Shattered: Steel Brothers Saga: Book Seven

by HELEN HARDT

But this was…personal.

  So deeply fucking personal.

  Wendy could easily be lying. She was certainly not a reliable source.

  But she wasn’t lying. I’d already formulated a similar theory in my mind. I just never actually thought it could be true.

  Yet it all made sense.

  Sense in a world that was hell on earth, especially for my father’s victims.

  Now more than ever, I had to find my father and bring him to justice.

  * * *

  I didn’t know how much longer Ryan talked to Wendy. Time became a hazy thing, and I sat in the hallway, clutching my basin, but I didn’t throw up again. Whether that was because nothing was left in my stomach or because I was holding it together, I didn’t know. I didn’t feel like I was holding anything together, that was for sure.

  Ryan finally came walking out, his expression unreadable.

  “You okay?” he asked when he came to me.

  I nodded. Which was a big lie, but he had enough problems.

  “Let’s go. I can’t take any more of this.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I can’t believe my father would be involved in such a thing.”

  “Your father probably wasn’t,” I said. “But my father was. Is.”

  He pulled me into a stand. “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.” He hugged me quickly. It wasn’t intimate at all. “Let me take you home. I need to be alone for a while.”

  I nodded. That was understandable. “Just promise me that…”

  He stopped my lips with his finger. “I won’t do anything stupid,” he said.

  I hoped he was telling me the truth. His whole world had just been shattered. He was eerily calm right now…and I had the feeling it was the calm before the storm.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him no, I wasn’t going home. I was staying with him. But I couldn’t get the words out.

  And it hit me. I needed to be alone too.

  I needed to think this through, figure out what to do next.

  Because doing nothing was not an option.

  The drive to my apartment took only ten minutes. He gave me a hasty kiss good-bye and said he’d call me.

  That was all. And I didn’t expect anything else.

  I flipped on the light switch and poured myself a glass of cold water but didn’t drink it. Then I looked at my phone. I’d turned the ringer off while we were talking to Wendy. No calls, no texts.

  I slid down the side of the wall to sit on the floor of my small kitchen.

  My thoughts were jumbled. What next?

  What next for Ryan and me? Could we even have a future now?

  If only I hadn’t fallen in love with him.

  Clearly he wasn’t in love with me, and right now he had way more to deal with than anyone should have. Bothering him about our “relationship” was not something I’d do.

  What could I do?

  More research on the future lawmakers. Another visit to my uncle, maybe. Another visit to Larry Wade. At least the two of them seemed less crazy than Wendy. Still crazy, though.

  It all seemed so futile now. No matter how hard I worked, I never seemed to get anywhere. Questions didn’t turn up answers. Only more questions.

  What would make me feel better?

  Being with Ryan, but that wasn’t in the cards.

  Then it hit me. I’d call Shayna. Just check up on her to see how she was doing. Maybe she’d heard something about Juliet and Lisa.

  I searched my contacts and pulled up her number. It rang a few times, and then a female voice answered.

  “Hello, Shayna? It’s Ruby Lee, from Jamaica.”

  “Ruby? I don’t know any Ruby.”

  “This is Shayna Thomas, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We met in Jamaica. Remember? When your…friends and you went off on those Jet Skis?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please don’t call me again.”

  The line went dead.

  What?

  I called the number again. This time I got no answer. It went straight to voice mail. “Listen, Shayna,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I assure you there’s nothing to fear from me. I’m a friend. I want to help. I want to—” The line went dead.

  I called again. No voice mail. She had blocked me.

  Why?

  What was she afraid of?

  I shook my head, eyeing my glass of water on the counter above me. I wasn’t thirsty. I wasn’t hungry.

  I wasn’t…anything.

  And then my phone rang. A number I didn’t recognize.

  Shayna! Perhaps she’d been afraid someone was listening in, and she’d tried a different phone.

  “Shayna?” I said into the phone.

  “No,” a male voice said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Who is this, please?”

  “Ruby,” the voice said, “this is your father.”

  Chapter Thirty–Eight

  Ryan

  I’d saddled up my horse, Sergio, and gotten ready to go for a run, when I realized Sergio, as fast as he was, wouldn’t be able to give me the speed I was craving.

  I patted him down. “Another time, boy,” I said.

  Then I wandered back up to the detached garage at the guest house where I kept my pride and joy—my Porsche 911 Turbo. Sleek navy blue—custom paint job—and posh leather seats, the convertible sat under its chamois cover. His name was Jake.

  I removed the cover and stared at it in all its glory.

  Neither of my brothers were into cars. They were more comfortable in their pickups than in the luxury sedans they both owned. Me? I loved them, though I didn’t take Jake out as often as I would have liked to.

  Right now? I needed speed. I needed the wind blowing through my hair as I sped a hundred twenty miles an hour down deserted country roads.

