by Vivi Paige
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed and rubbed a hand down my face. “I appreciate the warning, but Crenshaw Hook is as relentless as the tide. He’d hunt me down no matter where I ran. I don’t want to live my life in fear, not anymore. I’ll face my destiny head on.”
“Most admirable, ma’am,” Starkey said with a nod. “I fear I must be explicitly clear on where my loyalties lie. I love you like you were my own daughter, Belle.”
I started, peering up at him with shock. “It’s true. I’ve watched you grow up from a sad little girl to a very competent, if still sad woman. But my love for you is but an infinitesimal speck of dust compared to the galaxy of fear I hold for Crenshaw Hook. Please understand.”
I nodded, trying to smile through my fear and despair. “I do understand, Starkey. I’d never expect you to endanger your life for me.”
“I don’t fear death, ma’am,” he said solemnly. “I fear a bad death. Crenshaw Hook is endlessly creative in his methods of slow execution.”
He locked gazes with me once more, his voice trembling. “Once again, I implore you to flee before he makes his presence known.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Starkey,” I said. “But I’m afraid I can’t run. Not anymore. Because if I start running, I’ll never stop.”
“As you will, ma’am,” he said, bowing his head. “Allow me to say it has been a pleasure.”
“Gee, Starkey,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “You’re acting like it’s my funeral already. Surely Hook can see that holding a grudge is of little profit here.”
Starkey didn’t say anything further, which spoke volumes in and of itself. I retreated to my office and poured myself a drink. If this was it, if I was really waiting for my doom, I wasn’t going to do so wringing my hands and pacing back and forth. I was going to face it with dignity.
An hour passed and then two, and I began to think maybe Hook was out of the country or some such thing.
Then a very smug Wendy poked her head inside my office door and spoke with a polite voice and a viper’s smile. “Mr. Hook has sent a car for you, Ms. Barrie,” she said sweetly. “He requests your presence right away.”
“I’ll only be too happy to attend to him.” I smiled. Her face flashed with disappointment. She’d been hoping I’d shit my panties. No dice. I was done being afraid of Crenshaw Hook. My fear of him caused me to put out an assassination contract on the man I loved.
The man I could never have. At least, after Hook was done with me, he would likely dial back his aggression toward the Maynes. Things would cool down and return to the cold war scenario we’d enjoyed for so many years.
Life would go on. Peter’s life would go on. At the cost of mine. Fair trade, since I put him in danger in the first place.
I’d love to hate him for coming into my club that fateful night. I’d love to hate myself for letting him. But I just couldn’t. If I was going to die soon, at least I knew what true love felt like, even if it was only for a few days.
I headed out to the black limousine parked next to the curb. I didn’t bother taking my guns. What good would they do? What was I going to do, shoot my way out? I’d worked for Hook my whole adult life. Most of his employees and hangers on were at least known to me, if not people I considered friends. I was not about to make them suffer in some silly blaze of glory.
Besides, I still hoped I might be able to talk Hook down from his position of vengeful rage. I had often been spared the worst of his wrath.
The driver pulled away as soon as I climbed into the back seat. I could see his pitying gaze in the rear-view mirror. I wondered if he was considering warning me or not. If he was, his fear won out over his conscience.
We headed to New Jersey and then toward the crawling Atlantic Ocean. I realized where we were going. Hook owned a yacht that he kept docked a few miles from the boardwalk. My heart sank. When Hook chose to dispose of his enemies, it often involved taking them on a ride in the yacht. A one-way ride.
I maintained my composure regardless as the limo parked in the lot near the docks. The sun was just kissing the horizon, spreading purple and red brilliance onto the panorama of clouds merging with the sea. It was a beautiful scene, but I had to turn my gaze from it to the yacht up the dock.
Hook’s ship was also called the Jolly Roger—original, right?—a three-hundred-foot, thirty-cabin mega yacht, which was practically his second home. I walked slowly but without obvious fear up the pier until I reached the gangplank.
