by Paula Cox
While she’d spent a long time thinking about everything Nash had told her that night, they’d done remarkably little talking about it since. No one had come and kidnapped her father in the dead of night, but that hadn’t stopped her from worrying about him.
Nash looked away, his gaze roaming the open fields that rolled gently down to the front gates and walls, and Eliza noticed the way he clenched his jaw. Unable to stop herself, she murmured his name and placed a gentle hand on his arm, surprise gripping her when he pulled away.
“They know I suspect him,” he said tightly with a slight shake of his head, “but I’m holding them off… for now.”
She let loose a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“But I don’t know how much longer I can do it,” Nash admitted after a lengthy pause, and once more the cold hand of fear gripped her. Heart hammering in her chest, she looked to him, brow furrowed.
“Why?”
“Because…” Taking her hand, he tugged her away from the rest of the meandering students, pulling her out toward the open space. Their shoes clomped across the dry, hard grass, the campus greenery yearning for just a few more weeks of snowy moisture. Finally, when they were totally alone—as alone as one could be on such a huge, cluttered campus—Nash turned her to face him, his expression almost unreadable.
“What is it?” she asked in a very small voice, too small for the person she was growing into. Eliza squared her shoulders, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly before adding, “I can handle it. Whatever you have to say, just say it.”
“Three of our guys were found dead last night,” he told her, and she covered her mouth with her hand to hide the gasp. “They were making a scheduled drug run to an old client, one we’ve trusted and worked with for years, and they were ambushed. Executed with a bullet to the head.”
“Oh my god.” Her stomach rolled at the mental image he painted, and she looked away, eyes suddenly teary. “Oh my god.”
“So you can understand why I’m struggling not to just go where the evidence has been pointing me,” Nash continued, gripping both of her arms tightly and forcing her to look back at him. “Eliza… All roads lead to your dad—”
“No—”
“And I want to protect you from him.”
She licked her lips, unable to believe him. In that moment, she just couldn’t. She knew her father. Nash had to trust her—the evidence was leading him in the wrong direction. Right then and there, she didn’t care about drug deals and bikers and whatever other sordid details Nash’s life might entail. All that mattered was that he was pushing a wedge between her and her father, the man who’d raised her without a mother since she was a child, and Eliza couldn’t stand for it.
She owed her father, no matter how much of a hard ass he was with her, more than that.
“You don’t need to protect me from him,” Eliza insisted, words coming out in a shaky but confident tone, “because he wouldn’t do this.”
Nash exhaled deeply, reaching out for her again, but she pulled away and he murmured her name imploringly.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head, slowly backing away. “No. This isn’t him, and I’ll find a way to prove it to you.”
She turned and fled before she could lose her nerve, feet pounding across the familiar lawns of Blackwoods University. Behind her, Nash called out to her, but she refused to look. She couldn’t go back—not until she had something concrete to give him.
Something to prove her father wasn’t the man Nash thought he was.
Something to prove to herself that the two most important men in her life were worth all the trouble.
Chapter 29
When she was little, Eliza used to play all kinds of games in her father’s office at home. House. Dolls. Puzzles. Crosswords. All manner of distraction was brought in there. When she was young and dolls and pretty princess were the name of the game, she’d sprawl out on the floor and dominate more than half of her father’s workspace, and he would let her, of course, because she didn’t understand personal space or the need for quiet to get any serious work done.
As she got older, Eliza migrated to the couch. She did her crosswords and worked on school assignments, sometimes with headphones plugged into a Walkman or laptop in the later years. She and her father worked in harmony at home, and the only time he locked his office door there was when he had a conference call and absolutely needed to privacy. Otherwise, the door was always open. Now that she was an adult, Eliza realized he probably welcomed her in there because it was a good way to keep an eye on her. For a man who watched her like a hawk, why would he banish her from the room he spent almost all his time at home in? Eliza was always welcome there, and often encouraged to do her studying there.
His office at the college was another story entirely. From a very young age, Eliza knew her father’s work office was off limits. If she was there, on very rare occasions, do not touch anything had been ingrained in her brain. Don’t touch anything. Don’t move anything. Don’t visit. Her father was strict at home, but he was stricter at work. It took her a long time to understand he had a reputation to uphold. To be seen as the guy who lets his daughter play with dolls on the hard, all but untouched, leather couches was a man who was soft—feminine. He’d always tried to be hard as soon as he stepped within campus limits, and while Eliza didn’t approve, she had enough respect for him not to say anything.
Today, after almost two decades of following his rules to a T, Eliza was about break one of the most important ones—if only to save her father’s life.
She’d never been a rule breaker, but over the course of a single weekend, somehow Eliza had managed to break them all. Lying. Stealing. Apparently Nash was starting to rub off on her, even if it was only his supposed reputation that she knew of.
