Hanover had gone all out on the decorating, unlike Brayton. I felt like I’d stepped onto the bridge of a pirate ship.
The dark wooden panels covering the walls held picture after picture of Hanover with what I assumed to be important people. Shaking hands, cutting ribbons, digging a hole with a golden shovel.
There were no photographs of his family. Bernadette appeared in one or two in the background but there were none of Michael with Brandon catching fish or playing ball.
The oak desk was larger than most small cars, the polished surface covered with papers and folders, fat stone paperweights with fossils embedded in them holding down thick wads of reports. A tiny computer sat on a smaller desk with the screensaver running—a display of old tall ships ranging from the USS Constitution to the more recent ones used for racing.
He gestured to the two chairs in front of the desk while he wandered around to his luxury seat.
I sat down and crossed my legs.
“Rebecca,” Michael started then caught himself. He leaned on the desk, his arms pushing aside file folders and piles of Post-it notes. “Believe me when I say I have nothing to do with this.”
“On the contrary. You have everything to do with this.”
Michael nodded. “True. I am sorry I pulled you into all this. I didn’t foresee this being such a complicated affair.”
“Death usually is.” I pointed at the parade of photographs on the wall. “Is Molly Callendar in any of those? Might want to hide them when the cops come to visit.”
Michael frowned, the tufts of white on his temples twitching. “Why would they be interested in me? I already spoke to Detective Attersley and explained I gave your name as a favor to Brayton. Aside from that I have nothing to add to this whole horrible affair.”
Now it was my turn to lean forward. “You don’t think Brayton is going to keep his mouth shut forever about this deal? That you’re the one who had the affair with Molly, not him?”
He didn’t flinch. No blinking, no emotional change of any kind.
I’d hate to face Michael Hanover across a poker table.
“What makes you say that?” The cold reply chilled my bones.
“I saw the baby.” Time to roll the dice—but not to show all my cards. “He looks a hell of a lot like you. And Bran.”
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “All babies look the same. Cute, adorable, blah blah blah. You haven’t told the cops this insane theory, have you?”
I studied his face. So much like Bran’s but with an inner hardness that would shatter diamonds. “And if I have?”
Michael leaned back, touching his fingertips together. “I think you haven’t. Because there’s no proof.” He spread his hands. “Without proof, well...the police tend to nitpick about such things. And so do lawyers.” He tilted his head to one side. “Have you shared your theories with Bran?”
I mentally squirmed.
He studied me for a second before continuing. “I see.” Michael looked over at the photo gallery. “I’ll make this brief because I have to get back to work. Brayton isn’t going to say anything about me to the police because there’s nothing to say. If you mention this wild theory I’ll not only continue the investigation into your family and make it public, I’ll make sure you never work in this town again.”
I couldn’t help smiling at the classic threatening phrase.
Michael frowned. “I’m not joking. As for your relationship with Bran, his mother and I will be having a discussion with him as regards his future in general and specifically with you. While I realize you played a part in his...rehabilitation, you have to understand the Hanover name stands for security and safety. Having a loose cannon spewing rumors and theories in the family wouldn’t be good for us. Or you.”
“You’d make him choose between me and you?” I smiled. “Really?”
“Bran has had the best of everything up to this point. Schooling, training, access to anything and anyone he’s wanted.” Michael touched his fingertips together. “True, he turned his back on honest journalism for a bit but he relied on the family name for his rent money. What do you think he’ll do if I tell him to choose between staying with you and utter poverty?”
“He’d choose me.” I had no doubt in my heart.
“Really.” Michael smirked. “You might want to reconsider what you know about my son.”
My cell phone buzzed. I ignored it.
“You may want to answer that,” Michael said. The sly smile begged to be slapped off.
I grabbed at the slim technological wafer.
WHERE R U?
AT WORK. B HOME SOON.
NO.
I stared at the screen.
IM IN LOBBY WAITING 4 YOU. COME DOWN. NOW.
I closed the connection without replying and tucked the phone back into my pocket.
Michael stood up. “Perhaps my son can talk some more sense into you.” One eyebrow rose. “Since you don’t keep any secrets from him, right?”
* * *
The elevator ride down was slow and agonizing. If I was lucky the cables would snap and send me down to the hell that waited for liars.
It didn’t break.
I spotted him the second I stepped off the elevator despite a swarm of businessmen and women clotting the lobby.
Bran stood inside the front doors, waiting with arms crossed.
“I’m over in Yorkville at a little café, having a coffee with a magazine editor who wants a series of articles on Toronto street life, and I get interrupted by a message from my mother asking why my girlfriend was hanging out in a police station.” The fury in his eyes could have torched half of Rome. “Especially when I thought you were doing a fast security system check for a client and there was no reason for you to be with the cops. So I have to explain to her about how I’m not your keeper and how there must be a good reason even though I can’t think of one right now. And then I get a call from my father’s office telling me to come pick you up here. So what is going on?”
