Kickback (Caldwell Brothers Book 3)

by Colleen Charles

  “You look so lovely tonight, Haylee,” he says, eyeing me.

  Handing me the glass of wine, I hold it front of me like an alcoholic shield and take a gulp, welcoming the burn. I’ve just made a faux pas by sending two fingers of an award-winning vintage down the hatch, but I’m too upset to enjoy it anyway, I just need the courage it brings.

  “Thank you,” I answer, not recognizing the sound of my own voice. It’s far away, disassociating from the warmth of my body. Dante takes a seat next to me and watches me out of the corner of his eye as he drinks his wine, not missing a thing. My spirits sink, and I want to close my eyes and rest them, quiet the voices in my head telling me to get the hell out of an evil man’s presence, but I can’t.

  “There’s one little thing I’d really like to ask you,” he says, inching closer to me. His hand falls behind my shoulders, and I lean forward, not allowing flesh on flesh. “I hope you’ll indulge me.”

  “What is it?” I ask, taking another swig in case he’s about to ask me to lay down and open my legs for him.

  “You’ve been different tonight, aloof. Most definitely not yourself. You don’t have to worry about the therapy clinic, Haylee. Is this because of Ford? Has he done something to you?”

  After the question is out in the open, he sits there practically salivating. Like I would sell the father of my child out for his help. It’s a Vegas version of Sophie’s Choice. I can capitulate to this pig and save my daughter’s therapy, or I can give in to Ford and give up every part of myself that I actually admire. In-fucking-possible.

  He exhales harshly, and I know he’s searching for his next words to fuck Ford over some more. On the wings of his heavy breath, something hits me, and it’s like an internal light bulb that’s been burned out for years gets a new one screwed in, casting immediate illumination over everything that’s been in the shadows. I love Ford. Ford is Atlee’s father. I should allow him to help us. It’s his right as her father to lighten my load. I don’t have to take the entire weight of the world and hold it down on my own shoulders, carrying it with me wherever I go.

  Damn, I’ve been so stubborn. So stupid.

  As if Lance Burton decides to wave his hand from the Monte Carlo toward Dante’s penthouse, my phone buzzes. I glance at it, but I have no idea who’s texting because of the spots before my eyes as I sigh with relief.

  “Sorry, Dante, that’s Atlee’s babysitter. Seems she’s come down with some kind of stomach bug. She’s crying and wanting her mom, so I’m going to have to cut this evening short.”

  Before he can question my story, I’m out the door.

  Chapter 18

  Ford

  I haven’t managed to drag myself out of bed on time for thirty days. So, I’m counting down my depressive state, what of it? Each and every night, dreams of Haylee turn into nightmares where she tells me she doesn’t love me. But that really isn’t a nightmare at all, because it’s reality.

  Swinging my legs over the side of my mattress, I hunt around on the carpet with my bare feet until I finally find my drawstring pajama pants. Waking up in a cold sweat multiple times a night isn’t conducive to wearing clothes. A sheen of fine perspiration still covers me, a blatant reminder of everything I wanted that’s been viciously ripped away.

  My temples throb and the buzzing of my phone doesn’t help matters. Who in their right mind would call a man on a Saturday morning before nine? An asshat, that’s who. Glancing down, I’m surprised when it’s a local number that I don’t recognize. Damn telemarketers. I’m going to tell them I’m homeless and ask them if they can spare some change when they launch into their sales pitch about life insurance or new gutters. Apparently, they’ve never heard of the do not call list.

  “Ford Caldwell.”

  “Why do you sound like you weren’t awake?” a familiar voice says with a maniacal chuckle. I’m so fucking not in the mood for this.

  For him.

  “I’m awake. Just got out of the shower.”

  “Excuse me if that mental image makes me want to lose my espresso. I can do without the color commentary.”

  I scrub a hand down my face. Short of demanding he get to the fucking point, I’m at a loss. The only reason I haven’t hung up on him is because this could be about Haylee. I’m a glutton for punishment where she’s concerned.

  “It’s your dime, Dante. You called me, remember?”