On Friday, she’d contacted her father about having dinner together Saturday night. He had a work event, but he had agreed to do a glass of wine with her in his study after. Using that as an excuse to come home without raising suspicion, Eliza had gone over and stolen his office key off his ring, then made a copy of it Sunday. By Sunday evening, she had it back where it belonged, citing that she’d left her phone at his place the night before as the reason for her repeat visit. After all, she’d been living in the same dorm for years, and while weekly dinners were still a thing, Saturday night was a social night—for her father, anyway. He’d been surprised that she wanted to spend time together, particularly after the drunk bar night incident a few weeks back.
Guilt formed a tight knot in her stomach at the idea of deceiving him like that, but it was a necessary evil, unfortunately.
So, there she was, Monday night and standing in the hall outside of the dean’s office. Well, outside of the reception area of the dean’s office. Her father usually worked late, but Monday nights he had a standing racquetball game with one of the psychology tenured professors that he never missed. Eliza knew his receptionist, after years of casual observation, usually popped down the hall to watch TV with the other admin workers at seven o’clock Monday nights and would return by eight to finish up for the night.
It was the only time Eliza had to get in and get out unseen. The cameras in the corners of the both office areas were just for show. Swiping her tongue over her bottom lip, Eliza gripped the replicated key hard before pressing forward. It would be odd to outsiders if they saw her just standing there. She lingered by the doorway to the reception area first, then peeked around the doorframe. True to form, the reception desk was empty. The main lights were off, the room illuminated by the soft lighting of two lamps at the main desk and one on a small table next to the waiting area.
Her feet pressed into plush mauve carpet, a recent addition to the office. The old carpet was beige and notoriously difficult to keep clean, but Eliza wasn’t a fan of the smell of the newer carpet. Like New Car Smell, it gave her a bit of a headache.
She could practically feel her heart hammering in her throat as she approached her fathe
r’s office door. With no light on beneath it, she drew in a shaky breath and pressed her ear to the wood, listening to any signs of movement inside. Nothing. Silence. Aside from the hum of the reception computer, it was all silence.
That and her pounding heart, which could probably be heard outside.
Clearing her throat, she shoved the key into the doorknob lock and turned, a strange thrill coursing through her at the sound of the lock mechanism sliding open. Seconds later she was inside, gently closing the door behind her and using the light on her phone to guide her over to her father’s desk. Once she was seated in his high-backed chair, she did a quick scan of the dark room—his most private sanctuary. With a trembling hand she reached for the lamp on his desk and tugged at the hanging chain, her whole body going stiff when the light clicked on. For a long moment, Eliza waited, half-expecting campus security to bust down the door, stun guns and Tasers at the ready.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Instead, she was faced with long shadows scattered around her father’s meticulously organized office—that and twenty-five short minutes to find what she needed to convince Nash of her father’s innocence. Setting her phone aside, Eliza pushed through her nerves and turned on the computer, then went for the stack of journals in the corner of the desk. One for daily issues. One for weekly appointments. One for each month in summary. If she was going to prove that her father wasn’t responsible for all those awful deaths in the Steel Phoenix Motorcycle Club, his journals were the first place to look.
After a quick glance to the clock, Eliza dove into the first book, adrenaline pumping and feet tapping with jittery, nervous energy.
It all went away in a second, however, at the sound of voices. Multiple voices. Women, in fact, entering the reception area. Eliza’s anxious energy quickly morphed into fear, and she hastily went for the lamp on the desk, then shuffled off the high-backed chair and scooted under the desk. It wasn’t until she was completely under, all her limbs tucked to her body, that she realized she had left her father’s computer on and his desk a mess. He would never leave it like that.
Exhaling a shaky breath, Eliza tried to inch out and tidy what she could, but seconds later the door was being unlocked and the voices grew much louder.
“It’ll just be a second,” Jackie, her father’s secretary, announced. Even though Eliza knew she was standing in the doorway, it felt as though the woman was standing directly on top of the desk. Every part of her stood at attention, her mouth too dry to swallow, her breath wanting to rush out in panicked gasps. Sure, Eliza was the dean’s daughter. Technically, she should have a reasonable excuse as to why she was in his office so late at night, but Jackie knew better. The woman had been her father’s receptionist for years. She knew Eliza wasn’t allowed to loiter at her father’s workplace, no matter how urgent the reason. She’d go straight to Eliza’s father with the news—because he was where her loyalty was—and Eliza would be forced to explain everything.
She had never quite perfected the art of lying to her father. Not yet, anyway. He even seemed suspicious of her coming over on Saturday night for drinks, but must have decided to just let it go.
“Oh, Jackie, isn’t this it?” Heeled footfalls stopped moments later, and Eliza pressed a hand over her mouth. The lights were still off, so hopefully the mess was missed. But the computer screen was on. Its reflective image pinged off the window behind her father’s desk.