The yacht was packed with guests. I recognized many of them and realized Hook was planning an auction—an auction I knew nothing about. He had already decided not to trust me before I betrayed him.
As soon as my shoes touched the deck, I was spirited away by two no-nonsense towering goons to Hook’s private cabin. It was simply sprawling, taking up most of the yacht’s uppermost deck, replete with a grand piano, a full wet bar, and high-end artwork adorning the walls. His bedroom was a separate chamber completely, past a kidney-shaped swimming pool.
I was prepared for his damning glower as soon as I walked in the door. What I was not prepared for was the sight of Crocodile smiling a toothy grin, standing right beside Hook.
“Belle.” Hook pronounced my name as if it were a curse word. “I can see by your pale countenance you know full well the reason I have summoned you here.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he shouted me into silence. “What in the world were you thinking, drawing arms against the very men you hired to solve our mutual problem?” Hook’s face was livid, shaking with his rage.
“I was thinking Peter Mayne didn’t do anything worthy of death,” I spoke clearly. “I was thinking we don’t want a protracted hot war with the Maynes. It’s not a fight you can win.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Crenshaw’s eyes glittered with a wicked light. “Perhaps I am a bit undermanned and underfunded to take on the firm, but we are not.”
He gestured between himself and Ivanovich, and a chill ran down my spine. Things were going to get a lot more dangerous for the Mayne brothers and for anyone caught in the crossfire, including my people at the club—Starkey, Smee, even that traitor bitch Wendy. None of them deserved to be cut down in a hail of bullets intended for someone more deserving—like Hook.
“I guess you finally got your war,” I glowered. “So, what’s the plan? Take us out into international waters and then shoot me in the head, and dump my body overboard for the sharks?”
“No, Belle,” Hook said, shaking his dyed mane of hair. “That would be much too swift. In order to appease Mr. Ivanovich’s sense of honor, you must… suffer.”
I tried not to falter at his sinister laugh. As the goons dragged me away, my thoughts weren’t of my own safety. They were only of Peter, how much I loved him, and how I despaired I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.
Chapter Twenty-One
In my family, there’s a time-honored tradition for dealing with feelings of misery and rejection. It consists of finding a bottle of the strongest damn thing you can get your hands on and crawling inside.
After Belle devastated me, I stood in the doorway looking across the street at the Jolly Roger, mournfully bemoaning my fate in silence. Though she was only a couple hundred feet away, Belle might as well have been on the moon as far as I could reach her.
When security showed, they flipped the fuck out over the dead Olaf bodies strewn about the club. Understandable, but I had completely forgotten the bloodbath that preceded Belle’s departure. I was so wound up in losing her, in my own heartbreak, that practical concerns seemed a distant, hazy horizon.
Naturally when something went down like that, word reached the very top and the very bottom of our organization. Uncle Lucian blew up my phone asking if I was all right, pressing me for details, which I numbly gave him via text. I wasn’t in the mood to speak with anyone, and in fact wasn’t certain I could.
At the other end of the spectrum were the Boyz, but they came in person to attend me in my time of need. Unfortunately
, this kind and generous gesture only seemed to reinforce how lonely I was.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my Boyz. We’d been friends for a long time, merry world stompers who partied hard and then faded away with the morning light. But my life before Belle had been akin to one spent stumbling around in the dark with a broken flashlight that only worked half the time. I was blind to the beauty all around me and focused only on what I could immediately perceive.
In a way, you could say Belle upgraded my flashlight, and now I could see everything. But it wasn’t enough. My wealth, my privilege, my stewardship of Club Lost, even my Boyz. It wasn’t enough, and it never would be without Belle.
“Hey, you all right, Pete?” Nibs gave me the once-over to check for bullet holes.
“You idiot, look at that suit. Would he still be wearing it if he was bleeding?” Toots clucked his tongue in recrimination as he put his hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Pete? You look like someone shot your dog.”
“Wow, when did you get a dog, Pete?” Curly piped up.
