“Maybe.” Kayla hated to recall the conversation she’d had with her uncle on the topic. “Uncle Stedman has always been tightlipped about what happened, and their other brother is gone now. He committed suicide a few years ago.”
Carson was silent. She could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “Wills are public record, you know.”
“Yes.”
“Did your father have any living relatives?”
“His mother. She was in an assisted living facility here in Southie for years. My father’s family always lived here in Southie instead of in the city or Beacon Hill like the other members of Boston’s elite social circles.” Kayla had always felt proud of that fact. “The O’Callaghan family owned a dozen or more buildings and industrial complexes here in Southie.”
“Hang on.” Carson’s tone was rising. A wave of tension made his abdominal muscles harden like a slab of marble. “You’re telling me that you should have inherited a bunch of buildings and industrial complexes and somehow those went to Stedman Hyde-Pierson?”
“He was my mother’s heir,” Kayla said bitterly. “I didn’t understand it either, but it has something to do with the Hyde-Pierson inheritance crap.”
“He’s feeding you a line.” Carson sat up. “I can’t believe you haven’t looked into this before now!”
“What?” Kayla scrambled to pull the sheet over her bare breasts. She felt suddenly exposed and very vulnerable. “You can’t believe I haven’t looked into what? I’m not rolling in the dough here, you know, Carson. I have bills to pay and clients to keep happy, and most days I’m so freaking exhausted I can barely crawl into bed at night!”
“Yes!” Carson threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “And that’s exactly what your uncle has been counting on all these years! What were you? Three? Four? How old were you when he managed to get custody?”
“Five.”
“So, he’s been feeding you this crap since you were five, preparing for the day when he could take over your inheritance because, from where I’m standing, you’re a freaking millionaire!”
Kayla drew back as though he’d slapped her. She would be the first person to say that her uncle was an asshole. But she had always assumed that it was the legal system that had screwed her and her uncle’s selfishness had kept him from doing the right thing.
Carson pointed his index finger at Kayla. His expression was like a storm ready to break. “You think you know why your uncle might want you dead? Well, I know why. It’s because he’s been stealing your inheritance for decades and he’s afraid that you’re going to get smart and start digging. When that happens, he’ll have a serious legal problem on his hands.”
“No!” Kayla shook her head. “The buildings, the money, all of that was left to him. Not to me. My parents didn’t do things right. They screwed me over. Uncle Stedman may want me dead, but it’s just because he doesn’t want to risk the possibility of me contesting the will! He told me, when I turned eighteen, that he would see me begging in the streets before he would let his sister’s legacy go to a wastrel of an artist like me.”
“Lies,” Carson said quietly. “Lies to terrify and to keep you from doing what you should have.”
“Don’t presume to tell me what I should and should not do,” Kayla said quietly. “Fucking me doesn’t give you the right.”
CARSON DREW BACK in shock and disgust. “Is that what you think?”
“Yes!”
“You think I’m telling you what to do because we slept together and that makes me have the right to boss you around or something?” He was absolutely floored by that logic. “I’m telling you this because I care, Kayla.”
She scoffed. “You care?” She stomped over to the chest of drawers and pulled out a T-shirt. She pulled it over her head and then pointed at Carson. “You don’t even know me! You don’t know anything about me. If you did, you would know that I don’t do long-term relationships and that I never give a man control over me or my financial situation.”
“No, because your uncle already has that!” Carson burst out. He could not understand how she didn’t see what was going on! Had it been so long that she was incapable of realizing that her uncle wasn’t just bad, he was an epic financial disaster? Then he took a deep breath and tried to calm down and rationalize. “What are you so afraid of that you won’t see him for how he really is?”
“I do see him!” she argued. “He is a selfish bastard who would sell his own mother to make a deal.”
Carson pressed his lips together. He almost didn’t say it, but in the end, the words were pressing too hard on him. “But not his own sister?”
