by Lexi Blake
Riley shook his head and put a hand on Bran’s shoulder. “He would never do that and you know it.”
Because he felt guilty. They all did. Bran had gotten the short end of a shitty stick, and his siblings all felt bad about it. It was why they put up with him. He wasn’t close to being the smartest or the smoothest. He didn’t have Mia’s never-ending light. He was the one who could take the most punches.
Maybe he had made a mistake today. Why should someone like Carly listen to a man like him? Maybe he’d played her the wrong way. Drew would have walked in and dominated the conversation. He would have proven how smart he was. Riley would have smoothed everything over, but he still would have been in control. By the end of the evening, Carly would have been eating out of the palm of his hand and there would have been no need to sit around and pray she called. Riley would have closed that particular deal. Hell, either one of his brothers would have gone home and gone to bed with her.
He hadn’t wanted to sleep with her like that. Not under false pretenses. When he got in bed with her, he wanted to know it was because she wanted him, the real Bran.
He should have known that was a stupid idea.
What the hell had he been thinking?
Riley sighed and sat back. “It’s not going to be so bad. We’ll come up with another way.”
Hatch frowned. “We have to scrap all our plans because there’s no way of knowing what the girl told Pat. I know I haven’t talked to that bitch in the last twenty years, but trust me. She hasn’t changed. A woman like that never changes. She’s just as hateful now as she was back then, and she rules her employees with an iron fist. Your girl probably called her boss the minute you walked away and they’re sitting together right now making plans.”
He didn’t want to believe that. He wanted to believe Carly was exactly what she looked like. “I don’t know. I think she would have told me.”
“This is why you’re in the marketing department and your brothers do the nasty jobs,” Hatch pointed out.
Riley held up a hand Hatch’s way. “Don’t make this worse. And I happen to know she hasn’t called Patricia. We’re monitoring her phone lines, even the private one.”
“Why does she need a private line?” a new voice asked. A feminine voice.
“I think she talks to her sister on that line. Her business line has to be kept open at all times for the grand dame to call.” Bran looked up and his sister-in-law was behind him. Ellie was a lovely woman in her late twenties who looked utterly out of place in the dingy confines of the strip club. She was dressed for business even at this time of night, and in a city where her personal business had no offices. Which begged the question. “What are you doing here?”
She shrugged and sank down beside her husband, who immediately had an arm around her. “This is the only place you hang out, so we’re all here. Well, everyone who’s down here. Drew and I were working on the reports for the StratCast meeting next week. He was going to join me here but something apparently pinged. He seemed very worried about something pinging and so he dropped me off and he’s sending a car out to get us later. Wow, this is a whole lotta naked people.”
Women. There were no naked guys, and that was exactly how Bran liked it. He wouldn’t even need the car tonight. He could safely drive the Jeep he’d picked up a few days before as Drew’s “cover” car. Now it was Bran’s, and since he wouldn’t get trashed in front of his sister-in-law, he could drive it home. “What would have pinged?”
Riley frowned. “There’s only one thing that would have him dropping off Ellie instead of seeing her inside. Someone pinged our personal data.”
Hatch’s finger immediately pointed Bran’s way. “I told you so.”
Shit. He’d fucked up.
“Hey, let’s all chill. We have no idea who pinged what,” Riley argued.
“If Carly looked up our personal data, it’s only because I told her to. She should know what she’s getting into.” Bran felt his shoulders starting to tense, the rolling in his gut getting worse. He’d done it again. He’d screwed up something by thinking he was smarter than everyone else when he knew damn well he wasn’t.
“Sure. Why don’t you invite her back to our place? Let her look through our files. Just give her a damn key already.” Hatch stood up. “I’m getting another drink.”
Riley was hard on his heels. “I’ll talk to him. Don’t worry about it, Bran. It’s going to be okay.”
No, it wasn’t. Eventually everyone would get sick of putting up with his shit and he would be on his own again. His hands fisted at his sides and all he could think about was finding some asshole and picking a fight. It usually wasn’t hard. He could look out over a bar and select the man most likely to have a tiny penis and an overinflated ego. It was a dangerous combination but one he counted on to get his personal needs met.
Ellie leaned forward. They’d left him with Ellie. He couldn’t lose his shit in front of his sister-in-law. “Hey, are you all right?”
When the waitress came back with the water, he’d order something strong. Tequila. A whole bottle. It didn’t matter. Someone would give him a ride home. Sometimes he thought Drew and Riley lived for those moments when they could rescue their baby brother. “I’m fine.”
Ellie’s big brown eyes were steady on him. “No, you’re not. Hatch is being too hard on you. And something crawled up Drew’s backside and died. He was in a terrible mood. Was it all about the fact that you took charge?”
Took charge? He was fairly certain no one would use those words to describe what he’d done. “I screwed everything up.”
Ellie leaned forward, her hand reaching across the table to cover his. “You did the one thing no one else could.”
