Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three

by Lawless, Alexi

  Of course. She hadn’t been thinking about how this whole thing must be impacting him and his recovery. Sam slid her fingers up his arm, wishing she could assuage him somehow. But Jack had signed up for this, and she knew from experience there was precious little she could say to make this situation any easier.

  “Can you handle this, Jack? Being with me means you’d have to get used to aspects of what I do, and I know this would be hard for anyone to take—” she took a breath. “Jack, if you want to leave—”

  “I’m not leaving you, Samantha,” Jack cut her off sharply. “I just don’t like this. I’ve done a hundred events like these over the years, and not once have I ever worried that someone might put a bullet through my head. And if something happened to you—Cristo, I can’t even think about that, tesoro. How do military families handle this?” he asked, squeezing her hand. “The constant worry? The constant stress of knowing their spouse might never come home?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been in a relationship long enough to know how,” she admitted honestly.

  “Just bear with me while I figure this out,” Jack murmured. “I just know I want to be with you. The rest of it—I—I just need a beat.”

  That was fair. She didn’t know how this relationship would work either. She wasn’t entirely sure she trusted that it would, but Sam knew if she wanted it to work with anyone—it was with Jack. She wanted him enough to cast aside her doubts and skepticism, and that was a huge step for a woman whose career revolved around defending against people’s darker natures.

  “Do you want to figure it out together?” she asked tentatively, squeezing his fingers.

  Jack leaned over her, kissing her so hard, she opened her mouth in shocked surprise. It was a punishing kiss, rooted in anger and hot frustration, but it morphed into something else entirely a few seconds into it. An ache bloomed, cambering low as Jack’s kiss turned fervent. She became momentarily heedless of the fact that they were at a gala surrounded by people who were likely staring. As if reading her mind, Jack turned his body without breaking the kiss, shielding her from prying eyes as he moved her backward into an alcove like a slow dance. His mouth dragged down her neck as he held her in place with his broad hands on her hips.

  “Did you mean it?” he whispered, his breath soft and searing in her ear.

  “Mean what?” she asked, dazed.

  “What you said last night. Are you in this?” Jack pressed. “Do you want to be with me, tesoro?”

  “I do.” She nodded. “But I’m not sure how it works either. I just know we have to trust each other.”

  His head lifted. “I trust you.”

  “Then what the hell was all that about my exes?” she asked, browing furrowing.

  “I don’t like it when men want what’s mine,” Jack replied gruffly. “You dance with the one that brought you, tesoro, but if Wes or Travis come near you again, I swear to God, I will find a way to drop them.”

  She laughed softly at the irony. “Jack, how many women have you banged in Chicago? If I got this worked up every time we run into a woman you’d slept with, I’d never leave the house.”

  Jack tilted her chin up, kissing her again. “I didn’t say it wasn’t a double standard, tesoro. I’m just telling you how I feel.”

  “Would it make you feel just a tiny bit better if I reminded you I’m not in love with either of them?” she offered.

  “Who are you in love with?” Jack replied, leaning in.

  She smirked at him. “Avi Oded is pretty damn hot.”

  Jack nipped her ear in punishment.

  “You, Jack. It’s been you since we met.” She felt the shape of his smile against her neck, the breadth of his shoulders relaxing for the first time this evening under her hands. “Feel better?”

  “Infinitely,” Jack replied readily.

  “Then fine,” she said, pulling back enough to look at him. “Now can you trust me to take care of you?”

  “Do you trust me to take care of you?” he countered, holding her eyes.

  Sam stood on her tip-toes to kiss him. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  *

  April—Evening

  Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

  W E S L E Y

  “Hot damn, that’s some kiss,” the older man across from him whistled, looking amused. Wes turned to follow the man’s line of sight, curious. He’d been chatting briefly with the couple about the night’s auction when the guy had become briefly distracted by something behind him. The moment Wes’s eyes landed on Jack and Sam across the expanse, he regretted looking.

