by Celia Loren
“Yeah. Sure, Prez.”
His face is full of unspoken worry and respect. It makes me wince as I turn away into the sunlight.
God, I can’t let my club down now. This is do or die. I rev the engine and speed away, pointing my nose downtown.
All I can think of is Harper’s eyes, a clear blue spark of hope in my stark mad troubles.
Chapter Eleven
Dominic
“Sir, I’ve already told you, Miss Sinclair is in a meeting,” hisses the secretary, with a voice like an irritated jungle cat on Prozac. “You don’t have an appointment. You can’t go in.”
My fist slams down on her desk, making her face twitch. We’re up in one of those enormous, soulless skyscrapers in the downtown business district. The place gives me the heeby-jeebies. Almost every person I’ve seen so far is a square-shouldered white dude: no minorities, barely any women—unless you can count this icicle I’m talking to right now. It’s bullshit; classism central.
I’m probably the only person on the entire zip code with a mixed bloodline, motorcycle, or t-shirt and I want to get the hell out of here as fast as I can.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’s in the middle of giving a Senator a blow-job,” I bark back. “I’ve got to talk to Harper Sinclair, and I’ve got to talk to her now. I am a client and it’s an emergency. I’m getting in there, end of story. Now, we can do this the way where you keep your job or the way where I kick through that expensive-looking, locked frosted glass door you’re guarding as if its your fucking carnal treasure. Which will it be?”
“You’re disgusting,” she gasps.
“You’re deciding,” I remind her. “Kicking? Or unlocking.”
Face frozen, she jolts out of her chair and walks like a robot to the door, punches in a four-digit code, and jerks it open.
“Thank you,” I say with my most charming smile, giving her a sardonic salute as I push through the door and leave the lobby behind me.
Harper’s office is even more intimidating than I had imagined. It’s huge and white and nuanced, like the spaceship in Alien. It’s a corner office. Massive. And I might as well be in deep space, because as soon as I set my eyes on the two people standing and chatting at the window, I know I’ve entered the fucking twilight zone.
Both of the people I am looking at could be in an ad for Calvin Klein or the Nazis or something. They’re both tall, Caucasian, good-looking, and oozing old money. Harper is on the right, staring at me in surprise and consternation. Her face is fresh, well rested, and in the light spilling through the window she looks like a god-damn angel.
Then there’s the dude.
The man that is her male equivalent, exactly what Harper would look like if she were taking testosterone pills. I recognize him in an instant because I never forget an enemy’s face. It’s her brother, the maniac that tried to drown me at the lake ten years ago.
“Who the fuck are you,” the brother demands.
What is this guy, a robot? It’s the exact same thing he said to me, back then, followed by: “Get your dirty hands off my sister!”
It’s déjà-fucking-vu.
Harper’s graceful hand shoots out, resting lightly but pleadingly on his lapel as if to restrain him. “Haden,” she says, “This is Dominic Thorne: the client on the big case I was telling you about. The one I’ve been out of town for, on location. Why I haven’t returned your calls. My biggest case yet.”
“Client?” He sizes me up coldly. “Looks more like a defendant to me.”
“Dominic Thorne,” I say, extending my hand. It’s a keep your friends close and your enemies closer gesture.
Haden stares at my hand but doesn’t take it. “You’re interrupting us,” is all he says.
Harper’s eyes widen, her Emily Post manners kicking into emergency mode. “Dominic, my brother Haden Sinclair.”
Harper is clinging to propriety like a shield, but I catch the nervous swallow and unspoken request in her eyes. Play along, she’s begging. Pretend you don’t know who he is. Bury the past.
Oh, I’ll play along.
I plant my feet and cross my arms. “Haden Sinclair,” I say. “Haven’t I heard that name before?”
He cocks his head to the side and mirrors my alpha stance, spreading his feet wide and hooking his hands on his hips. “Maybe.”