“Then why bother me at all?” Kayla burst out. She waved her hands in the air dramatically. “I’m not bugging him about this. He has everything. Why does it matter if I’m dead or alive?”
“Because what he’s doing is illegal,” Carson said quietly. “If he is discovered, if you blow the whistle on him, he could wind up paying fines and God knows how much in penalties if he has truly been stealing your inheritance.”
The look of horror on her face was almost too much for Carson to bear. It was something that should have been obvious, and yet she had been in that situation since she was a five-year-old. That man had been her guardian. She had lived underneath his thumb in ways that his natural children had not because their mother had been too smart to let Stedman spend too much time with them. There had been nobody to protect Kayla. She had been on her own with that bastard, and he had molded her in ways that she probably didn’t understand.
The smooth column of her throat moved as she swallowed. Carson looked at the tough-as-nails woman standing before him. She was hard and she was confident. She had been through things that her privileged cousin would never dream of. And yet she had never really confronted her past. It was a hard place to be.
“Why?” Kayla whispered. She wrapped her arms around her body as though she were trying to hold herself together. “Why would he bother? He already had everything. I mean, before. He was rich without my parents’ money. Why did he need theirs when he had more than enough?”
Carson wanted to go to her, but he knew that she wouldn’t welcome him just now. Not yet. He clenched his fists at his sides to keep still and took a deep breath. She needed him to be strong, and she needed him to be clearheaded and logical. Running off and murdering her uncle was not the best course of action. “People like your uncle never have enough. Even if they have more than anyone else on the planet, they still want more. They will always want what someone else has. If your father was successful and yet happy with living here and just enjoying life with you and your mother, it probably made your uncle unspeakably jealous.”
“The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents,” Kayla whispered.
Carson frowned. “Who said that?”
“Salvador Dali.”
It didn’t surprise him that she would quote an artist. Kayla was smart. She was dedicated to her art. And she was the type of woman who would always welcome the opportunity to learn something or improve herself. In short, she was the type of woman he had always admired.
“Kayla.” Carson was so glad when she looked up and met his gaze. “There is no harm in looking into at least the possibility that what I’m saying is true. Don’t you think?”
“There’s always harm in poking the bear,” she prophesied.
He could not fault that logic, and yet he felt as though this was the right path to take. “Is there anyone who might be able to help you? Someone who isn’t on your uncle’s side but might know some of his personal business dealings? A relative of your father’s?”
“Ava,” Kayla whispered. “Tegan’s mother. She’s Stedman’s ex-wife. She would know.”
Chapter Eleven
Kayla hated to admit it, but she was sort of lamenting the disappearance of the earlier ease she’d felt with Carson before all the talk about her uncle had spoiled things. She wanted those stolen mome
nts back. She wanted to lay in the bed and laugh and joke and pretend that the outside world did not exist at all. They could snuggle and smile and tease each other, and there would be nobody waiting outside to shoot her or an opportunistic uncle trying to steal what was hers.
But that was gone. Maybe it had never even been real. Whatever the case, she and Carson were both getting dressed in a very stiff and almost formal way. She could not help but notice that he wouldn’t look at her. It was as though he were deliberately keeping his eyes averted. Did he think he would offend her? Why was life so complicated?
Then the doorbell buzzed loudly. They both jumped. Kayla could see Carson from the corner of her eye. He was actually reaching for his gun. Was this what her life had come to?
“Go see who it is,” he told her tersely.
Kayla ignored the tone of voice. It wasn’t worth arguing about at this point. The poor guy seemed to be on edge. She quickly pulled her skinny jeans up over her butt and fastened the button fly. Then she made her way over to the buzzer. It went off again just as she reached for the intercom. She jumped, pulling her hand back.
I’m being ridiculous. She pressed the button with a little more force than strictly necessary. “Who is it?”
“Kayla, it’s Tegan and Wrath. We’re coming up.”