  “Lord, I remember when you used to kiss me like that,” a woman replied jokingly as Wes fought hard not to react.

  “I would, but we’d probably make this poor young man blush,” the older man chortled.

  Wes barely registered what he was saying as he watched Sam run her hands up Jack’s arms and over his shoulders, saw the way she cleaved herself to him, like she couldn’t get close enough.

  Fuck. God, that stung.

  More than stung, Wes felt like his heart was being ripped in half.

  “Please excuse me,” he said as politely as he could, making his way to the bar in the opposite direction. He needed a drink. Christ in heaven, who was he kidding? He needed four back-to-back, all in a row.

  “Hey there, Wes,” Hannah called out to him as he passed. “Auction starts in a few minutes,” she reminded, though he could only just nod.

  Whisky. Better yet, tequila. That’s what he needed. And a lot of it.

  Wes briefly toyed with the idea of confronting her, of punching Jack’s lights out, of leaving. That last one was the most tempting of all—the reality that he could just walk out, get in his car, ditch his tux, and go. He could be on a plane to the Philippines or Venezuela or Syria in a matter of hours, lose himself in photographing and cataloging other people’s travesties, other countries’ problems.

  He ordered a shot of tequila. Downed it and ordered another one.

  Wes tried and failed not to look over at Samantha and Jack, but they were back in the social rotation, moving through the crowd like the power couple they were, Hannah and Grant beside them as they headed toward the dais to announce that the dinner was starting along with the auction.

  She’s with the right man, a small but potent voice inside his mind told him. You were never cut out for this.

  But what did it mean when you loved someone so much, you didn’t think you had the capacity to love anyone else?

  Was it even possible to have more than one great love in this life, and if you did—was it only great because you knew in the back of your mind you could never keep them?

  Wes downed the second shot, setting it upended onto the bar top when his eyes landed on Mack McDevitt.

  The older man was chatting up a group of businessmen nearby, his gestures broad and expansive, making the group guffaw and grin as he told some outlandish story.

  Wes straightened from the bar. There was just enough adrenaline and tequila in his system for him to do something reckless, and he was spoiling for a good match-up. Mack would do just as good as any.

  Maybe that’d even be his little parting gift to Sammy. Here’s your daddy’s killer on a platter, darlin’. He’s been sitting under your nose all this time…

  Wes came up from behind Mack, clapping him on the back and surprising him.

  “Y’all mind if I steal this man away?” he asked the group before Mack could say anything. “Hannah Nelson’s looking for him to say a few words during the auction, and I know better than to tell that woman anything but ‘yes, ma’am,’” Wes added with a wink.

  “Sure thing,” one of the men said. “Looks like the dinner’s about to start anyway. Better find our wives.”

  Wes smiled at Mack, cocking his head. “You want to follow me?” he offered, steering Mack in the opposite direction from the dais. “She’s back here getting folks fitted with mics. She asked me to come getcha.”

&nb
sp; Mack’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded, following Wes through the main gallery and down a long hallway toward the rotating collections galleries.

  “Where are they?” Mack asked, looking uncomfortable as Wes led him away from the party.

  “Just down here,” Wes replied, spotting a narrow gallery full of Post-Impressionism art. The room silent and empty as a tomb—the perfect place for a confrontation.

  Wes shoved Mack in through the entrance, surprising him. Mack’s expression was thunderous as he rightened.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing—” Mack started, but Wes already had his phone out, and on the screen was a coroner’s shot of Sakurai’s decayed body.

  “I know what you did, Mack,” Wes told him, holding the phone up so Mack could see. Wes thumbed quickly through the shots he’d saved—grotesque visuals of Sakurai’s corpse, the bullets, the handkerchief.

  He watched as Mack’s angry expression altered to confusion, then recognition, to finally, wide-eyed realization, before his smoothed-over expression and his mouth set into a thin, hard line.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said caustically, his gravelly voice thick with indignation.

