Fool's Paradise (Cartwright Brothers Book 5)

by Lilliana Anderson

  “Honestly, I didn’t know what to think.” I’d simply felt trapped.

  “Well, this is what family does. We protect each other. All of Grey’s men on the property are here. Any off-site are being hunted as we speak. This ends tonight. His reach won’t be capable of extending to you anymore.”

  Holy fuck. A chill ran down my spine coupled with a great sense of relief. There it was. It was wrong to be happy about a mass killing. But when the men were all evil minions, I struggled to see the wrong in that. I was just glad that Toby and I didn’t have to do it. I didn’t think we’d be walking out of here if it had been just us. For the first time in my life, the idea of having a family felt pretty great. We protect each other.

  “They’re ready to go,” Nate said, touching the comm in his ear.

  Jasmine nodded then used her gun hand to gesture towards the men on their knees. “Bullet or burn?” she asked me, giving me a little control over the situation.

  Distant screams from the house fire in Adelaide echoed in my mind. As I took a moment to survey the group of men, my lip curled as that ball of pain in my chest throbbed uncomfortably. They caused this. When my gaze landed on Irish, his evil eyes glared at me as if he still thought he could win this. Suddenly, my decision was not a difficult one at all.

  “Shoot them in the legs so they can’t run. Then burn them.”

  One side of Jasmine’s mouth pulled up, almost looking proud. “I really like her Toby. Couldn’t have chosen better myself.” Then she turned to the rest. “You heard her, boys. Bullet to the knees. The fire will do the rest.”

  Bang, bang, bang, bang.

  I couldn’t express the level of satisfaction I got from those sounds and the accompanying groans. I thought I’d feel a little guilt. But there wasn’t a single shred.

  “We’ll make you pay somehow, bitch,” Irish grunted, writhing in pain as he clutched at the wounds on his legs.

  “No,” I said, numb to his plight. He had no idea that anyone connected to Grey was being taken out as we spoke. “Tonight is when it ends. This is my revenge. Everything you ever were is about to burn to the ground.” Whatever failsafes in place would never eventuate without men to carry them out. After tonight, Grey’s rule would be nothing but a memory.

  “You weren’t even worth the fuck,” he spat, the moment I turned my back and headed for the front door.

  I turned around, but Toby was faster, brandishing his gun and pressing it against Irish’s temple. “Say one more shitty thing about her. I dare you.”

  Irish laughed. “She’s a dead root, mate.”

  Toby cocked the hammer, and I had no doubt in my mind he was about to shoot Irish in the head. As much as I wanted that stain of a man to die, I wanted him to suffer even more.

  “Stop,” I commanded, placing my hand on Toby’s outstretched arm. “This is what he wants. And he doesn’t deserve an easy death.”

  With a low growl, Toby lowered his weapon to his side.

  “Whipped pussy,” Irish snarled.

  Not even a beat passed before Toby lifted his weapon and fired, shooting off Irish’s lower jaw in a spectacular spray of blood and gore.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he said before taking my hand and getting us the hell out of there, each step forward, a weight lifted from my shoulders.

  Once outside, I turned and looked up at the formidable building, beautiful on the outside with so much darkness within.

  It’s over.

  I was almost afraid to believe it.

  The moment we were all clear of the blast zone, a voice rang out with the words, ‘Light her up!’. It was then that a series of charges went off, imploding the house and setting the whole damn thing ablaze. Toby slipped his arm around me and pulled me close into his side as we watched the fire take hold. The orange glow lit our skin in the dark night, illuminating the grounds surrounding the house and showing me how huge the operation to get me out of there had been.

  Bikers were positioned all around the property. In amongst them, men in plain clothes who I guessed were friends of the Cartwright family or part of Conway’s organisation. And best of all, about a hundred metres down the property’s long driveway, was a bus driven by Ronnie that was being boarded by a group of girls in various states of dress.