“Fine.” It wasn’t like Kayla could have stopped them anyway.
Behind her, she heard Carson heave a giant sigh. She could not tell if it was relief or annoyance. But as the elevator whirred its way up to the second floor, she could tell that Carson was getting more and more tense.
“Are you all right?” Kayla finally asked. There were only moments before the elevator doors would open. “You’re acting weird.”
“We’re both acting weird,” Carson bit out. “Which is why Wrath is going to know that something happened between us.”
“Ah.” Now Kayla understood what his anticipation was all about. “Do you think he’ll make problems for you? He’s sleeping with Tegan. She’s Stedman’s daughter. Surely that’s a bigger scandal than you screwing the estranged niece.”
“I’m not sure there’s really a scale of appropriateness,” Carson said drily. “It all falls under the heading of shit that bodyguards aren’t supposed to do.”
Kayla couldn’t help it. She laughed. He was finally starting to loosen up a bit. So, whether she had made an intentional effort or not, her initial observation that the guy needed to let go a little bit had been right. Sort of. Or maybe it was just hard to say because everything else was such a mess.
“Kayla!” Tegan burst out of the elevator doors and made a beeline right for Kayla’s side. “Something insane has happened!”
Wrath followed Tegan inside and then shut the elevator doors. He pushed the button to stop the elevator from going back down to the bottom floor. Without the first-floor loft resident putting in his code, the elevator wouldn’t be available to the ground floor. What was Wrath doing?
He seemed to guess her thoughts. “We may have company.”
“What?” Kayla’s heart picked up speed. “Who?”
“Your friend is back,” Wrath told Carson. “He’s now loitering in the alley across the street as if he’s waiting for you guys to walk out.”
“Great,” Carson muttered. “I think at this point I should be relieved of duty. I can’t seem to do my job worth a damn.”
Kayla took immediate exception to this. “Don’t be silly! It’s not like you put a tracker on the guy or something. He didn’t get hired for this job because he’s a complete imbecile that can’t do the job. Right? So now we know he’s there, and maybe we use that to our advantage.” She looked around. They were all staring at her in a strange way. “Or something,” she finished lamely. “It was just a suggestion. You guys don’t have to be rude.”
Wrath snorted. “Are you defending him?”
“Do you mean am I tired of him holding himself to some ridiculous standard of performance that reeks of perfectionism?” Kayla nodded emphatically. “Yes.”
“Aw!” Tegan gushed. She nudged Wrath. “I think Nash should rename the business. How about Nash Security and Matchmaking Services?”
Carson rubbed his hands down his face. “Can we stop, please? You guys are going to make me puke, and I haven’t even had breakfast.”
Kayla could tell the man was at the end of his tolerance for teasing. She turned to Tegan and said something guaranteed to distract her cousin. “I need to go talk to your mother. How about you, me, and Wrath head there. Wrath can keep an eye on us so we don’t get into trouble, and Carson can try to follow our shadow. Maybe Carson can learn something if he tails the guy for a few hours. If the guy reports back to his boss, we’ll have another link to the source of all this crap. Right?”
Wrath started bobbing his head. Then he elbowed Carson. “The girl has some good thoughts, right?”
“Hey!” Tegan put her hands on her hips and glared at Wrath. “I have good thoughts too!”
“Like that shit you pulled last night where you went to the White Russian Bar and flirted with some guy in order to snoop around his office?” Wrath said irritably. “Don’t fucking remind me about your good ideas.” Then, to Kayla’s horror, Wrath pointed right at her. “And I suppose I have to thank you for going along last night to make sure my girl didn’t get herself mauled or worse. At least one of you has some sense.”
Tegan smacked Wrath across the chest, but Kayla was too focused on the expression of betrayal on Carson’s face to worry about her cousin’s little spat. For the span of maybe two breaths, Carson looked positively gutted. Then his expression closed, and there was no hint of what he might be feeling anywhere to be seen. The marine’s cool demeanor was in place, and he was obviously not going to let her see past his composed exterior.