He laughed, though there was no humor in it. “What’s that? Fucked it all up before the mission could even get off the ground? Managed to get everything exposed faster than the speed of light?”
“No, you did the right thing,” she said. “You didn’t use her. You didn’t treat her like she meant nothing. You treated that woman like she had value and she had meaning beyond your own needs. You were a real man today and I’m proud of you.”
He had to take a deep breath to ensure he didn’t do anything foolish like cry in front of his sister-in-law and every stripper in St. Augustine. “I don’t think my brothers agree.”
“They have a different version of right than you do. Theirs is more selfish. Don’t get me wrong. I love them all, but you’re special. You didn’t have to go through nearly losing someone you loved to make the right decision.”
Oh, but he had. So long ago. “Riley thought he was doing the right thing.”
Riley had gone undercover, much the way Drew had been planning to do with Carly. He’d taken a job at StratCast and begun romancing the boss. He’d fallen in love with Ellie, and his deception had nearly cost him in the end.
“It wasn’t the choice you would have made. Tell me something. What did you think of the plan to get Castalano?”
He hated to disillusion her, but he wasn’t about to throw his brothers under the bus to gain points with Ellie. “I thought it would hurt you. I also thought it was necessary. Don’t make me out to be something I’m not. I was on board. It was watching you get hurt that made me do what I did today. I didn’t want another woman to go through what you did. Now you tell me something. If I’d walked in and laid out my case, what would you have done?”
Her brow creased as she thought about it. “I don’t know. I hope I would have looked into it and realized what was right, but I can’t say. Would I have believed my father was capable of doing what he was accused of? Yes. There’s no question in my mind I would have believed that, but would I have put myself and my company at risk for a family I just met? No idea. I only know that things will work out for the best. I believe it deep down, Bran. You were meant to stop Drew today. You were meant to help that woman
out. One way or another it will all end up okay.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because no matter what happens, we’re a family and as long as we’re all okay, everything is right with the world. We can get through anything together. That’s what real families do, and trust me, I’ve had the wrong kind in my life. Until I met you and your brothers I didn’t truly understand what family meant.”
Family. It was a confusing word in his head. He’d been a “part” of so many families. Family for Bran meant an ever-changing sea he couldn’t quite learn to swim in. Years later and he was still expecting someone to show up and tell him it was time to shove all his shit in a trash bag and move on to the next place. “I think they’re getting tired of dealing with my issues.”
“No,” Ellie said, her eyes soft. “They’ll never get tired of you. They only want to see you happy. That’s all. And Drew will get over this. You’ll see.” She patted his hand once more and then an unholy grin lit her face. “Now tell me where I’m supposed to shove the cash in. I’ve never been to a strip club before. Why do they call it stripping if they walk out and they’re already naked? Come on. A girl needs a little time to get warmed up.”
He couldn’t help but grin because his sister-in-law was the sweetest shade of pink. A bleach-blonde with surgically enhanced breasts was currently making love to a pole in front of them. “She’s got pasties on.”
“Do I shove the five in her butt crack? That seems very personal to me.”
“I think you can leave it on the stage. That’s probably as close as you should get.” It was odd but having his sister-in-law here made him really look around at how skeevy things were. He wasn’t about to let her get too close to that stage where a bunch of drunken assholes were watching naked women. He wanted a fight, but he didn’t want one that badly. “Actually, you don’t go anywhere at all.”
She frowned. “But I’ve never been in a strip club before. I’m embracing your world.”
Yeah, his world seemed pretty damn nasty now that Ellie was here. “Maybe we should head home and see if the pinging stopped. I’m sure it was Carly. I’ll explain that I told her to get out there and look. I didn’t think she would actually get in that deep. Drew’s only got alerts on certain things like someone trying to connect our legal last names with our birth names and some stuff that goes back to Dad. I expected her to look at the articles on the Internet. Anyone can find those.”
Drew was going to have his ass. Carly had turned out to be pretty computer savvy if she set off Drew’s alarms.
Riley and Hatch walked back up. Riley handed his wife a glass of wine.
Ellie smiled as she took it. “Pinot grigio?”
Riley grimaced. “Uh, they had white, red, or pink.”
“Wine is not big with strip club crowds.” Bran looked up and the waitress was making her way back with his water. She fought her way through the men who seemed to think it was their right to squeeze her ass as she walked by. She grimaced but kept walking, her shoulders back and head held high.
Yeah, the night might go his way. He might get to beat the holy shit out of some bastards.
“I think they’re missing a valuable crowd,” Ellie said. “Women are getting more and more adventurous these days. I think if they had a good wine selection, some artisanal cheeses, maybe they could bring in women with more exotic tastes.”
“Dear God, don’t let her start an upscale strip club,” Hatch said with a frown. “Skanky is the only way to go in these places. It’s an undeniable right of every strip club to look like the ass end of a junkyard.”