“Yeah! Haden Sinclair,” I repeat, snapping my fingers. “Aren’t you the guy who can’t tell a Mohawk from a Mexican or his own ass from his balls? Or, wait, were you maybe the guy who never figured out his own country’s constitution, that bit about all men created equal?”
There’s a stunned silence. Harper visibly shudders.
Haden steps towards me. “Excuse me?”
“Haden, wait,” Harper interjects. Her voice is brittle but calm. Forced. “Let me handle this. Dominic, please, will you wait outside? We are almost finished and Haden was just leaving.”
Trying to get rid of me. Like she’s ashamed. Hot blood rushes to my head.
“No thank you,” I purr, still smiling. “I’d rather stay here and settle an old score.”
Haden’s eyes narrow. “Do I know you from somewhere? I’d apologize for drawing a blank, but your face is forgettable.”
“I’m the dude you tried to kill ten years ago,” I shout. “Now I’m offering you a second chance, motherfucker. Come on. I dare you.”
Haden’s face doesn’t change, just goes a few degrees whiter. He turns to his sister, his voice calm, and grabs her by the upper arm, shoving her roughly up against the window. Her face is contorted in fear.
“Haden, please, don’t,” she stammers. “Let go of me. Please don’t hurt him.”
Something filters down through the sediment of my memory about that day, the last day I saw Haden and thought I’d seen the last of Harper. I remember hearing her voice pleading, just like that—rising to screams when her maniac brother held me under water.
“Haden, stop, I’m sorry…stop, Haden, please… I’ll go with you, I promise, just don’t hurt him.”
Now I’m righteously pissed. Harper should never have to beg, definitely not on my account. I should be the one protecting her.
“That guy?” Haden whispers to her. His hand is grinding tighter into her arm. “The janitor from your little summer camp? The rapist? I thought I told you that if I caught you slumming it with him again I’d kill both of you. Did you-”
But he doesn’t get much of a chance to elaborate his psycho speech. There’s a ferocious chain reaction in my guts faster than lightning and stronger than steel. I’m on him before even I know what I’m doing.
“Hey!” My hands have twisted the blazer of his suit down his shoulders and around his elbows like an improvised fetter and I’m hold it tight, my teeth snarling inches from his nose. “What’s your problem, asshole? Didn’t your upper-class education teach you to keep your hands off women?”
Haden head-butts me and works his arms free until his hands are around my throat.
“Haden! No!” Harper shouts, with a new authority in her voice.
A force hits Haden from behind, knocking him into me, and we all stumble over to the window. The momentum breaks Haden’s hold on me.
I’m confused for a second when I don’t feel Haden immediately bounce back on top of me, and then I almost laugh when I realize why: Harper has him penned up against the window and is smacking the shit out of him as only a woman can: a fierce barrage of slaps around the face that has the psycho dazed and confused.
“Leave him alone!” Harper is yelling. “You don’t get to treat us this way!”
But in the end, Haden proves himself a total dickwipe. Mounting impatience and total disregard for his own sister push him past the point of forgiveness when he takes a sock Harper’s face.
That’s it.
He manages to clip her chin a little but I’ve pulled her out of harm’s way and slammed Haden on the desk before the bastard knows what’s happening. Haden gives a good thrash, but I’ve got him p
retty well immobilized. Guess those years of free style boxing with the Sons of Lucifer have paid off. I could take him with one arm tied behind my back.
Reality starts to sink in for Haden, and his face twists with rage like a rabid dog. “How dare you!” He screeches, beside himself. “Harper, call security!”
Suddenly I feel her presence beside me, like a cool breeze. “Thankfully, it looks to me like Dominic’s managed the safety threat pretty successfully, Haden. You are the problem here.”
“What’s the matter with you,” Haden spits. “You’re my sister! This Neanderthal is out of line.”
I’ve got to admit, I enjoy smashing his face harder into a pointy paperweight on the desk at this particular moment. Harper’s lips tighten, and she punches a button on the bottom of her desk.
