by J. Kenner
Chapter Three
A cup of coffee sat untouched on the dining table in the third floor kitchen as Damien skimmed the email he’d just dictated to Ryan, tapped out a few tweaks, then clicked send. He opened a fresh email, intending to draft another note, this one to his brother, Jackson Steele, about the ongoing issues at The Domino, a joint real estate venture between Steele Development and Stark Real Estate.
As a rule, Damien didn’t get personally involved with the minutiae of the various projects under the Stark International umbrella. Absent cloning himself, that would be a physical impossibility. He’d been hands-on with The Domino, however. Not only because the impetus had been his own unique vision of what an office complex campus should look like, but also because he intended to eventually move all of Stark Applied Technology—the first Stark entity he’d created back in the day—from Stark Tower in downtown Los Angeles to The Domino in Santa Monica.
As both the architect and co-developer, Jackson had been neck deep in the project from its conception. Recently, he’d fully taken the reins so that Damien and Nikki could recover with Anne after the kidnapping, and Damien had been relieved to have the project watched over by someone he trusted so deeply.
Ironic, considering that for most of his life, Damien hadn’t even been aware he had a brother. Half-brother, technically. And when they first met, Damien hadn’t trusted Jackson at all. And that distrust had been reciprocated.
But that discord had long ago evaporated. They were family now, as well as friends. And they’d bonded over a shared contempt for their father, Jeremiah Stark. The man who’d kept them apart and had spent their respective childhoods tormenting each in different ways.
He hadn’t yet started the email to Jackson when an incoming call notification flashed on his phone’s screen. Ryan.
He pressed the button to answer. “Trouble?”
“I saw your email. Thought I’d call.”
“The morning would have been soon enough.”
“I was up anyway. Waiting for Jamie to get home. She’s out with Matthew.”
“Is she?” A mutual friend, Matthew Holt was fast becoming a legend in town. With shelves full of Grammy Awards, Emmy Awards, and Academy Awards, the producer and owner of Hardline Entertainment had his finger in all aspects of the entertainment industry. He also had a reputation for being reclusive, dangerous, and brilliant. Not to mention being a total manwhore, bedding any woman who showed a hint of interest—single, married, attached, it didn’t matter—and then cavalierly moving on to the next.
Of course, Damien knew better than anyone that reputations could be deceiving, but considering Holt’s mostly secret ownership of Masque, a private sex club, Damien had reason to believe that the rumors about Holt had some basis in fact. Enough basis that he was surprised to learn that Ryan had consented to let the man escort his wife.
After all, Ryan had a need for control that rivaled his own. More than that, despite the level of kink that Damien knew intrigued both Ryan and Jamie, he also knew that Ryan wasn’t the type to share.
“I didn’t think that was your style, my friend.”
“Funny,” Ryan retorted. “Holt tries anything more intimate than guiding her through a room with his hand on her elbow and he’ll be making an intimate connection with my fist.”
Damien bit back a grin. This was the Ryan he knew well. “So?”
“Holt took her to some Hollywood shindig. Camera crew, the whole nine yards. She’s doing interviews with the celebs, then they’re going to edit it into a special. It was Evelyn’s doing.”
“I hadn’t heard, but I’m not at all surprised.” A Hollywood staple, Evelyn Dodge had represented Damien back in his tennis days. She’d been responsible for keeping his secrets out of the public eye while at the same time making him a fortune in endorsements by being both clever and relentless, not to mention elegant and savvy. She was a woman who said what she meant, never looked back, and had the kind of self-confidence that came from genuine skill and intelligence.
Most of all, she’d always had his back, and he loved her for it. Jamie, he knew, was in damn good hands.
“It happened fast,” Ryan continued. “And with the timing—well, I think Jamie figured that Nikki had other things on her mind.”
Nikki and Jamie had been as close as sisters since high school in Dallas, and there was rarely a time when one didn’t know what the other was up to. Which meant that this was more fallout from the kidnapping.
