“Same story with her. The only way to not be found by us is as I already described. You’re dead or you’re completely off-grid and underground.”
My office building comes into view. “I’m here.” I disconnect and think of myself in that bed, naked. I think of Jax in that airplane scared for me. He’s lost his brother and father recently. I can’t imagine the blame game he’s playing with himself right now. My anger burns hot, and I charge forward.
Once I’m inside the building, I ignore the guards. They know me. I hope like hell none of them have been alerted to tell my brother when I arrive. Because, of course, he knows this is coming. I weave through the crowd, nose down, avoiding staff who know me and feel relief over my success. I head to the stairwell because, despite the long walk up, that’s the best way to assure my brother doesn’t get word that I’m in the building. One text message, and he knows I’m here.
Of course, I soon find a drugged undernourished person does not walk a ton of stairs easily, but I get it done. I’m about to exit to my floor, which is also my brother’s floor when my phone rings with Jax’s number. I lean on the wall and answer. “Jax?”
“Emma.” His voice is rough, affected. “Thank God, baby. You have no idea how worried I’ve been.”
“Jax,” I whisper, and just talking to him is like coming home. “You didn’t think I left on my own, right?”
“No. I never thought that. I knew better. I knew we were—are—”
“We are,” I say. “We so are.”
“Yes, baby, we are. Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m weak, and I’m shaken, but I’m in fight mode, too. Are you here?”
“Five minutes from your offices. Wait on me.”
“I can’t do that. He won’t talk to me and tell me the truth if you’re here. Wait for me downstairs. Text me when you get here and tell me where to find you.”
“Emma—”
“I have to talk to my brother on my own.” It kills me, but I disconnect the line, shove the phone in my purse and open the stairwell door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Emma
I charge down the hallway toward my brother’s office, only to discover Randall walking in my direction, his expensive suit fitted to perfection and screaming money. That’s his intent, too. He’s arrogant. He’s an asshole.
“Emma,” he greets, and as if proving my point about him being an arrogant asshole, he adds, “I knew you disappearing was a stunt. Glad to see you came to your senses and got your ass back home.”
That’s it. He’s pushed me over the edge. I close the space between us, and I don’t stop until he’s within reach at which point slap him in the face. “What the fuck?!” he growls, and when I attempt to repeat that slap, he catches my wrist. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I know it was you,” I hiss. “I know what you did.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit. You know.”
“What is going on here?”
At the sound of my brother’s voice, Randall grimaces. I, on the other hand, gloat because we both know he’s about to let go of my arm so I can slap him again. As if proving my point, yet again, Chance steps to our sides. “Why the fuck are you touching my sister, Randall?” he demands.
“She slapped the shit out of me,” he snaps. “I’m protecting myself.”
“You will not be here when I’m done with you, Randall,” I promise. “You are done. You are gone.”
“Emma,” Chance warns. “You want to come and talk to me?”
His tone is non-confrontational, the snake charmer I used to call my “brother” trying to lure me in for the bite. I cut him a glare. “More like I want to hit you, too, brother.”
“Okay,” he says. “Hit me then. Just don’t hit Randall.”
I shift my glare back to Randall, fighting the absolute need to do just that and hit him again. “Let me go, Randall,” I order tightly, my words so brittle they almost crack falling from my lips.
“If you hit me again, Emma,” he warns. “I will not be responsible for what I do.” He lets go of me.
Chance catches my arm and tugs me away from Randall. “Thank God, you’re okay,” he murmurs, shocking me as he embraces me in a bear hug, despite the very public hallway, and whispers in my ear, “Jax called. I’ve been worried sick. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I don’t believe you,” I hiss, bitterness in my words and hurt in my belly.
He inches back to look at me, something that resembles pain in his blue eyes, his voice low, for my ears only. “That’s how it is now? He’s turned you against me?”
“He didn’t. You did.”
