Mine To Take (Nine Circles)

by Jackie Ashenden

  Goddamn, why couldn’t he use their chemistry to his advantage? Especially since she’d just handed him the key to her particular lock on a platter: all he had to do was appeal to the gambler in her, the wildness that lurked under the surface of her skin.

  He met her gaze and held it. “It’s hard to put into words. Perhaps I should just show you instead.”

  For an instant a blue spark glowed in the depths of her eyes. Then her lashes fell, silky black, hiding her expression. “Oh, I don’t think we need to go that far. Come on, let me buy you a nice hot chocolate. If you’re very lucky I’ll even ask them for extra marshmallows.”

  He let her buy the drinks, which they took out into the weak winter sunlight and sat on a park bench beside the lake. Snow was heaped in drifts and it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable place to be, but there was no wind and it was better than listening to the loud music blaring through the store’s speakers.

  “So,” Honor said, toying with her drink. “Why the bike ride?”

  “Because I hate being cooped up for too long. Plus I like the wilderness out here.”

  “But why invite me? I hate to say it, but I’m not much of a wilderness person.”

  Gabriel leaned back against the bench, legs outstretched, ankles crossed. “I noticed. If you must know, I thought we got off on the wrong foot initially.”

  “That was wholly your fault, not mine. You virtually blackmailed me into coming here.”

  “What do you want? Another apology?”

  “Will I get one?”

  “Fuck, no. That was entirely business-related and when it comes to business I don’t apologize for anything.”

  She took another sip of her hot chocolate. She’d taken off her gloves, cupping her hands around the paper cup. Her fingers were slender, pale, and beautifully manicured. Just like everything about her.

  “So what about it then?” Honor asked. “If you’re expecting friendship, you’re out of luck.”

  “I don’t expect you to be my friend, but I thought that since we’ll be spending a week together we should at least be on speaking terms.”

  “A week … yes. That has me a little puzzled, I have to admit. What are you expecting to have happen?”

  Gabriel glanced at her. She’d left a good amount of room between them on the bench, sitting slightly angled toward him, a crease between her brows. What did he expect to happen? Guy Tremain’s secrets spilled any way he could get them, that’s what.

  And if they’re spilled onto your pillow?

  Well, shit. He wouldn’t say no to that either.

  “I thought I might talk to you about Alex,” he said.

  She paled, her eyes suddenly huge and dark in her face. And for the first time in years, he felt an odd pang of … something in the vicinity of his chest.

  “Alex? What—” She broke off and looked away, gripping her cup in her hands. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  Christ, whatever that feeling was, he sure as hell didn’t like it. Ignoring the sensation, Gabriel said softly, “Are you sure about that?”

  Honor didn’t reply immediately, her attention turned to the view of the frozen lake. “He left when he was sixteen. Without a word. Just … disappeared. Then every so often we’d see him in the media, at some party or casino. We thought eventually he’d get in touch but … he didn’t.” She raised her cup, took another sip. “Alex didn’t care. And you know what? I don’t think I care about him either.”

  “When you say we, you mean…?”

  “My mother and I.”

  A silence fell.

  Gabriel studied her set face. Pale as the snow around them. “He had his reasons. And you’re wrong, he does care.”

  “Does he? You’ll forgive me if I’m cynical about whatever those reasons were.”

  “He’s kept an eye on you for a number of years, Honor. I know that much.”

  “Oh, has he? So, he knows all about how we lost everything after our father shot himself? How Mom basically lived on antidepressants and vodka when he disappeared?” Her voice was cold. “I had to clean her up every night and put her to bed. Not that we had a bed since most of our belongings were repossessed to pay Dad’s gambling debts.” She paused. “I was eight.”

  And Alex had been sixteen. Haunted by whatever had happened to him in that underground gambling den his father had dragged him into. He’d never spoken of it to Gabriel, but then Gabriel had known the day he’d found Alex bleeding from the mouth and pale on the sidewalk outside the casino that something had gone down. Something bad.

  Gabriel had been a fully patched member of the Angels by that stage and had enlisted a doc used by the club to check his friend out. Alex told him that night that he wasn’t going home ever again. So he’d come to stay in the shitty run-down apartment Gabriel shared with his mother, never saying a word about his family. In fact it wasn’t until the day his mother had turned up with Honor in tow that Gabriel realized he’d even had a sister.

  A sister who’d obviously been scarred by what had happened all those years ago.

  That strange, slightly painful emotion shifted around in Gabriel’s chest. Guilt maybe. Or sympathy. He ignored it, whatever it was. Anger was the only emotion he’d ever been able to deal with.

  “So, you had it hard,” he said. “You’re not the only one.”

  She flicked him a glance. “Are we talking about Alex still?”

  “Not entirely.”

  The cold look on her face faded, curiosity glinting in her eyes now. Which was excellent. Curiosity would only help him when baiting the hook that would draw her in.

  “I expect you had a difficult upbringing, too, didn’t you?” she said after a moment. “How exactly did you and Alex meet anyway?”