Nibs and Toots shot Curly withering glares.
“Here,” Toots said, digging a yo-yo out of his pocket. “Go play with this.”
“Cool, a yo-yo!” Curly took the proffered plastic toy and retreated a few steps away, putting it through its paces, or rather he tried. Every time the yo-yo hit the end of its string, it failed to roll back up more than an inch or so before stopping dead.
“Seriously, what’s wrong, man?” Nibs patted my belly. “You been getting enough to eat? My ma’s broiling up a mean brisket even as we speak. You’ll feel better with nosh.”
“Belle broke up with me,” I mumbled miserably, pushing his hands away and walking over to the window to stare at the Jolly Roger. As I watched, their maintenance man Smee closed the shutters one by one. It occurred to me she might be in danger for offing the Olafs sent to kill me. “I’ve got to go see her.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Nibs said as he and Toots moved to bar my path. “That’s the last place you wanna be right now, Pete. You knew as much as we did that your whole fling with Belle was doomed from the start.”
“It wasn’t a fling,” I snapped, grabbing him by his shirt collar and shoving him into the wall. “It wasn’t a goddamned fling, okay? I love her.” My hands loosened on his shirt, and I trembled. I could feel tears welling in my eyes, but I was too wound up for any type of release. “I love her.” I sank to my knees.
“Hey, get this guy some whiskey, stat!” Toots called. Curly, who had grown frustrated with the yo-yo and threw it across the room in disgust, quickly moved to obey.
They ensconced me at a table while security locked Lost completely down. The Olafs had missed their hit—thanks to Belle—but there was no guarantee they wouldn’t try a second time.
Or a third. I was probably in terrible danger, but at the time all I could focus on was losing Belle. I know what you’re thinking. Just another lovesick Romeo working himself into a frenzy. Well, you’re wrong. I knew even then that Belle was my primo, my number one, the only woman I would ever truly love.
The Boyz did their best trying to cheer me. They poured whiskey down my throat, slapped me on the shoulder with encouragement, spouted all the usual post-breakup nonsense. There’s other fish in the sea. Most relationships don’t work out anyway. StreamFlix is thinking of doing a revival of SpongeBob—that was Curly’s contribution, specifically.
I was working my way into a deep funk, and I wasn’t about to let their efforts stop me, however well intentioned. Eventually they gave up on trying to cheer me and bantered among themselves.
A lot of the banter revolved around what the Olafs would do now that their hit squad had been demolished. From the way they described the situation, it was clear the Boyz thought I had vanquished the Olaf goons all by my lonesome.
I didn’t have the gumption to correct them, as it would only have made me miss Belle even more.
“You think old man Ivanovich is going to send out another squad?” Nibs questioned.
“Nah,” Toots said. “Crocodile always scales up. I’d say he’s going to try something more extreme next, like a bomb or arson or some shit.”
“Why do they call Ivanovich Crocodile, Toots?” Curly spoke up.
“It dates back to when he was in a Russian gulag. He ate the ears and fingers right off his cellmate—while the guy was still alive.”
“Jesus,” Curly blanched. “Man. What are we gonna do?”
“Well, the Olafs are a neutral party. They do jobs for Crenshaw, but they do jobs for us, too.” Nibs sighed. “That makes it a complex situational for Lucian. He can’t just strike back at the Olafs for doing their job. But at the same time, this kind of shit, sending six guys to off one of his nephews…”
“Yeah, Lucian’s definitely going to have to do something,” Toots agreed. “My money is on Lucy having a summit with Hook and telling him to call off the hit. Or else.”
“Or else what? Hook’s suffering from delusions of grandeur. You think he’s going to back down from Lucy?”
“Dude, everyone backs down from Lucy,” Toots chuckled.
“Heads up, boss,” interrupted one of the security guards. “We got a car out front.”
I glanced up, actually kind of hoping the Olafs were coming back. Not so I could gain a measure of revenge, but hoping they would put me out of my misery. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.
