Hostile Attractions

by Raleigh Davis

  “Callie wouldn’t have offered if she didn’t mean it.” Ramona interlaces her fingers, releases them again. “And I’ve been meaning to ask you about some of the programs on your hard drive. The documentation isn’t great.” Her voice is stiff, halting, but she makes the offer anyway.

  “Sure.” Emily’s tone is a smidge too high. “When this is all done.”

  Speaking of that… it’s time for me to move us forward. Into our future, whatever it may be. “I need to leave the firm. Resign as partner.”

  “Dude,” Finn says with thick disappointment.

  “You don’t have to leave,” Mark says. “We understand why you had to take off.”

  “No, it’s time. This has been great and amazing… but I never imagined doing this forever.” It’s the right thing, and what I want to do, but it still hurts.

  Emily reaches for my arm. “You don’t have to do this,” she says only to me.

  “I want to.” I turn back to the rest of them. “I’m not going away forever,” I say tartly. “Stop looking like I’m going to die.”

  January hides her mouth as she starts to laugh.

  “You’re the one who’s fucking crying,” Finn says gruffly.

  And then we’re all smiling. It’s sad but happy, all at once.

  Emily angles toward me, closing the distance between us. Before she can say something though, Mark is leaning forward.

  “I’ve been considering the partner issue, actually.” He glances at each of us in turn. “We need to make Anjie a partner. It’s way past time.”

  We all very carefully do not watch Dev’s reaction. Back when we first met Anjie, there might have been something between them. But nothing ever happened, even though the thing didn’t seem to fade, at least on his end.

  It’s hard to ever know what’s really up with Dev. Especially when it comes to Anjie.

  “I’m all for it,” Paul says.

  “Yeah, let’s do it,” Finn says.

  “I agree,” I say, “although maybe I don’t get a vote anymore.”

  “You’ll always have a vote,” Mark says. “And now she can have your office.”

  Finally we all turn to Dev. His face is impassive as ever. Maybe even more so.

  “If that’s what she wants” is all he says. His expression is a completely blank mask. Just like when he told us he’d taken over Corvus. Or when he was pressing Emily for information on Corvus’s files.

  “It’s decided then,” Mark says. “We just have to tell Logan about all this and get his vote.”

  Finn rolls his head on his shoulders. “After the baby comes though. And we have to get started on pulling Corvus apart.”

  “Apart?” Emily cocks her head.

  “We’re shutting Corvus down,” Dev says. “Canceling all the contracts, selling off whatever divisions we can. And shuttering those that shouldn’t see the light of day.”

  Emily merely stares at him. It’s a lot to take in, because it’s over. Fuchs and Corvus are finally finished.

  “But… the government contracts…,” she says. “The police stuff, the overseas programs…”

  “It will take a lot of untangling and probably several years,” Dev says, “but it will happen.”

  Her breathing is shaky. I take her hand, try to soothe her. “It was all for nothing,” she says. “Everything I did… it won’t matter. You’re killing it all on your own.”

  I search for something to say, but nothing’s coming. I feel incredibly fucking useless.

  “No.” That’s from Grace, sharp and direct. I realize she hasn’t said anything this entire time. “Everything you did mattered.”

  Emily looks up, her gaze hollow.

  “I knew you were the mole before this,” Grace says. “Fuchs wanted me to give up your identity, said he’d stop blocking my visa approval. But I didn’t. Because you were doing important work inside Corvus. Work that none of these guys could do.”

  “My brother’s case would still be hopeless without you,” Ramona says softly.

  “And Elliot would still be an uptight asshole,” Finn says.

  I bristle because I’m not that much of an asshole, but Emily starts to laugh. Softly at first, then more loudly. And then she collapses on my shoulder in a fit of giggles, covering her face with her hand.

  I put my arm around her shoulder, hold her close. Maybe I don’t have to say anything right now. Maybe I just have to be here to hold her.

  Finn meets my eyes over Emily’s head. “Welp, we’d better get out of here,” he says. “We’ll call you guys later.”

  I raise my hand in thanks. Emily’s laughs have slowed down and now sound suspiciously like sobs.

  Grace and Ramona both come over and put a hand on Emily’s shoulder. She doesn’t look up.

  “It did matter,” Grace says softly.

  “Yeah,” Ramona says.

  I look at them with a silent thank-you.

  And then they’re all gone, leaving me with Emily. And a lot of decisions to make.

  Chapter 32

  I don’t lift my head until after I hear the plane taking off.

  I stopped crying right after they left, but I couldn’t find the energy to raise my head until I knew for certain we’re truly alone. I’m too raw.

  Elliot has pulled me onto his lap, holding me without demanding anything. When I meet his gaze, there’s a question in his eyes.

  “I’m okay,” I say, and I really am. “It was just a little intense. And embarrassing.”

  He strokes my back. “You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.”

  I fill my lungs with one jerking breath, then another. Until I’ve cleared away some of the fog of emotion. “I’m glad they came out here for you.”

