Power Play: A Romance Collection

by Lauren Landish

  I nod, though I’m still torn up about missing it. She’s my best friend in the whole wide world, but Kyle . . . I remind myself that this is not a ‘dicks over chicks’ situation and that Emma gave me her blessing and encouragement to see where this thing with Kyle is going.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” he asks. “You could’ve gone.”

  I fidget with the napkin in my lap, biting the words back at first but on second thought, jump in like there’s no tomorrow. Because maybe there isn’t. “Because you wouldn’t have gone with me. Because I love Emma, but she’s always going to be there. Not that I’m taking her for granted . . . she understands. I just don’t want to let go of you, and as stupid as that sounds, I feel this connection between us that I’m not ready to let go of. And right now, I’m not willing to leave your side because I’m scared if I let you out of my sight, I’ll never see you again.”

  The flush on his cheeks and the grind of his teeth tell me I’m right and tell me that I’ll do whatever it takes to stay with him.

  “Your friend, Emma? She’s in danger. Nathan Stone is not a good man.”

  This morning, he painfully told me about Anna, their baby, and how much he loves them. But now he fills in more of his story, and the words are spat out with such fury that I’m surprised they don’t crack the formica of our table.

  He tells me about Anna’s work with Michael Stone, how Michael was killed, and then Anna was murdered soon afterward. Kyle tells me how he left his work and plunged into the darker world of semi-legal contracts, hazy enterprises, and more. He used every marker he could call in and promised more in return, until ultimately, Raul had found out who was responsible.

  “Nathan Stone is the one who did them both,” Kyle growls finally, taking a drink when his voice cracks. “I don’t have evidence to go to the police, but I have enough. He had his father killed, took over the company, and then had Anna killed when she asked too many questions. I want him in the ground, and more importantly, I want to know who he hired. I want the person who actually held the gun because I know he didn’t fucking do it himself. He could’ve, is definitely trained for it, but no, the pretty boy is too smart for that. He outsourced and then made sure he had an airtight alibi.” He huffs and rolls his eyes like he’s just as offended that Nathan didn’t handle the murders himself as he is about them actually happening. “No honor, no integrity, no balls. And a stain on humanity like that took Anna.”

  I swallow thickly, the tears burning again from his talking about losing Anna. But I refuse to cry again, not in public. “And what are you going to do to them when you find them?” I say, already knowing the answer.

  Kyle’s eyes burn, and his voice is stony as he folds his hands over each other, like he’s about to make the world’s simplest declaration. “Kill them so they don’t hurt anyone else.”

  His admission should shock me, but it feels like poetic justice in a way, and I wouldn’t expect anything less than ultimate retribution from a man like Kyle. But his statement that Nathan could hurt someone else rings alarm bells in my head.

  Emma is in danger. She’s my best friend and I love her dearly, but she likely has no idea what she’s gotten herself into. She’s sweet and innocent, a perfect victim for a ruthless man who would order a pregnant woman murdered to inherit a fortune.

  Oh, God! I grab my cell phone and start calling Emma over and over, but each time, her phone goes to voicemail. Finally, I look at Kyle, who’s been watching me carefully while he finishes his breakfast.

  “We have to help her. Please.”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  Kyle

  I can see the pain in Carly’s eyes as I tell her what happened to Anna and the bloom of worry as she pieces together that this is who her friend is tied up with.

  I hate that I put that thundercloud of concern there, but I’ll help her, help her friend, and in the end, help Anna.

  It’s all tied up in one man . . . Nathan Stone.

  He dies, and it’ll almost all be settled.

  She begs me to help Emma, and though it aligns with what I want too, I know that I’d help Carly with anything, regardless of my mission. It’s just a bonus that we both want the same thing. Nathan where he can’t hurt anyone ever again.

  For me, that means dead. For Carly, I suspect she’s thinking arrested and imprisoned. She’s still good, the beam of light that I once had, and I don’t want to take it away from her yet.