His lips press together, anger, a sharp whip in his stare, replacing the pain. I know his anger when I see it. I know his moods. Just like I know he too wears an expensive suit, his choice, a gray pinstripe Armani, which I know because he loves Armani. I thought I knew everything about him. But now, I’m not sure I know anything about him at all. “My office,” he orders softly.
There’s something else I know about Chance, that I can now confirm as accurate. How good he is at giving orders. “Yes,” I agree. “Let’s go to your office.” I push out of his hold and walk around him, not stopping until I enter his office. Once there, in the center of the room, I whirl around to watch him join me and shut the door.
“What the hell was that Emma?” he demands, walking around his desk to lean on it and judge me. “You do know that he can sue us.”
“Out there, it was: I was worried about you, Emma. Now, it’s: he can sue us? I was kidnapped by a man in a mask and woke up in my own bed naked. This, after Randall threatened me, which we both know was at your direction.”
He blanches. “What? You were naked?”
“Yes, Chance. I was naked. Did your hired-hand take more than you offered? I know you did this. You’re afraid of Jax. You tried to make me afraid of Jax, and when that didn’t work, you just paid off someone at the castle to get me to you and here I am.” I press my hand to my forehead. “I woke up naked, Chance,” I whisper it this time, far more shaken by that fact than I’ve allowed myself to admit up until now. “Naked and drugged.” My voice lifts again, vibrating with my anger. “What do you think happened while I was drugged?”
He scrubs his jaw and presses his hands to the desk. “I didn’t do this, Emma. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“And yet, you threatened me.” I don’t give him time to lie and deny again. “I know you know about Hunter.”
“What about Hunter, Emma?”
“I know you know that he was our half-brother. I know you know, Chance.”
The phone on his desk starts ringing. I ignore it and keep talking. “Someone left me a note with a DNA test. The test said he was dad’s son. The note pointed out that you and Jax had the most motivation to kill Hunter. Randall was there when I got the note.” I think of Savage’s theory and add, “There’s a valid reason to think that he left that note and test.”
“Randall wouldn’t accuse me of killing Hunter.”
“Did you kill Hunter?”
“Did you really just ask me that, Emma?”
“Did you—”
“No, I did not kill Hunter,” he bites out, “and I can’t believe I had to answer that question. I can’t believe you don’t know me better than that.”
His cellphone starts ringing, and he growls with irritation and pulls it from his pocket. He answers the line. “Whatever it is can wait.” He listens a minute and grimaces before he hangs up. “We’re about to have company.”
It’s in that moment that the door bursts open, and I turn as Jax explodes into the room. I have the briefest of stunned moments, time standing still. And then everything comes back in focus and there is just Jax, standing there in the doorway in black jeans and a black sweater, his blond hair mussed up, so damn beautifully male. My hero who has come to save me. “Emma,” he breathes out, his eyes landing on me, relief spr
eading across his handsome face as if the call didn’t convince him I was okay. He needed to see me.
“Jax,” I whisper, my heart swelling with emotion, and the next thing I know, I’m being dragged into his arms. We wrap ourselves around each other, and when his hand comes down on the back of my head and he kisses me, he kisses me like a man who feared he would never kiss me again.
“Enough already,” Chance snaps. “Enough!”
He wouldn’t say enough if he’d been kidnapped. If he’d woken up naked and had no idea who undressed him. Suddenly angry all over again, I twist away from Jax’s kiss and turn in his arms, but I don’t step away from him. He doesn’t step away from me either but to my side. “It is enough, Chance. What happened to me is too much. You went too far.”
“I had nothing to do with this,” Chance growls. “I was worried sick over you. Do you know me at all, Emma? Do you really think I’d do that and to what end? Pissing you off and sending you right back to Jax? That’s what would have happened. That’s what is happening. I would know that. How is this even logical to think I’d do something that stupid or hurtful?”
“We all know Hunter was dad’s son,” I say. “We all know he was negotiating with dad to become a part of our operation.”
