“I forgot to tell you the other part of the deal,” she said, stepping back. “Put a hand on me, and I’ll kick your nuts into your throat.” Emmitt was already charging forward but stopped suddenly at the sound of his niece calling his name.
“Hey girls,” Marc said cheerfully. “I told you someone you knew would be coming to get you. Did you like the movie?”
They nodded their heads, as Harlan held them close to her body, inching by her captors and shooting invisible daggers from her eyes. “Let’s go with Uncle Emmitt,” she croaked out as her eyes settled on her brother’s face. Evie nearly lost her breath at the moment that passed between them. She was bowled over by the depth to their exchange even though words didn’t pass between Emmitt and Harlan.
“Come on girls,” he said, opening his arms to them. “I’m going to take you home. Evie, will you take him?” Emmitt asked, practically tossing his father at her.
“Yes,” she said and watched as Charles tried to hide his cuffed hands from the girls.
“It all seems to be here,” one of the men called over as he riffled through the duffle bag of money.
“Fine,” Marc said with a deep intake of breath. “Don’t forget what I said about him.” He shot an accusing finger at Charles. “We could be right back here in a week.”
Harlan spun on her heel and charged at him. “Right back here?” she asked in a frantic demanding way. “You’d better hope I don’t figure out who the hell you are or what this was because I will spend every minute of my life trying to—”
Her words were cut short by Emmitt, hooking one arm around hers and yanking her backward. “It’s done,” he said flatly as he pulled her away. “We’re going.”
They all funneled out the small metal door, and Evie felt Emmitt move her in front of him, lingering for a moment in the building. “If it were you and me in an alley,” he said low but fiercely to Marc. “I’d spill your brain on the concrete before you could beg me to stop. You want to be the kind of guy who steals women and kids to get what you want? That’ll catch up with you. Don’t threaten me or my family again or I’ll make sure I find you in that alley.”
The door slammed behind them and Emmitt went into full ordering mode. “I don’t have car seats, but it doesn’t matter. Get them in my car now. Evie take him back to the hotel. Put him in my room, and don’t let him out of your sight.” He pulled the knife from his pocket and flipped the blade open. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, but do whatever you have to.”
“I’m not going to stab your father,” she said, pushing the knife away.
“Fine,” he said, looking like he already expected that to be her answer. He rounded the car, dragging his father with him and flung him down into the passenger seat. With a quick cock of his fist he knocked him in the back of the head sending his body slumping over. “You shouldn’t have a problem with him now.”
“Emmitt,” Harlan protested, but he shuttled her quickly into the car and sped off.
Evie fumbled her way into the driver’s seat and looked over at the slumped pile of a man whose hands were cuffed together. In this state, after hearing what she just did from Marc Azeela, she couldn’t help but wonder if her ideals about redemption were misplaced on a man like this. Everything had seemed so clear and so right just a few hours ago. Now all she wanted to do was crawl back into Emmitt’s arms and let him tell her everything was going to be all right. But as she drove off in the opposite direction from Emmitt, she felt far away from him in every way.
Chapter 30
“I don’t understand,” Harlan said for what felt like the hundredth time. When she wasn’t uttering the phrase his mother seemed to be.
“There isn’t much to understand,” Emmitt explained as he paced around the sitting room. “Dad burned a lot of people. They decided to outsource collecting the money to a guy with more persuasive tactics. They knew Mom’s family was wealthy and decided to use you and the girls to get Mom to pay.”
“Where did the money come from?” Harlan asked, a shiver running up her spine. “How did you get that much cash so fast?”
“Mathew,” he explained as he checked his watch. “Listen, the girls are in bed. I have security on every corner of the house. Mathew’s FBI contact will be here soon. I need to go deal with Dad.”
“Dad,” Harlan said solemnly. “Did he plan this?”
“He didn’t know,” Emmitt said, and he watched his mother swell with relief. “But this is still his doing. If he hadn’t gotten himself in this position, none of it would have happened. And if he can’t stay off the grid, they’ll come after you again.”
“How are you going to arrange that?” his mother asked, wringing her hands nervously. “He’ll gamble again. We know he can’t stop.”
“I’ll handle that. All I need from the two of you is to stay inside, listen to the security team, and call me if you have any problem.”
“I’m going to check on the girls,” his mother announced as she stepped over the threshold of the room, then back in and out again, whispering something.
“She’s rattled,” Harlan observed aloud.
“Aren’t you?” Emmitt asked, realizing this was the first minute he had alone with his sister since she’d been taken.
“I was pissed,” she admitted, “but I knew you would come. I never doubted for a second that the girls and I would walk out of there and find you waiting for us. That’s how you’re different from Dad. I didn’t have to doubt you.” She crossed the room and hugged him, squeezing him tightly. “You and Mom and Mathew are enough family. Even when you’re gone or being stupid, you’re enough family for the girls and me.”
“I’m sorry he wasn’t better,” Emmitt apologized. “I know you were hoping he was.”
“Hope’s great,” she sighed, “but too much of it can get you kidnapped.”
He pulled her away and looked at her as they both started to laugh. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked. The jokes died down as his skepticism rose.