  His hand keeps stroking. “I think they partly came for you too.”

  Maybe. My shoulder still thrums where Grace and Ramona patted me. They didn’t have to do that, and I’m not sure if they did it for me or for Elliot.

  “I don’t know what to do now,” I say. We had so much forward momentum, researching the reporters, preparing a contact message, even running away from the law, and Dev’s put a brick wall up in front of us. “It’s over now. Dev’s done it all.”

  Elliot shifts, and I glance up at him. His expression is strained. “It wasn’t just Dev,” he says, “although he set it into motion. And you don’t have to let him dictate what you do. Corvus may be ending, but the effects of what they did still echo through people’s lives.”

  Meaning people will still want to see what I have, the bloody innards of a dead monster.

  “Do you know this politician Paul was talking about?” I ask.

  “Yes. He’s…” Elliot shrugs. “He’s a politician. He’ll want credit for the show he’ll put on with the hearings and the profiles and Sunday-morning shows and newscast spots that will come with it. But it would be the most attention-grabbing way to tell the world.”

  Yes, it would. There would be cameras, reporters, live streams… I might even become a meme.

  “And I don’t know what a federal prosecutor could offer in terms of immunity.” Elliot’s voice is tight. “The case the government has against you isn’t going away that easily.”

  I lift my hand, preparing to tick off my choices. “So I can stay here, safe from prosecution, and release the documents to a reporter. It goes viral for a while, maybe Congress even holds hearings. But the people know what was going on behind their backs.” I hold up another finger. “Or I go back. I’m arrested, probably, but I testify before Congress. The committee is so moved they resolve to reform the agencies, stopping the factions that wanted Corvus’s programs. And I go to jail maybe.”

  Elliot looks like he wants to say something, but I tick off another finger.

  “Or I do nothing. Corvus is done, so technically my job is done. I can fade into obscurity, try to live a normal life somewhere.”

  Elliot takes my shoulders, turns me to face him. “You aren’t going to do any of this alone.” Hi
s expression is so intent it’s singeing me. “I love you.”

  Deep in my heart, I somehow knew—maybe when he fled the country with me—but hearing it out loud is stunning. Mind clearing, pulse stopping. A full-body reaction.

  “I didn’t want to presume,” I say weakly. I’ve been alone so long my caution wouldn’t let me believe. Not fully.

  “It’s not presumption when you’re in love,” he says. “It’s just what you do.”

  Emotion is overflowing in me, surging through my chest, bubbling out of my mouth. “I love you,” I say. “Love you, love you—”

  It transforms into a chant before he stops it with a kiss. A kiss to blow the loneliness away on a hurricane breath, a kiss to seal us together in this always. No matter what comes.

  When he lifts his head, he’s staring at me with happy relief. I suppose I’m looking back at him the same way. But it feels amazing to find your other half, especially in the circumstances we did. We’re allowed to look a little silly when it’s just the two of us.

  “I guess we should decide what to do,” I say.

  He catches the subtle emphasis on we, his eyes gleaming. “Yep. Should we take a vote?”

  The easiest thing to do would be to turn our backs on all of it. To leave Corvus to crash and the rest of the Bastards to sort through the wreckage. Maybe we’ve done our part, done more than enough. We can go find that future together in the mountains, with our one kid.

  “We could.” I raise my gaze to his. “But… but we know what we have to do.”

  His holds me so tightly I can barely breathe.

  “Go back.” The conviction in his voice is exactly what I need to hear.

  “Keep struggling.” My voice gains strength. “Keep fighting. And if I end up in prison—”

  He shakes his head sharply. “Don’t say anything about conjugal visits.”

  “So you won’t visit me?”

  “Hell, I’ll be breaking into the damn prison, trying to share your cell.”

  “Again, I have to point out the illegality.”

  His smile is crooked. “Let’s talk with this senator. Open negotiations.”

  I nod. “Should we go through Paul?”

  Elliot frowns, a don’t doubt my prowess, woman frown. “I can handle a senator.”

  I cock an eyebrow because I can’t help but needle him. He likes it though. “Are you sure?”

  “I can handle you, can’t I?”

  I laugh, the bright sound echoing off the walls. “Oh we have yet to see about that. We very much have yet to see about that.”

  He brushes a kiss over my temple. “I’m very much looking forward to trying.”

  So am I.

  Chapter 33

  Two years later

  The side room they’ve given us is a joke. It’s closer to a closet, and the more I look at it, the more I think it was once a closet.

  But we have privacy here, and after five grueling days of testimony, even five minutes in this closet together feels like heaven.

  The senate commission has given Emily a thirty-minute break, so we ducked into our hiding spot, only big enough for the two of us. The way she immediately melted into my arms made me want to go shake the shit out of some senators.

  “This better be the last day,” I growl. “How long can they make you keep talking?”

