Whisper could tell he was angry. His tension had been apparent from the second he’d grabbed her hand and dragged her away from the kitchen stool. As far as she knew, he hadn’t been in Bosco’s bedroom, yet he found it without wavering and marched on inside.
He’d tossed her onto the bed and gone back to slam the door. Unfortunately, he didn’t join her and went to pace in front of the terrace access instead. Whisper sat up and pushed herself to the middle of the bed to lean back against the headboard. Discovering Score’s purpose would hit Zay harder than it had her, so she waited for him to pace it out and process. Whatever he needed, she’d do her best to provide.
“I don’t even know what to say,” he said, though Whisper wasn’t sure he was actually talking to her. “Where the fuck did he get this idea? What the hell would make him…” He exhaled. “This is fucking Parker. The fucking asshole set himself up. What the fuck was he thinking taking Score on?”
That was going back to a time long before her. Funny how far the ripples of one decision could reach and how long they could keep on going.
“Did you talk to them? Before you got here? Parker and your father?”
He shook his head, but kept on pacing. “Doran and me planned to go to them. We were gonna leave today, then Score called…” Zay stopped pacing to set his sight on her. “You figured this out at the club.” She nodded once. He ran a heavy hand through his hair. “Geez, baby, you’re like a magnet for McDade secrets.”
Which could be a positive or negative.
Draping her arms wide on the pillows, Whisper arched her back in a pose that matched her sultry eyes. “A McDade magnet… I think I might like that.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I wanted to,” she said. “I didn’t take my phone to the club, for obvious reasons.” She didn’t want to be tracked. “When I tried to walk out, Score got in my way.” His wandering attention snapped back to her. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“You stayed,” he said. “You listened to him.”
She shrugged. “Had nothing better to do.” Her smile widened again. “Your cock wasn’t waiting for me at home.”
Zay tilted his head, taking her flirting in his stride. “What did you think? When he told you.”
Losing her playfulness, Whisper waited a second before sitting up straight and crossing her legs. “This is about you. About what you feel and what you want. They are your family.”
“I know you, Whis,” he said, approaching the end of the bed. “You have an opinion.”
Downplaying the situation wouldn’t be genuine. “Course I do.”
“And…”
She shook her head. “You heard Shyla. I don’t want to be responsible for this.”
“Why not?” he asked, sitting on the end of the bed, twisted around to look at her. “This has to be a decision we make together.”
He wasn’t wound as tight as he had been. Being with him calmed her too. Still, that didn’t mean she could drop her guard.
“No,” she said. “If I have any input on this, you can use it against me later. There’s no way I want that to happen.”
“You ever think the opposite could be true too? Whichever way this goes, I need you with me. Whatever it takes, I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you.”
Score’s play would lead to Zay losing someone. Either his father and Parker or Score and possibly Doran. Whisper hadn’t considered the opposite, but he was right. If she stayed silent and didn’t offer support to hash out his decision, he could come to regret his choice and decide to put the blame onto her.
Taking a deep breath, she crawled down the bed and hooked her linked fingers over his shoulder. “I can’t tell you what to do because I don’t know how it will turn out either way. If you go against your father and Parker, they could incriminate you. They could put a hit out and cause all kinds of trouble.”
“But?”
“Not supporting Score could lead to you being drawn into the web with your father. Even if you aren’t or if your father isn’t put in prison, he’s never going to let you choose me. We’ll be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives… Score has connections, he’s already in contact with the feds. You know they’re going to descend on your father eventually. So…” Sitting straighter, she took his hand from the bed to clasp it in both of hers. “We have to pick a side. We have to. We can’t know and not warn your father if you choose his side. We could try to stay quiet, but it would be too easy for Score or the feds or whoever to turn them against us just by telling them we knew and did nothing. Then we’d have both sides against us.”
“Standing with Score means talking to feds. It means everyone loyal to the McDades turning against us.”
She smiled and cast her attention down to their linked hands as she ran her fingers through his. “The people you cut loose, they won’t turn against you.”
“Bosco told you?”
Whisper met his eye. “Baby, you’ve wanted an out for a long time. You told me that yourself. You freed those people because you could, because you couldn’t free yourself. You did for them what you couldn’t do for yourself.”
Zay brought a knee onto the bed to twist further toward her. “You’ve thought a lot about this,” he said, combing his fingers through her hair.
“Not really. Score’s scheme didn’t make sense to me at first either. I was mad. I yelled. I told him he could talk all he liked, he’d never change my mind.”
“But he did.”
“He called me on my anger, made me see that my initial response was habit. Cyrus might be a long way away, but he’s still in my head.”
Zay bowed forward to kiss her hairline. “We’ve gotta work on that.”
“We’ll get there.”
“You know,” he said, leaning back to find her gaze. “You talk about us now. You talk in terms of we.”
“Thought that was what you wanted.”
Tipping up her chin, he touched his lips to hers. “You’re what I want, Peanut.”
As though asking him to prove that, she gathered up her skirt to pull her dress up over her head. Once she’d tossed it aside, Whisper slid back on the bed to lie down, presenting herself to him. Her husband didn’t need her to say a word. He stood up to pull off his tee-shirt and shirk his jeans. More naked than she was, Zay came down on the bed above her as she wriggled out of her panties.
