by Angel Payne
Marks that made me pray, with every fiber of my being, for Declan Pearson’s painful death.
A death I’d pleaded even harder for once Margaux exploded into my world.
Because of her, I’d smiled again. Laughed again. Yeah, at first it was at her expense, something I’d never be proud of—but soon, she had me smiling with her, for her. Didn’t mean the little spitfire didn’t piss me off, but this anger was the good kind. The kind love always conquered at the end of the day. Did I want the canker of Declan anywhere near it?
The answer to that had come tonight—in all its disgusting glory. The poison that hit my soul from the moment I walked into the ballroom and saw that cocksucker’s hands all over Margaux…
The memory clung to my brain worse than the sand on my suit. Then the nausea. The terror. The rage.
Radio sets squawked. Pete and his pal punched their earpieces and yelled that they were on their way to the hotel’s newest emergency. They left without a word, letting me struggle to my feet in a private bath of humiliation.
It’d be at least another ten minutes before Margaux and Andre connected and the car was ready. Before then, it was best for me to lie low. Very low.
I turned and trudged along the beach, grateful as hell for the empty sand and the wind brushing up from the water. Walking off the edge seemed a damn good choice right now. With my phone in my pocket, it’d be easy enough for Margaux to call me back. Only a few key things to focus on now. Breathing, Stepping. Calming.
The air was filled with fall smokiness and a charged chill. The wind carried faint laughter from one of the hotel’s balconies, where a group had decided to take their party outside. I looked across the water, layers of cobalt and silver sliced by the brilliant beam from the Point Loma lighthouse, but called a silent bullshit on the light. If my brain were a ship, it’d be crashed on the rocks by now.
Sort of like the ones just up ahead now.
Sort of.
The boulders were more suited for children’s pirate play and teenage make-out sessions than shattering ship hulls, but they suited my purpose just fine, as well. Finding a perfect crevice, I sat my ass once more in the sand, rested elbows on my raised knees, then dropped my head between them.
What the hell now?
Coming clean with Margaux was no longer an option I could ignore—but what would she say when I did? The shit with Dec…it wasn’t only a few minor childhood memories. Getting back at him had guided so many decisions in my life. Training in martial arts and maintaining my fitness. Entering law school. Living no more than two hours from Mom, ever.
Would Margaux be furious that I’d kept all this in for so long? Worse, would she stare at me with sadness…pity?
“Christ,” I muttered. Not the fucking pity.
I wasn’t her mental charity case, now or ever. We might be living in her place until I banked enough for a real home, but I took care of things on other levels for us—including the emotional one. She got to lean on me, not the other way around. The woman had spent too much of her life being her own sanctuary. It was about damn time someone else was her safe harbor, too.
Safe harbor. Yeah, that’s you—the guy hiding out in the rocks on the beach.
My head shot up.
Pussy pouting time was over. I had to man up about this. That meant letting Margaux in—everywhere. Trusting her as deeply as I kept demanding she trust me. And, yeah, even walking away if Declan was still in there, infesting tonight’s party—a strong possibility, considering he’d likely scored a few free sympathy drinks from the hotel alone.
Speak of the goddamn devil.
I’d no sooner gotten to my feet than the voice from my nightmares broke over the sand, growling a profanity. Instinctively, I tucked back against the rocks. Even if I wasn’t shrouded in shadows, I knew Declan’s bite wasn’t directed at me. The man always swore at me as a casual conversation enhancer.
There was nothing casual about his tone now.
“—more fucking time!” It was the back end of a statement that hadn’t had a favorable start. Wait. The man’s face, twisted in a grimace I’d never seen before, revised my assessment. No way was that a statement. It was Declan’s version of a plea.
As his expression screwed tighter, I felt mine widen. Beneath my breath, words tumbled out. “What the—”
“More…time.” A second man stepped into view, accompanied by three others. All four were somewhere between Declan and me in age, with gym-honed muscles evident through their dark T-shirts. Their dress pants and luxury shoes were custom, male model vanity emphasized by the gallon of hair and beard product split between them. “They say it’s a luxury, Mr. Pearson,” the ringleader continued, lifting a practiced smirk, “in which case, you’ve had a steady diet of caviar for the last six months.”
