Ryder pushed away from the wall to get in Evan’s face, but the bastard was still just out of reach. ‘You leave her out of this.’
‘You were right in one respect, Mr. Stone. I’m not working alone. And I know Lacie will get everything she deserves, just as you will. I knew she was afraid of it happening again. Of experiencing another trauma caused by the betrayal of someone close to her… or to you. That’s Lacie’s greatest fear. She’s so paranoid right now that she trusts no one, not your men, or her own best friend. Lacie is mine and no one else’s.’
‘If you want her so bad, why are you sending her to your brother?’
‘I don’t want her,’ he said, spitting out the words. ‘I don’t want any of those stuck up bitches. All of them believe they are better, believe they deserve the world and I’m tired of it.’
‘Ah,’ Ryder said. Opening his mouth to draw in a breath. He bobbed his head in understanding. ‘Trouble in the sack, is it? Never happened to me, not with my girl, but… there are medications and shit… or is it getting one as far as the bed that’s the problem? I bet they take one look at you and one look at your brother and know they’d rather have the original model. No woman wants a guy who’ll never be any better than second chair.’
‘You are just as bad,’ he sneered. ‘What gives you this arrogance?’
‘If you lay one finger on Lacie, or force her to go anywhere near your brother, I’ll rip every limb from your body,’ Ryder said, slowly. ‘Do what the fuck you want to me. But after your brother is convicted of rape and he’s rotting in that shit-stew of a maximum security prison, I’ll get to you and when I do, I’ll teach you something about pain.’
‘You’ll keep,’ Evan said and smiled again though the polished exterior was slipping, his chin had lost some of its starch. ‘I have a phone call to make… would you like me to pass on a message to your former girlfriend?’
‘Yeah,’ Ryder said, seeing an inch of opportunity to help Lacie even when he couldn’t help himself. ‘You can tell my Little Lady that she’s safe and that all orders remain current.’
‘And you think I have trouble charming women,’ he mocked then left the room. The door closed, the lock snicked, and the lights went back out. He couldn’t be sure. But if Evan delivered that message verbatim then maybe Lacie could gain herself an ally.
She had feared this was coming. Since the madman started giving her instructions, she had feared him telling her to betray Ryder. As if it wasn’t bad enough that she had already turned her back on Ryder’s men and the quest to find her love, now she would have to do that which could not be undone.
Dinner the previous night with Sorcha and Shep had been the most relaxed she’d been since all of this began. Her worry for Ryder remained as intense, but she had an ally in Sorcha now. Once she and Elijah had gotten back to his home, Lacie had made her excuses and gone straight to bed. Not that she slept. As she had done for days, she lay staring at the cell phone, begging it to ring. When it actually did begin to flash, she sat up and froze for a second believing that she may have drifted off to sleep and imagined the whole thing.
When she hung up the phone, she felt no more reassured, in fact she felt sick down in the pit of her stomach. She’d sworn to do whatever it took to keep Ryder safe, to get him back alive, and now she had to make the ultimate sacrifice. To save his life, she had to be unfaithful.
Elijah had called her from work to make dinner plans and she had dressed herself up as she always did. Descending the stairs to meet him the foyer, she took one look at him and knew she had to bite the bullet, to do it now, or she would lose her nerve.
‘You look sensational, as always,’ he said, coming to the bottom of the stairs to meet her.
‘Thank you,’ Lacie said. ‘Can we sit down for a minute?’
‘Of course we can,’ he said, guiding her from the bottom stairs around to the chaise lounge that sat beside the staircase. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘No,’ she said, trying her best to smile, but the nausea in her stomach grew and she had to grit her teeth and clear her throat to prevent the acid in her guts from making an appearance.
With shaking fingers, she took his hand and moved it onto her lap. Her digits were icy cold and he must have felt this because he used his other hand to rub some heat into her, but it didn’t work. The frost that had overcome her was not because of the temperature in the room. It came from the realisation that when she did this, when she followed through, she would never be able to take the act back and that she herself would be delivering that fatal blow to Ryder’s soul when he heard of what she’d done. She wouldn’t be able to deny it.