“The whole thing came together less than forty-eight hours after Anne was home,” Ryan said, as if reading Damien’s mind. “She’ll tell Nikki the next time they’re together, I’m sure. Especially since Lacey Dunlop is already seeing red.”
Damien didn’t purposefully keep up with Hollywood gossip, but he did pay attention to the lives of his friends. And he knew that Jamie had lost her job to the rising entertainment reporter. Who, he assumed, Jamie was now hoping to take down a peg or two.
“Good for Jamie,” he said, meaning it. “Nikki’s going to be thrilled. Any update on who trashed her office?”
“Nothing firm. My gut says he had nothing to do with the kidnapping. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the vandalism turned out to be Breckenridge’s handiwork.”
“Agreed,” Damien said, his temper rising as he recalled the horrible words that had been spray painted on the wall of his wife’s then-unoccupied new office space. He hadn’t been able to prevent it. And he didn’t know for certain who was behind it.
All he’d been able to do was comfort her after the fact, something she repeatedly told him was enough. But as far as Damien was concerned, it barely scratched the surface.
He wanted retribution, but how could he get that without proof?
He agreed with Ryan’s assessment that Richard Breckenridge was a likely suspect. After all, the former investor in The Domino had been none too pleased when Damien had cut him loose after a series of #metoo allegations went public.
Damien had originally been thrilled when Breckenridge, the brains behind a high-profile med tech company, wanted a stake. But the scandal had been both vile and credible, and after Damien terminated the relationship, the man had promised trouble. He’d even gone so far as to phone Nikki the day that the vandalism of her office had been discovered. He’d called her a whore for taking a million dollars from Damien in exchange for her portrait and essentially called Damien a hypocrite for cutting Breckenridge out because of the press coverage of Breckenridge’s extremely inappropriate advances and non-consensual demands.
Nikki had told him about the phone call the day of the Stark Children’s Foundation brunch, and Damien had fully intended to confront the bastard in person the next day, making it very clear that Breckenridge needed to stay far, far away from Nikki.
But that was the morning that Anne had been taken, and suddenly Breckenridge’s bullshit phone call had seemed like nothing more annoying than a telemarketer by comparison.
“Any update on the video?” Damien asked, referring to security footage that caught the image of someone who looked like a teen entering the building and carrying a shopping bag that might well have been weighted down with spray paint cans. Someone thin and hooded who just might have been hired to go in and tag the walls.
“So far, still no ID,” Ryan told him. “But we may have found some footage of our suspect from another angle. I’ll know more soon.”
“Good. Keep me posted. Whoever did that to her office is going to pay. And if it turns out to be Breckenridge, all the better.” He rubbed his temples, the need to lash out growing in him once again. A need that he’d been battling down more and more ever since Anne was taken. A desire to batter his fists against all the wrongs in the world, and then the growing need for self-flagellation because no matter how much he wished it, that just wasn’t possible.
“What else?” he demanded. “Tell me something good.”
“I think Quince is taking our offer seriously,” Ryan said. “I don’t have a sense of
what he’ll decide, but I think he’s giving it due consideration.”
“Is he?” Damien was surprised. Quincy Radcliffe was a talented British MI6 agent who moonlighted—apparently with his government’s knowledge and unofficial support—for a vigilante organization known as Deliverance. An organization that had been created by billionaire playboy Dallas Sykes for the purpose of tracking down the bastard who’d kidnapped him and his sister when they were teens. It had, of course, expanded into a whole lot more.
Quincy had been an asset to Anne’s recovery, and Damien had told Ryan to float the possibility of Quincy becoming a permanent member of Stark International’s security team. Considering his role in Deliverance, however, Damien didn’t expect Quincy to give the offer any real consideration.
“Deliverance is slowing down,” Ryan explained. “I think it’s had some difficulty operating. I don’t think the government officially knows Deliverance exists, but—”
“I get it. The main asset of Deliverance was its ability to fly under the radar. If it’s lost that advantage…”
“Exactly,” Ryan said.