  “You saved them,” I said, emotion welling up inside me as the exact thing I’d tried to do in Adelaide was actually happening before my eyes. The innocents were being taken to safety and the bad guys were paying the ultimate price. It might have made me a horribly sick person, but it was the best gift anyone could ever get me. The core of Grey’s operation was burning to the ground and the rest of us were free.

  I was finally free.

  “We had to save them. It was one thing everyone in the family was in complete agreement on.”

  “You all risked your lives coming here to save me. To free all those women.”

  “You’re worth it. I’m just sorry this took so long to organise.”

  I almost laughed. “Toby, you did this in three days.”

  “And even that was too long without you,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine.

  A few tears escaped my eyes just as a yell rang out among the surrounding men, interrupting our tender moment.

  A burning figure ran from the house moments before gun fire sounded and he dropped onto the grass in a fiery motionless heap. No one would escape.

  “It’s really over,” I sighed, the knowledge that all the evil in those walls would never break free making me weep with relief. “It’s finally over.”

  Wrapping his arms around my torso, Toby held me close. “For us, it’s just the beginning, sunshine. We survived this. We thought we wouldn’t, but we survived.”

  “Perhaps love isn’t a weakness after all.”

  Looking into my eyes, he smiled before tucking my hair behind my ear. “No. I think it might be the most powerful thing I’ve ever known.”

  “I love you, Toby,” I whispered.

  “And I love you too, Blair,” he replied, leaning in to kiss me as the walls of the house crumbled and everyone in attendance cheered.

  We’re free.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  MY PARADISE

  THE FOLLOWING months became filled with meetings followed by hours of police questioning as we dealt with Grey’s demise and the destruction of his organisation. News outlets had been abuzz with stories and theories regarding the mass takedown, but no one could put it all together. Too many smaller factions had worked as one to create a superpower that no one ever saw coming. Not even Grey himself. It was ironic that his dream had been to unite everyone under his own rule, but they’d joined against him instead. It was poetic, really.

  With every criminal involved unwilling to talk, the police couldn’t really make a case against any of us, meaning Grey’s Will (that, surprisingly, had me written in a few months after he’d learned I was his daughter years ago) was deemed legal and I inherited everything that remained of his estate, as well as the insurance payout for the levelled house.

  It had been one of the bonuses of being engaged to my very own criminal mastermind with some pretty epic contacts. Everything had been planned so meticulously that the cops had nothing but supposition to work with and zero evidence to pin on any the three entities involved. We really were free.

  And I was ridiculously rich.

  On top of what Grey’s liquid assets netted me, I was also well compensated by Conway and the Grim Order for the unrestricted rights to Grey’s remaining business holdings. I willingly handed it all over and would have happily done it for free, except that wasn’t the way things worked in our world. Paying a fair price was the only way to ensure a clean break with no favours owed. I walked away with heavy pockets, and the Cartwrights were released from all of their debts over Nate’s poppy field fuck up. All was right with the world again. We were on the other side of an incredibly dark tunnel and the new sky was so bright.

  “I’ve gotta say, kid. It’s good
to hear ya voice. I thought you’d gone crazy gettin' back with Nick, and then he turned up dead and I had a fuckin' panic. Thought you were gone too when I hadn’t heard from you. Almost had another heart attack,” Big Jim said. I contacted him now that the world felt safe enough to live in again, needing to let him know I was alive and well. I also just wanted to hear his voice.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the sound of relief in his tone. “I don’t know why Nick told you we were together. But I was always fine. Just had some personal stuff to take care of.” I thought it best to keep him in the dark over the true events behind Nick’s demise and my disappearance. I didn’t want to give him an actual heart attack.

  “Personal, huh? Wish you’d called sooner, kid.”

  “I know, and I‘m sorry you worried. But I have some good news: I quit drinking.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t touched the stuff for weeks,” I told him, a grin fixed on my face. “Turns out I’m responsible for another life now.” I touched the slight swell of my stomach with my free hand. “I’m told drinking while pregnant is a big no-no.”