Privacy and loyalty were the words that kept circulating in her brain. But when she lifted her chin to look Elijah in the eye, his concern made tears blur her eyes. Elijah wasn’t a bad man, not as far as she knew, and he would be heartbroken to discover he’d been used. One way or another this situation was going to end and when the kidnapper relinquished his grip on her, she would have to tell Elijah the truth too.
‘What’s the matter, Lacie?’ he asked and kept rubbing her hand.
Bringing her other fingers up to his face, she tried to imagine Ryder, tried to imagine that he was the one here with her and that he was going to make everything ok. But Elijah’s skin wasn’t like Ryder’s, their gaze was different, everything about them was different. More than that, Lacie knew that Ryder didn’t like Elijah, that he’d been suspicious of his feelings for her since he learned of their association.
‘I have to do something,’ she said, parting her lips just enough to say the words.
Straightening her spine, her height grew enough to bring her lips near to Elijah’s. Squeezing her eyes closed, tears skittered down her cheeks, but she kept on going.
‘Lacie, what is the matter?’ Elijah asked, moving away from her advance.
Sagging back, her face fell into her hands and she admitted defeat. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘Can’t do what?’ Elijah asked. ‘You’re acting very strange. I know that things have been difficult for you recently. But this isn’t you…’
Her tears were in free-fall now and she curled as low as she could. By refusing this instruction, she may have just signed Ryder’s death warrant and all because she couldn’t bring herself to be intimate with the man who was so gracious in his kindness toward her.
The front door opened, but Lacie didn’t care about who was coming in or what else was going on around her. Elijah rubbed her back as she cried, but he didn’t question her. Then she heard Sorcha’s voice.
‘What’s going on?’ Sorcha asked. ‘What did you do to her?’
‘Nothing,’ Elijah protested. ‘She asked to sit down and then… I don’t know. She’s acting very strange.’
‘Lacie?’ Sorcha soft voice descended on her and when Lacie let her hands part from her face, she saw her friend crouching in front of her. In the background, Lacie heard Lulu fussing, but the stroller wasn’t in her eye line. ‘Honey, what’s wrong? Did you get news?’
Lacie stared into Sorcha’s face and the numbness grew until she glanced at another person behind Sorcha. Lifting her attention, she noticed Shep standing a few feet away wearing an expression of concern and suddenly she understood.
Thrusting to her feet, she strode past Sorcha to Shep. ‘You,’ she whispered.
‘What about me, Little Lady?’ Shep asked.
‘You… I can trust you.’
‘Why would you—‘
‘He called last night and he gave me a message from Ryder. In that message Ryder called me Little Lady. Ryder never calls me Little Lady.’
‘Ryder?’ Shep asked at the same time Elijah did, giving her the effect in stereo.
In her distress, she had forgotten that Elijah was there. When she spun around, he was on his feet and coming toward her. ‘How could you receive a message from Ryder?’ Elijah asked.
Looking beyond him to Sorcha, Lacie hoped that her friend could offer some way to salvage thi
s situation, but Sorcha just shrugged. ‘Tell him.’
‘Are you in on it?’ Lacie asked, searching Elijah’s expression for proof that he knew or didn’t know about Ryder’s predicament.
‘In on what?’ Elijah asked, glancing to every face in the space. ‘What is going on?’
‘Your note in the hospital,’ Lacie asked. ‘What did that mean?’
‘I…’ His face brightened and he glanced at the others. ‘Your fear… that you would be hurt by another of Stone’s men. I knew you had to be afraid of that and I wanted to offer you protection from them.’
‘From them?’ Lacie exhaled. ‘So you’re not involved?’
Elijah’s patience vanished. ‘Would someone tell me what is going on?’
‘Lacie has been called by the kidnapper,’ Sorcha said to him.
‘What?’ Shep snapped. ‘When the hell did—‘
‘She told me yesterday,’ Sorcha said. ‘Maybe we should all sit down and talk about this.’