  “So it is,” he says, smooth and gentle. His voice takes on a level of authority that I’ve never heard from him before. He’s usually just trying to bait me every chance he gets. This sounds more like a lecture.

  If I let him, he could lull me into some false sense of security. But I know better, and he’ll lay the hammer down on my head as soon as he’s ready. Right now, he’s toying with me. Teasing me toward actually listening to him. Although I don’t like it, some warped curiosity forces me to continue conversing until he gets to the point. Maybe it’s more like keep your enemies closer.

  “What do you want?” I prompt.

  “I’m in possession of some information that you’ll want to know,” he trills. I can’t back down now. Not until I know for sure where he’s headed. “Important information.”

  I scoff and roll my eyes, since he can’t see me. After a few seconds of indulgent immaturity, I flip my own phone the bird for good measure. It causes the stress to abate about a millimeter. “I can’t imagine you knowing anything about me that could be considered important. I haven’t lived here or been in your sphere for years.”

  “Oh, but this isn’t about you,” he says as I pace back and forth treading a path in my bedroom carpet. “It’s about your whore.”

  Every muscle in my body tenses with a white-hot rage unlike any I’ve ever felt before. I want to reach through the phone line so I can throat punch him. I want to take my Glock out of the gun safe and blow his head off. I want to cut off his cowardly balls, stuff them in his mouth and sew his lips shut so he can never reference Haylee ever again.

  “Don’t you disrespect her, Giovanetti, or I fucking swear–”

  “Calm down, whelp. You’re going to get your blood pressure all out of whack. It would be a shame to have another dead Caldwell on my watch. I just hate those man-down situations. Happens in the casino all the time when every Tom, Dick, and Harry from the sticks see my cocktail waitresses. They tip a few back and then they’re tipping over.”

  I snort, dismissing him but that doesn’t stop him from pushing forward, pressing me. A pregnant pause tells me he’s waiting for some kind of validation he doesn’t deserve, and I don’t want to indulge.

  I stop in my tracks, ready to fire off an f-bomb when Dante clears his throat, so I take the safe route. “Sounds like a problem for security.”

  “Alas, I don’t have a strong and capable Troy Cass to make everything all better in my life. I like to handle everything from the ground up. Including medical situations. Speaking of that, did Haylee explain her little problem to you?”

  I rack my brain and arrive back at square one, holding nothing. “Does this have something to do with the fall that sent her to the emergency room?”

  “Fall? Not to my knowledge,” he says, causing a chill to tear through every cell in my body. How does he even know something that Nix, her employer, didn’t know? “Her medical challenges don’t have anything to do with her. It’s someone else.”

  I fucking knew it! I knew that day she told me she didn’t love me that she had another man inside her house. The raw pain of her betrayal stings worse than anything, even though betrayal isn’t the right word for what she’s done. She owes me nothing. But still, I want to throw the phone against the wall just so I can watch it blow apart in chunks and think about Dante’s ears ringing on the other end. I can picture him, salivating, just waiting to be able to blow my world sky high with his bootlegged information.

  “So, what about him?” I snap, anxious to get this conversation over with so I can lick my wounds in peace with one of those aged bottles of scotc
h Nixon favors. Maybe the nameless, faceless rival that’s fucking the love of my life has some terminal illness. I’m about to get off on someone else’s pain, and I don’t even give a shit.

  “It’s not a him, it’s a her.”

  I pause, letting that information sink in. He must be talking about Dixie, Haylee’s best friend. Funny, she looked hale and hearty the last time I saw her. Bright blue eyeshadow, crimson red lips, long talons with glitter tips.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I ask, playing his game a few more seconds, hoping he’ll finally get to the point.

  “She has Asperger’s.”

  All my work creating and managing the cerebral palsy app in Linc’s honor, allows me to know a fair amount about childhood health issues. I know that Asperger’s resides on the autism spectrum. After my own offhand diagnosis, I studied up and I also know that a lot of people that have it are highly functioning. Dixie’s obviously one of the lucky ones. Unless he knows about my own genetic testing and the shocking results, how can Dante think I would actually give a shit about something like this? Is he trying to ruin my day by being a blowhard? Dixie’s a perfectly respectable lady leading a perfectly respectable life. What kind of a fuckwad would go after a person with a disability?

