She was wrong and so was he. He couldn’t escape his destiny any more than she’d been able to escape the car that had run her off the road. This was the way it was always going to end and the sooner he accepted it the better.
So you’re just going to be the old man’s bitch for the next twenty years?
The fury cooled, hardened. No. Fuck no. He’d made the decision to stand and fight, and he would. Except now he’d have to do it in a way that would protect his friends, and that meant embracing his dark side fully. Going all the way.
He’d kill the fucker first opportunity he got. A suicide mission any way he looked at it, but so what? Royal would be safe and so would his friends. And most especially so would Tamara.
Seemed a fair trade.
A ragged bit of black fabric beside the bed caught his eye. Forcing himself to move, he went over and picked it up. It was a piece of soft cotton, expensive shit. One half of the tank top he’d torn off Tamara the previous night.
It felt as if someone had put their hands around his heart and squeezed hard.
He lifted the cotton and inhaled, smelling flowers and musk. All the soft, beautiful things he couldn’t have anymore. Could never have anymore. Her touch on his skin, gentle, as if he mattered. As if he was worth something.
You’re my knight in shining armor. . . .
His chest ached. No, he couldn’t think about what she’d said to him last night in the diner. He’d never been anyone’s knight, still less hers. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about her. Waking up to find Joshua standing at the foot of the bed should have scared her into the middle of next week and with any luck, she’d never come down Royal way ever again.
The hands around his heart squeezed tighter and for a second he couldn’t breathe.
She’d felt good in his arms that morning. In the moments between waking and realizing they weren’t alone, the warmth of her there had felt . . . right. Christ, if only he’d had another couple of hours with her. Just the morning. The chance to say a proper good-bye . . .
Zee curled the fabric into a ball in his fist.
Fuck that. No point in thinking about it. They didn’t get a proper good-bye and that’s the way it should be. Better for her, better for him. Tamara was safe now and that’s the only thing that mattered.
He moved over to the wastebasket in the corner of the room and tossed the soft bit of fabric into it.
Dismissing Tamara utterly from his mind, Zee finished dressing, then he let himself out of his apartment and began heading in the direction of Gideon’s. Because the guy needed to know what was happening, the decision Zee had made. Gideon would probably be a prick about it, but that was too fucking bad. The deal was done already. Pity he wouldn’t be able to tell his friend his real plan, but that would involve Gideon trying to argue him out of it, no doubt. Zee couldn’t let that happen.
There was a black car parked discreetly down one end of the street, not far from the garage. No prizes for guessing who that was. One of Joshua’s men sent to keep an eye on Zee and those who mattered to him. Checking up to make sure Zee did what he was told, like the good son he now had to pretend to be.
Resisting the urge to flip the guy off, Zee pushed open the garage door and stepped inside, ignoring the familiar smells of engine oil and grease, forcing down the knowledge that this would be one of the last times he’d come here and the pain that came along with it.
Gideon was sprawled in the plastic chair, a beer in one hand despite the fact that it was relatively early in the morning. He looked like he was relaxing after a hard day’s work, except for the black flame of rage in his eyes.
Ice slid down Zee’s back. Fuck, looked like his goddamn father had paid Gideon a visit too.
Zee didn’t bother with a hello. “You okay? Zoe? Rachel?”
“Yeah.” Gideon didn’t ask him what he was talking about. Which meant that fucking Joshua had definitely been here. “We had an early heads-up. Tamara came here and told me what had gone down at your place so I sent Zoe to find Rachel and take her to my place.”
Something shifted inside Zee’s chest. Shock. “Tamara came here?” And then the shock became colder. “Where is she now?”
“I pushed her out the back before your dad’s boys showed up. She sent me a text to tell me she got a cab and was on her way home.”
Thank Christ for that. He didn’t want to acknowledge the relief that flooded through him so he pretended it didn’t exist.
“Glad to hear it. But I gotta talk to you, Gideon.”
The look in the other man’s eyes was hard, unyielding. “I can guess already what you’re gonna say. You’re gonna tell me that you’re leaving Royal to join his fucking empire.”
Well, he’d known Gideon wasn’t going to be happy about it. But knowing that didn’t make seeing the anger and hostility in his friend’s eyes any easier to deal with.
Zee folded his arms and kept his voice utterly cold. “It’s the only way, man. If I don’t go back to him, he’ll torch the place. Do you really want that to happen?”
Gideon picked up his beer and took a long, slow sip. “You fucking idiot. You really think I’d let it? I have connections, Zee. I have people I can call to help. We’re not in this alone.”
Of course Gideon was going to argue. The prick had a thing about not being pushed around by anyone.
“You can’t win this fight,” Zee said flatly. “He’s got half the fucking city in his pocket and most of the gangs, too. There’s no way to take him down, not if you don’t want a full-on war on your hands. And this neighborhood can’t deal with that, you know it can’t.”
It was the truth. There would be no good outcome to an outright fight, or at least none that didn’t involve possible loss of life and that was not acceptable. This was the only way. The best way.
Gideon’s jaw was tight. “It’s not your decision to make.”