“I’ll speak to Quince myself. If he’s on the fence, I want to push him over. And I’m told I can be very persuasive. Or at least my checkbook can.”
Ryan chuckled. “You have your moments.”
“And the security upgrades?”
“We’re finishing the install of the additional perimeter cameras around the Malibu property in the morning. Nikki’s office is already complete, and we’re upping the garage security at Stark Tower. That’ll be complete by end of the day on Monday. But, Damien—”
“I know.” His words were sharp. He knew what his friend was going to say. That security around all the properties was already tight. State of the art. And this tweak was overkill. That Anne’s kidnapping had been one of those freak things. Maybe a personal, full-time bodyguard could have prevented it, but maybe not.
He knew that. Knew all of that. And it didn’t help.
On the other end of the line, Ryan drew a breath. “Damien…”
“I saw an editorial online last night. Some columnist saying I should have GPS tagged my kids. Just a little implant at the back of the neck. No big deal at all. Idiot.”
“An implant? Fuck that. Theoretically feasible, but you’d need a power source, dedicated satellites, all sorts of shit. Even if you wanted to do it, it’s still sci-fi, and you and I both know it.”
“I do know it.” Ryan was right, of course. The man knew his stuff, after all. They’d met when Ryan had been investigating the possibility of taking his small but prestigious international security company public. Damien had caught wind of the company, investigated it, and had been impressed enough to seek out a personal meeting with Ryan.
He’d ended up buying Ryan out and setting up Ryan’s company as a Stark subsidiary. Ryan ran it for a few years, but as their friendship grew, so did Ryan’s placement in the overall Stark universe. Now he ran security for all of Stark International.
The man knew the world of security as well as Damien knew the world of tech. And they both knew that human GPS tracking wasn’t yet a viable option. Sure, it was technologically feasible, but current research suggested that unlike passive RFID implants that stored information such as name, birthdate, and social security numbers, GPS chips were active. They sent out a constant pulse and required power. And there was some evidence that they could generate cancerous growths. More than that, if the parents could track a child, then so could a kidnapper. Or the government. Or anybody else. All the fucking time.
And God knew the ethical considerations were manifold.
Even so, both his girls did have small trackers that dangled from their personal backpacks or could be attached to shoelaces. The devices were practical, after all, making it easier for parents to locate a child who got lost in a grocery store or mall. Or, in their case, got out of the house and started to wander the massive property.
Nikki’s company, Fairchild & Partners Development, was in the final stages of developing a similar tracker that would work in conjunction with their new Mommy’s Helper app. That system would have some impressive additional features. As soon as he saw the prototypes, Damien intended to present Nikki and her partner, Abby, with a formal proposal for a joint venture between the Stark and Fairchild companies that would give Fairchild Development enough capital to launch the kind of international campaign the product deserved. And, of course, they’d switch brands, so that it would be Mommy’s Helper trackers hanging from their girls’ backpacks.
The morning that Anne and her nanny Bree had been taken, however, Anne didn’t have her backpack. And even if she had, the devices weren’t designed to prevent or foil a kidnapping, and Rory would have undoubtedly dumped it in the parking lot along with Bree’s purse.
“Quit beating yourself up,” Ryan said gently. “You might be a kick-ass son-of-a-bitch, but you don’t control the universe. No matter how much you might wish you did.”
“I don’t want to. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask to control my little corner of it.”
He couldn’t, though. And that simple truth had been haunting him since Anne’s kidnapping. Was haunting him still, long after he’d hung up with Ryan.
He felt out of control. Ungrounded. And though he returned to the master bedroom intending to slide under the covers and draw his wife to him, he couldn’t make himself walk through the door. He just stood there, watching her moonlit form beneath the sheet and listening to the soft snoring of his two little girls and the purring of their cat, Sunshine, who’d settled in as well.
How could he get into that bed? How could he wallow in their love and trust knowing that he hadn’t earned it?