  I just hope she won’t have to see me crush Nathan’s life with my own two hands personally. I’d like to think I can still be a ‘good guy’ in her eyes. Even if it’s mostly a lie at this point.

  I follow Carly’s directions to Emma’s apartment, where she rushes up the stairs and bangs on the door. I’m trailing close behind her to make sure Nathan doesn’t answer instead, because if he does, Carly could be in danger.

  But there’s no answer at all.

  Carly even tries some secret knock she says Emma knows only her sister does, hoping it’s enough to get her to come to the door.

  Finally, between the unanswered phone calls and apartment door, Carly sags against the wall, her spirit deflating before my very eyes.

  It’s just another tick on the list of crimes that Nathan Stone is going to have to answer for.

  “What are we going to do?” she cries, and I can see the shine of tears in her eyes. Each tear is like an acid sting to my body, and I vow that I’ll make someone pay for them.

  “Where else would they go? Would they go to Nathan’s house?” I ask.

  She hums and looks off to the side, thinking. “I think we should call Emma’s sister. She’d know what to do, maybe even where they are.”

  “Why would she know?”

  “She’s an FBI agent. A really good one,” Carly explains. “Claire’s a beast with a badge.”

  I hum, the letters FBI triggering an instinctive defensive reaction in me. I’ve done some shit in my time, and the further I can stay from the eyes of any law enforcement, the better.

  “I don’t like it. I don’t want the FBI involved, if you know what I mean.”

  She looks into my eyes, seeing what I’m trying to say, and nods. “I’ll be careful, not overshare but see if she knows anything. Emma is close to her sister, and if there’s something I don’t know, Claire does.”

  I don’t argue, but I still don’t like it. Stepping back, Carly calls Emma’s sister, Claire, but I can only hear her side of the conversation.

  “Emma’s in trouble with Nathan. He’s a bad guy.”

  There’s a pause and I suspect Claire is telling her something.

  “I’m at Emma’s apartment, but she’s not here.”

  Emma hangs up and I turn to her. “What’d she say?”

  “She said to wait here, she’s coming over. Didn’t want to share over the phone.”

  Great. I don’t plan on saying a damn thing once she gets here then. Guess I’ll be my normal self.

  I’m jumpy as we wait, the walls of the hallway closing in a bit. But I watch Carly’s chest rise and fall, even and slow, forcing myself to mimic her pace and calm myself. I’m using her, and though she’s unaware, I feel guilty somehow. But with a slower heartbeat and easier breathing, I’m not going to apologize for it.

  While we wait, Carly tells me about her friend, how she and Emma grew up privileged but hating it. She even makes a sarcastic joke about the ‘poor little rich girls’, but I know there’s more to it than that, considering why Carly left home.

  She leaves behind the joke and instead tells me more about their adventures, sneaking out to go watch movies and go to museums.

  “What about you? That sounds like things Emma wanted to do. You ever sneak out to do something you wanted?” I ask.

  She smiles, remembering. “Most of the time, I was more than happy to go along with the things Emma wanted to do. My payoff was in the sneaking out. But I did drag her to an underground fight one time.”

  “Underground, huh?” I te
ase. “Where’d they dump the bodies afterward?”

  Carly laughs lightly, shaking her head. “Not that underground, just not licensed by the state. My karate instructor was a fighter, and I’d overheard him talking about it. Money gets you in just about anywhere, so there we were, underage and alone at a packed, rented warehouse on the Jersey waterfront that said it was an import/export site. We were shoved in like sardines with all sorts of people in the audience, but there was an overwhelming number of greasy wannabe mobsters and a surprising number of college frat boys. We made a few minor bets just for fun, watched my karate teacher win big, then got the hell outta dodge before he saw me.”

  She snorts and I ask, “What?”

  “Oh, he saw us, all right,” Carly admits, rolling her eyes. “I ended up having to do so many burpees to pay him off so he wouldn’t tell my parents I’d been there and then promise to never go again. It was a pretty sneaky way for him to get me to not go again. He was right. It wasn’t safe. For Emma. I would’ve been fine, of course.”

