The other man snorted. “I knew it. What’s with all the mechanic bullshit then?”
“It’s not bullshit. You really think I wanted to stay in that line of work anymore? With Zoe here?”
Rachel muttered what sounded like a curse. “I think you’d better tell us what really went down with you and Zoe, Gideon. You must have aged out of the system way before she did, so what the hell were you doing? And how come you were able to somehow take a girl away from whatever family she was with and bring her here?”
Here was the difficult bit, the bit he didn’t want to tell anyone. But he had to now; keeping it from them wasn’t an option.
He stared at them all, giving each of them, the kids he’d banded together all those years ago, one long look. Then he said, “Novak was being blackmailed by a woman who said she’d had his child. If she didn’t get her payment, she was gonna go to the press. She had the proof and everything, it was legit. So Novak employed me to . . . take care of it.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “Jesus.”
The look on her face made his chest hurt, but he didn’t look away. “It was a long time ago and I’m not the same man I was back then.”
“And you’re wondering why we’re so protective of Zoe?”
They’re not wrong. You’ve always known that.
“And I killed someone,” Levi said unexpectedly, looking at Rachel, his voice a little rough. “Are you going to judge me, too?”
Rachel gave him a stricken glance, dropping her arms and moving over to him. “You know I didn’t mean that.”
Gideon watched them a moment. He hadn’t expected Levi’s sudden support, but he didn’t make the mistake of thinking it was all forgiven, not when he hadn’t even gotten to his point yet.
“Novak gave me the address I had to go to,” he went on,
“and it was kind of familiar. But it wasn’t until I got there that I realized why.” He paused, making sure he had their attention. “It was Zoe’s house. And the woman I had to deal with was Zoe’s mom.”
The silence was deafening, the others staring at him with varying degrees of shock on their faces.
“You mean,” Tamara said tentatively, “that Zoe is Novak’s daughter?”
“Yes.” He kept the word short and clipped. “That’s why I took her away. That’s why we left Chicago and came here. Her mom didn’t give a shit about her except for the paternity test that kept the money rolling in, and I couldn’t leave her to be just another loose end fucking Novak wanted ‘dealt with.’ ”
“Holy shit,” Rachel muttered. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because the less people who knew, the better it was for Zoe. I didn’t want Novak discovering where she’d gone. I didn’t want any attention drawn to her. I wanted her to disappear.”
Levi said nothing, his gaze narrowed. Zee had reached out for Tamara, pulling her close as if he wanted to protect her, but he was looking at Gideon, too, dark, winged brows plunging down. “What happened to her mom? You do the hit?”
“No,” Gideon said flatly. “I found I had a line and killing was it. Novak supplied her with bad drugs not long after we left and she died of an overdose.”
“And Zoe was quite happy to go with you?” Rachel persisted and, given her background, that was unsurprising.
“Yeah, like I said, her mother didn’t care much what happened to her. She went to jail when Zoe was really young and didn’t come out again until Zoe was around eleven. She didn’t want her kid.”
“That’s terrible,” Tamara said softly. “Poor Zoe.”
“Does she know?” Levi’s deep voice almost cut across her. “Zoe, I mean? About Novak?”
“She does now.”
“Shit,” Zee said suddenly. “Novak’s here, though. Does that mean—”
“He knows she’s here,” Gideon interrupted. “And last night the prick took her.”
“What?” Levi carefully pushed Rachel away and took a step toward Gideon, a murderous look on his face. “What the fuck do you mean he took her?”
Gideon crossed the distance between them, coming to stand right in front of the younger man, holding his gaze. “He intercepted her in the bathrooms at Gino’s. Took her for a ride in his car. He didn’t hurt her, but he gave her an ultimatum.”
There was darkness in Levi’s gaze, the kind of darkness Gideon recognized. Levi had brought Novak here with those development plans of his, it was true, but it wasn’t his fault and he had to know that. “Novak was already keeping a lookout for her, Levi,” he said quietly. “He would have found her eventually.”