‘Sorcha, I…’ Lacie was still hesitant to reveal all when she’d been told so explicitly not to. But the genie was already out of the bottle. Ryder’s message told her that she could trust Shep. By breaking down in front of Elijah and failing to follow through on the order she’d been given, if Elijah was in on the scheme, she had already given him all he needed to blow apart the whole affair.
‘He was telling me to go home,’ Lacie said into the glass of wine that Sorcha had poured for her.
Seated in Elijah’s private dining room, she and Sorcha had relayed all of the facts to Shep and Elijah and were braced for their responses. Lulu was in her seat at the head of the table sleeping soundly and Lacie envied the baby her peace.
‘What, honey?’ Sorcha asked.
‘The second part of Ryder’s message was that all orders remain current. He once told me that I belonged at home, with him, and that was an order.’
‘Either that or he was saying you belong with him,’ Shep said from his place in front of the window. ‘Meaning you shouldn’t screw around on him with rich bastards like Graden here.’
‘Now see here,’ Graden said, leaving his position near the fireplace to point at Shep. ‘I knew nothing about this, nothing at all.’
‘So you say,’ Shep said. He didn’t shrink in light of Elijah’s anger. He put his own glass of liquor aside to march over and meet Elijah. The men were both mad and stood close enough to each other that she recognised men on the brink of getting physical.
‘Please don’t fight,’ Lacie said, rushing over to them. ‘Please. I know that… emotions are running high and…’
‘Shep!’ Sorcha declared. ‘Don’t you dare start a fight with Lulu in the room! What would she think if she saw you fighting?’
All of them glanced up at the baby who was still sleeping. Lacie didn’t think that Lulu would know any different if the men were fighting because she was still so young. But Sorcha’s warning got through to Shep who left Elijah and went up to tuck Lulu’s blanket around her.
‘I care more about this little girl than you do,’ Shep said, smoothing a hand over the blanket then standing in front of her as though to shield her from Sorcha. ‘You wanted to leave her with that lunatic Booth tonight.’
‘He is her father,’ Sorcha said, storming up the table. ‘We can’t stop him from having contact with her forever.’
‘Maybe not, but we should at least try until after the courts have decided what to do with him.’
‘How come you think you know so much?’ Sorcha argued, slamming her hands onto her hips. ‘You got yourself into a mood when I suggested a sitter too.’
Shep’s finger came up but his expression became more open. ‘A baby sitter is no substitute for a parent. Especially when she has one like your crazy ex.’ He turned to run a hand over Lulu’s blanket again.
‘Stop pawing at her. You’ll wake her up,’ Sorcha said, elbowing him aside to raise the hood over Lulu’s seat.
Watching them argue like a married couple was endearing. They had both fussed over Lulu last night at dinner as well. From what Lacie could tell Shep had moved into Sorcha’s place and was taking full-time responsibility for Lulu, sharing parenting with Sorcha. Maybe Lacie wouldn’t have pegged him as the parental type. But he would do anything to please Sorcha and maybe along the way of doing that he’d fallen in love with Lulu too.
‘Lacie,’ Elijah said, drawing her attention around. ‘I really wish you had told me about this.’
‘I was told not to tell anyone,’ Lacie said, accepting his hand stroking her arm. He was being supportive, but he had to be embarrassed or angry that what he’d thought was a relationship between them turned out to be a con.
‘The pressure of it is just too much,’ Sorcha said, grabbing Shep to drag him away from Lulu. ‘Lacie should never have had to deal with this alone. Whoever this man is, he’s a crazy person. We can’t argue about what’s happened already. We have to figure out a plan on how to deal with it now.’
‘While trying to get Ryder out,’ Shep said. ‘We can’t leave him there to rot.’
‘Agreed,’ Sorcha said.
This couple argued about everything every chance they got. To see them agreeing was a definite indication that their relationship had moved onto something deeper. Lacie wanted that depth to last and now that Lulu had brought them together, they had the best chance they’d ever had of making a relationship with each other work.
‘How do you want to deal with it?’ Elijah asked. ‘How should we proceed?’
‘You want to help?’ Lacie asked having half expected to be thrown out after he discovered the truth.