Every word was like a surgical incision on the air, refined and precise, increasing my confusion. Were these the associates Dec had referenced back in the ballroom? The urbane fab four weren’t what I expected in the way of money-hungry moguls. Like I’d met a lot of those in my time.
One fact was crystal clear. Every move they made caused Declan to jump like a kid about to get immunizations. I didn’t want that to turn the Euro trash into my new heroes, but it did.
“Menger—listen—”
“Listen.” Euro number one bit out the word. “The Principals have listened to you for nearly a year, Declan. Their generosity about such attention has been more than ample.”
“You’re right,” Dec soothed. “Of course. You’re right. They’ve been more than fair.”
“Fair.” The man spat that one, too. The tension beneath Dec’s jaw told me everything I needed to know about Menger’s little hollah-back-as-emphasis habit—and how quickly it went from amusing to irritating. “Covering your losses at the tables into six figures? I would indeed call that fair.”
Suddenly, the man’s weirdness was more endurable, despite the clench of my own jaw. No wonder Declan had picked up his sniffing around the farm since summer—not to mention his assault on Mom right before Independence Day, carefully planned for when there wasn’t a single eyewitness around.
Acts of a desperate man.
From the time I could understand something like a gambling problem, I’d suspected he had one. Nobody took business trips to Vegas that lasted for weeks on end, supplemented by jaunts to the California tribal casinos in between.
But six figures…
Dec was light years beyond a problem. He was addicted—and had been banking on the farm’s underground spring as his ladder out of a very deep hole.
Mother. Fucker.
“Menger.” Just like that, Dec switched to offense—or at least tried to. But while he stomped forward, squared his shoulders and growled both syllables, his fingertips shook. He was close to pissing his pants in fear and the fab four clearly knew it. They curled small smirks as he struggled for a cavalier tone. “Your concern about all this is…touching, but the Principals are well-aware of why my payments have been delayed.”
“Of course they are.” Menger dipped his head. I didn’t believe his gentleman’s act any more than I bought the guards’ politeness in the ballroom. “As they are aware of your condition, given that three months ago, all you needed was three more months.”
“It was an estimation.” Declan gritted every syllable. “They know that, damn it. There are variables that can’t be predicted—”
“Estimations. Variables.” Euro trash clucked his tongue. “More unpopular words, Declan—words that are beginning to sound like excuses.”
His accusation was a hive of bees thrown at Dec’s bear. He surged, hands curled like claws. “You know what, Menger? Fuck you! On second thought, I wouldn’t waste a drop of jizz on your pathetic ass.” He sneered at the man’s backward glance. “Don’t worry, honey. All your pretty boys are still back there. Must’ve had the brainwashing at a good lather this morning.”
As Menger’s wingmen pushed forward, the guy snorted to counter
Dec’s growl. “Your insolence is alarming, Pearson.”
“And your presence is an offense, Menger.”
“Is that really what you’d like me to relay to the Principals?”
He waved the pretty boys forward by another step. Dec stood his ground.
“You can relay exactly what I told them last week. If they want the rights to the underground spring on the Pearson Farm, the buy-in must come from Diana and Michael Pearson. They’re devoted to each other, that farm, and all the hicks on that hill. As long as the state’s in this drought, the water in the spring is prioritized to the farms in Julian.”
My grip tightened on the rock wall. Wasn’t a surprise that Dec uttered the words like Mom and I had Ebola. To him, loyalty and love were the same thing.
Menger’s reaction was more unnerving. The man cocked his head the other direction, as if Declan had simply rattled numbers off a spreadsheet. “And you never tried to exploit the dynamic? Tell the boy his mother would be comfortable for the rest of her days with the money? Tell the woman her son’s law education could be all taken care of?”