  “Don’t you?” Wes flicked on his microphone app before he slid the phone into his breast pocket. “I’ve been doing my homework on you, Mack,” he told him, blocking the entrance of the gallery he’d shoved Mack into. “The only three people besides Samantha who had anything significant to gain from Rob Wyatt’s passing was you, Grant Nelson and Toma Sakurai, her uncle on her mother’s side.”

  “That doesn’t mean I killed Rob,” Mack responded, eyes narrowing. “And I’m getting pretty pissed off that you seem to be accusing me of it.”

  “I don’t think you did it, Mack,” Wes said, surprising the man. “But it doesn’t mean you don’t know who did.”

  Mack’s face darkened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Wes slid his hands into his trouser pockets. “I’ve put together most of the pieces, and I think I know exactly what went down.”

  Mack crossed his arms, waiting.

  “It’s no secret that nobody on the Sakurai side wanted Rob Wyatt to marry Sammy’s mama. Suzume was young, well-off, and came from a storied family linked to the last great shogunate. Rob was just some upstart Cherokee-American sailor on shore leave, essentially,” Wes pointed out. “It was a scandalous union. The Sakurai family were heartbroken—but more than that, their honor was tainted. It was a humiliating embarrassment for them that their only daughter was willing to leave everything she had, everything she knew, for Rob.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Mack replied. “I didn’t even know Rob back then.”

  “Oh, but you two linked up shortly afterward, didn’t you? Right after Rob discharged. You knew the whole story,” Wes went on. “Hell, you two came up in the oil fields together—got lucky doing some early speculations with what little money Suzume managed to bring with her. You knew her.”

  “So what?” Mack scoffed. “You’re just spinning yarns at this point with that ten-gallon mouth of yours.”

  “I ain’t done, either,” Wes replied, feeling that surge of adrenaline rising inside of him that came with being right about something, that instinctual need to hunt out the truth of a thing. He’d broken stories for years. He knew when he was barking up the right tree. If Mack wasn’t guilty, he would have pushed his way passed by now. But no, he was staying because he wanted to hear if Wes had really figured it all out. He wanted to know if he had something to worry about.

  “No one expected to hit pay dirt the way you two did,” Wes continued. “You and Rob made millions speculating. You two were unparalleled when it came to sniffing out black gold under all that Texas dirt, but when you got into offshore drilling?” Wes whistled. “Man, the whole story changed. You were billionaires overnight. Rob got the ranch he always wanted, had his beautiful family, and you got to go along for a hell of a ride. Didn’t you, Mack?”

  “If you’re implying I didn’t earn my share, then you’re sorely mistaken,” Mack replied, pointing at him. “I worked my ass off to make that company what it is today.”

  “Especially after Suzume passed away giving birth to Ryland, right?” Wes asked softly. Mack stiffened, breathing angrily through his nose, his entire posture tight with the kind of hard-packed resentment that had been tamped down for years. “Because Rob lost it after that, didn’t he? Lost his passion for it, hit the bottle, ignored his family.”

  “Tragedies happen,” Mack spat out through gritted teeth. “I supported him through it.”

  “No, you took over,” Wes corrected. “You ran Wyatt Petroleum while Rob slid into despair. You saw to it that the company continued to grow, quarter after quarter. You closed deals and made it all happen. And when Rob finally pulled himself back up above water, he started focusing on other things—like gathering intelligence in the Middle East in some bizarre bid for reparation—almost like he was punishing himself for being so successful and for losing Suzume,” Wes observed. “But you still had to run the show while he was gallivanting around Beirut, Cairo, Baghdad, and Kuwait City, didn’t you, Mack?”

  “I did and I’d do it all over again,” Mack snapped. “So what? Just because I did my job and ran that company doesn’t mean I’d kill my best friend for a bigger piece of the pie! I loved that man! I loved Ry like my own boy! Why the hell would I want to hurt them?”

  “I think you did love them,” Wes speculated. “I think you loved him enough to kill the man who dared touch a hair on Rob’s and Ry’s heads. A man who couldn’t let go of the past any more than Rob could. A man who mourned Suzume just as deeply, in a different kind of way.”