  About three weeks after being rescued, I was sitting in my psychologist’s office—yes, I was getting help for the mess in my brain. While love had set me on the road towards healing, it couldn’t magically fix me, I needed a professional for that—and the topic of children came up. She wanted to know if I saw motherhood in my future, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t had a period since before Toby and I had gotten together. He’d been ecstatic. I’d been… shocked. Motherhood was never something I’d contemplated for myself before that moment. But the idea had grown on me, and now I was excited to have this future presented ahead of me, one I never thought possible for someone like me. A family.

  One of my own making.

  “Whoa, kid. That’s amazin’. I was gonna ask if you was ready to come back to work. But you’ve got yourself a more important job now, huh? Who’da thought, the kid, a mum.”

  “Crazy, right? I didn’t think I ever wanted kids. But it turns out I just hadn’t met the right guy yet. I’m gonna be great at this, Big Jim. And I won’t fuck this kid up the way I was. I’m gonna give it a great life.”

  “Of course you will. I’ve no doubt about that. And this man of yours, he good to you?”

  “He is.” I smiled as I looked over to Toby who was working up a sweat on the treadmill that lived out on the master bedroom’s balcony. One of my favourite things to do was lie on our bed and watch him be all manly with the gym equipment he had out there. He was positively stunning, and that pregnancy libido boost was a real thing. I couldn’t get enough of him, lately. “You know, I never thought I wanted any of this, but now it’s here, I think it’s actually all I ever wanted. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah, kid,” Big Jim said, voice gentle on the other end of the phone as I heard him puffing on his cigar. “I know exactly what ya mean. Couldn’t happen to a better person either. I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

  “Thank you. You know you’re the only person who gave a shit about me for a long time.”

  “Well, you were my best earner,” he teased.

  I laughed. “I was. But I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Anything, kid. You know that.”

  “Give me away at my wedding?”

  “Wow. Married. This guy must be real special if he’s gettin’ you down the aisle.”

  Hopping off the treadmill, Toby wiped a towel over his face and chest, giving me a wink through the glass wall. It made me all warm and gooey inside. “He really is, Big Jim. He’s my entire world.”

  “With such a glowin’ review, I’d be fuckin’ honoured to give you away. Lookin’ forward to meetin’ him.”

  After a few more words, I disconnected, placing my phone on the side table about a second before Toby walked into the bedroom, his now overgrown hair sticking up at odd angles from the sweat.

  My Toby was back. With the light dancing in his eyes, and the relaxed attitude to life, he’d found his happiness again. I loved seeing him smile.

  “Well?” he asked, slinging his towel over his shoulder as he stood at the foot of the bed.

  “Come over here and kiss me, and I might spill.”

  With a grin, he did exactly that, tasting of salt and hard work. “Spill.”

  “Well,” I said, placing my hands on his corded arms to cop a feel of the solid muscle. “Big Jim said congratulations on the baby and the wedding.”

  “And?” He lifted his brow.

  “And he’ll give me away.”

  He beamed. “Excellent.”

  I grinned. “It is. And I also spoke to Lucy. She’s agreed to be in the bridal party as my matron of honour. So that’s really awesome too.”

  He sat down and took a hold of my hands with a relieved breath. It had taken a few weeks for Lucy to come to terms with the fact that her father wasn’t the man she thought he was—well, that he didn’t have the career, she’d thought he had. He was still the same kind, loving and patient man, it was just that he was a crook instead of a hero in common circles. But, he was a hero in our world.

  Getting the chance to spend time with the family in Torquay, listening to their stories, and seeing the love they all had for each other, helped Lucy realise that they really were good people at heart and that her dad had only kept her away so she could have a normal life. A life she was more than happy to get back to.