“That’s Will’s Cobra,” I murmured glumly as my muscular older brother vaulted out of the convertible without bothering to open the door. “Calm the fuck down.”
“Will? What’s Mr. Big Bad Wolf doing here? I thought he’d be too busy screwing that hot little redhead of his to bother with Club Lost,” Toots said.
“He’s here because Uncle Lucy sent him,” I rumbled in a low growl. “He’s going to bust my ass for getting the firm into this situation in the first place.”
Will came inside, the bouncers warily moving out of his path. He had that effect on people. His eyes locked on mine as he strode purposefully across the dance floor to stand at my table.
“Take a hike, Boyz,” Will spoke softly.
“Sure thing, Will.” Toots quickly rose from his seat and dragged Curly along with him.
“No problem, Will.” Nibs vacated his chair and pulled it out for my big brother.
The Boyz retreated upstairs, and Will settled heavily into the chair opposite me. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and sighed. “Damn it, Peter, you’re supposed to be one of the good ones.”
“Crawl out of my ass, Will. I’m not in the mood.”
“Neither am I, but I’ve got a job to do.”
“What? Busting my chops?”
“That and pulling your head out of your ass.” Will drummed his fingers on the table. “Just look around you, Pete. Dead bodies, bullet holes in the wall, two crime syndicates up in our shit. And all because of a woman.”
I looked at him askance, poured myself another shot of whiskey, and laughed. “I know you, of all people, aren’t going to lecture me about doing stupid shit because of a woman. Not after you went and fell in love with the one you were supposed to kidnap—”
“I did kidnap Scarlett, but that’s beside the point.” Will drummed his fingers harder. “I know it seems hypocritical coming from me, but you’ve got to get your head on straight.”
“My head is on straight, Will. It’s never been straighter. I love Belle. I will do whatever it takes to be with her, including leaving the firm.”
Will glared at me. “You know,” he said icily, “no one leaves the firm. No one. Well, they do, but feet first. The pay is great, but our retirement plan sucks.”
“I don’t care, Will. I can’t live without her anyway. If I’m going to die, I might as well die quickly in a hail of bullets rather than slowly and agonizingly from a broken heart. You know what I’m saying?”
Will laughed, and stood suddenly. “Actually, I do. I understand probably better than anyone else in the family. All ri
ght, Peter. I’ve done my best. But I can see there’s no changing your mind.”
“Thanks, Will.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m not saying I’m going to play your advocate. If you want Lucian to accept Belle into the fold, you’re going to have to manage that on your own.”
“I know. I meant thanks for not fucking up my face with those meat hooks of yours.”
Will laughed, shaking his head. “One, I’m not sure I could take you, Pete. You’re damn fast, always have been. It’s like you float rather than walk. And two, you look like you’re suffering enough. There’s nothing I can do to you that a skirt can’t do even worse.”
As he rolled out the door, I was forced to admit he was right. Now all I had to do was go and convince the godfather of the most dangerous family in New York that my love was worth risking everyone’s lives for.
Piece of cake compared to living without Belle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The goons shoved me down to the lower decks, past the auction party, which was just getting into full swing. A merry band blasted energetic jazz, caterers served exquisite crab cakes, and the auction bidders themselves all turned a blind eye to my captivity. This sort of thing was not a new experience to them.
“Keep moving.” One of the block-headed Olafs shoved me hard on the shoulder.
“Not so rough,” Ivanovich rumbled. I started, not having realized he’d followed. “We do not want the lady to fall and get hurt. Yet.”
“What’s your game, Fyodor?” I snapped even as I allowed myself to be corralled onto the lowest deck, a maintenance area far less glamorous than the rest of the yacht. “Going to torture me to death? That won’t bring your men back or make you any less Hook’s stooge.”
Crocodile tilted his head back and laughed. “I like you, Belle Barrie.” And for what it was worth, he sounded sincere. “I really do. If it were not so damaging to the Olaf reputation, I would allow your slight to go unpunished.” He shrugged. “But things are what they are.”