  “So, that’s not a death sentence,” I counter. “Most people live a long and productive life who have it. Why do you think I would possibly care that some random woman has Asperger’s just because she’s friends with Haylee?”

  He laughs again, and the taunting sound rips through the telephone line to land square in the center of my chest. “You think Haylee’s daughter is random?”

  Haylee has a daughter?

  Thank God I’m already sitting down because if I’d been standing, my legs would have given out. Every cell in my body fires on all cylinders. Spots float across my eyes. I flip back on the mattress, not even able to stay upright. I take a deep breath and blow it out steadily. My hand snakes out to grab my glasses from the nightstand as if seeing the phone more clearly will somehow make this fucked up situation better.

  “Exactly how old is this daughter you claim Haylee has?”

  He waits a few torturous seconds before laying it on me. “Ah, I see you’re finally seeing the light. You know, Ford, I think Nixon’s a little smarter than you are…at least in a street sense. In spite of your billion dollar business, you’re a little slow on the uptake. Your daughter is seven. Haylee had her when she was nineteen, approximately eight months after you left Las Vegas. You do the math. Want to know the great thing about it? Having a child filled her out in all the right places. Those tits…that ass. So lush and decadent. Nicely done, whelp.”

  Rage bursts like fireworks through my cells, and I jerk myself upright and then to my feet. “If you fucking touched her, I’ll cut your fingers off and stuff them down your lying throat.”

  “Now, now, this is no time for useless threats. We both know you’ll do nothing of the sort. And as for touching her, I did more than that. I split her wide open. I stuck my cock so far up her tight cunt it just about came out her mouth. My DNAs inside her, Caldwell. She’s mine now because I claimed her with the strength of my cum. The little brat may belong to you, but your whore belongs to me. She’ll be sucking my cock until the day she dies. Who knows? Maybe she’s got another little bastard fermenting in there as we speak. Don’t go getting all vigilante or the day she dies might come sooner rather than later.”

  I gasp, imagining Haylee on her knees in front of Giovanetti. He’s lying. He has to be. A long stretch of silence falls over the both of us as we strive to understand the implications of what’s been said. It’s uncomfortable, swollen with a rage so potent, so pervasive that I struggle to draw a single breath. The pain tumbles over me in wave after wave of anguish so deep, I think I might not get out of my condo alive.

  “Have you met Haylee’s daughter?” I ask, wanting to know. Not fucking wanting to know.

  “Of course. She’s the spitting image of someone we know. Hair’s blonde, but it’s thick and wavy. Piercing blue eyes. Dumb as a box of rocks.”

  I don’t even know this little girl, but I’ve already fallen in love with her. Maybe she belongs to me, and maybe she doesn’t. But the fact that she belongs to Haylee, the woman I’ve loved for more of my life than anyone else, is enough. Dante’s not going to do this. I’ll keep the two of them safe and protected if it’s the last thing I ever do.

  “Don’t you talk about a child that way, Dante Giovanetti. It’s a low blow, even for you. Especially with all your fake charity work.”

  “If you doubt my words, why don’t you go and see for yourself. She’s in therapy every Monday and Wednesday at the occupational therapy clinic over on Elm Street. She’s been doing so well there under John Graham’s care. Too bad the Nevada Board of Health is shutting it down. There aren’t any other care centers that specialize in Asperger’s in the entire state. Well, except for a few others, but they don’t take state-funded insurance. Such a pity your daughter’s going to get worse before she gets better. Such a waste of a promising future for a handicapped child.”

  He can pull his underhanded tactics every damn day for the rest of his pitiful life, but when it comes to money, I’m richer than he is by a long shot. He’s cash poor because all his assets are tied up in casinos and bribes. I have an investment account that would give Bill Gates a run for his money. The yearly interest alone is more than the salaries of the top one percent of Americans. If it makes Haylee smile at me again, I’ll build a whole fucking street filled with therapy centers.