  Difficult question this one, especially as he’d first met Alex at that underground casino. The Lucky Seven, it was called. Patronized almost exclusively by the upper echelons of New York society, there wasn’t only gambling that went on behind its secret doors. Drugs, prostitution. Anything that could be bought, the Lucky Seven sold.

  And Honor’s father had dragged his son into it. How much did Honor know about that? She’d mentioned her father’s debts so she obviously knew he’d been a gambler. But did she know Alex used to count cards for him? And if she didn’t, was it really his place to tell her?

  That’s not what you should be asking yourself.

  No, he shouldn’t. Any information he gave her had to be in aid of his greater goal. Tremain. And just like he’d been single-minded and driven in his rise from the streets, he had to be focused about this.

  Slowly Gabriel sat forward, his forearms on his knees, holding his cup of cooling chocolate in his hands. “You know your father was a gambler?”

  “We figured that one out after the repo men came to take everything away.”

  “Big debts then?”

  “Major ones. According to the coroner, gambling wasn’t the only thing he was addicted to. They found traces of cocaine in his system, too. Of course we only found this out after he died.” Her voice held a bitter edge. “Dad’s last little gift to us. But what’s this got to do with Alex?”

  Gabriel watched her face. “Alex is a mathematical genius. And a card counter. Your father thought he could help him win.”

  Shock crept over her finely carved features. “What do you mean, ‘help him win’? Did Dad take him to Vegas? But I didn’t—”

  “Your father didn’t play in Vegas,” Gabriel interrupted gently. “He played in New York. In my neighborhood.”

  She blinked. “But … I don’t understand. Mom said he went to Vegas every second weekend. And the bank—”

  “It was an underground casino. The club I used to ride with did security for it.”

  Her throat moved, her eyes wide, staring at him. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because that’s how I met Alex. I was a club prospect at the time, hanging around and helping out on the door. Your father sometimes took him inside, so
metimes left him out on the sidewalk and I got to talking to him.”

  Honor didn’t say anything for a long moment, looking abruptly away out over the lake. Then with a quick movement, she got to her feet. “I’m cold,” she said in a voice devoid of any expression. “I think it’s time to go.”

  * * *

  Honor couldn’t get a breath. She walked back to where Gabriel had left the bike, not caring if he’d followed her, barely even aware of where she was. She needed a minute to get away, get her thoughts together after the bombshell Gabriel had just dropped.

  What she knew about her father was that he’d killed himself after his gambling debts had finally caught up with him. Debts he’d incurred from a casino in Vegas that were in all likelihood attempts to finance a burgeoning addiction to cocaine.

  An addiction that he’d kept secret, along with those debts, right up until his death.

  But it seemed that her father had even more secrets than anyone had guessed. He hadn’t been in Vegas after all, but New York. And he’d used Alex to count cards …

  She’d been eight when her father had died. A shot to the temple from a pistol in his desk. Her mother had found him and the sight of her beloved husband in a pool of blood had sent her straight to the bottle. In the middle of a binge, she’d once told Honor her father had killed himself because Alex had left. A small part of her had always blamed her brother for that and yet it seemed there was more to that story, too.

  Daniel St. James had taken his son into an underground casino to count cards. A boy of sixteen. Was that why he’d left?

  Shock moved through her in a slow, cold wave, her hands trembling as she fumbled with her gloves.

  The circumstances around her father’s death and the revelation of his gambling debts had shattered the family. But she’d never dreamed that there would be more.

  Secrets. God, how she hated secrets.

  The crunch of snow beneath heavy boots. “Are you okay?”

  She looked up to meet Gabriel’s dark eyes, his gaze sharp and focused, making her feel exposed. Vulnerable.

  “Yes,” she said, nearly dropping one of her gloves. “I’m fine.” A total lie.

  “No, you’re not.” He reached out unexpectedly, taking her hands in his. And her breath caught at the touch.

  “Don’t,” she said thickly, trying to pull away.

  But he only held her tighter, his large warm hands wrapped around hers. “Your fingers are freezing. Putting them into gloves like that is a mistake. Give them a minute to warm up.”

  A fizzing, tingling sensation was moving over her skin, up her arm, down through her body. Like she was touching an electric fence. Great, this was all she needed. In addition to the shock, she now had to cope with her physical response to him.

  She took a breath, keeping her gaze on his hands holding hers. His fingers were long and blunt, white scars crisscrossing them. There were other scars on the backs of his hands, long cuts and round circles. For some reason, despite the crap he’d just dumped on her, all she could think about were those scars and the faint, tantalizing roughness of his fingers against her skin. The hands of a workingman, not a desk jockey.

  He’d had a difficult childhood, too, or so he’d told her. And the “club” must refer to the motorcycle gang he’d been part of. Had he gotten those scars at that time?

  Why the hell are you thinking about him? When he’s basically blown apart everything you knew about your family?

  God, she had to handle this, not go to pieces. She wasn’t her mother, helpless and weeping on the couch, consoling herself with drink. Nor was she her father, who’d chosen suicide rather than face the reality of his actions.

  No, she had to stay in control and think things through logically, like she did at work. More information was clearly needed.

  Honor pulled her hands away and he let her go this time. “Tell me what you know about Alex,” she said harshly. “All of it.”

