Ruthless (A Lawless Novel)

by Lexi Blake

  Drew dismissed the idea. “I’ve already studied it. You’re right. It morphed to the point I can barely see my father’s hand in it. Twenty years in tech is like a hundred.”

  It was like the body had degraded to the point that no one could make an identification. She could practically feel the frustration rolling off them.

  Riley’s hand came out, covering her own. If she’d grown to be able to sense her in-laws’ stronger emotions, then Riley seemed to have become an expert on her. He read her so easily. He knew when to hold her hand and when to lead her someplace private because she couldn’t stand another second alone with her thoughts and she needed to be outside herself for a while. That was when he would give her his body, the comfort of his skin against hers.

  She pulled her hand away.

  How was she going to live without him?

  “I’m going to my sister’s.” She’d thought about this long and hard. “I have a happy hour date with Lily and then I’m going to Shari’s. I know she took some stuff from Dad’s. Maybe I can find something. Her being out of the country means I can snoop without her hanging around. If she knew for a second I was looking for something, she would hold it over our heads forever.”

  “I thought she lived with your father until he died.” Case started looking through his notes as if he was shocked he’d missed something.

  “She did, but shortly after she moved in with Colin, they used her half from the sale of Dad’s place to buy a condo on the Upper West Side. She took anything of value she could get her hands on.” Her sister hadn’t asked if she wanted to split anything. She’d simply had the movers take it all.

  She’d likely been selling it off a piece at a time.

  “Well, I hope we come up with something because Case and I are at a dead end,” Mia admitted. “Your father didn’t have a mistress at the end of his life. So no one to talk to. His will left everything to you and your sister.”

  “And we can’t find a place where he rented a storage unit or a safe-deposit box. We’ve tried everything I can think of,” Case concluded. “If he hid the source code somewhere, he did a damn fine job of it.”

  “Why wouldn’t Castalano know where it is?” Bran asked. “They were partners. Shouldn’t they have both had a copy?”

  “My father handled the majority of the tech end of StratCast while Steven and Patricia dealt with getting investment and start-up money. After Patricia left, they divided the roles and I suspect at some point my father likely took the source code to hold over everyone’s heads.” It was a scenario that made sense to her knowing her father’s love of power and his deep belief in having a backup plan.

  She’d thought he was paranoid, but knowing what she knew now, she had to give it to the old goat. He’d been right about Steven.

  He’ll come after you. Always coming after us. Can’t get away from what I did. But he can’t, either. His sins would fill a cave. A dark cave. Do you understand? You’re the only one smart enough to understand.

  She shivered as she remembered the words her father had spoken. He’d been so far gone. The cancer had eaten him up and he’d been on morphine, but he’d kept talking.

  Did it for her. Hate her now. That bitch led us all into hell and then waltzed away. Kill her. Should have killed her.

  Her father really hated Patricia Cain.

  “I think my dad had an affair with Patricia,” she said. “I don’t know if that helps anything, but when he was dying he talked about the fact that he’d done what he did for a woman and she left him.”

  Hatch grimaced. “I can’t imagine Phil touching Pat. I know she looks nice on the outside, but that’s the single coldest woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “She’s been married three times,” Riley pointed out. “Someone didn’t think she was cold.”

  “Those were carefully selected spouses,” Hatch countered. “Even her first husband was married for his connections. Are you saying Phil might have given the source code to her?”

  “No,” she conceded. “He hated her. I’m just trying to figure this out. He was more open and honest with me in those last days than he’d ever been. Unfortunately, he was also heavily medicated, so it doesn’t all make sense.”

  “Write down as much as you can,” Drew said as he stood up. “Riley and I have a call with Garrison concerning your and his StratCast stock. Garrison’s found an expert who thinks he’s got a loophole that could buy us another month or so.”

  “Not that it means anything,” Riley replied glumly. “Castalano has found new ways to keep the stock low. He’s leaked a report that StratCast is about to lay off twenty percent of its workforce.”

  Ellie’s blood heated. There was no reason to do that. If anything they should be in a hiring mode. “That bastard. He’s doing that to get to me.”

  “He’s already gotten rid of Darvisch,” Drew said with no small amount of sympathy. “He was walked out early this morning.”

  Ellie felt her hands fist. “That will set us back months. I’ll never find someone who can do what he can.”

  “I had a limo meet him. He’s being offered a job at 4L with the knowledge that should you take back over as CEO, he’ll be allowed to return to his position at StratCast. He was quite adamant that he preferred to work for you,” Drew explained.

  “She’s the nerd whisperer.” Bran nodded her way.

  “Apparently, that’s not far from the truth,” Hatch seconded. “Has anyone told her yet?”

  “Oh, God.” Her mind went to the worst possible scenario. “Did the entire R&D team quit?”

  “Oh, no, though you should expect them to be fired if Castalano finds out what they’ve done,” Riley explained. “I wanted to save the good news for the end. We get so little of it these days. That tape Castalano had of me messing with the calibration on the equipment has mysteriously disappeared from the FBI and from StratCast. Everything is digital these days. The agent was lazy. He’d backed up to a local network but nothing else.”