“Haden,” she says, with a deep breath, “I have put up with your mind games and rules and bullshit my entire life because I was so afraid of you, so afraid of your violent temper and complete and utter lack of empathy for human feeling. I felt like I owed you that, because of your condition. I thought it was my duty.”
“It is!” Haden growls.
Harper straightens. “Now you’re in my place of business trying to bully me, and insulting a man who is not just a client but someone I love. And you know what? I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore about your rules and your temper and your fucking inability to empathize. Who I choose to spend my time with, what I choose to do with my life, is none of your goddamn concern. You don’t own me or my choices. If I want to help Dominic with a lawsuit, I will. If I want to live at his clubhouse, I will. If I want to love him, I will.”
“You’re my sister,” Haden shouts. “You are not a common whore and you don’t belong around people like him. You’re a Sinclair!”
“People like him?” Harper shouts. “You don’t know a thing about him! Or people! You’re missing a chromosome. You may be technically my brother, but you’ve never acted remotely like a brother is supposed to act. I don’t owe you a goddamn thing. Not an explanation. Not loyalty. Not my time. I have called security: they will be here in about twenty seconds, and they will escort you from the premises. I suggest you never come back, either here, or to any other part of my life. I choose my family from now on. Dominic’s in, and you’re out.”
Her words do strange things to the atmosphere of the room. Haden’s struggling intensifies, as does my strength. Something like renewed faith in humanity gives me enough of a boost to deal with the motherfucker with ease.
“You’ve gone insane Harper,” Haden squeals. “You’ve forgotten what it means to be a Sinclair. I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you both.”
It’s a familiar tune, but now I’ve got the upper hand. A wicked grin curls around my lips. “I don’t think you will, Haden,” I say. “I think you’ll respect your sister’s wishes and stay the fuck out of her business from now on. Unless you want that paperweight stuck into a different part of your anatomy.”
The door bursts open and three beefy security guards muscle through, stun guns raised and pointed at me.
“Down on the ground!” They shout.
“Wait,” Harper orders, stepping between us with her hand raised. “You’ve got it backward. My client was protecting me. My brother, the idiot on the desk, attacked me. Please escort him from the building and ban him from future re-entry.” She turns to us. “Dominic, they’ll take it from here. Haden, I suggest you cooperate. Lay hands on me or Dominic or hire anybody else to do so, and I will smack a lawsuit on your ass so large and so cumbersome and so relentless and so fucking public, even Mom and Dad will wish they were not Sinclairs. Understand?”
Haden has gone still, his pupils dilated in rage.
I give him a little shake. “Answer, asshole.”
“Fine,” he grunts. “I understand.”
Harper nods at the security guards and me. “Ok, Dominic, let them take him out.”
Reluctantly, I step away from Haden. He shifts and stands, straightens his jacket, and then whips around on me with the paperweight clutched like a club in his fist.
There’s a clicking-buzzing sound as a security guard fires the stun gun, and Haden twitches and falls on the floor groaning.
I shake my head, amused. “Dumb.”
It’s hard not to chuckle as the security guards drag my vanquished enemy out, but then I turn and see Harper. She’s shaking like a leaf, her enormous blue eyes beaming with bewilderment, shock, and elation. She’s rubbing the spot on her arm where Haden had grabbed her.
I know how she must feel, something like the way I felt when I moved my stuff out of the reservation and into my own apartment in New York City before I found the Sons of Lucifer and moved west: displaced, free, and buzzing with adrenaline. I know what it’s like to feel your identity ripping you in half. I know what it’s like when the ground you stand on changes shape.
I am Dominic Thorne. I am Mohawk. I am white. I am two worlds and two people in one.
“Hey,” I say, stepping towards her, “Let me see that chin.”
But she whips her body out of reach, eyes flashing. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she shouts.
“Me?” I ask, confused.
“You barge in here unannounced in the middle of a very busy day, insulting people and driving them to violence. I’m trying to get shit done. I’m trying to cover up the fact that I’ve been a kidnapped for like a month, and you are not making it easier by beating up my crazy brother!”