“I’m not,” she groaned as she flopped back on the couch. “My marriage wasn’t perfect, but at least I had a teammate. My one job is to protect my girls from harm, and today I failed them. Those men pulled up and I froze. Maybe I’m not enough on my own.”
“Bullshit,” Emmitt countered. “These weren’t normal circumstances today. They had guns and two hundred thousand reasons to be pissed. You did the right thing, and you kept them safe and calm. I know things suck right now, but you’re a good mother.”
Her face crumpled in tears as she tried to wave off his compliments.
“I’m serious. They are better off with you, just you, and that’s not going to change. This will all pass—the divorce, the shit with Dad—and you’ll be back on your feet.”
“Where will Dad go? Will I see him again?”
“After this, do you want to?” Emmitt asked, stunned by the idea.
“You’re going to have kids one day. With any luck it will be with Evie, as long as you don’t screw that up. When you do, you’ll understand why I still want to have the possibility of maybe seeing Dad again. I’ll never rely on him again, and I’ll never really trust him, but he’s a part of me. He always will be. Just like no matter how much I screw up, my daughters hopefully will always believe I’m worth knowing.”
“I can’t make any promises right now,” Emmitt apologized. “One thing at a time. You’re safe. The girls are safe. Let me take it from here.”
“You were right about one thing.” Harlan sighed.
“Just one?” he asked with a goading rise of his brow.
“Don’t get cocky,” she scolded. “You were right that it must not be easy to see all the flaws in people so clearly. It must be a burden to know people are so broken.”
“It gets the job done.” Emmitt shrugged as he slipped his keys from his pocket and headed for the door.
“You could come around more,” Harlan said as passively as she could. It wasn’t easy for her to keep her temper or not di
g deeper into this argument with Emmitt. “We love having you. And Evie seems like a great girl. I was a bitch to her that first night, and she didn’t hold it against me. Those types of people are basically the only kind I can be friends with.”
“Evie is a great person. She was the one who heard the men talk and followed them. Without her, we would have never known where you were. She took a huge risk tonight and luckily it turned out all right. But I don’t know that she and I will ever find enough solid common ground to build something on.”
“Don’t get so deep about it,” Harlan scoffed. “People can tell you anything. They will. They’ll go along with your opinions, and they’ll pretend for as long as it takes to get you caught up in them. Smoke and mirrors. If she’s willing, right out of the gate, to argue with a man like you, then she’s worth holding on to.”
He nodded his head as his eyes darted away. There was a chance Harlan was completely right in her assessment, but Emmitt knew it didn’t change much. He was still the guy who tore things down, and Evie would always be the kind of woman using her last bit of strength to hold things together. In the end one of them would always end up disappointed or hurt.
“Drive safely,” Harlan said as she waved him off. “Dinner here tomorrow?”
“Maybe,” he said, avoiding the commitment. He already knew this time tomorrow he’d be gone.
Chapter 31
Evie had no clue how long it took a man who’d been knocked out to come to. In the movies it seemed to happen pretty quick. But she’d managed to make it back to the hotel before Charles started showing any signs of waking.
“Mr. Kalling,” Evie said as she put the car in park and gently touched his shoulder. He sprang up suddenly, and his still cuffed hands covered his head protectively.
“No,” he shouted, trying to get his bearings.
“It’s all right, Mr. Kalling. You’re safe. My name is Evie, and I’m just taking you back to our hotel until Emmitt can return.” She had one hand on her car door ready to hop out if he didn’t calm down.
“Right,” Charles grumbled as he rubbed the sore spot on his head. “Emmitt’s coming.”
“He should be here soon. Everything worked out. You’re safe.”
“Everything worked out?” Charles laughed manically. “Everything is a fucking mess. Why did you do that?” He scowled at her now as the world seemed to crash back on top of his head.
“Do what?” she asked, wondering if he thought she was the one who hit him in the head.
“Why in the hell did you tell them I’d stay away? You understand what they’ll do to my kids?”
“But Emmitt will help you find somewhere. You can get better and stay off the grid.”
“You don’t even know me,” he argued, punching his hands into his forehead. “If I could stay away, I’d have done it before my marriage fell apart. I’d have done it before I lost everything.”
“You do understand the alternative was you dying tonight?” Evie asked incredulously. “If you hadn’t walked out with us you wouldn’t have walked out at all.”
“It’s not me who needs to understand the alternatives,” Charles sneered. “It’s you who needs to wake up and realize the mess you just caused. They might not have killed me tonight. Broken my legs maybe or maimed me in some way, but I probably would have lived once they had their money. Now the deal you made sentences my daughter to a lot worse.”
“All you have to do is not gamble, stay out of the circles you ran in, and cause no more problems. If you know the risk is your daughter or granddaughters getting hurt, then just don’t do it.”
“Foolish,” he said, biting frantically at his thumbnail. “You have no idea how this works. You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have said anything. Emmitt was right. He was right about all of it.”
“You should be grateful,” she argued, now feeling angry at his lack of personal responsibility for all of this.