  Her confidence is bigger than she is.

  I smirk, thinking of some of the underground fights I’ve been to. “Of course.”

  Before we know it, thirty minutes have passed and the sound of hushed voices on the stairs quiets us immediately. I push away from the wall I’ve been leaning on and adopt a semi-defensive stance, putting Carly behind me.

  A woman and a man come up the stairs into view. Definitely not a couple, but they’re together.

  She looks like a Fed, all business pants and blouse, low bun, and no-nonsense boots that she can probably run in for miles if needed.

  He looks bland in low-slung khakis, an untucked polo, and Adidas, and I wonder if she brought her Tinder date to this little meet and greet. The only memorable thing about the guy is his red hair. And his dark eyes. I’ve seen eyes like that . . . in the mirror.

  Carly rushes forward, neatly sidestepping me before I can react. “Claire! Took your damn time, didn’t you?”

  For her part, Claire hasn’t taken her eyes off me. Not because she’s checking me out but because she’s doing a threat assessment. Smart woman. “Carly, who’s your friend?”

  Carly stops, then glances back at me, sheepish. “Oh, sorry. Claire, this is Kyle. Kyle, this is Emma’s sister, Claire, and . . .”

  She lets it trail off and Claire jumps in. “This is my partner, Matt. Why don’t we go inside to talk?”

  It’s not a question.

  Claire uses a key to let us into Emma’s apartment, which seems intrusive, but I don’t have a sister, so what do I know? Maybe they’re like that and swap dresses or something.

  Claire and Carly start chattering about Nathan, talking over each other and making noises of shock here and there. I hang back, getting a glass of water from the kitchen and listening, absorbing it all while keeping myself as unobtrusive as possible.

  Claire is interesting. She’s talking to Carly like old girlfriends catching up with all the giddiness, but her questions are direct and pointed. It’s like I can see the two sides of her converging before my very eyes, her personal and professional lives tangled in her words and in her very real fear as she talks about Emma.

  “So I fucked up majorly, went off the tracks, and got Em tied up in this whole mess,” she says finally as she goes on to tell us that Emma went undercover into Nathan’s life but has fallen hook, line, and sinker for him. Everything she’s telling me coincides with the research, rumors, and intel I’ve found, confirming my thinking about Nathan.

  You can feel the guilt weighing Claire down but also her desire to right what she sees as a wrong she’s done.

  “What a mindjob,” Carly says. “So what’s going on now with her?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Claire says, a little bitterly. “After the premiere of her show, I brought her back here to cry it out because he left without her. I thought it was for the best, but you’ll never guess what she did. She’s gone running off to Brazil after him. I couldn’t stop her even though I tried. I thought she needed a minute to calm down, and I knew Caleb—that’s Nathan’s brother—doesn’t like her. I figured he’d send her home crying, so I let her go. And by the time I realized something was wrong and followed her to the Stone house, Caleb and Emma were both gone, and all I got was the butler, who I swear to God is as unshakeable as granite.”

  “So what happened?” Carly asks, and Claire shakes her head.

  “What do you think? Poof, she’s in the breeze! She sent me a text message from the plane, telling me she’ll contact me when she’s back. I’m gonna kill her for that. Like literally dead.”

  Claire rolls her eyes at the dark humor, but I get that it’s coming from a place of fear. She knows exactly what Emma’s gotten herself into.

  Matt and I watch the conversation silently, not wanting to interrupt. For my part, I’m getting the information I need. Nathan is out of the country in Brazil. That rings all kinds of alarms in my head because I know the last assignment Anna worked on for Michael was about some caves in Brazil.

  But I’m not sharing that with Claire.

  Thankfully, Carly seems to sense that I don’t want to share Anna at all. And she doesn’t so much as mention my connection to the Stone family by way of their killing my fiancé and baby.