  “Don’t you worry about Haylee or her daughter anymore, Dante,” I say, breaking out in a cold sweat that pushes me to get rid of him. My stomach churns as I stare at the phone. “I’ve got it covered. I’ll take over from here.”

  “Well, aren’t you just the knight in shining armor all mounted up on your sparkly unicorn, ready to jump over a rainbow to get to your princess? I should call Disney and see if they’ll make a movie about it.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  He chuckles, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. “There’s the whelp that I know and love. Too bad you pale in comparison to your brother. At least he’s got a pair of balls bigger than your worthless father’s. He’s a worthy adversary, one I’m going to love to take apart piece by piece. You…you’re just a nerdy geek who’s afraid of his own shadow. I think we both know where Haylee’s daughter got the Asperger’s gene from.”

  “Quit fucking threatening my family, asshole. And if you ever touch Haylee again, I’ll kill you.” I punch the button to hang up on him with his gleeful laughter still ringing in my ears.

  Chapter 19

  Haylee

  “You’ve got to tell him, darlin’. He’s got to hear it all from your own lips or the two of you don’t even stand a chance.”

  Dixie’s right. We’re sitting on a leather sofa inside Grounds Lover, my favorite place for iced chai. It just so happens to be inside the Armonico, attached to Manzo so we know the staff. The onsite pastry chef even uses the Manzo kitchen. We meet for a coffee and girl talk before our shifts whenever we can make it work. Dixie sips her dark roast and looks at me over the rim of her paper cup. We sit for a long while, each of us silent, thinking and drinking. Once I’m ready for a refill, I feel like I’ve processed enough to continue using my best friend as a sounding board.

  “Can I get you another?” I ask, holding out my hand to take her empty cup.

  “Sure thing, sugar.”

  Once I’m back with the fresh drinks, she spears me with a glare. “It has to be done today, Haylee. You can’t wait another second, or that nasty Dante will rat you out, just for the thrill of hurting people. Can you imagine how Ford will feel if he hears about his only child from his arch enemy? The same man that had a hand in killing his father? That’s the kind of thing that even a good man might never recover from.”

  Part of me likes the idea. Good, then we’ll be even. An eye for an eye. He ran from
us so he can find out about what he left behind from someone he hates. But when I dig deep, I find that’s not what I want at all. I still want Ford as part of mine and Atlee’s future, even if I’m still madder than a wet hen.

  “I’m scared,” I mumble, taking a sip of my chai and letting the spices travel down my throat to calm my stomach. “Last time we talked, I told him I didn’t love him.”

  “And does that make you a liar?”

  Very slowly, I look her in the eye. “Yes.”

  I snuggle deeper into the leather of the sofa, wishing it would swallow me whole and take me away from this life that I’ve fucked up so badly I fear it might never get better. And if it were just me, I wouldn’t care. But it’s not just me. My daughter’s involved and so is her father. For better or worse.

  I frown so hard my cheeks ache under the effort. It feels like years since I made my deal with the devil and then broke a contract written in blood. And now it’s time to pay the price. I’m not sure I can afford it.

  “Why don’t we see what the cards have to say about it?” she says, breaking out the deck that I’m sure was right in plain sight at the top of her oversized Kate Spade bag. I’ve come to love the Tarot even though I’m not sure I’m a true believer. I indulge it because the Tarot’s attached to Dixie and she loves me more than anyone else I know.

  Dixie goes into the old routine, shuffling, fanning out the cards and asking me to pick three. I think about my instincts and wonder if they’re any good. They haven’t been where men are concerned, but the cards always seem to be dead on. I’m not sure if it’s their wisdom or Dixie knowing me better than I know myself. She can read me like a book without the benefit of any existential magic.

  “Hmm…two of cups. That card means that two people are meant to be together inside of a monogamous relationship. Make a family. Become one unit.”

  “Let’s see the other two before we go jumping to any spiritual conclusions,” I say, reaching to flip the next one. She slaps my hand away.