  “No.” Mack shook his head, taking a step back, but Wes saw the flash of guilt in his eyes. He knew he was close—felt it in his bones. “That’s not what happened.”

  “Yes, it is,” Wes insisted, gaining ground. “I think you figured it out the moment you saw Toma Sakurai step foot into Rob’s funeral. Here was a brother who had disavowed his own sister years ago, who had never bothered to meet Sam or Ry, and who all the sudden stood the chance to inherit millions in her shares. Millions in a company you’d built up with your blood, sweat, and tears.”

  Mack stared back at him, his eyes black, his body language tense to breaking.

  “I think you took one look in Sakurai’s eyes and decided on some good, old-fashioned cowboy justice,” Wes continued, certain everything was falling into place. “You took Sakurai out, Mack. I can see it in your eyes plain as day. You shot that man in the back, then rolled him over and looked into his eyes as he laid there dying, gasping his last. Hell, maybe you even made him confess with your boot on his chest before you shot him again.”

  Mack shook his head, but Wes saw his shoulders slump with the effort of holding up the lie, his earlier indignation draining from him like a sieve.

  “Sakurai couldn’t be allowed to get away with that,” Wes went on, his voice softening in understanding, coaxing Mack to relinquish his side of the story. “He’d taken a man and boy you loved, robbed Sammy of her family, and now he was going to take a seat on your board of directors? Profit from your loss? That wouldn’t stand, Mack. I get that.”

  “I could never let that happen,” Mack said so low it was almost a whisper. He turned, faced a Van Gogh sitting right there in the center of the room, though he didn’t appear to see it.

  “No man stands aside for that,” Wes agreed slowly. “Least of all you.”

  Mack was silent for a long time, looking his age for the first time all evening, his sun-cured skin leathery from weariness and loss, his shoulders stooped under the fine wool of his tuxedo jacket.

  “You know that bastard planned it for months, right down to the night?” Mack finally told him. “Sakurai told me the only thing he hadn’t planned for was Ryland being in the car with Rob. ‘That was a surprise,’ he said.” Mack released a halting, anguished cuff of laughter. “Said he was glad for it t
hough. Said no Sakurai boy would be a half-breed mongrel American. He said he thought he’d restored honor to his family when he did it.” He looked up at Wes, his eyes shining with grief and anger and indignation. “That’s when I shot the motherfucker in the face.”

  *

  April—Evening

  Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

  R O X A N N E

  The auction was going strong. They were only a few minutes into it, and the MC had managed to encourage and cajole donors to spend a few million on various pieces of art, and the really good shit, Wesley Elliott’s photographs, weren’t even up on the block yet.

  Hannah had given a short welcome, followed by Samantha’s speech, who looked glowing and defiant in her fuck-hot red dress. She hadn’t originally planned on getting up on stage, but the chance to potentially rile up Lightner if he showed was too delicious to pass up. Sam had been hoping he’d show himself by now, but all the team check-ins had been smooth as silk thus far.

  “I’m going to go check on the kitchen,” Rox said into her comms, thinking she could take a quick breather and pop some finger food into her mouth before doing another full rotation again.

  She turned down a discreetly lit service entrance that the catering staff was using to bring out beautifully-presented serving dishes. Seared ribeyes, sautéed king salmon, and truffle tortellini made her mouth water as they were carried past by innocuous waiters wearing pristine white jackets. Rox was so busy thinking about the low growl in her stomach that she almost ran into a caterer who came through the swinging metal doors.

  “Beg your pardon,” he said with just a hint of an accent as he swiftly stepped past her, his face blocked by the high tray loaded with porcelain.

  Rox frowned, turning her head to follow him with her eyes. He was tall and narrowly built from behind, with short brown hair, utterly nondescript. But there was something in the way he sounded, something vaguely familiar, like hearing the strand of a song you that couldn’t quite place but knew you knew somehow.