Sin for Me

by Jackie Ashenden

  Sometimes the guilt of leaving ate away at Zoe like corrosion inside an engine. Making her wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t been so lonely, if Gideon hadn’t been so convincing about her going with him.

  Nothing would have happened. Mom wouldn’t have wanted to change and certainly not for you.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “She did.”

  Novak was quiet another long moment. “I’m not sorry about your mother—I’m sure you can understand why. And I’ll never be a father to you. But I can offer you something nevertheless. All I ask in return is that you keep my identity a secret.” He paused. “And that you leave Detroit. In fact, I want you out of Michigan altogether.”

  Abruptly it felt like a large fist was squeezing around her heart. “What do you mean you want me out of Michigan?”

  “I don’t want you in my city, Zoe. I can’t have my campaign put at risk, especially when there is so much at stake.” He gave her a slight smile. “If I make senator, it’s going to mean great things for Detroit, and I’m sure you won’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that.”

  Her throat felt dry and scratchy, that odd kind of hollowness gaping wide inside her. She’d thought a lot of things about the day she’d meet her father, about what he might say, what he might do. She’d just never thought he’d actually tell her to not only get out of his life, but to get out of his city and his entire state as well.

  “And what do I get?” she asked, trying to sound cool and with-it, and not like a desperate little girl.

  “Just like your mother, aren’t you?” Novak’s smile took on that cynical edge again. “Don’t worry, you’ll get something. In fact, it’s not just something, it’s a lot.” His gaze glittered in the light, a businessman at the height of his power, and Zoe knew that this really had nothing to do with her in the slightest. He was negotiating a deal and that was all. “Certain sources have told me that your grades at school were very good indeed. Which must make you interested in going to college, I bet.”

  She froze. How the hell did he know that? “I . . . might be.”

  “Which colleges are you looking at?”

  She didn’t want to give anything away, but it seemed pointless to deny it. “I don’t know yet.”

  “You’ll be an older student, I suppose. And no doubt you’ll be looking for financial assistance.”

  “I . . . guess.”

  “I could help you, Zoe. My alma mater is Princeton. I can put in a word for you, get you a place.” His mouth curved. “Call it help with your college fund. You’ll love it and New Jersey is a fine place to be.”

  Princeton. Jesus Christ.

  The fingers around her heart squeezed tighter.

  “And . . . and if I don’t want to leave?” She had to force the words out. “If I want to stay here in Detroit?”

  His expression didn’t change, and maybe that was the worst part. That he kept right on smiling. “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to make life extremely difficult for you and your friends. And make no mistake, Zoe. I can do that.” Another pause, the glint in his eyes becoming more pronounced. “Especially for Mr. Black.”

  Everything in her went cold. “Is that . . . a threat?”

  He stared at her, his expression non-threatening. Yet she could feel the threat anyway, filling up the interior of the car like a thick, choking fog. “Call it a warning.”

  “Like you can even touch him,” she said in a rush. “Gideon isn’t afraid of—”

  “Oh, I think Mr. Black is very afraid.” Finally, the smile disappeared, leaving a cold, hard expression in its place. “And with good reason. But it’s not only Mr. Black who needs to worry. I can make life very difficult for the rest of your friends too. Those development plans Mr. Rush was working on, for example. Permits will need to be obtained, various permissions granted. I’m sure you can see where things could get . . . stalled, shall we say?”

  Anger spiked in her gut. Those plans meant a lot to her friends and to her, the kind of development that was sensitive to the neighborhood and the people who lived there. The kind of development that Royal desperately needed.

  “You mean you’ll stall them,” she said before she could stop herself.

  “Does it matter who? It’s merely incentive for you to think about my offer.” He raised a brow. “Unless you want to accept right now?”

  Bastard.

  Anger and fear twined in her gut. College and leaving Detroit. Leaving her friends. Leaving Gideon.

  Leaving her home.

  “I . . . need to think about it,” she forced out.

  Novak smiled at her again. “Very well. You have two days.”

  * * *

  Gideon tapped his fingers on the tabletop, staring fixedly at the corridor that led to the bathrooms. Where the fuck was Zoe? Did it really take ten minutes to do whatever the hell she was supposed to be doing in there?

  The others were bent over the plans, Tamara arguing about something with Zee while Rachel made the odd comment. Levi was sitting back in his chair, obviously leaving them to fight about it among themselves. He had a lock of Rachel’s hair curled around one finger, and kept stroking it with his thumb.

  Jesus, the guy was besotted.

  He’d told the others that he’d gone to check on Zoe and she’d told him she wasn’t well. So now he was going to take her home. None of the rest of them had even noticed his and Zoe’s absence, nor had they argued—his taking Zoe home when she wasn’t well wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

  What was out of the ordinary was the fact that she hadn’t yet come out of the bathroom.

  Fuck. What the hell was she doing?

  Starting to get annoyed now, because that was easier than the other feeling that gripped him, the one that felt a hell of a lot like fear, he shoved his chair back and got up again.

  Rachel gave him a glance. “What’s up?”

  “Zoe’s taking a long time in that bathroom.” He skirted around the table, heading back toward the corridor again. “Going to check out what the fuck she’s doing.”