Levi didn’t bother to deny it. “If I hadn’t wanted his fucking money, he wouldn’t have been here.”
“No, I told you that he was already looking. He must have heard rumors or had a contact scouting for her. There’s no other reason a guy like him would have been interested in a small development in Royal.”
Levi’s jaw tightened. “What ultimatum did he give her?”
Gideon rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the subtle tension that had crept in between his shoulder blades. “He told her he’d give her money for college, get her a place in Princeton, the whole deal. And in return she has to leave Detroit. Leave Michigan completely.”
Zee’s expression was hard, his silver eyes glittering. “For how long?”
“For good.”
“Jesus.” Zee grimaced. “And if she doesn’t?”
Gideon looked at him. “If she doesn’t, then he’ll stall the development plans for Royal indefinitely.”
Another silence, shocked and tense.
“No,” Levi suddenly exploded, his voice rough. “Fuck, no.”
“No to what?” Zee asked sharply. “To the development or Zoe leaving?”
Levi turned furiously to the other man. “Are you kidding? To fucking all of it!”
“Levi.” Rachel’s tone was soft, her hand coming to rest on his arm. “It’s okay. We’re not going to let this stand.” She flicked her dark gaze to Gideon. “Are we?”
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? There were no good answers, at least not ones that wouldn’t send them to jail.
“I was going to take care of it myself,” he said, trying to keep his own voice calm. “But Zoe didn’t want me to.”
“Right, and I can imagine what ‘taking care of it’ would have entailed,” Rachel said, her fingers moving absently on Levi’s arm in a soothing motion that Gideon found somehow mesmerizing for some inexplicable reason.
Or maybe not so inexplicable. His own forearm tingled from the touch of Zoe’s fingers, where they’d rested earlier that morning when Levi had come to the door.
Christ, he wished she was here, even though it was just as well that she wasn’t. He wanted her hands on him. Wanted to feel the gentle movement of her fingers on his skin, easing the tightness inside him.
“Yeah, can’t see anything wrong with that,” Levi growled.
“Sure you can’t,” Rachel murmured. “You must really like jail.”
“What options do we have?” Zee demanded, ignoring Levi’s snort at Rachel’s comment. “I mean, sure, I’m with you guys about doing that fucker in, but we wanna keep this on the right side of the law.”
“Yes, we most certainly do.” Tamara was frowning. “There must be some way we can get Zoe out of this, some way we can make life difficult for Novak?”
Levi’s intense, uneven gaze met Gideon’s. “It has to be permanent, doesn’t it? If he’s as dangerous as you say, he’s not going to want anything to harm his chances at a senatorial position, and whether Zoe’s in Michigan or not, she’s a threat to him.”
Gideon said nothing. The facts spoke for themselves.
“He’d really hurt his daughter?” Tamara asked doubtfully. “I mean, he didn’t harm her, he just told her to get out of Detroit.”
Gideon flashed her a glance. “He wanted her mother dead, Tamara, and he was willing to employ me to get rid of her. So you tell me.”
She paled. “O
kay then. Point taken.”
“Fucker,” Zee muttered, tugging Tamara closer. “If he’s that ambitious, why did he bother with an ultimatum at all?”
“He can’t afford for people to disappear, not right now,” Gideon said, fighting the intense, primal urge that had him wanting to grab his gun, go after the guy right now, end it before any harm came to Zoe, no matter what she thought about it. “And Zoe’s not someone who can disappear without a trace, not these days. Not when she has us.”
“You got that right,” Levi said. “Which means she’s not leaving here either, not because that asshole said so.”
“What about the plans?” Rachel tipped her head back to look up at him.
“What about them? Let Novak bury them in red tape. We’ll fucking build them anyway.”
“Yeah,” Gideon growled. “Then we’ll be ordered to tear everything down because we don’t have a goddamn permit. Do you really want that, Levi?”