“We’ll need to meet with Score’s contact,” he said, his mouth hovering above hers.
“Mm hmm,” she said, skimming her fingertips up his arms and down his torso. “I don’t want you to open your mouth until you have immunity… or at least a deal that won’t take you from me.”
“Doran too.”
Raising her hips to push against his, Whisper writhed. “We have Nicole, what will we do with her?”
“We’ll tell Burl we all took a vacation… our honeymoon. He doesn’t have to know it’s at Score’s.” His voice was just a deep hum of desire. Kissing her one way and then the other, he pushed his pelvis down to lock hers in place. “Might only buy us a couple of days, a week at most…”
“Burl will blame me anyway,” Whisper said, draping her arms around his neck. “I’m okay with that.”
Misdirection could be their best friend. While Burl was busy cursing her for delaying his plans to hook up Madison and Doran, he wouldn’t notice the greater scheme at work.
“Means hanging around here a while.”
In the glorious sunshine just a stone’s throw from the beach in a city with some of the best nightlife in the country, in the world?
Whisper struggled to contain an excited laugh. “There’s a three bed place for sale the floor below this one… A four bed place on the floor above.”
Something close to a smile moved his lips, which were still sampling hers. “Not that you’ve looked.”
“It was reconnaissance.”
That wasn’t a lie, she’d looked up the listings the day they got there to figure out the best
way in. Just so happened that she remembered the gorgeous apartments that were vacant.
“Not sure I’ll have the kinda money to make that dream come true for you, Peanut.”
“Score might. Let’s face it, he’s going to owe you one.”
“We’d be his tenants, maybe he wouldn’t want us up close.”
“We give him the choice,” she said, linking her fingers together around his neck. “We can live downstairs as tenants or upstairs as roommates.”
Squeezing his hands between her and the bed, he rocked her body against his. “You know how to get what you want, baby.”
“I’m trying,” she said, taking a shot at reaching for his dick, but their bodies were too close. “Think you want to make me beg.”
“That’ll come later.”
Sliding down her body, Zay got to the point fast. Tasting her, arousing her, he did what any good spouse should, prioritized her over himself. Whisper was learning to put him first too. Having someone to rely on felt nice, still not totally familiar, but she’d get there.
What would come next was a rollercoaster none of them had ridden before. The McDades could rely on each other, the ones present in the condo anyway. Whether all of them would accept her would be another matter.
They got ten days of leeway. It helped that Burl and Parker went off to do some other thing before returning to the city, so they didn’t realize no one was home.
Whisper got a better understanding of the loneliness of Nicole’s life too. Mrs. Parker McDade knew something was going on, she had to. Still, they couldn’t take the risk of cluing her in. Score took Zay and Doran out every day. In front of Nicole, they said it was club business. Whisper and Shyla knew better.
Bosco split his time, probably at Zay’s request. He spent a lot of time with the trio of McDade brothers. Whisper liked seeing them together. None of them were exactly warm and fuzzy, and she wasn’t sure Score was a fan of hers yet, but there was an enviable ease between them. Despite the fact that Score hadn’t been part of the fraternal circle in such a direct way for years, they slid back in to sync with each other without missing a beat.
The responsibility of monitoring Nicole fell on her shoulders. Most of the time that was easy. She’d just lock Nicole out on the terrace with a bottle of sunscreen and a pitcher of sangria. The woman complained the first few times, but quickly figured out that her objections were pointless.
Fish and Beeks lived elsewhere. Whisper wasn’t sure where. They always arrived for breakfast, which happened at like two in the afternoon, and were dedicated to Score and Shyla. Both proved useful in their own ways. Fish was young and gullible; she liked that about him. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad to have a naïve perspective in the conversation.
On arrival, Whisper would’ve given that crown to Shyla. But she’d have been wrong. The brunette beauty didn’t have Whisper’s confidence or her stylish attitude. Her life was dedicated to doing chores and accepting Score’s cock any time he wanted to use it. As Whisper was getting in the latter habit with her own McDade, the two women had found common ground.
“It wouldn’t be so bad for all of us to live together,” Shyla said.
The decision about which condo Score would buy was still up in the air. Whisper wouldn’t mind her and Zay finding their own place. Wherever they settled, Bosco would come with them, which was fine too. But even she missed the buzz and activity of the Doherty house. The McDade men would no doubt be the same.
“Whether we live here or not, we’re still coming for dinner every day.”
Seated together on the terrace, the table between them held a chess set. A new one. Not the one from inside. For some reason, Shyla was protective and particular about that one. But when Whisper had shown a casual interest, Shyla had offered to teach her to play.
“You’d be more than welcome.”
Shyla was still smiling at her when Whisper noticed movement in the apartment. Expecting it to be Bosco or maybe Fish, she didn’t anticipate seeing both Score and Zay arriving back.
A chill stole the smile from her face. “Something’s happened.”
Shooting to her feet, she hurried around the patio lounger and went inside. Zay was already halfway across the room, heading her way.