  Mia turned to her husband. “Unless Case did it. McKay-Taggart has some hella good hackers on their team. Look for a line item under communications expert charge.”

  “I know nothing.” Case’s face was a complete blank. “But something like that could potentially happen if someone on Ellie’s old R&D team perhaps called and tried to help, because apparently there are entire sections of StratCast who are trying their hardest to make things difficult for Castalano. Not that I can confirm or deny anything.”

  She blinked back tears but for a different reason. She did still have friends. When she left here, she could have a life. She didn’t need this group of people.

  She simply wanted them.

  Ellie took a deep breath and banished the thought. Two more weeks and then she would go to her own place and figure everything out. She couldn’t make any decisions while she was locked in the Lawless bat cave. She was too close to the situation to really understand it.

  Take a step back. Look at the problem from all angles and allow the solution to find its way to you.

  Her old mentor used to tell her there wasn’t a problem she couldn’t solve, given time and distance and intellectual processing.

  She wasn’t capable of that when she was close to Riley. She would move on and maybe someday she could call him again and see if there was anything left between them.

  “Are you all right?” Riley asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m happy I still have friends there, but I’m worried Steven is going to ruin the company. This is his way of challenging me. I might be able to wiggle out of the worst charges, but I can’t come back to work. He can do whatever he wants. I might fight like hell and get my company back only to discover I no longer have a company.”

  Steven could basically rape and pillage at will with her gone.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Drew said. “Riley, it
’s time.”

  Riley looked over at her, obviously reluctant to leave. “Case and Mia are heading back to Texas for a few weeks. Their plane leaves soon.”

  Case had been her shadow when Riley wasn’t with her. She was going to miss the big cowboy, but he had things to do at home. She hugged him and then Mia. The sister she wished she’d had.

  “We’ll be back soon. Take care of my boys,” Mia whispered. “They need a level head like yours. I’m so glad we’re sisters now.”

  Ellie simply nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Mia or anyone about her agreement with Riley. They likely thought that since she and Riley were sleeping together again, they were good.

  “Bran, do you mind?” Riley asked. “I can’t leave right now and she’s going to want to go out.”

  Bran gave his brother a thumbs-up. “I’m on Ellie-watching duty.”

  “I don’t need someone to watch me,” she argued.

  Drew stopped her. “Steven Castalano killed our parents. If you walk out there alone right now, every single one of us will be worried out of his or her mind. Please take Bran. He acts like an idiot most of the time, but he’s quite effective when he wants to be.”

  They really would worry and they had cause. She hadn’t been allowed out on her own since Castalano had made his threats. Another thing that would change in two weeks. “All right. I’ve got a key to my sister’s place; we’ll go there after the meeting with Lily. She said she’s got some information, but she doesn’t want to tell me over the phone. You’ll have to be discreet. She doesn’t like any of you.”

  Riley frowned. “She thinks we kidnapped you.”

  Lily couldn’t believe she’d married Riley willingly. She’d called and tried to get Ellie to leave him, offered to help her with money, anything to get her away from the man who had ruined her life.

  If she hadn’t been forced to stay with Riley, forced to talk to him and see how he actually worked, would she feel the same way? Would she have gotten bitter and angry?

  She was still mad when she really thought about it, but if she’d been raised as he had, she might have behaved in the same way. Riley thought there was no life but avenging his parents. It was everything he’d worked toward.

  He could say he would leave it all he liked, but she couldn’t trust him. He would pick his family in the end. He would choose revenge over her as he had before.

  “I’ll try to convince her otherwise,” Ellie promised. “I’ll talk to you when I get back.”

  She had a mission, too. And when it was all over, they could finally go their separate ways.

  —

  Riley sat in the meeting, staring down at his notes but not really seeing them. Thank God he’d written everything pertinent out for Drew and the contract lawyer since he was incapable of logical thought.

  They talked around him and every now and then he found the concentration to interject a point, but how was he supposed to care about stock and holding on to his position when all that mattered was Ellie?

  He wasn’t a fool. She was still planning on leaving him.

  The thought of Ellie walking out the door panicked him. It was his new nightmare. Somehow the beating-at-the-group-home nightmare had been replaced with Ellie fading away. She would leave and they might talk every now and then, but she would drift away from him. If she walked out the door, he would lose his wife.

  For her it was a marriage of convenience. For him it was a whole new world. Things seemed brighter since he’d married Ellie. He was happier. He thought about the future in a way he never had before. His life didn’t have to be an endless round of revenge and then proving himself. He could have more.

  He loved her. How was he going to let her go?

  “You’re very helpful these days,” Drew said as he disconnected the call.

  “I try,” he replied absently. Maybe if he hurried he could catch her before she left for her meeting with Lily.

  Drew groaned. “I was being sarcastic. You suck at everything lately. Unless maybe you’re going to start writing love songs to your girlfriend. I’m sure you would be awesome at that. That’s how I see you now. Sitting somewhere writing love poetry.”