He couldn’t.
And as that wild, hard tension welled up again, he did the only thing he could do.
He turned, and he walked away.
Chapter Four
He didn’t bother to turn on the flood lights. It wasn’t necessary. The huge moon cast the tennis court in an eerie light, enhanced by the reflection off the nearby Pacific.
He moved in the shadows, shirtless and barefoot, wearing only thin athletic shorts, his arms and thighs aching as he moved across the court, returning the torrent of balls as fast as the machine could shoot them over the net.
He’d been at it for an hour, trying to pound himself into exhaustion. Trying to empty his head of the recrimination, the guilt. The feeling of being absolutely powerless despite the whole world believing he held all the cards.
He kept pushing and pushing. Taking his body to the limit. Trying to find the way over. Around. Under. He didn’t fucking care, he just needed to get past it. But he never made it. Never hit that wall. Because no matter how hard he pushed, it was never enough.
His muscles screamed. His feet burned. His back ached. But he couldn’t stop. It was still inside him, and no matter how much he chased it across the goddamn court, he’d never run it down.
Because he’d lost it. Lost her. His own daughter.
“Fuck.” His shoulder screamed in protest as he hurled his racquet with all his strength, sending it sailing over the backboard and out into the landscaped yard. “Fuck.” That time the word was a whisper, and he followed the sound of it down onto his knees, his hands on the cool acrylic surface of the hard court, then his forehead, as if he was praying for absolution, bowing down to a god or a universe that had turned its back on him.
“Damien.”
Her soft voice touched him like an angel’s kiss, sending sweet shivers up his spine. He lifted his head, looking up at her. The moon was at her back, illuminating her hair, making her glow. His lips parted. He wanted to tell her she was beautiful. That she was everything.
That he was sorry.
But the words wouldn’t come.
She took a step toward him, then stopped, her expression intense. Strained. She carried a baby monitor in one hand, and through the small speaker, he could hear the soft, rhythmic breathing of hi
s children.
He watched, entranced, as she bent over, putting the monitor on the ground. She wore a pink silk robe tied loosely at the waist. She tugged at the sash, loosening the bow, and the robe fell open, revealing the knee-length nightgown she wore when the kids joined them in bed.
She took one more step toward him, and he drew in a sharp breath, realizing that he’d forgotten to breathe.
She lifted her hands to her shoulders, shrugged, and the robe slithered off her body, pooling behind her in a pile of silk.
His chest tightened, and he became suddenly aware of his beating heart. “Nikki…”
She said nothing, just shook her head as she hitched up her nightgown, the hem rising to reveal her bare thighs, her naked sex. His blood pounded in his ears, and he realized he was upright now, sitting on his heels, his knees on the hard surface of the court, his cock painfully hard.
When she pulled the gown over her head and tossed it behind her, it took every ounce of strength in his body not to grab her arm, yank her to the ground, and bury himself deep inside her.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Not like that. Not when he was this raw. This desperate. This goddamn fucking lost.
“Take what you need.” Her throat moved as she swallowed, her legs spread, her hand sliding down to stroke her beautiful waxed pussy.
“Do you think I don’t understand?” Her voice broke as she spoke. “Do you think I don’t see you? Do you think I don’t know? Dammit, Damien, take what you need. Take me.”
He shook his head. “No.” His voice was rough, barely more than the rasp of fingernails against sandpaper.
“No? Don’t you dare tell me no.” Her voice was as coarse as his, but not lost. And not pleading. On the contrary, her words were a challenge. A dare. And when she bent over to grab the waistband of his shorts and pull him up to his feet, he knew that her words were a command as well.
“Goddammit, Nikki.” Need pounded through him. For her, yes. For sex, absolutely. But it was more than that. So much more, and he knew that if he took that first step toward her—if he touched her—there would be no going back. He was holding on by a thread now, tight and taut. And damned if Nikki wasn’t holding the scissors.