“If they worried about being taken care of, do you think we’d be having this conversation?”
Menger began a chuckle. When the expression never came to fruition, I tensed on Declan’s behalf. Crazy what the human instinct was capable of, despite raging override attempts by one’s heart and mind.
“Ohhhh, Declan. This was never intended to be a conversation.”
Chalk a huge point for my instinct.
With one lift of Menger’s finger, one of his apostles moved like Sea of Galilee lightning. Within a second, the guy had scooted behind Declan and had Dec’s arms pinned back. Menger rolled the same hand, sending the other two hulks marching in. Didn’t need instinct to call the follow-up shots to that. The pair wasted no time going to work on Dec, each landing three punches into his gut. As mob discipline went, it was light, but even casual martial arts training had taught me the importance of accuracy over force. If those two were as thorough about their combat skills as their T-shirt fit, Declan was already hurting. His buckled knees and harsh grunts proved the theory.
“I’d tell you to fuck off, Menger, but you’d have to have a dick first. But since you simply are one—”
Or maybe they didn’t.
The henchmen went to work again, two blows each this time. Declan groaned hard. A deeper version spilled out as the third henchman released him, hurling him face-first into the sand. He lifted his head, beard dripping with dirt and eyes feral with fury, only to be doused in a round of laughter from Menger and the boys.
“Shit,” I muttered, gut twisting. Not a wise move, dickheads. Declan Pearson hated being laughed at. Hated it.
Dec jolted to his feet and landed a jaw-cracker to the nearest goon’s face. He was rewarded with the same from Menger himself.
My brows jumped in appreciation. As capable as the guy seemed, I hadn’t figured him for a hands-on operator. He grimaced at the blood on his knuckles, probably the same red slobber at the corner of Dec’s mouth.
Declan wiped the shit from his beard before seething, “You. Fucking. Guppy.”
Menger rolled his eyes, notching him yet higher in my esteem. “Shut up, Declan. Please.”
“Suck my cock, Menger. You don’t mess with me, boy. Not like this. Do you know anything? The Principals can’t stand having their messes spread in public. Discretion is everything to them. Which means—”
“They selected a perfect evening to suggest we accompany you.” Menger smiled, as demure as James Bond about to shiv a villain. “Discreetly, of course,” he added. “Perhaps after they learned you purchased a ticket for tonight’s festivities, coupling it with the assumption that you’d try to influence your nephew, using his little blonde fluff as bait…” He shrugged with more movie screen finesse. “The rest, as they say, belongs to simple logic.”
Dec fumed through a long silence, giving me a chance to think. No. Screw that. I fumed, too. The props I’d given Menger were shattered as soon as he turned Margaux to fluff. Now I didn’t know whose skull I craved to bash in more—Declan, for the brass of daring to touch Margaux to begin with, or Menger, for regarding her as nothing but a pawn in the power game between Dec and the Principals?
Who the fuck were they, anyway? Legitimate mafia or glorified thugs? Did I want to know?
No time to contemplate that answer—not when I’d been hauled into this mess. That meant memorizing everything that happened now, even when one of Menger’s men pulled out a tube of hand sanitizer and offered it to the man. Menger used the stuff liberally, scrubbing his bloodied hands before speaking again.
“For the love of God, stop sulking. Michael’s violence didn’t surprise you any less than it did us. Do not feign that it did. The Principals merely thought ahead about exploiting it.” The man moved back toward Dec, deliberately digging in his toes to spray sand with every step. “In short, darling Declan, I could let these boys beat you for another hour and the Principals wouldn’t be happier.” He quirked a little smile. “Maybe I should let them do more…a little stress relief for everyone. Maybe that would make you happier, too?”
Declan spat sand. “Fuck you!”