Bran felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and sighed. Who could be calling him at this hour? It was almost certainly his brother, calling to let him know how Carly had wormed her way into data he didn’t want her to see, and wasn’t Bran happy he’d shown her the door and practically given her a key? He thought about not answering, but it was better to get it out of the way now.
Maybe he wouldn’t need that water. The waitress handed it to him as he pulled his phone out.
“Thank you,” he said.
She smiled and asked the table if there was anything else she could get them.
Bran didn’t hear the answer because he got a glimpse of his phone and suddenly was scrambling to make sure he didn’t miss the call. He swiped his finger across the screen. “Carly?”
“Hello? Is this Brandon?”
Damn. The music was so loud. He stood and started for the door. “This is Bran. Carly, are you all right? It’s late. I didn’t expect you to call.”
He heard the distinct sound of sniffling as he made it out to the parking lot. It was quieter now, the sound of old hair metal mostly contained in the prefab walls. The gravel of the lot crunched under his feet.
“I had to call,” Carly explained. “I made up my mind. I’m in. I’ll help you with anything you need to bring her down, but I’m going to need something from you.”
“What’s that?”
Her voice was shaky as she replied, “A million dollars.”
“I’ll be at your place in five minutes.” He disconnected the call and took a deep breath.
Either Carly wasn’t the woman he’d thought she was or she’d managed to get into deep trouble at some point in time this evening.
Either way, he would figure out how to make it work for him.
Chapter Four
Carly jumped when she heard the knock on her door. Her hands were still shaking an hour later. She had to wonder if she would ever feel safe in her townhouse again.
And what happens when Roger gets out of jail in a few years? With prison overcrowding in California, it was entirely possible his ten to fifteen years could turn into five to seven with good behavior. He would be out and gambling his life away, and when he couldn’t pay, would there be more of these people on her doorstep?
“Carly? It’s me,” a deep voice said. “Could you please let me in? I look pretty suspicious standing out here.”
She forced herself to move across the living room. Why had he come here tonight? It was so late and the last thing she needed was to deal with another man. Still, he was the man who might be able to write a check and get her out of trouble, so he held all the cards at this stage.
God, she was so sick of this feeling, so sick of being helpless. She opened the door and stared at him for a second. Her memory didn’t do him justice. Dark hair curled over the tops of his ears and tumbled down his forehead. His eyes were emerald green and he had the square jaw of an action hero. He filled up her doorway with his big, muscular body, but somehow he exuded security and safety. It took everything she had not to walk right into his arms and tell him everything and hand over all her problems to him.
He’d said he would take care of them for her. It was the exchange between them. He would take care of her problems and she would help him take down the worst human being she’d ever met.
And considering she’d dealt with the mob earlier in the evening and still thought Patricia was the worst, that was saying something.
Instead of hugging him, she stepped back and allowed him inside. “You didn’t have to come over tonight.”
He strode in, filling her frilly apartment with his uniquely masculine energy. “I think I did. While I was on my way over I was simply curious. Now I’m a little worried. Who broke in here tonight?”
“How did you know that?”
“There were distinct scratches on the lock of your door. Someone used a lock pick to try to get in here. They looked pretty fresh and there were the faintest scrapings of metal on the ground beneath. They were rough with it. Not a pro.”
He was completely wrong about that. She could still see that man sitting at her table, a gun trained on her as she walked into her kitchen. “Oh, they were pros. Maybe not at picking locks, but they were definitely professionals.”
“Tell
me everything.” His tone had gone deep, his eyes looking around her place as though assessing everywhere an attacker could hide. “Did they hurt you?”
For the first time since it had happened, she could take a deep breath. She wasn’t alone. She got the feeling if they came back, they would have to go through Bran to get to her. Why? She had no idea, but there was something about the man that made her want to trust him.
“I’m fine. It was all threats for tonight.”
“How did it start?”
“I’d been doing what you asked. I’d been doing some research into what happened with your dad.”
His lips quirked up slightly. “Yes, you’re more thorough than I thought you would be.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by that. He started to move into the kitchen. “I’m very thorough. I’m quite competent. Anyway, I decided to call you in the morning. I came down to make some tea and when I got downstairs, there was a man at my kitchen table.”
Bran kept moving. He glanced around the kitchen and then went straight for the back door. It led to the tiny yard where she kept her rosebushes and a bistro set. She barely got to use it, but some mornings she would sit outside and have her coffee before she went to work. Too often she was out of the place before dawn, but there were rare mornings when she got a little time.
“Why don’t you have a dead bolt on the front door?”
She winced. “I haven’t changed anything security-wise since I moved in here. My husband used to do all the home repair stuff. Not that he did much of it.”
She’d married him so young. She’d learned how to cook and do some sewing and how to grow plants from the women in her trailer park, but she knew next to nothing about home repair. Their trailer had always been falling down around them.
