face, in her eyes. He silently urged her to make a stand, to make the boy stand on his own, to not rescue him. He was silently asking her to choose him over her brother.
“I ASKED WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!” Benny roared. Luke considered that between the growling and the roaring, maybe “Uncle Benny” should be reclassified to the
zoo instead of jail when they finally arrested him.
“David is being an absolute wretch,” Dani said, glancing from one to the other. Luke’s heartrate sped up. She was going to let the boy be responsible, to let him face the consequences of his actions.
Wait a second. I’m all for ending a co-dependent relationship, but I’m going to have a pretty short time to celebrate their newfound, more functional family unit as soon as David opens his mouth.
Maybe this wasn’t the time for setting boundaries.
“What the hell’s going on here? I see this guy here bleeding on a freaking authentic Persian rug. Who’s going to clean up this mess?”
“That’s it exactly, Uncle Benny. Look what he did!” Dani pouted. POUTED? “He roughed up Luke just because we were going to elope.”
Luke froze his face, his expression. It was an old trick he’d learned, not through the Marines or through the number of… special cases he’d had to deal with since, but from years of playing poker. If he’d drawn an inside straight it would have been less of a shock, but he made sure his expression didn’t change in the slightest. It was kind of being The Mountain on steroids.
All while wondering where the hell she was going with this. Elope?
“Elope?” Benny said, clapping his hands together. “Why, that’s…” He turned to David. “Come here, boy, come here.”
David’s face was less trained than Luke’s, but the expression of complete bewilderment suited him and the occasion. When he was close enough, Benny reached out and swatted him upside the head. “What the hell is the matter with you, heh?” He gestured to Luke. “Really, is that the way to greet your brother-in-law?”
The clout was perfunctory. If he’d meant to hurt him, Luke had no doubt that Benny could have taken an ear off with a good solid hit like that. As it was, it grazed the kid and turned the bewilderment into a sulk.
“I didn’t…” David turned to Dani, and looked back so quick Luke almost missed it. It was a look of pure gratitude. “I didn’t want to lose my sister,” he said like a child would. By this time Luke had regained his features, the shock had settled, and for the next few hours it would be a game of improv with deadly consequences.