Anger sparked in his friend’s eyes. “Then we just won’t fucking build them at all.”
Rachel sighed, reaching up to cup his jaw. “Do you really think Zoe would want that to happen? Besides, I don’t think not building them is the answer. If she refused Novak’s ultimatum, that still leaves her as a threat he’s going to want to take care of.”
Zee cursed, letting go of Tamara and pacing restlessly over to the far wall and back again, a great cat trapped in a cage. “Then where the hell do we go from here? If we can’t touch Novak and he’s gunning for Zoe, then what the fuck can we do to stop him?”
It was the one question Gideon had been dealing with the entire morning, turning it over and over in his head like he did sometimes when there was an engine that was giving him trouble. Looking for a solution, looking for a fix. Examining the way things fit together and how to make it so everything would run smoothly again.
It had come to him just before the others had arrived, how he could fix it, because he had to be the one who fixed it. Zoe was his responsibility and she always had been.
It wasn’t a solution any of them were going to like, though given their response to him and Zoe getting together, maybe they wouldn’t find it too objectionable after all.
Zoe wouldn’t like it, that he did know. Then again, she wasn’t going to get a choice.
“There’s one way,” he said into the tense silence.
Zee stopped pacing. “What?”
“I go to the police. Tell them all about Novak.”
Rachel’s brow creased. “But . . . do you have proof?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve got proof.” He had lots of it, digital info he’d taken with him when he’d left Chicago, kept for a rainy day. E-mails and financial details, records of payments, plus a few things he’d managed to glean from his contacts. “The shit I did for him . . . Safe to say I’ve got enough to make sure Novak goes away for a very long time.”
“Does he know that?” Tamara asked, her gaze shrewd.
“He probably suspects. But I was a minor minion in the scheme of things, and after I left Chicago, I kept myself on the down-low.” He paused, remembering what Zoe had told him about her interview with Novak. “Now though . . . He might be worried.”
“God, shouldn’t you be concerned about your safety too?” Tamara asked, looking worried.
“Maybe. But I have a network of people who give me info when I need it, and they’ll let me know if Novak makes a move on me.”
“He’ll have the same kind of network, Gideon,” Levi pointed out. “He’ll know if you make a move on him too.”
Gideon met the other man’s gaze. “He might. But he won’t be able to do anything to me if he’s in prison.”
“Shit,” Zee said roughly. “Why haven’t you done it sooner then?”
“Because if I had, that would have left Zoe all alone.” Gideon let out a slow breath. “Taking down Novak means I go down too.”
Chapter 16
Zoe stared at her computer screen, at the page she had open and bookmarked on her computer. The home page for Princeton University. On her desk, beside the computer, was the folder with all the information she’d printed out years ago. Information on her colleges of choice, classes and scholarships and all sorts of other things, along with various application forms, some of which she’d even started to fill in. That was until Gideon had told her no.
She hadn’t pushed him at the time, had let it go even though she’d been pissed off about it. Telling herself there was no point arguing with him because she wouldn’t win anyway. But there was a deeper reason, of course. She hadn’t wanted to leave him.
She didn’t want to leave him now.
Zoe glared at the computer screen, then closed the page, shoving herself away from her desk.
Except leaving was exactly what she was contemplating. Novak—she couldn’t bear to think of him as “Dad”—hadn’t left her any choice.
There was always Gideon’s answer in the shape of that gun, but she wasn’t going to let him do that. He didn’t need any more sins on a soul already badly damaged by his past.
Zoe pushed her hair back from her face and grabbed her keys from the top of her dresser, shoving them into her jeans pocket. She’d only woken up half an hour ago, and even though Gideon had given her the day off, she wanted to get back down to the garage, see if he’d managed to figure anything out about what to do with Novak. Then there was the reaction from the others to handle, because after watching Levi go off at Gideon, there was bound to be some kind of reaction.