“What I know is that this asshole,” Chance points angrily at Jax as he rounds his desk to stand almost directly in front of him, “is turning you against me.” He looks Jax in the eyes. “You’re fucking her to fuck me.” He then turns his gaze to me. “He’s the problem here, not me. He probably did this himself to turn you against me. Taking your clothes off was for added effect.”
Chance barely gets those words out before the two of them are moving toward each other. My heart jackhammers, and I race to catch Jax, stepping between them, pressing a hand to both of their chests. “Stop. Stop now. Both of you. Don’t do this. Tell him you didn’t kill Hunter, Chance. Tell him now.”
“He knows I didn’t kill Hunter. He’s full of shit, Emma. He’s using you.”
“You bastard,” Jax growls. “You are truly a piece of work.”
“Yeah?” Chance says. “Come show me.”
“Jax,” I plead, my voice shaky. “Jax, please.”
His eyes lower to mine, and the anger, the pain, the hate in their depths cut through me. I see everything in his stare. He wants to hurt Chance. He thinks he killed Hunter. He feared I was dead. His lashes lower, and he turns away, scrubbing his jaw and turning back to us.
“Thank you,” I say, giving my brother my back and catching Jax at the waist. “Thank you, Jax.”
“That was for you, baby, because I love the hell out of you and because I told you I wouldn’t take your brother from you. Which is why I’m going to wait downstairs before I do something I regret.” He sets me away from him, and when he goes to turn, I catch his arm.
My heart swells. “You love me?”
“More than you can possibly know, baby, which is why I’m leaving.” He pulls away and walks to the door.
I cast Chance a desperate look. “Do something. Make this right. If not for me for Hunter. Hunter was our brother, too.”
Jax opens the door, and my brother gives me a deadpan stare. This is useless. If Jax is leaving, I’m leaving. I rush after him.
“Wait,” Chance says. “Don’t go. I’ll tell you both what I know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Jax
He’s going to tell us what he knows.
That statement stops my exit from Chance’s office. I halt and seal the door again but I don’t turn because I don’t know what I’ll do if Chance says one more wrong thing to me or Emma. I don’t know if staying in this office right now is a smart decision.
“Jax.”
Emma’s touch and her voice, I can’t leave, not yet. I turn around, and she’s right there, wrapping her arms around me, tilting her chin up to look at me. “You know I love you, too, right?”
And just like that, those words soften me. She softens me in ways I never knew possible. “And baby, that makes me a hell of a lucky man and I do not want that to change. Which is why I should leave,” I say.
“No,” Chance says. “You shouldn’t. You need to hear what I have to say because I’m not your enemy, and I’ve decided to trust that you love her enough not to be ours.”
My gaze lifts sharply over Emma’s shoulder. “I’m not her enemy,” I say. “Right now, as far as I’m concerned, I might be yours.”
“I’m not.” He walks to the bar in the corner, near a seating area, and grabs a bottle of whiskey. “Drink? It’s North Whiskey. My father loved it. Honestly, so do I.”
It’s an unexpected admission, and Emma casts me a look, a question in her eyes. She’s asking me to stay. I nod, and she takes my hand, leading me toward the black leather couch a few feet away. Before I even sit, Chance is handing me a glass. “One of your finest.”
I incline my chin at him, and he looks at Emma. “None for you. You have to still have drugs in your system. You need to see a doctor.”
“I’m fine,” Emma says, tugging me down onto the couch.
“He’s right,” I say. “You need to see a doctor.”
“Stop talking about me. I’m not what’s important.”
Chance claims the chair across from us, a glass in his hand as well. “You are exactly what’s important,” Chance says. “I had nothing to do with your abduction, Emma. You know me better than that.”
“Was it Randall?” Emma asks.