“That was not my fault!” I shout back, realizing I sound like a two-year old. “You can’t expect me to see that asshole and try to play nice.”
“I can expect you to act like a fucking adult and not pick fights everywhere you go! Besides, you’re not even supposed to be here right now. No text, no phone call—our agreement explicitly stated that you let me handle your case my way. So what the hell are you doing here in my office without any warning?”
Her anger has me off-balance. “Sorry teacher, next time I’ll ask for permission before I go to the bathroom.”
She groans in exasperation. “Oh my god, Dominic! Grow up! This isn’t a campground and we’re not eighteen. What do you want?” she groans, slumping in her chair and burying her head in her hands.
I admit this is not how I was hoping this conversation would go.
“This was delivered to the clubhouse today, from Colt, with a blackmail threat.” I toss the envelope on her desk, crossing my arms and suddenly feeling stupid. Through gritted teeth, I confess: “I need your help.”
Wow, that was hard to say. I can’t remember ever saying that to anyone else in my entire life. Shit. Fuck.
Harper’s head lifts. She gives me a long, long look that makes me begin to sweat a little. Then she wordlessly opens the envelope and slides the pictures out, spreading them on her desk. Last but not least, Colt’s hand-written blackmail threat drifts to the top.
Harper stares at the pile, her chin in her hands, for a heavy moment. She is quiet for so long I can hear the radiator clicking in the background.
I can’t take the silence anymore. “Well?”
Without looking up Harper asks, “Has he shown these to his lawyer?”
“I don’t know.”
She reaches for the inter-office phone on her desk and punches in some numbers.
“Harper, what are we gonna do?”
Ignoring me, she speaks into the receiver. “Sloane, get me Roger. Roger, hi, Harper. Listen, I need you to phase me out of the Leviathan Corp case. No questions, just do it. Have the firm pick it up, first priority. I’ll be throwing everything at the Colt Cobain suit and a conflict of interests has arisen. Make sure my name is completely removed from all paperwork regarding Leviathan. Thanks.”
She bangs the receiver down and scribbles some notes on a legal pad.
“Harper,” I say, trying to get her attention. “Harper, hey, fill me in. What are you thinking?”
She’s rummaging in a drawer, moving at a hundred miles an hour. She pulls
out some paper with a very fancy-looking letterhead.
“I can’t be involved in the Leviathan Corp case anymore,” she explains. “If these photos surface with my face in them, my entire firm becomes implicit in the crimes at the D.C. You’re caught red-handed for trespassing, destruction of property, assault. God, maybe even murder. And I’m there too. These photos could tank your case against Colt but we’re gonna try to move faster than him and resolve the suit before it hits court. I’m faxing his lawyer a settlement offer, still twice what he offered before. You’re going to lay low.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, well, you commit a crime, it usually bites you in the ass at some point.”
“Thanks for the dazzling insight.”
She shoots me a lethal look. “Dominic, I’m not here to coddle you. You know I think what you did at the D.C. was wrong. Your motives were good, but shit, you killed people honey. Even so the truth is the D.C. is way worse than what you and the Sons did. Leviathan is worse. So I’m not going to let our personal mistakes get in the way of justice here.”
“Our mistakes?”
She picks up the photo of us together and holds it up to my face. “In a court of law, it doesn’t matter why I am in this photo: I’m in this photo, I’m part of what you did, I can’t deny it.”
I watch her scribble, type, and sign a document before rushing it through a fax machine in the corner. It’s like watching the Tasmanian devil—fast and incomprehensible. But she clearly knows what she’s doing. The fax machine beeps and she resets her shoulders.
“There, that’s all I can do right now.”
She turns her back to me, staring out the window. It’s a clear, sweltering view of Las Vegas. I bet the Strip looks pretty sexy from here at night.
“Wow.” I mosey closer to her, staring out of the glass. “Nice view.”
Silence. I can feel her tension.
“Think that will work? The fax?”