  The commission opened five days ago. Emily is the star witness, but first we had to hear from the reporter who burned her—she convinced me not to ruin his life, although the press has been dragging him hard—and then Deena testified. She and Emily talked briefly before her testimony, which I know was difficult for Emily. Deena abandoned her, when Emily had sacrificed everything. I don’t think they’ll ever be friends, but Emily seems to have made some peace with her.

  There’s been no time to really ask her about it though. Emily started testifying on day two. She’s been answering the committee’s questions ever since, about her plan to assume a new identity and infiltrate Corvus. At least it started there—we’ve taken several long, meandering side roads since then. I don’t think a single one of these assholes has a plan for what they want to ask—mostly they just want to hear themselves talk.

  “I’ll talk as long as I need to,” she says. She’s tired though. Weary to her bones. “There’s some of them that still don’t see it.”

  “They never will,” I say. “It’s not in their interests to shut down these surveillance programs. Hell, they’d put up more cameras if they could. And pocket a fat donation from the camera companies.”

  She doesn’t say anything, just sighs.

  “You don’t have to convince them,” I say. “The whole world is your audience.”

  “That’s not intimidating as all get-out.”

  I press a kiss to her hair. “You’re doing beautifully. Magnificently. You’re trending on Twitter five days straight now, on the cover of every major newspaper, someone publishes a story about you every ten minutes—you’re famous.”

  “Infamous,” she says, correcting me.

  “That too.”

  “It just… I don’t know what will happen. If they’ll actually take action.”

  I don’t know either. The head of the commission, Francis Church, seems very fired up about everything Emily has revealed, but the others have been… less than enthusiastic.

  But they arranged for her to have immunity in exchange for testifying, and she had to hand over everything she’d taken from Corvus to the commission. No handing it over to the press.

  Except there’s been quite a few anonymous leaks of the documents. No one’s quite sure if the leaks are coming from the senators’ staffers or somewhere else. Emily and I have both professed to be very baffled by it, and Finn and Ramona have kept their mouths firmly shut, allowing us plausible deniability.

  “You’ve done everything you could and more,” I say. “Remember what you said to Ramona about one person against the system? Well, you’re telling everyone about the system. And it’s up to everyone to work against it. One person alone can’t do it.”

  “I thought I could.” She tilts her head back. “Do it all alone. And then I ran away to you.”

  “I’m so glad you did.”

  Before I can kiss her, the loudspeaker outside crackles on, warning us that we only have five more minutes.

  Emily gives a long, loud groan. “Do you think we could just sneak out a back door?”

  God, she shouldn’t tempt me like that. “One more day, and then they’ll release you and torment some other witness.”

  She cocks her head, thinking about the witness who’s coming after her. “Do you think Arne will convince them when he testifies? Or even tell the truth?”

  I haven’t gotten over how she so casually refers to him by his first name. “I can’t say what he’ll do. I never understood him.”

  “Me either. Not really.” She gently disengages from my arms. “Showtime,” she says. “Again.”

  And then, like magic happening, her expression shifts, hardens, her shoulders going back, her spine going straight and true as an arrow. She looks fresh, as if she’s just starting the day, and tough enough to last through another month of testimony.

  Even now, I can hardly believe how amazing she is.

  “You look great,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes, then winks at me, the only crack in her mask.

  She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve made an appointment for us to look at houses up in Tahoe. And I’ve started to gather some cases that could use some pro bono attention—activists unjustly jailed, people fighting unreasonable bail demands, and such. With her moral compass and my legal knowledge, we could do some good in the world. We’ve got the money to back up our efforts too.

  But first we need to get through the gauntlet of senators who never shut up.

  I open the closet door for her. “Let’s do this.”

  As she passes me, she reaches out, flicks one of the buttons of my waistcoat with her finger.

 
; I shake my head as I follow her. Tormenting me every chance she gets.

  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Thank you for reading—I hope you loved Elliot and Minerva’s story! If you want to share the love, you can leave a review here.

  Want more Bastards? Sign up for The Cosmopolitan Club, Raleigh’s Mailing List! You’ll get exclusive content and be the first to know everything.

  Ready for your next Bastard? Dev’s story is next in Private Disclosures! Grab it here or read on for a juicy snippet.

  More Bastard Capital Stories

  Enter the world of Bastard Capital: Unrivaled men. Unimaginable wealth. Unlimited power.

  * * *

  Books in the Bastard Capital Series

  * * *

  Secret Acquisitions (Book One, Mark’s story)

  * * *

  Unfinished Seductions (Book Two, Logan’s story)

  * * *

  Competitive Instincts (Book Three, Finn’s story)

  * * *

  Intimate Mergers (Book Four, Paul’s story)

  * * *

  Hostile Attractions (Book Five, Elliot’s story)

  * * *

  Private Disclosures (Book Six, Dev’s story)

  About the Author

  Raleigh fell in love with billionaire romance as a teenager thanks to Harlequin Presents. She fell in love with San Francisco in her twenties thanks to how charming the city was. And she fell for a coding genius thanks to how charming he was.

  Naturally, she had to put all of the things she loved into her romances.

  You can find her online at www.raleighdavis.com.