I held up a hand. “Can we at least get home before you toss me over your knee? Let me get into the school girl outfit.”
This earned us a guffaw from the security supervisor and curious looks from the other guards and bystanders.
Bran didn’t smile. He crooked a finger at me and walked out. I gave a shrug to the audience and followed.
He was silent the entire way home in the back of the cab.
I shuffled my feet, not daring to make small talk. There was no way to be gentle about what I had to tell him, no way I could think of.
I’d have rather gone on a hunt against a rabid boar with a toothpick.
Bran paid off the cab driver and led the way up to my house and inside, using his own key to unlock the door. His leather duster flew onto the back of the couch.
I added my coat and messenger bag. The oversized purse slid onto the floor.
I didn’t move to pick it up.
Jazz flew by us in a white blur heading for the stairs. Old girl could move it when she needed to and right now she sensed she needed to get as far away from these two humans as she could.
Bran sat down on the couch, shoving both coats aside. “Can you imagine how pissed off I am right now?” His hands flew back and forth, slicing the air in layers. “My mother, she doesn’t need a reason to dislike you—all you needed was a vagina. Now you’re slinking around police stations and lying to me and seeing my father in his office and—” He stopped for air. “Feel free to jump in anytime.”
I looked at him and all I could see was Liam’s sweet, innocent face. I broke into tears.
“What the...” He bounded off the couch and grabbed me in a bear hug. “What’s going on?” His hands moved up and down over my shirt. “Are you hurt? Did someone attack you? Is that why y
ou were at the police station?” In a flash his tone changed from demanding to protective.
“No, no. I’m fine.” I buried my face in his shoulder. “It’s bad. It’s so damned bad.” He smelled of coffee and nervous sweat. “God, I don’t know where to start.”
My stomach growled, the loud noise startling both of us.
“When was the last time you ate?” Bran asked.
I gave a shrug and shook my head.
“No wonder you’re fucked up. You probably skipped brekka as well.” He lowered me to the couch, kneeling down. “Let me get some dinner. Then we can talk about what’s going on.”
There was no room for negotiation.
Bran pulled off the afghan from the back of the couch and wrapped it around me. “I think there’s some cold pizza in the fridge. Let me nuke it and get something for you to drink.” He stood up. “I don’t know what’s going on here but I’m not going to have you get sick over it.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say.
Jazz trilled from the top of the stairs before coming to my feet. She hopped up and head-butted my hip. Whether we were related or not was an ongoing joke of Bran’s but never let it be said a cat didn’t know when someone needed comfort even at the risk of an angry mate.
Bran entered from the kitchen carrying two slices of pizza on a plate, and a can of soda. “Figured you’d need this.” He offered the drink first. “Eat, drink and we’ll talk.”
I emptied half the can in a gulp as Bran sat down beside me with his own reheated slices and a can of soda. He ate quickly and efficiently with sideways glances at how I was doing.
There was no talking, just a lot of happy chewing.
The pizza was a classic pepperoni and mushroom from a small family business, the dough made fresh every day and almost tastier than the actual toppings.
“Right.” He took the plate from me and placed it atop his own on the floor. Jazz immediately hopped off to investigate. “What’s this all about?”
I rubbed my eyes with my palms. “Your father...” I stopped, unsure of where to go next.
“My father is an asshole. What did he say to you last night that got you into all this trouble today?”
“Your father asked me to do a favor for him.”
Bran didn’t flinch. “Bastard. Let me guess—you do a favor for him and he gives you the file about your family.”
I squirmed. “In a way.”
Bran waited. The man had the patience of a saint.
And the passion of a sinner.
The words rolled out in one breath. “Your father told me if I didn’t do this favor for him he’d sic the dogs on us, send a full investigative team in to dig up everything on me and my family, everything about us.” I bit my lower lip. “Bran, they’d have killed all of you.”
I didn’t have to elaborate who “they” were. He knew how far the Felis would go to keep secrets.
“Fuck.” Bran ran a hand through his short red hair. “Stupid bastard. He should have known better—”
“No, he couldn’t have. And he can’t ever know.” I rolled the can between my palms, letting the condensation drip onto the floor. “He asked me to go see a man named David Brayton. Works for your father downtown in one of those towers.”
Bran’s face was blank. “Can’t say I know the man. But I don’t know a lot of my father’s associates.” I saw his jaw tense. “I don’t walk in those circles, haven’t for a long time.”
I pressed the wet metal against my forehead. “Brayton’s just another financial flunky, far as I can tell. He asked me to do a courier run. He wanted no paperwork on this, a private job, which is why I got called in to keep it as secret as possible.”
I needed another soda. Instead I swallowed hard and continued.
Bran didn’t say anything.
“He wanted me to go to a hotel, meet a woman. The paperwork, it was a support agreement for her baby. Named Brayton as the father and arranged for her to get a sweet sum of cash for staying quiet and disappearing. She was going to move out of town, take the money and build a new life.”