  He didn’t wait for a response, making a beeline for the women’s bathrooms, then pausing outside the door to knock loudly on it and call her name. Only to get silence in return.

  The thing he didn’t want to call fear turned over inside him, and he was shoving open the door and stepping inside before he could think better of it

  But the bathroom was empty.

  His blood began to run cold.

  Turning, he went out again, going into the men’s room just to be sure. But she wasn’t there either.

  Something was rising inside him, something murderous, a red haze beginning to settle over his vision. He knew this feeling, it had happened before, in the darker days before he’d realized how he had to change and who he had to change into. And even before then, as a young boy staring at the body of his mother, at his father’s hands wrapped around her throat.

  It was a feeling that whispered to him of violence and rage, and normally he didn’t listen to it, kept it locked down tight.

  But this was Zoe and tonight no locks were going to be strong enough.

  He left the men’s bathroom and stalked down the corridor to the door that led to the alley, stepping out into the darkness. Nothing moved out there; it was as silent and empty as it had been when he’d had her up against the wall.

  He walked down the alley to the street, looking up and down, trying to spot anything that would give him a clue as to where she’d gone. But there was nothing.

  She’d vanished.

  The red rage clawed up inside him, making his hands clench into fists, every muscle in his body tensing in readiness to fight.

  Novak had taken her, he was sure. There could be no other explanation.

  Christ, he’d been stupid. Stupid to let her come to Gino’s. Stupid to let her out of his sight. He’d gotten complacent over the years, he’d gotten soft.

  Gideon stared into the darkness.

  He would find
her, even it if meant tearing this city apart. Then he’d light it on fire and watch the whole fucking thing burn.

  Taking a long, slow breath, he turned and began to run, heading back to his apartment. The others would probably wonder where the hell he’d gone, but he wasn’t going to waste time letting them in on what was going on. He needed to find Zoe and fast, and he was going to do it alone. No point dragging everyone else in on this.

  He got home in record time, letting himself into the apartment and heading straight for the bedroom, where he kept a gun in the top drawer of his dresser. Pulling it out, he gave it a reflexive check before sticking it into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. Then he took out the burner phone that had his more private contacts on it, scrolling through the list to find the one he wanted, hitting the call button just as the door to the apartment slammed shut.

  He froze, every sense on high alert. It could only be one person, right? Quickly he cancelled the call and stepped out of the bedroom, glancing down the hallway.

  Zoe was standing with her back to him, carefully doing up the locks on the front door.

  Something yawned wide inside him, a desperate kind of relief that mixed with the adrenaline burst of his rage, creating a need that burned in his veins as if his blood were gasoline and someone had taken a match to it.

  He was moving down the hallway fast, before he’d even had time to think, making straight for her, because she was whole and apparently uninjured and she was right fucking here. After he’d thought her lost.

  She must have heard him coming because she turned around suddenly, her eyes widening, two golden coins glittering in her pale face. “Gideon? Where have you—”

  He didn’t let her finish, gripping her by her upper arms and pushing her up against the door, caging her there by putting his forearms on either side of her head and leaning in, surrounding her. His heart was battering itself against his ribs like a hungry dog pulling on a leash, and if he didn’t touch her right the fuck now, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  She was breathing very fast, her pulse frantic at the base of her throat, but he didn’t say anything. He just needed a moment to assure himself of her safety, of the fact that she was alive and right here with him.

  His mother, dead on the kitchen floor as his father had stormed past, not noticing his son by the doorway. Gideon had crept into the room, reached for her hand. It had still been warm and he’d thought . . .

  No. That had been years ago and he’d gotten over it. Way over it.

  Bending slightly, he rested his forehead against Zoe’s, inhaling her scent, feeling the warmth of her slender body against his, trying to stop the gallop of his heart and get himself under control.

  “It’s okay,” she said softly. “I’m here. I’m fine.”

  He wanted to tell her that of course she was fine, that he hadn’t been afraid and enraged and ready to turn the whole city upside down looking for her. But the time for that kind of bullshit had passed.

  “Where the fuck did you go?” It came out as a demand, his voice thick with the remains of his rage. “One minute I was waiting for you at Gino’s, the next you’d gone.”

  Her gaze flickered. “I . . . needed a moment to think.”

  Oh no. Oh hell no.

  “Don’t you dare fucking lie to me!” He curled one hand into a fist and slammed it against the door beside her head, making her jump. “Not now, Zoe. Not fucking now.” Dimly a voice in his head was telling to calm down, that he was going to scare her, but he couldn’t seem to do it. The rage and the relief were overwhelming, almost making him shake. “Was it Novak?” Another demand. “Did he take you? Did he hurt you? Tell me. Tell me, now.”

  Zoe’s face was very pale, her gaze searching his, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before in her life. “Yes, okay, it was him. But no, he didn’t hurt me. He only wanted to talk.”

  Both hands were in fists now, and he was pressing them hard against the wooden surface of the door as if he wanted to smash right through it. Maybe he should. God knew, he had to do something to get himself the fuck under control.