“I don’t think so,” Chance replies. “He’s an ass sometimes, but he’d know Jax would follow you back here. He’d know we’d become the bad guys. That’s why I told him not to go there and threaten you, but full disclosure, I lied, Em. I wanted you back, and I let him go there to talk to you.”
“I didn’t think we lied to each other, Chance,” Emma says, her voice low, controlled, but she squeezes the hell out of my hand. “And why would you think I’d listen to him?”
“You weren’t listening to me but stack it up to desperation breeds stupidity.” He looks her in the eyes. “I’m sorry.” He downs the whiskey in his glass. “Good stuff. Really fucking good.” He sets his glass down and this time, it’s my me whose stare he meets. “I knew about Hunter, but I didn’t kill him.”
I down the whiskey before I throw it at him and set my glass on the table. “And I’m to believe that why?”
Emma wraps her arm around mine like she thinks I might launch myself at him at any moment. She might be right.
“I didn’t know the whole truth about what went down with Hunter until my father died,” Chance replies. “I found records in his safety deposit box that spelled out a shitstorm of drama.” He glances at Emma. “And plenty in his journals of which he had many locked away in his office.” He puffs out a breath and eyes me. “I’ll give you the files and the journals to confirm all that I say today.” He shifts his attention back to me. “I can bring them to you later tonight.”
An unexpected offer that still leaves me skeptical. “And what will I find in those files?”
“The DNA test that your mother sent him back when she was pregnant. Per a letter she wrote to him, she wanted him to leave my mother. He refused.”
I take that news like a punch in the gut and not a gentle one.
“However,” he continues, “apparently, dad was forcing a merger of the two companies, but Hunter didn’t want it. I was led to believe, as was my mother, that he did. In his writings, dad called him a pussy because he didn’t want to burn you and Brody financially. But in true form, our father knew how to get around morals, especially other people’s.” He slides his glass toward Emma. “Maybe you do need a drink. I’ll refill the glass.”
Emma shoves the glass away. “I don’t want a drink. Talk.”
“He was blackmailing Hunter,” he says, standing up and walking to the bar, only to return with the whole damn bottle. He refills my glass. “You’re going to need that for the rest of the story.” He refills his own glass next.
I don’t reach for it. I just want him to spit this all out. “Go on,” I urge.
“He told him that he’d make the DNA test public and make it seem like Hunter was doing the opposite of what he was doing. Our father, ironically Hunter’s father, recorded conversations and doctored them to sound like Hunter was cutting you both out completely. In other words, Hunter either merged with us, or he was going to lose everything, including the brothers he was trying to protect.”
Hunter protecting us makes sense. And knowing what I now know, Hunter pulling away from me, unfortunately, does as well. He was swimming in shark infested waters, and he didn’t want to drag me in with him.
“Why did you want the castle?” I ask.
“Because I was a little bitch who should have just gone to you.” He downs a drink. “Here’s the part I’m not proud of.” He leans in toward Emma. “I’m sorry.” He looks at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Get to it,” I say, tension radiating up and down my spine.
“He didn’t disinherit you, Emma. He put your inheritance and mom’s in a trust, but you only receive it if I complete the merger. He put it all on me. See, Hunter pulled back at the last minute. The castle had to be signed over to us to finish the deal and that didn’t happen. I had to make it happen for you and mom to inherit.” He looks at me. “I didn’t want them to lose their inheritance. Hell, I offered Emma part of mine.”
“In other words,” I say, “you were still trying to take us over but doing it without my knowledge. That would never have held up in a court of law.”
“Exactly,” he says. “But dad had it in his mind that once Hunter was gone, you’d want out. If you didn’t, no doubt, he expected me to be as dirty as he was, to make it happen. I was a captive to the will. I am a captive to the will. I didn’t care about the merger. I don’t care about the merger. I just want my mom and my sister’ s inheritance to be funded. You keep your business. I take care of my mom and sister.”
“You should have just gone to Jax,” Emma says. “You should have told him the truth. He would have helped you. Actually, you should have come to me.”
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