“I don’t care who’s fucking decision it is. You really want all we’ve worked for here in Royal to be destroyed? You want Zoe threatened? Rachel?”
The look in Gideon’s eyes became blacker, harder. Sharp as obsidian. “No one fucking threatens my family, Zee. No one.”
The guy had no idea. He really thought a few connections were going to make a difference compared to what Joshua was capable of? Jesus.
“I made a deal, Gideon,” he said, holding the other man’s gaze, unflinching. “I go back to Dad and he stays out of Royal. For good.”
“No,” Gideon said. “Fuck no. I did not take you on at the center, give you a job and a place to stay just so you could walk out on us. I don’t care what that prick promised you.”
“Like you said, it’s not your decision to make. I gotta do what I gotta do for the good of everyone, and if that means leaving Royal to make sure my fucker of a father stays out of this neighborhood, then that’s what I’ll do.”
The other man’s lip curled. “Oh sure, make it all about keeping Royal free and us safe. I never thought you of all people would be such a fucking pussy, Zee.”
Just for a moment, the black anger escaped Zee’s grip and he found himself taking a step toward the other man before he could stop himself. “What the fuck would you know about it?” he demanded. “You ever had a death on your conscience?”
“I got a lot worse than a death on my conscience.” Gideon’s face was hard, his black eyes fathomless. “And I know when it’s time to stand and fight.”
“He killed my girlfriend, Gideon. My dad had her car run off the fucking road. Wanna know why? Because I wanted out. Because I wanted a normal goddamn life. Get married, have kids, all that shit. Dad took exception to that, thought Madison was a bad influence. So he got rid of her. Now you tell me, wouldn’t that make you think twice if people you cared about were threatened?”
Gideon’s expression didn’t change one iota. “No.” His voice was hard with certainty. “Because I’d fucking fight for them.”
There was no getting through to him, as Zee should have k
nown. The guy had a huge blind spot when it came to defending his patch, and telling Gideon his actual mission would probably only end up making it worse.
No, the only way to make sure everyone stayed out of harm’s way was to do what he’d always done and keep it to himself. That way the only person who got hurt was him.
“Call me a pussy all you want,” Zee said. “But going back to him will keep you all alive and everything we’ve worked toward here safe.”
Gideon carefully put his beer bottle down on the floor. There was something menacing about the way he did it, something dangerous. “You seriously think I would let him hurt us?”
“I’m not arguing about this, Gideon. I’m telling you. This is what’s gonna happen.”
His friend stared at him long and hard. Zee had to steel himself to hold the other man’s gaze. “You don’t trust me,” Gideon said at last. “Even now, even after ten years, you don’t trust me.”
He’s right. You know he is.
The realization was harsh and, unfortunately, true. Zee didn’t trust him. Mostly because he didn’t trust anyone and never had. Not since the moment his father had told him why Madison had to die.
“No,” Zee answered in the same flat tone that Gideon had used. “Not where my father is concerned. Shit, I don’t even trust myself.”
Gideon’s eyes were black as tar. “It wasn’t your fault that your girlfriend died. You know that, right?”
“Of course it was my fucking fault. If I hadn’t wanted to get out, she’d still be alive.”
But Gideon slowly shook his head. “You didn’t run her car off the road. Your dad did. Killing her was his choice. And that’s the thing. It’s always a choice, man. I thought you knew that.”
Of course it was a choice. Except sometimes there were right choices and sometimes there were wrong ones. And he’d made a shitload of wrong choices in his life. It was time to make the right one for a change.
Zee gave a short laugh, the sound hollow. “Yeah, and I’ve made mine.”
“Bullshit. You’re not making a choice, you’re just reacting. A real choice would be to stand and fight with us, with your fucking family.”
His anger stirred, fighting against the leash Zee kept on it. Because what if he did? What if he told his father to stick it?
Everyone would fucking die.
“You’d really want me to do that?” he demanded. “Risk some collateral damage?”
“Sometimes you have to make a stand when something’s important.”
“And if that collateral damage was Zoe?”
Ice shifted in Gideon’s eyes. “Not gonna happen.”
“I thought that about Madison. And she died. So that’s not a risk I’m gonna take, Gideon. Not now, not ever. I thought you of all people would understand.”
The other man’s gaze was impenetrable. “So that’s it? You’re just gonna leave us? What am I gonna tell Levi when he comes back and asks where you are? And what about Tamara? You’re gonna turn your back on her, too?”
Another twist of the barbed wire that felt like it was threaded around his heart. Fuck, what was this shit? Now was not the time to be getting soft. He had to be cold. Hard as ice. “What about her? She was just some chick I fucked. No big deal.”
“Uh-huh. Right. So you’re gonna deny her just like you denied us? Nice move, asshole. She was terrified for you. You should at least let her know you’re okay.”
“You don’t know shit about Tamara so how about you just stay the fuck out of it?”
“But you just told me she was some chick you fucked so why the hell do you care?”
Christ, why the hell was he still arguing? Hadn’t he decided there was no point?
Zee swung around, turning back toward the garage door. He didn’t have time for this crap. Gideon was going to find out soon enough about the choice Zee had made.
“You’re a fucking coward, Zee,” Gideon growled from behind him. “You’re isolating yourself when you should be standing strong with us.”