“Hmmm.” Menger sighed, a direct clash to the fist he snapped out, clipping the unharmed side of Dec’s face. “Sadly, you aren’t my type. Now, trading places with your nephew, for the chance to get my dick near that lovely little Margaux Asher?” He hitched a hard knee up into Declan’s groin. “Trashing you completely might be worth the mess, after all. If Michael will be blamed for this all the way to a holding cell, then she’ll need some special comforting—”
My vision turned red then black. One second of imagination was all it took. One instant of envisioning that scum with his cheap sanitizer hands near Margaux…then on her…
I was galvanized.
“Careful what you ask for in comfort, asshole.” I surged from the shadows, already aiming a fist for Menger’s chest. Made it advantageous to go for his neck after that. Two of his boys reacted at once to intercept. I opened up a fierce grin. Bring it on, dickheads. It was pure bliss to feed my fury up my arm, catching the first henchmen between his ear and jaw. I got him hard, making him soften then slump.
The second goon was so stunned, he froze.
I swung my attention to Menger. Grinned again.
Right before the chickenshit backed away—then ran into the night. His two upright buddies followed, dragging the third between them.
Just before a woman’s shriek cut through the night.
Declan and I peered toward the hotel, where two housekeepers stood on the walkway with their carts, gaping at us. One of the women snatched up a handheld radio.
“We need security on the beach in front of the towers. Now!”
In less than a minute, a couple of security guards appeared—followed by twice as many managers and at least a dozen photographers. The guy who’d snapped me in the ballroom clearly believed in mitosis. I had no idea this many members of the paparazzi existed in San Diego, let alone gave a damn about an apple farmer’s kid standing up for his girlfriend at a society fundraiser.
“Hey!” one of the shutterbugs yelled. “It is him!”
“Yep. He’s here,” another chimed. “Genius move to listen to the security chatter, Jerry.”
“Right?” An older guy, three cameras dangling from his neck, nodded. “I knew Mikey was too pissed to be done tonight.”
I growled low in my throat. “Not you douches, too.”
“What a scoop,” someone else interjected. “Let’s hang tight for a few. I’ll bet Margaux makes an appearance, too.”
“Prep for the fireworks.”
Their laughter opened up a moment to round back on all of them. If Declan was just a rankled grizzly then I was a full-bore dragon—about to fry their collective asses with fire and brimstone.
“Gentlemen.” My locked teeth kept it to the correct side of composed—barely. “Back off. Right now.”<
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Jerry lifted one of his three cameras and smirked. “Awww, come on, Mikey. We’re only trying to do our job. If we were a barrel of apples, you’d be happy.”
Especially if it came with a dicer. But they weren’t getting even that out of me, since Pete and his team had reached Dec and radioed for a medical team. Not surprisingly, my uncle remained silent—slicing glares at me that, to anyone new on the scene, spoke volumes of accusation.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Sure enough, one of the photographers jabbed his chin at me. “Guess you got your pound of flesh now, yeah?”
“No shit,” drawled his buddy. “Man, I can’t decide on which cut he got in better—the right or the left.”
“Neither.” It was one thing to water the weeds of their insolence. It was another to let them grow lies. “I didn’t do this.” Swerving back to the guards, I pointed down the beach. “There were four of them, all looking like European fashion boys. Black T-shirts, designer pants; tallest is six-two or three, and the head honcho is a few inches shorter. A gallon of hair product between them. If one of you takes off now, you can probably—”
“Catch them and their little dog Toto, too?” Pete rejoined.
“God damn it.” I dragged a hand through my hair. Would arguing with them even get me anywhere?
Like fate was going to let me entertain more than two seconds of an inner conflict tonight.
Especially if the enraged blonde at the edge of the sand had anything to say about it.
“What. The. Fuck?”
Like a rehearsed chorus line, every photographer swung their lenses at the gorgeous, glowering love of my life. The air exploded with light, the flashes illuminating the rage on Margaux’s face. Damn it if the fury didn’t multiply her beauty by a thousand, flushing her cheeks and flaring her lips. I would’ve been fantasizing about other ways to make her look that way, if not for the dread invading my gut—pounded in by the accusation in her eyes.