‘I am your friend,’ Elijah said, resting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I can’t deny that I’m disappointed in your choice of partner. But you’ve made it clear that Ryder is the man you want to be with. I’ll just have to find it in myself to accept that. I do hope that this situation will not affect our friendship.’
Lacie imagined that this situation would affect many aspects of her life and her friendships with everyone had been tested. But she didn’t have the time to deconstruct that now.
‘Of course not,’ she said and turned to bring Sorcha and Shep into their circle. ‘Now we have to decide what to do next?’
‘The first thing you have to do is make sure the kidnapper believes he’s still got the power,’ Shep said. ‘Much as I hate saying it… you two have to fake it if you find yourselves in public.’
Lacie glanced at Elijah because she wasn’t sure how he would react to such a thing. ‘Of course,’ Elijah said. ‘But we must bring this to a head as quickly as possible.’
‘I’m sure there’s no one who thinks that more than Lacie does,’ Shep said, seizing her shoulder to pull her over between him and Sorcha.
It was odd because Ryder and Shep had always butted heads, yet here Shep was being territorial of her too. Was it because he was trying to get into Sorcha’s good graces? Or was it that he felt obliged since Ryder had singled him out as trustworthy in his secret message to her.
‘What about Gabe?’ Sorcha asked. ‘Can we trust him and the guys?’
‘I would suppose that Lacie refrained from telling us about this until now because the person responsible has warned of repercussions for Ryder.’
‘That’s right,’ Lacie said. ‘He told me that I couldn’t trust anyone. He said he had ears everywhere.’
‘I would suggest that we use my team to investigate,’ Elijah said and held up his hands to silence Shep’s protests before he could make them. ‘I will not give them any specifics. I can simply ask them to dig up what they can given the emotional state of my new girlfriend.’ Raising his brows he looked at Lacie for agreement with his plan.
When she noticed this and glanced at the other two, she saw that they were all staring at her. ‘Ok,’ she said. The pressure was supposed to lessen now that she had allies, but she could see that they were all still expecting her to make the decisions. Lacie had missed Ryder since she left him to go to the hos
pital. But she hadn’t realised just how much she had grown to rely on him. If he was here, he would be the one taking over and making the decisions.
Lacie didn’t mind being decisive, what she fretted about was what would happen to Ryder if she made the wrong choice. He was relying on her now. She couldn’t screw this up because if she did, she would never have the chance to apologise for her mistakes.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ryder hadn’t seen his captor again since he’d left with the message Ryder gave him for Lacie. Thinking about his girl was what kept him trying to manipulate the chains on his wrists. He had to tell himself he was doing something, even if that something wasn’t showing any progress.
The clang of the lock was his first clue that anyone was coming back to him. The light came on just a split second before the door opened. As he was blinking into the brightness that made his eyes sting, his captor came over with a paper cup filled with water. He put it on the floor and backed away.
‘You’re going to meet her.’
‘Who?’ Ryder asked, crouching to pick up the water. He could spit it back in the guy’s face, but he needed to keep his wits about him and if he was dehydrated then his wits would be the first thing to go. His captor didn’t say anything, he just backed away to lean on the wall opposite Ryder’s. ‘What’s your name? I forget.’
Ryder actually remembered his name, but getting into this guy’s head and making him feel insignificant under his queen would expand that wedge Ryder wanted to pry between them.
‘Evan,’ he spat.
‘Evan, that’s right,’ Ryder said, finishing the water and balling up the cup. ‘How did you get involved with this?’ He didn’t respond, so Ryder began to speculate. ‘I’m going to bet it started with sex, right? That’s how most women get us to do stuff. Especially things we don’t want to do… Either she gave you sex and you thought there was more to it so you started thinking you owed her. Or she has promised you sex but hasn’t delivered yet.’ From the way Evan’s jaw worked, Ryder thought the second was on the money. ‘She probably never will. Trust me. If a woman doesn’t put out in the first few weeks of a deal, she has no intentions of ever doing it… doing you… But we talked about you having problems the last time you were here… Is that what happened?’
Sleight Mistake (Stone Investigations Book 2) Page 25