  The look on his face was cool, impersonal and for some reason, that helped. Sympathy would have undone her. “There’s not much more to tell. One night I found Alex sitting on the sidewalk outside the casino with blood all over his face. He wouldn’t tell me what happened, but he asked if he could come back to my place because he didn’t want to go home. So I let him.”

  “Did he say why? Did he say anything about coming back?”

  “No. He never mentioned his family at all.”

  “What about my father? How did he get involved with this?”

  “I don’t know. I just saw him go in about once a week and sometimes he’d be there on the weekends, too. Like I said, the club did security and we weren’t allowed inside so I don’t know what went on.”

  “But what about the casino?”

  “What about it? The Lucky Seven is just about an institution. A place for rich assholes to buy whatever the hell they want, not just for gambling.”

  “Drugs?”

  Gabriel’s gaze was steady. “Anything, Honor.”

  The cold settled down inside her and stayed there. What had been missing from her father’s life that he’d put at risk his high-powered job and his family purely to chase a high? Why hadn’t he been stronger? Why hadn’t he resisted? And why, for the love of all that was holy, had he brought Alex into it?

  She didn’t remember much about Daniel St. James, only that he’d always seemed to prefer his son to her and that Alex had idolized him. Yet he’d let something happen to Alex at that casino and from what Gabriel had just told her, it had been something awful. Then he’d killed himself.

  She looked away, feeling even colder. There would never be any answers to those questions because the only person who could answer them was dead. And as for Alex …

  “He doesn’t want to talk to me, does he?” she asked quietly, staring at the snow.

  Gabriel didn’t ask who she meant; he knew. “No.”

  A brief silence fell.

  “I’m sorry,” Gabriel said at last.

  Damn him. She hated how he seemed to be able to read her so easily. “Another apology, Mr. Woolf? What is the world coming to?”

  “If it’s any consolation, I made Alex contact your mom after your father died. To at least let her know he was alive.”

  “No, that’s not any consolation.” How could it be when he’d refused to come back even then?

  Honor took a deep breath, anger beginning to burn through the shock. An anger she’d thought she’d long put behind her. “I think I’ve had enough revelations for one day. Can we go now, please?”

  As soon as they got back, Gabriel dropped her off near their cottage and went to park the bike. She didn’t bother to change, merely slipping out of the jacket once she was inside, then picking up her phone and dialing her mother’s cell.

  “Darling,” Elizabeth St. James said warmly. “How’s Vermont?”

  “Cold.” She hesitated. “Mom, what do you know about Daniel?” He would never be “Dad” to her, not after the way he’d left her.

  There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

  “What do you mean?” her mother asked eventually.

  “I mean the gambling. What do you know about it?”

  “Do we have to talk about this now?”

  “Please, Mom.”

  Her mother sighed. “I don’t know much of anything. I thought he was having an affair, with all those conference trips to Vegas.” Another pause. “What’s all this about, Honor? Why are you asking me this now?”

  Honor stared out the window at the snow-covered trees and icy lake beyond. Her mother hadn’t read the coroner’s report and refused to believe her late husband had been taking drugs. But the gambling debts hadn’t been so easily dismissed. Had she known he’d been visiting an underground casino rather than going to Vegas? And that he’d taken Alex with him? Good question. Because if Elizabeth didn’t know then Honor couldn’t tell her. Her mother was a fragile woman, both physically and emotionally, and her husband’s death had taken her years
and the very finest rehab Guy’s money could buy to recover from.

  “Oh, I just heard a few things,” Honor said carefully. “There were rumors that … he wasn’t going to Vegas after all, but a casino in New York.”

  “What?” There was puzzlement in her mother’s voice. “No, of course he wasn’t in New York. He was in the casinos in Vegas, that’s what the bank said.”

  So, no, her mother didn’t know. Honor rubbed her brow tiredly. “Yes, well, that’s what I thought,” she said.

  “Where did you hear these rumors? From whom?” Elizabeth asked.

  Oh dammit. She shouldn’t have said anything. “They’re just rumors, Mom.”

  “I need to tell Guy.” Her mother sounded upset. “I don’t want rumors going around about Daniel. This family has been through quite enough as it is.”

  “Don’t worry,” Honor said, going into soothing mode. She couldn’t face upsetting her today. “Let me deal with it, okay? It’ll be fine.”

  Her mother took an audible breath. “All right then, darling. But do let Guy know if it gets out of hand. You know how lies like that upset me.”

  But were they lies? She hadn’t asked Gabriel whether what he’d told her was true or not, only taken it for granted that it was. Perhaps she needed to demand some proof.

  At that moment she heard the cottage door shut and footsteps coming down the hall. A second later, Gabriel appeared, a tall, dark figure in black leather, filling the doorway.

  What perfect timing.

  “I will,” she said into the phone. “I have to go, Mom. Take care, okay?”

  Ending the call, she laid the phone down carefully on a nearby side table then turned to face him. He said nothing, hitching his shoulder against the door frame, watching her in that disturbingly perceptive way of his.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth about my father?” she asked abruptly, breaking the thick silence.

  “Why would I lie?”

  “For any number of reasons, I should imagine.” She folded her arms. “I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”