  He ignored the sarcasm. It was the way Drew communicated best. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my wife.”

  Drew lost his grin. “See, that’s what I’m worried about. Is she your wife?”

  “I sleep with her every night. I think we can call the marriage consummated.” He didn’t like where this conversation was going. He’d been careful to act like everything was good between him and Ellie. It was good. When they were in bed together, she didn’t hold back. She let him hold her all night.

  The distance came in the morning when he felt her pull away from him. She could smile all she liked, but it wasn’t the same open, brilliant grin she used to give him. It was the polite expression she used on everyone.

  “Just because you’re fucking her doesn’t mean she intends to stay,” Drew replied. “You should protect yourself. I don’t think she has any intention of trying to make this thing work.”

  “Why would you say that?” He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

  “Because I overheard her talking to her building manager. She was telling him she was moving back in soon. I take it she hasn’t told you.”

  He’d known she was thinking about it, but she’d actually called? She’d made plans? Was she giving them any kind of a chance?

  Drew stared at him. “I’m going to take that as a no.”

  He felt like he’d gotten punched in the gut. “No. I didn’t know she was making arrangements already.”

  Drew’s brow arched. “Already? Then you knew she would make them at some point? I thought we had a plan. She agreed to stay here with us until she gets her company back. Is she getting her company back in two weeks? You really should have told me about this amazing new talent of yours. You now can tell the future.”

  He didn’t need this. “Of course not.”

  “Then why does she think she’s leaving here in two weeks?”

  “I’m not going to keep her here if she doesn’t want to stay.” Then he became her kidnapper as well as the man who had ruined her life. She didn’t need more reasons to hate him. He was sure she woke up every day, realized she wasn’t going to do the thing she loved, and blamed the man sleeping next to her.

  “We had made a very plain arrangement.” Every word came out of Drew’s mouth with a chill to it. “We can’t have her out there. Castalano could get to her. We need her where we can watch her. It’s the only way this plan works.”

  He hated hearing his marriage referred to as “the plan.” “What do you think she’s going to do if she moves back to her place?”

  Drew huffed as though frustrated. “I think Castalano can get to her more easily. He can move in and start talking in her ear and guess what? Now she’s got 4L stock to play with because we gave it to her. All Castalano has to do is convince her he’s the better bet and we’ve got a serious problem. So I want to know why she thinks she’s leaving here in two weeks.”

  “I made a deal with her.”

  Drew’s head fell back. “Let me guess. You get to sleep with her. She gets her freedom after an agreed-upon number of orgasms.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  Drew’s head came back up and his gaze narrowed. “Really? What was it then?”

  “I asked her to give us a month. I thought if we were intimate, she would see how much I really care about her. I thought she would see that we should be together.”

  “Well, you should really have tried harder, brother,” Drew said with a nasty twist of his mouth. “Because you’re only two weeks in and she’s got her exit plan in place. She’ll be taking StratCast meetings before you know it.”

  “You honestly believe she’s going to go in with Castalano? You
think she’ll have him over for dinner?” He was worried about a lot of things should Ellie actually move out at the end of their deal, but the last thing on his mind was Ellie turning on them all. It wasn’t in her.

  “I think anyone can go dark given the right circumstances, and we’ve given her plenty. She’s not over what we did. She can sleep with you all she likes, but she hasn’t forgiven you. Until she does, she needs to stay here where I can watch over her.”

  Riley stood up. “No.”

  Drew’s eyes widened. “No?”

  Riley knew that wasn’t a word Drew heard often. “I love you, brother, and I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me, but no. Ellie is my wife and until we sign the divorce papers, I’m going to do whatever it takes to ensure that she’s happy. I think I’m going about this all wrong. I’ve worried and made bargains with her. I’ve put her on timelines and I’ve done it because that’s kind of how I grew up. Everything was always about the next part of the plan. The next step we had to take. There is no next step. Ellie is the end of the road for me. I’m playing her like a game when she is so much more. My marriage is not a negotiation, Drew, and I not only ask that you stay out of it, I demand it.”

  Drew stood up. “This is about more than your marriage, Riley. This is about everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”

  He’d thought about that a lot lately, too. “What? Are we really looking for Dad and Mom’s killers or are we trying to put a Band-Aid over a gaping wound? Do you honestly believe that putting Steven Castalano in jail is going to make you feel better? Is it going to take away the ache? Because I figured out what takes it away.”

  “So you’re going to throw it all away because some chick gets you off better than the others? Does she have a magical vagina? Is that it? She can heal you with the power of her clit?”

  He didn’t think about it. He popped his brother. Right in the jaw. Fucker had a strong jaw. It hurt like hell, and it didn’t fix the problem. He stepped back. “Don’t talk about my wife like that.”

  Drew couldn’t understand. It was like asking his brother to translate a language he didn’t speak. Riley could tell him all day long what Ellie meant to him and Drew’s brain would somehow make it about sex. He couldn’t understand love because he’d never experienced it.