  In the following weeks, we’d chatted on the phone, emailing back and forth and FaceTiming, giving us the chance to normalise our relationship and allow her and Toby to get back to where they were before the day his boat exploded. Things were looking up, and up, and up.

  “Did Big Jim mention Nick to you at all?”

  “He did. Said he turned up dead which was what we expected, I guess. Kind of a shame. At the end of the day, Nick was only doing what he was trained to do. I doubt I’d have done the same to him, but then, there’s a good reason he and I didn’t work out as a couple. I don’t hate him though. I just feel sorry he got mixed up with the wrong people and died because of it.”

  “You’re a good woman, sunshine.”

  “And you’re a good man, my heart.”

  He smiled before he leaned in and kissed me again. “I cannot wait to make you my wife,” he whispered.

  “Four weeks and counting,” I whispered back, just as a text message alert sounded on both of our phones.

  Toby groaned as we leaned over the bed in opposite directions and checked our screens. “Jasmine reminding us about dinner,” he said. “Guess I should hit the shower before she strokes out over us being late.”

  I stood with him and trailed my finger down the center of his chest, stopping at the waistband of his workout shorts. “I think she can handle it if we’re a little late,” I said, pulling at my bottom lip with my teeth.

  Toby’s eyes darkened as he pulled me close and took two handfuls of the fleshy part of my arse. “A little? Sunshine, once I get started with you, you know we’ll be a lot late.”

  “Do we care?”

  He grinned. “No. We don’t care at all.”

  “BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. RIGHT, BROTHER,” Kristian laughed, clapping Toby’s shoulder in welcome the moment we walked through the sliding doors that led to the pool. The entire family was gathered, the outdoor table laden with food.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Jasmine said, eyebrows raised as we took our seats and the dinner began.

  “We had something important to discuss,” Toby replied, trying not to smile as his eyes landed on me, that glow I’d watched fade away back in full force. It was amazing what a second chance at happiness could do for a person.

  “I’m sure,” Breaker replied, handing over the basket of bread while food circulated around the table. It all looked so good, and I was starving.

  “How are you feeling, Blair?” Holland asked while Nate filled both her plate and his with schnitzel and salad—exactly what Toby was doing
for me. Funny that the two brothers who’d been most at odds in their lives were actually quite similar men. Each loved taking care of their women.

  “Hungry,” I said with a smile. “Like, all the time.”

  Toby added an extra schnitzel to my plate. “One for you, and one for the baby,” he said, dropping a kiss on my shoulder.

  “Oh god,” Ronnie said, placing salad on Kristian’s plate while he buttered her bread rolls. “I was the same. I swear I gained a whole new arse while I was pregnant with Oscar.”

  “Which was sexy as fuck,” Kristian added, nodding while he focused on the bread and butter. When he slid the finished roll onto his wife’s plate, he found her glaring at him. “What? Big arse. Big tits. It was hot.”

  Ronnie rolled her eyes and laughed.

  “I was just happy I got tits,” Sloane added, her blunt nature shining right through. “Pregnancy does some weird and wonderful shit to your body.”

  “Things we probably don’t want to talk about while eating,” Alesha said, laughing as she and Sam exchanged a knowing look.

  “Totally worth it for these little tykes though,” Sam added, sparing a doting look for their sleeping son who was lying peacefully in his pram.

  “Definitely,” Nate agreed, chuckling a little because Daniel had just stuck his finger inside a cherry tomato and was showing everybody as he squealed and kicked at the tray on his highchair. He thought he was hilarious, and I had to admit he kind of was. In the months since I’d arrived in Torquay, the little rascal had grown on me. As much as I thought I’d struggle to even like Toby’s family, I found myself coming to care for them all greatly and see them as mine. Things had changed a lot in the year Toby had spent away, and even he was feeling more content around them.

  Ronnie told me once that they were an odd assortment of life’s misfits who somehow fit together despite their irregular shapes. I had to agree. The Cartwright family was chaos in the best way.