She didn’t want to leave Gideon on his own to deal with it, not when they all seemed to view her like a kid who couldn’t make her own decisions. She had to show them that she’d made her choice years ago, that it wasn’t simply some teenage crush. That it was real.
“Well, I guess that makes it easy when your only choice is him.”
She scowled as she went out into the hallway, Levi’s voice echoing in her head. What the hell would he know about it? She’d had contact with plenty of men, him and Zee for example, and she hadn’t fallen head over heels for them. Not like she had for Gideon.
They didn’t look after you like Gideon did. And all you wanted was someone to want you, someone to look after you.
Zoe set her jaw, striding down the hallway to the front door of the apartment. Okay, so she had a few daddy issues to work out—who didn’t? But she would have fallen for Gideon regardless. The past had nothing to do with it.
She tugged open the door and went down the stairs, heading for the garage. Voices echoed as she neared the entrance, Zee’s gritty tones audible as she got closer.
God, so the others were already there, and from the sounds of it, they were pretty pissed.
Her throat closed, her chest suddenly feeling tight and sore. She hated it when they all argued, and knowing they were all arguing about her only made it worse.
She stopped in front of the garage door, reluctant to go in. Which was stupid. She was supposed to be acting as Gideon’s partner now, not a scared little mouse crouching outside the door.
“Shit,” she heard Zee say in his rough, gritty voice. “Why haven’t you done it sooner then?”
“Because if I had, that would have left Zoe all alone.” That was Gideon’s deep tones. “Taking down Novak means I go down too.”
She froze.
“Why?” Rachel’s voice.
“Because all that proof? It implicates me, too. I’ve got records of payments, e-mails, shit like that. They’ll charge me, Rach, make no mistake.”
Zoe put her hands lightly on the door, her heart crumpling up inside her chest. He must have told them about her, about how Novak was her father. And now he was talking going to the police. Oh God, was that the only answer he could come up with?
“Maybe that’s the best decision then.” Levi, sounding hard, cold. “And you don’t have to worry about Zoe. She’ll be safe with us.” The implication was loud and clear: She wasn’t safe with Gideon.
Zoe leaned against the door, blinking ha
rd. No. No, that wasn’t right. The stupid idiots. Did they really think he was someone who’d taken advantage of her? That he’d manipulated her into his bed?
Anger flooded through her and she wanted to storm in there the way she had in front of Levi earlier, tell them exactly what was happening. That she was in love with Gideon and he was—
He’s what? In love with you?
Her hand spread out on the door, her chest aching. It didn’t matter that he didn’t feel that way. It really didn’t. The only thing that mattered was that she loved him, that’s what counted. They should know that, they should all know that.
So what would storming in there do? Gideon could defend himself, he didn’t need her. And doing that would be acting exactly the way she’d been acting with Gideon all along, like a kid being told no and reacting angrily.
They wouldn’t believe her. They’d tell her what Levi had, that she didn’t have the experience to make her own choices.
“What the fuck, Levi?” Zee said flatly. “That’s cold, man.”
“Better for Zoe,” Levi responded, his own voice just as flat. “Don’t you think?”
Anger sat in her gut, acidic and unsettling. Fuck them. No one knew what was good for her, but her.
Yet she didn’t push open the door; instead, she found herself backing away slowly, a cold realization settling down through her.
She couldn’t let Gideon go to the police, even if it was to take down Novak. And she didn’t want the others looking at Gideon like he was some kind of filthy child molester either. Which meant there was only one way to fix this.
She had to man up. She had to do what she’d always been afraid of doing.
She had to leave Gideon.
The cold spread out inside her, ice water in her veins, but she ignored it, turning to go back up the stairs and let herself back into the apartment.
In her bedroom she found the number Novak had given her, then she dialed it, a secretary answering briskly.
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Novak,” she said, trying to keep her voice firm and businesslike. “Tell him it’s Zoe James calling.”
The secretary put her through without a word, and soon the smooth tones of her father echoed down the line.
Sin for Me Page 24