  He moved closer, so he was nearly pressed against the length of her body, surrounding her completely as if he could keep the whole world out. Jesus Christ, no one was going to touch her, not ever again. He’d kill anyone who even thought about it.

  “And you went with him?” He tried to make the question at least sound more or less civil. “You didn’t think you might wanna tell me where you were going?”

  Zoe put out her hands, her fingertips against his chest as if she wanted to keep him at a distance. It made the hungry, possessive part of him growl in denial. “A guy was waiting for me outside the bathroom and he wouldn’t let me speak to you. I had to go with him or . . . Anyway, he didn’t give me much of a choice.”

  Gideon went very, very still, the red rage starting to descend again. “Novak threatened you?”

  “No.” Her golden eyes came to his. “He threatened you.”

  He would kill him. He would get his fucking gun and he’d put a bullet in Novak’s brain. End this once and for all. No one threatened what was his, no one.

  You fucking idiot. You know where all this leads, don’t you?

  The voice in his head was an old one, knowing and snide, and once again that painful memory was stark in his head, of his mother on the floor and his father choking her. Gideon had been eight.

  So much for restraining orders. No one cared about an ex-whore, and if she was murdered by her violent, possessive ex? Yeah, well, no one cared about that either. And as for her kid, the son of a murderer, the son of a prostitute, he could disappear into the foster system and no one would give a shit.

  There had been days when he’d felt his father’s rage inside of him, a fire that never went out. A dark, wordless anger that had only gotten stronger the more foster families he was cycled through, and when he’d aged out, he’d found the outlet for that anger in the darkness of the criminal underworld.

  Until Zoe had become the light that had guided his way out of it.

  It’s still there, though. It’s going to eat you alive.

  He could feel it too, burning him from the inside out. That violent urge to lock her away where no one would ever touch her or hurt her. So she would remain safe and his forever.

  Gideon struggled to unclench his fists, to lock down all that violent, unstable emotion. But it was almost fucking impossible.

  And maybe she knew the knife edge he was walking, or at least sensed it, because her fingertips on his chest firmed and began to move, stroking him gently, as if he was an angry animal that needed soothing.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated. “It was no big deal, okay?”

  Her hands felt good on him, but he was in no way soothed. “It’s not okay and it’s a pretty fucking big deal, Zoe.” He shifted one hand, cupping her jaw, holding it tight, her cheek against his palm. “Tell me what happened. All of it.”

  Again that flicker in her eyes, that hint of reluctance, as if she didn’t want to tell him. But hell no, that wasn’t happening. His hand on her tightened, and her eyes widened in response.

  Tone it down. Give her some goddamn space. You’re scaring her.

  Yeah, well, she was going to have to get used it, wasn’t she? She was his now and there would be no distance, no fucking space. He’d already made that decision back in the alleyway.

  “Gideon—”

  “Now, Zoe.”

  “God, you’re a pain in the ass.” She flattened her palms on his chest, and somehow the relief and the rage burning in his gut began to change into desire. Into the need to have her naked and under him, with him deep inside her.

  That would be happening, definitely. But later. First he needed to know exactly what Novak had said to her.

  Why? You afraid he might have let something slip?

  Something clenched hard inside him, and he found himself looking into her eyes, trying to catch any hints of fear or anger. Anything
that might give away that Novak had let her know a few salient facts about his past. But the fear there wasn’t directed at him, and neither, he suspected, was the anger. Or at least, she was angry only because he was telling her to do something she didn’t want to do.

  In other words, typical Zoe.

  “He knows I’m his daughter,” she said quietly. “My mom was apparently blackmailing him with a paternity test she threatened to make public if he didn’t send her money.”

  Should he look surprised? Look like he didn’t know that already? He decided against it, keeping his expression neutral. “Keep going.”

  She looked down at her hands where they were spread on his chest. “He’s been trying to find me for a while, basically because he wants me to leave Detroit. In fact, he wants me to get out of Michigan completely.” The words were steady, but Gideon heard the catch in her voice. “He said that if I leave, he’ll get me into Princeton, pay my tuition fees.”

  Gideon felt like he’d been punched hard in the gut. Bastard. That fucking bastard. He’d been expecting threats of violence, of hurt, because that was Novak’s usual modus operandi. But no, the guy had done something far more persuasive. He’d offered her something she actually wanted.

  Something you failed to give her.

  He ignored the thought, staring down at her. “And if you don’t leave?” he demanded. “Did he say what he’d do if you stayed anyway?”

  Zoe’s slender throat moved in a convulsive swallow. “That he’d make sure Levi’s development plans would stall in red tape.”

  Of course he had. Novak was a consummate politician, and clearly he’d left behind the good old days where threats were backed up with good old-fashioned fists. Now it was all about the right levers to pull, the right buttons to press, what would give him the right leverage.

  Gideon and the others could fight violent threats, but red tape? Nothing could fight bureaucracy.

  The muscles in his body tightened. It would be so easy to push himself away from her and call the contact he’d been going to call, leave the apartment, and take action. He could feel the heavy, reassuring weight of the gun at his back, reminding him of the days when everything had been simpler. More violent, but much simpler. Where the only thing that had mattered was the relief driving his fist into some other poor fucker’s face had given him.