“Peanut—”
“What?” she asked. “What happened?”
Rather than answer, he put his arms around her and pulled her to him. Hugging wasn’t their usual way of saying hello and his severe expression was more intense than usual. At least that’s what she’d got from the glimpse she’d had before being lost in his embrace.
“Babe,” Zay said, curling a hand around the back of her head.
Whisper planted both hands on his chest and pushed hard to get a look up at him. “You’re scaring me. What is it?”
Zay glanced at Score who appeared more solemn than she’d ever seen him. Her husband cupped her face to join their gazes. “Your father’s dead.”
Whisper heard the words. They made sense. Except… they didn’t. “What happened?”
“Murdered. Shot.”
“By?” she asked because it seemed like an obvious question. Before Zay could answer, Whisper stepped back, out of his embrace. “Forget it, I don’t want to know. Excuse me.”
Turning around, she strode away, trying not to rush, or at least trying to make it seem like she wasn’t rushing. She needed space and air and peace and… Something.
Going into the room she’d been sharing with Zay, also known as Bosco’s old room, Whisper went straight out the terrace doors opposite the end of the bed.
It was late. The sky should be dark but was polluted by too much of the light glowing from the bustling city below. People were out there having the time of their lives, without a care in the world.
“Peanut.”
If she’d thought about it for more than a second, Whisper would’ve realized her husband would follow her.
“I’m fine.”
“I know that,” he said. “You’re always fine.”
Yeah, she was, and it was good that he’d noticed. His hands rested on her shoulders and slid down to stroke her arms.
“I’m not upset,” she said, somehow prompted to talk just by his touch. “He was a horrible man. Cruel. Violent. Sadistic. There’s nothing to mourn.”
“He was still your father.”
“Is that how you would feel if Burl was killed?”
“There’s a part of you thinking about retribution, that it’s your responsibility to avenge him.”
If that was true, Whisper had a helluva long list to work through. “That’s not it… I… I think I’m relieved.”
Zay stopped caressing her arms. Did that make her a horrible person? Maybe. Probably. Wasn’t like she’d ever aimed for any Daughter of the Year award. Her father had grieved her brothers in his own way. His rage over their loss saw his anger fixate on the Byrnes, who were also responsible for the death of her mother.
Yet, Whisper didn’t care. Not that she didn’t care her family were dead, but that it all seemed so futile. A Byrne killed a Doherty, so the Dohertys picked off one of theirs. It had to end. At some point, someone had to say the killing was too much.
“You should be,” Zay said, his hands skimming up to give her shoulders a squeeze. “Can’t say I was unhappy. The way he treated you…”
He trailed off as she turned around to face him. “You know there’s a chance this could be—”
“Burl?” Zay asked and nodded. “Score left a message for him to call as soon as we got the news.”
“How did we get the news?”
“Doran got a call from one of his guys,” Zay said. “We left him at the club to come tell you.”
“Score didn’t have to come with you,” she said, tilting her head. “Unless you’re worried the McDades might be on the hit list too.”
“All I care about is you,” Zay said, holding her face again. “I think maybe Score’s warming up to you. He was worried about how you’d take the news.�
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She wasn’t so sure and smiled. “Probably worried I’d wreck his apartment or hurt his girlfriend.”
He bowed to kiss her. “Don’t be too sure about that, Peanut.”
They were still enjoying each other’s mouths when someone spoke. “It was Parker.”
Breaking the kiss, Zay turned to look into the bedroom. Score was standing at the end of the bed. If she wasn’t still processing what he’d just said, she might have made a mental note to go striding into his bedroom without knocking sometime soon.
“Parker,” Zay said. “How do you know?”
“Burl,” Score said. “He called back. He’s at the airport.”
Whisper stepped in front of her husband. “Who’s at the airport?”
“Burl.”
“Why?” Zay asked. “Why now? Why would he—”
“Burl told him.”
The men didn’t say anything. Seemed they both understood what that meant; Whisper wasn’t fluent in the looks the McDade brothers exchanged. Blinking first at Score, then tipping her head back and around to look at Zay, she waited for one of them to translate.
Neither opened their mouths.
Whisper ran a hand through her hair. “You know, the intense eyes thing really does it for me, Shyla too, but I’m gonna need a little bit more information.” Score’s brows shifted closer when his attention fell to her. “Not like there’s not a whole bunch of stuff going on right now. What exactly did Burl tell Parker?”
“That he fucked his wife.” That was low on the list of possible things Whisper would think Burl wanted to confess. “ ‘Parently Parker was having a fit about Nicole. Saying he didn’t believe his wife would take off with Whisper.”
Tipping her cheek nearer her shoulder, Whisper’s eyes left his as they widened. That wasn’t a major leap. She had to give Parker some credit for recognizing his wife’s animosity toward the newest McDade.
“She didn’t take off with Whisper,” Zay said. “Me and Doran are with her.”
“Yeah,” Whisper said, still not looking at either man. “But unless she thought you were going to fuck her, she’d rather stay at home…” Her head moved the other way. “Maybe that’s what Parker was worried about: keeping it in the family.”
Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2) Page 29