  But as the women talk, I take more and more notice of Matt. He hasn’t said a word, but I get a bad vibe from him, like he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. At one point, he almost seems bored and is looking around the apartment like he’s considering buying it. At other moments, he seems overly invested in the conversation, though he holds his tongue.

  But the weird part is that it’s slick. To a casual observer, he probably seems bland, like oatmeal with all the excitement of a pat of butter on top. But I’ve seen guys like that before. Sometimes, it’s real and a conversation with them is like pulling teeth because they’re just so blah.

  But other times, it’s a practiced front.

  And I haven’t decided which this conversation is for Matt.

  He excuses himself to piss, and I wait a beat for him to close the bathroom door. The girls don’t even pause when I rise too, heading down the hallway to listen carefully. I lean against the wall, waiting for the bathroom door to open.

  I see the shock of surprise when he opens the door and the flash of anger in his eyes. But Matt hides it quickly, and very well, which is interesting.

  I get the feeling that if I wasn’t standing here, he would’ve snuck into Emma’s room and started digging through the drawers. But he doesn’t seem like an undie-stealing pervert. No, there’s something different in his motivation. He’s looking for something, but why would he be snooping around Emma’s place?

  I ask him and play it coy. “Wanted to talk to you away from Carly. What do you know about Stone? What do you think about Emma?”

  Matt repeats what Claire said like it’s the party line. Within two sentences, I’ve gotten my read on him. I know a coached soldier when I hear one.

  “Okay,” I reply, heading into the toilet before he can get a read on me. “I just don’t want Carly to be scared, you know? Excuse me . . . gotta use this.”

  I close the door and lean against the counter. This situation, as unclear and twisted as it was before, seems to just keep getting more and more complicated.

  I don’t like complicated.

  Complicated gets people killed.

  And more often than not, not the ones who deserve it.

  Chapter 35

  Nathan

  The entrance to the caves emerges out of the trees like a vision, but if you didn’t know they were there, you’d miss it. Ironic, I know, but the truth is before my eyes as Francisco leads us out of the tree line into the small clearing.

  I don’t know what caused the pervasive Amazonian rainforest that we’ve been hiking through for the past day and a half to stop fifty feet from the sheer ridgeline in front of me like some god had used a ruler to measure the distance, but the line holds true for as far as
I can see to my left and right, leaving a thin thread of pale, grassy green in the midst of the green-black jungle.

  The cliffs themselves are dramatic, vaulting nearly two hundred feet into the air, making them some of the tallest hills in this part of the forest, like a barrier between the lower forest and the highlands that create the next level of jungle.

  I’m sure a geologist could describe why the cliffs and the forest change are so sudden, but I honestly don’t care. What I care about is the waterfall in front of me, relatively narrow but so high that the water turns into a fine mist as it cascades to the bottom of the rockface. It’s there, almost mundane compared to the beauty of the scenery around it, that the cave entrance awaits me.

  I know the inside, from countless hours studying Dad’s notes. I’ve memorized every turn and twist, and I know that even then, there’s another entrance inside the entrance . . . easily overlooked, easily dismissed, and containing treasures beyond description.

  “Stop,” Francisco says, raising a hand just to get the point across. “Rest.”

  “Finally,” I murmur as I lay my bag down, taking out the urn that contains ‘Dad’s ashes.’ “I can honor my dad’s dying wishes.”

  I have to force my voice to sound mournful and hesitant, as if the words pain me, playing the part of the dutiful son.

  “Not now,” Francisco says, pointing off to the left. “You’ve had a long day. You should rest for a few minutes, clear your head before you scatter your ashes. You have all day. We head back after breakfast tomorrow.”

  I didn’t realize that was the plan, and the length of time here is more than I could’ve hoped for. An overnight opportunity onsite? As long as I can get away from the guys and have some alone time in the cave to search for the diamond, I’m almost assured to find it. But when I move toward the dark opening, flicking my light right and left, the two guards move with me.