Zee didn’t turn. He pulled open the door instead.
“You’re better than this, you fucker. You’re better than him and you know it!”
Zee slammed the door behind him as he left.
Yeah, that’s what they all said, but they were wrong.
Because the truth was he wasn’t better. He never had been. But at least this way he’d take his father with him. Surely Madison would have to be proud of that.
Chapter 14
Tamara leaned against the white stone parapet that ran around the terrace of her parent’s massive Grosse Pointe house. The whole place had been modeled on a fifteenth-century French chateau, with terraces and rolling lawns that faced the lake, an avenue of oaks bordering the driveway, and two stories of the most expensive decor money could buy.
Tamara hated it. And she hated it even more since her mother had told her to go out on the terrace to get some air for fifteen minutes—a pretext to get her out of the house so they could prepare for the “surprise.”
The night air was thick and hot, carrying the scent of roses from the gardens not far off, and she couldn’t help shivering, which was odd because it wasn’t cold.
Perhaps it was just nerves. There were a lot of people in her mother’s formal drawing room and she knew what they were all waiting for even though they thought she didn’t.
As she’d gone out onto the terrace, her father had caught her eye and given her a meaningful look. Then Robert—having made the trip from New York especially for the weekend—had caught her just as she was walking out the doors and slid an arm around her, leaning in as if for a kiss. For some reason she’d found herself wanting to pull away from him, the heat of his body making her uncomfortable. Strange when, although she’d never been all that attracted to him, she’d never actually found it uncomfortable being near him.
Not so strange. It’s not him you want.
Tamara turned around and leaned against the cool stone of the parapet.
No, it wasn’t Robert she wanted. She never had. And she’d been okay with that once, had thought that it didn’t matter. But of course it did.
You can’t think about him. You can’t think about Zee.
But that didn’t stop thoughts of him creeping into her head, following her around like ghosts. Anything could set it off. The throaty roar of a car in the street outside. The heavy step of someone’s boots on the ground. Or even just the perfectly pressed suits and polite conversation of the men she worked with, each and every one of them the opposite of the man she couldn’t stop thinking about.
She’d thought throwing herself into her work would help, but it hadn’t. She’d gotten a text from Gideon the afternoon she’d left Royal telling her that Zee was okay, but he hadn’t said anything else. And she’d had to stop herself from texting back more questions, because they’d had their one night, her final fling. That was supposed to be the end, that’s what they’d agreed.
Yet those questions went around and around in her head, haunting her. Gideon had said he was okay, but what did that mean? And what was his father going to do? Did it mean he was going to have to go back to him? Leave the life he’d created for himself and be sucked into the world that had killed his girlfriend?
She hadn’t been able to leave it alone. Hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, and that wasn’t supposed to happen.
She’d told herself the night of his fight that she’d let herself have him one more time, then she’d go on with her life, with her career, and with Robert. Moving on and putting her terrible past behind her, the way her parents had encouraged her. Giving them the future they’d wanted for Will, the future she’d taken from them when she’d pulled that trigger.
Zee was not part of that future. He wasn’t part of the life she and her parents had planned, and he definitely didn’t have anything to do with putting her past behind her. In fact, being with him had only brought it all screaming back.
She couldn’t see him again. No matte
r what he’d begun to mean to her, she couldn’t.
Yet despite that, she’d taken to Googling Joshua Chase at work, trying to find out anything she could about him. There wasn’t much other than articles about him being one of Detroit’s biggest property investors, particularly interested in buying up the city’s abandoned buildings. There was nothing that suggested he was anything other than totally legit apart from a few rumors that he wasn’t quite as “clean” as he made out. But those rumors were a couple of years old and there hadn’t been anything that suggested sketchy behavior since.
It was definitely a cover-up, Tamara was certain. She remembered the sound of the bat slapping against his palm, the utterly cold look in his blue eyes. The face of a man who’d done terrible things and who didn’t give a shit about it. A man who was prepared to do anything to get his own way.
Even kill an innocent woman whose only crime had been to love his son and want better for him.
In many ways, she should have stopped there. Left well enough alone. But thoughts of Zee had her going deeper into Joshua Chase’s business dealings. She had access to a lot of financial databases through Lennox and she used that access shamelessly, delving into the many companies that all seemed to relate back to Chase in some way, that he’d either invested money in or were owned by him.
He had his fingers in all sorts of different pies, enough for her to realize just how powerful the guy was, how much money and influence he had. It was scary. No wonder Zee had wanted to get out. In fact, it was a damn miracle he’d managed to stay out for as long as he had.
Then she found something. A connection that had made her get up from her computer and go for a walk just to turn over all the implications in her head.
That Joshua Chase had political ambitions was obvious from all the news sources she’d read about him, and they were quite serious political ambitions. Given that, it was amazing no one had made any connection between him and the criminal underground, but no one had so far. Which meant he was very good at cleaning up after himself—handy since he was currently running for mayor. He already had a campaign fund and, judging from the number of donations it had received, there were a lot of people who were quite happy to support those ambitions.
Dirty For Me (Motor City Royals) Page 21