CARSON WAS REELING, but he could not show anyone in the room how deeply Wrath’s offhanded remark about Tegan and Kayla’s activities had affected him. Last night. All he could think about was last night. He had come here to the loft with the intention of keeping Kayla safe. It was all he could think about. Then he’d discovered that she and Tegan had been out. That was bad enough, but to hear that the two of them had put themselves in such obvious danger was staggering.
And that did not even account for the fact that he was starting to believe that the only reason Kayla had seduced him the night before was to keep him too distracted to delve into her activities. Would she really do something like that? Would Kayla use sex as a tool and feel nothing while doing it?
Carson shook himself. Now was not the time. He had a task to complete. He avoided looking at Kayla and focused on Wrath. “Give me about ten minutes to get myself into a good position. You said he’s in the alley?”
“Yes.” Wrath was back to being businesslike. “You’ll spot him if you look at the base of the fire escape on the building directly across the street.”
“Perfect.” Carson rolled his neck around to pop his joints. Maybe it was a good thing he was going to be occupied for a while. “Give me those ten minutes and then you guys leave. Act like you don’t see him. If he makes a move, I’ll act. Otherwise I’m going to tail him and see what I can come up with.”
“Sounds good.” Wrath gave a curt nod.
Carson turned his back on the women and left through the window that was propped open for the cat. The fire escape landing was directly outside that window. There were still boards up on the windows that had been shattered by bullets just the other night. It seemed ages ago, although it wasn’t.
The midmorning light would do nothing to hide his presence on the fire escape. The sun was warm on his back as he hurried down to ground level. It would have been easier to track his quarry’s movements from above, but there was no way of guaranteeing that he wouldn’t have to descend to street level at a moment’s notice. Jumping off a building wasn’t exactly Carson’s idea of a good time. Not yet anyway.
He shook off his dark thoughts and carefully pressed his back against the corner of Kayla’
s building. He leaned out just far enough to see the fire escape on the building opposite. As Wrath had predicted, there was a shadow standing very still at the base of the ladder. Had Wrath not told him where to look, Carson would have never spotted it.
Wrath, Tegan, and Kayla suddenly emerged from the front door of the building. Carson could hear the women bantering back and forth. From what little Carson could see from his position, Wrath appeared to be lagging behind them a pace or two as though he were actually in bodyguard mode. It was more of a device than a reality, but it had what Carson suspected was the desired effect.
The shadow across the street moved. A muscular man in a hooded sweatshirt ducked out of the alley and took shelter behind a car. It seemed almost odd that the guy could do that in broad daylight in the middle of a busy sidewalk, but the Bostonians passing him by only offered him a look of confusion or annoyance. None of them seemed inclined to say anything or even to notice that he appeared to be stalking someone. Sometimes Carson thought about all of the skirmishes he’d been in overseas. He had fought and bled and watched men die on foreign soil so that these people could be completely oblivious in their daily lives. It absolutely floored him.
Carson waited until the stalker was completely focused on Wrath and the women. They obviously weren’t going to walk all the way from Southie to the South End, but they would take the tube, and that would give Carson a chance to keep following their unwanted admirer.
Wrath escorted the women down the street and all the way to the corner. When they got to the train station, Wrath kept Tegan and Kayla near the front of the platform. This allowed plenty of space for the stalker and for Carson. So far, the man did not seem to realize that he was not only following, but being followed. Either he was super focused on his targets or he was extremely inexperienced at surveillance.
The train roared into the station. Wrath and the women got on the first car. Carson ducked onto the last one, behind his new friend. The guy practically had his face pressed up against the window trying to keep eyes on his targets. What kind of assassin behaved this way? It was strange. Carson would have guessed the man to be in his early twenties. He seemed jumpy and unsure. It was very much as if this was his first job.
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