“Yes, there it is! Your offices are so cold down there. I couldn’t sit still for the next hour without my sweater,” Jackie said with what sounded like a relieved sigh. Speedy footsteps hurried away, and just before the door shut, Eliza heard the woman add, “I hate going into his office when he isn’t here. Feels like such an invasion of privacy…”
Eyes closed, Eliza counted down the seconds until the door shut and locked again. Even then she didn’t resurface until the voices faded away. Once the silence became too much to stand, Eliza was up again and in her father’s chair, lamp on, journals open, more determined than ever to get in and get out with whatever pertinent info she could find to prove once and for all that her father wasn’t the terrible man Nash made him out to be.
Chapter 30
“Nash?” Eliza pounded her fists against his apartment door, ears tuned for any sounds inside. It probably would have been smarter if she’d called first to see if she was home, but she’d been so pleased with all her findings that she’d rushed right over. After a quick glance in either direction down the hall, Eliza knocked again, this time a little more frantically, and called out to him.
Moments later the door was wrenched open, and there stood Nash in sweatpants and not much else, his chest glistening with perspiration. Her mouth practically watered at the sight, and for a moment, she was at a total loss for words. Nash too seemed to struggle to find something to say. He gawked at her, his dark brow furrowing.
“Eliza? What are you…? Did you walk here?”
She couldn’t blame him for looking so stunned. After all, she probably looked like a total mess, her mascara running down her cheeks and hair stuck to her head. The dry February was gone, but the warm temperatures hadn’t gone with it. All day it had been pouring, the heavens drenching Blackwoods in a downpour so strong that some of the classrooms on campus had flooded.
“Combination of the bus and walking,” she admitted with a half-hearted shrug. Her father always insisted she call his driver if she needed to get somewhere in a hurry, but that was out of the question for today. Clearing her throat, she nodded toward the inside of his apartment, which was lit with a soft yellow glow of a lamp, and then said, “So can I come in, or…?”
“Yeah, shit, sorry,” he muttered, quickly stepping aside and beckoning her in. “Why would you go outside in this? You’re probably freezing.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” Eliza remarked. Once in, she set her bag aside, a bag containing very precious information, then peeled off her soaked jacket and hung it on a hook on the back of the front door.
“Let me get you something dry to wear,” Nash said, and before she could insist that it wasn’t necessary, he was gone, hurrying into the bowels of his apartment and emerging moments later with a huge sweater. It didn’t exactly look like classic Nash attire—he was more a tight t-shirt and leather jacket kind of man, which Eliza greatly appreciated—but it was warm and dry, and a comforting coziness engulfed her as soon as she pulled off her equally drenched shirt and replaced it with his sweater.
“D’you want a tea or something—?”
“I broke into my father’s study last night,” she announced, too giddy with excitement to contain herself. Nash’s eyes widened, stunned, and she nodded vigorously, all but bouncing on the tips of her toes with the nervous and excited energy that had carried over from her break-in the night before.
“You did what?”
“Broke into his study,” she repeated, grabbing her bag and heading for his living room. In it she found a mat and some obscenely large hand weights scattered around, pump-up rock music humming out of the speakers on the TV. Nash hastily turned the sound off, then rounded on the spot to face her, his eyes narrowed.
“You—”
“I had to,” she said, almost wishing he was more proud of her than annoyed. “You were going to crucify him—”
“I hadn’t decided yet—”
“So I needed to find evidence of his innocence,” Eliza continued forcefully, then held up her bag. “And I did.”
Like any good law student, Eliza knew she’d need more than circumstantial hearsay to prove that her father was a good person. Sure, she could scream it from the rooftops all she wanted—yell that he would never do what Nash had accused him of, but what proof would she have? What sort of evidence did she really have to show that her father was innocent of what he’d been accused of doing? Before she broke into his office, she had nothing but her ability to vouch for his character. That was it. And she knew by now that that would never hold up in a real court, much less the info
rmal one that ran underground in the motorcycle club circles.
She needed hard proof, and finally she had it. It had taken all day to gather everything and organize it—as if she was giving a presentation for a class—but Eliza didn’t care. This could save her father’s life, but only if Nash hadn’t already damned him.
“Eliza…” Nash let out a long sigh and grabbed a small towel off the armrest of his couch, rubbing it over his neck before letting it hang over one shoulder. Her gaze flitted down to his toned abdomen again. It had been way too long since they were falling into bed together. He cleared his throat, which snapped her attention back to his face. “I really don’t want you doing this kind of shit. It isn’t you.”
“What kind of shit?” she fired back, arms crossed. “Looking for evidence to exonerate my father? I’m a law student, Nash. Finding and presenting evidence is what I’ve been trained to do.”
It had taken her a while, but the last few days finally made her think that her classes were actually paying off in the real world. Nash, however, didn’t seem to see it that way.