“Tell me that the next time I get pinched by these guys and they come knocking on Harlan’s door.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but a pounding on the passenger side door had her snapping it shut quickly. Emmitt was standing there, glaring at both of them as though they were dog shit that needed to be wiped off his very expensive shoes.
He pulled open the door and yanked his father out. “Let’s go in,” he said coldly as he gestured toward the hotel.
“You shouldn’t have let her do that,” Charles shot out, trying to make his point before Evie could get a word in.
“I didn’t,” Emmitt replied, not looking at either of them.
“The danger for your sister now—” Charles started, but Emmitt cut in.
“I know.”
“Are you two out of your minds?” Evie asked once the elevator doors closed and provided a bit of privacy. “We all walked out of there.”
“You weren’t supposed to walk in,” Emmitt said. “You were supposed to leave and let me handle it.”
“It didn’t sound like it was going very well,” Evie contended. “He was asking for more money.”
“That’s how it works,” Emmitt spat out angrily. “I had more money for him. It’s a dance, a game, and you walked in right in the middle.”
“You have to move Harlan and your mother,” Charles said, still frantically biting at the same thumbnail as the handcuffs clinked together.
“I know,” Emmitt groaned.
“Can’t you just get him treatment somewhere? You’re filthy rich. Send him to an island. Send him to the other side of the planet for God’s sake,” Evie said, her voice rising a few octaves.
“He’s a persistent bastard,” Emmitt said as he slid his electronic key into his hotel room door and shoved his father in. “There isn’t a corner of this earth that would keep him from the game. He’d find a way.”
“This is crazy,” Evie protested.
“Making a promise for a man who is incapable of keeping one himself is crazy,” Emmitt snapped. “Saying that man who has never, up to this point in his life, done the right thing, suddenly will, is crazy. Even he knows it.”
Charles shook his head but averted his eyes. “I didn’t know, Emmitt,” he said quietly, as though he’d been waiting patiently for the opportunity to tell him again. “I didn’t plan this with them. I would never use your sister or the kids to get your mother to pay.”
“How did you plan to get her to pay, since that was the angle you were working? What exactly did you have up your sleeve?”
“I don’t know,” Charles shrugged and even Evie could tell he was lying. “It wasn’t really a plan.”
“Tell me,” Emmitt demanded loudly, and Evie jumped. “What were you going to do to get Mom to pay two hundred thousand dollars?”
“I was going to tell her I’d been clean for a while, and I wanted to have roots in the area so I could be around you kids. That’s all she ever wanted, was for me to be a part of your lives. I knew that.”
“And you planned to exploit it.” Emmitt growled.
“Yes,” Charles admitted with a pained expression on his face. “I was going to tell her I wanted to put a down payment on a house close by. If she’d help me with that I’d be around. I’d be a new man.”
“She’d have done it,” Emmitt said, his expression filled with disappointment. “Mom would have taken that chance on you, even after all you’ve done, because all she wanted was for you to be a father to us.”
“What are you going to do?” Charles asked, pleading for some kind of outside interference Emmitt could run to save him from himself. “You can’t just let me go off somewhere.”
“I know that,” Emmitt said, still looking like the situation needed more thought. “You and I are getting on a plane tomorrow.”
“Wait,” Evie said, feeling panic set in. The only thing she could compare it to was the time in her grandmother’s pool when she got stuck under a large float and she thought she’d never get out from under it. “What do you mean?”
“
I mean he and I are boarding a plane tomorrow and not telling anyone where we are going. Harlan wants a relationship with him after all this, and I’m not giving her the opportunity.”
“She does?” Charles asked hopefully, but it was dashed by the angry glare from Emmitt.
“How long will you be gone?” she asked, feeling stupid and selfish but not caring at the moment.
“As long as it takes,” Emmitt said, already starting to pack his bags.
“I don’t know what that means? As long as what takes? Are you going to get him into treatment?”
“Evie,” Emmitt shouted, then drew in a breath to right himself. “I can’t do this right now. I can’t deal with your ‘life through rose-colored glasses’ glued to your face. My father is not trustworthy, yet you made a deal with a man and hung my family in the balance. I need to fix that.”
“I was trying to help,” she cried. “They might have killed him tonight.”
“And they might kill us all if he screws up again. I’m no gambler but his odds of doing that are pretty high. Now pack your bags and tell me where you want to go. I’ll make sure you have travel arrangements and enough money to help your mom if you’re still going to throw it away on that.”
“What about the Barringtons?” Evie countered, hoping maybe his responsibility there would be enough to slow down this run-away plan.
“I have enough of what I need to give Asher something tomorrow morning. With any luck he’ll be satisfied enough to meet with Mathew. Everything worked out for everyone,” he bit out angrily.
“How can you say that?” she questioned, wiping hot tears from her cheeks.
“My family is safe, Mathew gets the meeting he was hoping for, and you have the money to do what you think will help your mother. That’s why you got on that plane that day, right?”
“You said you loved me,” she cried, ignoring the fact that they lacked privacy right now. “You said you were glad I look at things the way I do.”
Crazy Nights (The Barrington Billionaires Book 3) Page 15