“I take it Brayton’s married.”
“Yes. He told me it was a mistake, the usual crap when men have affairs and don’t want to admit they were thinking with the little head more than with the big head.”
Bran grinned.
I shrugged, enjoying the brief moment of levity.
The mood vanished as I took a deep breath, knowing what I had to say but not finding the right words.
“I saw the baby.” I chewed on my bottom lip, delaying for a few more seconds. “It wasn’t Brayton’s child.”
Bran blinked. His eyebrows came together as he frowned.
“I—” I touched the tip of my nose. “I could tell he wasn’t Brayton’s because I recognized the scent from another male. Liam’s real father.”
I could see him putting the pieces together in a horrible, heartbreaking sequence. Our first case, the event that had brought us together and revealed my secret to him involved my ability to sniff a sample of Felis hair and determine a relationship between father and son. Each person had their own scent but there was always a trace of their parents in there, a family trait.
The baby wasn’t Felis but the same rules applied.
If Brayton wasn’t Liam’s father someone else was, someone who I could identify by his scent and who would have reason to want the paternity kept secret.
Someone who would use blackmail to keep me quiet.
“My father.” He said the words like a curse.
I dropped my head down. I couldn’t say the words.
Bran pressed his hands against his knees, hard. The muscles on his arms went rigid as he stared at the floor. He drew short, rough breaths.
I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do.
Everyone reacts differently to bad news. I’ve seen women break into the giggles when discovering their husbands are fooling around and grown men shrug off infidelity as if it were a bug bite.
I couldn’t even begin to guess at what Bran would do.
I reached out to touch him, to somehow apologize for fracturing his reality. “Bran.”
He stood up and swung at the lamp on the table beside us. It crashed against the wall. The black clay shattered, exposing the electrical wiring that lay limp on the floor. The black lamp shade bounced away behind the couch and out of sight.
“That bastard,” he shouted. “A baby. A fucking baby.”
Jazz disappeared in a white blur up the stairs to the relative safety of the bedroom. I wanted to join her but couldn’t.
I’d brought the storm. Now I had to deal with it.
Bran brought his fists down on the cherrywood table. It didn’t break but angry cracks spun out from the impact site through the varnish. The narrow legs wobbled in preparation of surrender.
I got up and stood there, hands at my side.
Another hammering and the side table gave way. It sank to the ground like a dead animal, the dark wooden legs splayed out in all directions. Chips of varnish flew around my feet and under the couch.
Bran drew a shuddering breath. He turned to me.
“Bastard.”
Blood trickled down his fingers.
I took a step back, fear curdling the pizza and soda in my stomach. He looked like a trapped animal, an angry wounded animal about to lash out at anyone in range.
I didn’t know what to do or say.
He stared at me and for a second I saw the little boy inside him, betrayed and hurt. Another blink and his expression flashed forward into the steely-eyed predator I’d encountered in the Pennsylvanian forest, unbroken and proud.
I couldn’t breathe. It was like I’d been punched in the chest so hard my heart couldn’t beat and I was dying
.
“Reb?” Bran whispered. “Are you okay?” He looked down at his bleeding hands, then back at me. “Oh God. Are you afraid of me?”
I shook my head even as I stepped back a pace, my feet moving independently of my mind.
“You’re trembling.” He took a step closer. His scent washed over me, the thick musk filled with testosterone.
I froze like a deer caught in the headlights. My legs turned to rubber, threatening to drop me to the ground.
“Oh God.” His arms went around me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’d never hurt you, never.” He pulled me to the ground, both of us kneeling on bloody splinters.
“It’s okay.” I felt the fear dissipate, washed away by a surge of emotion. “I just, I’ve never seen you like that.”
“I’ve never been so mad. So fucking mad at my father.” He tilted my face up so I could see him clearly. “But not mad at you.”
“You were. A little bit.”
“A little bit,” he admitted. “But I can’t stay mad at you. You’re too damned good in bed.”
“You know it.” I took hold of his shoulders and stood up, a little shaky on my feet. “You’re bleeding. Let’s get you fixed up.”
He followed me into the kitchen and shoved his hands in the sink. I turned on the cold water and let it wash away the blood.
“Bastard,” Bran repeated. The anger in his voice was still there, tempered with sadness and acceptance.
I opened up the drawer and got the first aid kit. There was nothing to add.
“Tell me the whole story.” The warning tone in his voice demanded honesty. “All of it.”
It took the length of time for me to disinfect and clean his hands to go through the details, including calling Jess and asking for the Felis to help find Liam. The scratches weren’t deep—I was more worried about splinters sneaking under the skin. He’d be sore and a bit bruised but he’d survive.
“A half brother,” he whispered. “A half brother.” Bran drew a deep breath. “What does he look like?”
Family Pride (Blood of the Pride) Page 9