  My life was in shambles.

  The woman I—

  The woman I what?

  Loved?

  Fuck. I shoved my fingers through my hair.

  I fucking loved her.

  Ruby. Ruby who’d kept a secret from me. She’d taken my punishment for that. A woman who had only recently opened her body and mind to sex had let me take what I needed from her.

  Damn.

  My life was a mess.

  I couldn’t have a relationship, and I had no idea if she felt the same way anyway.

  So for now, I’d get Jake out onto the open road and scream through the next couple hours at top speeds.

  My phone buzzed.

  Shit. It was Joe.

  “Yeah?” I said into the phone.

  “Hey, Ry. Tal and I just wanted to…”

  “What, Joe? What the fuck do you want?”

  “To make sure you’re all right.”

  “All right? Of course I’m not all right. My life has been shattered, and I just spent the last hour listening to my biological mother spin all kinds of tales.”

  “You went to see Wendy?”

  “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

  “No. Of course not. But we should have been there with you.”

  “Ruby went with me.”

  “Good. Then you weren’t alone.”

  “Alone? I got news for you, Joe. I’m fucking alone. I have no idea who I am anymore. I have no idea who my brothers are anymore. It doesn’t get much more alone than that.” I ended the call, furious.

  I got into the Porsche, put the top down, and backed out of the garage. “Let’s go, Jake,” I said. “Show me what you can do.”

  I drove through the private roads and off our property and then headed into the deserted country roads. Route 78 was straight and narrow with the ups and downs of the foothills.

  Perfect.

  The first one hundred miles an hour came easy. Jake’s engine roared with power, promising me more speed, more thrill. The sound of his tires screaming along the road began to disappear as I eased him toward one forty. The rubber clawed at the road
.

  I resisted the urge to close my eyes and drift away with Jake.

  Closing one’s eyes at a hundred forty miles an hour was never a good idea.

  I edged toward one fifty, and Jake drove as smooth as a gazelle running across the savanna. One fifty-five. One sixty.

  Oh, yeah.

  Lift. I felt the oxygen tunneling under the engine. Much more speed and I’d get into the air like a fucking plane.

  Of course not, but I felt it. Truly felt it.

  Jake’s engine had now drowned out all road noise, what little there’d been.

  My blood thumped in my ears in time with my heartbeat.

  One sixty-five.

  One seventy.

  Vibrations. Vibrations against my thigh.

  Just the engine. Just me flying through the goddamned air.

  No.

  It was my phone.

  Answering the phone at a hundred seventy miles an hour?

  Not a good idea. But what the fuck did I care?

  I put the phone to my ear, a smile on my face. “Hello?”

  “Ryan,” a male voice said. “This is your father.”

  * * *

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  Keep reading for an excerpt!

  Chapter One

  Kate

  He always said I had the most beautiful blue eyes he’d ever seen.

  In truth, my eyes were more gray than blue, but when he looked into them, his face between my thighs, his own eyes searing in their dark intensity, I believed my eyes were blue and beautiful.

  “You like that, sweetness?” His words whispered across my wet skin, sending chills through me.

  Price always looked into my eyes when he went down on me. He had from the very first time we’d made love back in college. Ours had been a whirlwind romance—love at first sight, as corny as that sounds. After graduation, he’d begun his job as a day trader on Wall Street, and I’d started as a copywriter for The New York Tribune. With luck, we’d happened upon our quaint Brooklyn apartment—cozy and perfect.

  Yes, perfect.

  Perfect was how I felt every time Price licked me there, tugging on me, his low growls reverberating against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs.

  And his eyes never left mine.

  “God, yes,” I sighed. “Yes, yes.”

  He flipped me over onto my hands and knees and gave one cheek of my ass a little slap.

  “You have the best ass, Kate.”

  Shivers surged through my body. I loved it when he sucked me in this position. Already, I was on the verge. I knew it wouldn’t be long until he—

  “Oh!”

  Two of his fingers breached my wet channel, and the convulsions began. Price had given me countless orgasms over our years together, and each one always seemed more magnificent than the last. This one was an implosion—every cell in my body coursing toward my inner core. I pushed backward, trying to force his fingers farther and deeper into me.

  “That’s right. Come for me, sweet Kate.”

  My limbs shook, my arms finally giving way until only my thighs held my ass in the air.

  “I love making you come,” Price said, his voice low and husky. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you look right now?”

  His words made me spiral toward the peak once more.

  “I can feel you, sweetness. I feel you getting ready to come again.” He removed his fingers, and in an instant he was inside me.

  That’s all it took. I exploded around him.

  “Price! My God, Price!”

  “That’s it, baby. I love it when you scream my name. I love to make you come.” He thrust once more. “You hug me so completely, Kate. No one else… No one else in the world but you…”

  I pushed my hips backward, forcing him to increase his rhythm. Hard and fast. That’s how I liked it, especially right before he left on one of his trips. He always made sure I’d think only of him while he was gone.

  And I always did. He never left my thoughts.

  He plunged into me more deeply and then withdrew. Though I whimpered at the loss, he flipped me over onto my back, spread my legs, and then tunneled into me.

  “Look at me, Kate. I want to look into your beautiful blue eyes.” Beads of sweat emerged on his brow, gluing dark strands of hair to his forehand. “You’re beautiful. So beautiful.” He thrust once more, groaning. “God, yeah. Feels so good.”

  So sensitive was I from my multiple orgasms, I felt every tiny convulsion as Price shot into me.

  One day we’d make a baby together. The time wasn’t right yet, but one day…

  He collapsed on top of me, his body hot and slick. After a few seconds, he mumbled, “Sorry, baby,” and moved to the side.

  I turned toward him and brushed my lips over his. “I miss you already.”

  His arm was over his forehead, his eyes closed. “Me too. But it’s only for a week.”

  I smiled and kissed him again. “A week sounds like a year to me.”

  He opened his eyes and turned toward me. “I know. I’ll call you every day like I always do.” Then he sighed. “I’d better get moving if I’m going to make that flight. An afternoon nap is just what you need. You deserve it.”

  The bed shifted as he got up. I wanted to stay awake until he left, but I was exhausted. I’d pulled an eighty-hour week and still managed to get home to see Price before he left. Tomorrow was Saturday. I was going to indulge in a well-deserved session of sleeping in followed by a late lunch with my bestie and then a massage.

  “Love you, baby,” I said, drifting off.

  His words echoed back to me. “And I love you. Always.”

  * * *

  I shot up in bed. What the hell was that annoying noise?

  Not my alarm. I hadn’t set it. I’d only lain down for an afternoon nap.

  The door buzzer. I’d been so sound asleep that I hadn’t recognized the ring. I quickly grabbed my phone off the night table. Noon? Damn. I’d really been exhausted. A wave of regret swept over me. I’d wanted to say goodbye to Price when he left. He was no doubt already in Switzerland by now.

  I hurried into some sweats and a shirt and stumbled out of the bedroom to the front door. I opened the intercom. “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Lewis? Katherine Lewis?”

  I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

  “I’m Officer Trent Nixon, NYPD. I have…news for you. May I come up?”

  My heart fell into my stomach.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  * * *

  A year later…

  “Come on, Kate,” Michelle, my sister-in-law, urged. “You need a vacation.”

  “The last year has been a vacation. I’ve hardly worked.” I hadn’t needed to. Price had left me a hefty life insurance policy. With proper investment, I’d never have to work again. Which was good, because apparently I no longer had it in me.

  “That’s my point. You have a promising career. A promising future.”

  A future without Price? No thank you. I gazed at my sister-in-law. She looked so much like him, with her dark hair and expressive eyes. She even had the same fiery spirit and determination, which she was exhibiting now. Michelle had decided I needed a tropical escape with her. A girl’s trip to some remote island in the South Pacific.

  I wasn’t buying into it.

  “You can’t wallow around forever,” she continued.

  “I can’t seem to pull myself out o
f this, Chelle.” No truer words. How was I supposed to get over the love of my life?

  She touched my forearm, no doubt trying to offer comfort but failing. “I miss him too. We all do. I understand.”

  She thought she understood. But she didn’t. She was his little sister, not his soulmate. Not the woman who was supposed to bear his children—those beautiful phantom babies I’d never meet. Not the woman he should have grown old with—laughing together on a park bench, feeding pigeons, watching children play.

  My lover had been snatched from me by the jaws of hell, and no one got it. No one understood.

  Michelle gazed around my kitchen. “When was the last time you cleaned? Ate a decent meal?”

  Dirty dishes towered high in the sink, and the remainder of my Chinese takeout from two nights ago littered the table. I hadn’t been able to choke much of it down.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Look,” Michelle said. “We’re getting out of here. I’m calling a cleaning service to fumigate this place, and I’m taking you to lunch. Where you will eat. Then we’re going shopping.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but she shushed me.

  “No arguments. You need clothes. Island wear.” Then she dug into her purse and pulled out some papers. “Here are our e-tickets and itinerary. We leave first thing tomorrow.”

  * * *

  After a turbulent flight, a ferry ride that nearly had me retching—“You’re not seasick,” Michelle had said. “It’s just nerves.”—and a bumpy, bouncy excursion ride over roads made of actual rocks, we finally arrived at a small beachfront villa on the South Pacific island of Leiloa.

  The cabbie unloaded our luggage. Michelle paid him and muttered something I didn’t understand.

  Once the driver was on his way, she turned to me. “So what do you think?”

  “I think I have to pee.” The bumps and bounces to get here had taken their toll.