“It’s not your call,” she snaps.
“It is my call!” he yells, startling her. “You’re in my division. You’re my cousin—I won’t let you risk yourself and get yourself killed because you feel some insane need to be fucking useful!”
“Rama wouldn’t hurt me!”
“And you know that because he was so honest, right?” Seth almost spits the words. She flinches. Pain fills her eyes, and she looks away. Drops to the couch.
Seth hates the pain in her gaze. She’s biting her lower lip, her hands clenched, and for a moment he worries that she’ll hurt herself. He takes a deep breath, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Emma, you promised me you wouldn’t go there,” he says, exhaustion washing away his anger. “So why would you?”
“You can’t do everything!” she screams.
Anger fills him, fills the room, so heavy and thick it’s suffocating. For a moment, she wonders if she’s gone too far—he is still her prince, and deadly. “I gave you a place,” he says quietly. “I gave you my trust.”
“No, you didn’t,” she whispers, and he gasps. “You took me from one cage to a bigger one. Caleb did the same thing.” Her eyes are heartbreaking, pleading. “Seth, would you ever tell Nic to stay out of harm's way? Keep her from the ugly realities of our life?”
He remembers Nicolette, pinning Vera to the wall at Caleb’s wake, her gun in hand as she faced a dealer skimming profits, coldly facing the kings. “No,” he admits.
“Then why do you do it to me?”
Seth finally moves, leaves the window to sit across from her. “I’ve watched this life kill my father and brother, cousins and friends. I know how dangerous it is,” he says, wearily. Did Gabe ever have a conversation like this—had he ever had to protect someone he loved who didn’t want protection?
“Seth, you brought me in,” she reminds him, gently.
“To protect you,” he says hollowly.
She ignores that and rises. He looks so tired. So exhausted that she wonders how he is still moving. Sheer determination and coke?
He watches her, somewhat amused, as she digs in the fridge and emerges with eggs and cheese. “You cook?” He grins.
Emma feels the tension seep from her at that grin. The anger that has been so present slips under that irresistible smile. She flushes a little under the attention, and wonders why it is easier to face Seth’s anger than it is his charm. “Not really. I can scramble eggs, though.”
“Bethania has a cook,” he points out.
Emma wrinkles her nose adorably. “Do you want something to eat or not?”
He watches her as she moves around her kitchen. The dress is still gorgeous, despite the hours she spent in his car, despite sleeping in it. She works easily, confidently, and he finds himself intrigued with the domestic Emma, apart from the influence of her mother. She is humming, soft and off-key.
“Why did you kiss him?” he asks abruptly, pulled back to that moment, seeing her wrapped around the Thai. The kiss bothers him—Emma kissing anyone feels wrong. He can’t let himself consider why.
Her eyes jerk up to him. Then she shrugs. “I was drunk.”
“He’s a pimp.”
She sighs, tiredly. “And you’re a drug lord. Caleb was a gun runner. I’m a money launderer. Does any of that really matter?”
“He’s not in our syndicate,” Seth points out as he stands and retrieves juice from the fridge.
“Neither is Nicolette. What’s this really about? Is there someone in this family you would rather me be with?” she demands.
The anger that had filled him last night comes back. “He’s using you. You aren’t really so naïve that you don’t see that.”
“I know he is. But I’m doing the same thing, so how can I complain?”
She smiles at him, a small quirk of the lips that reminds him that, despite how much he may want to protect her, she is a Morgan, his cousin, born to this life.
He sighs, takes the plate she offers. “Rama is not the best you could do, Em,” he says, disapproval evident in his voice.
“I liked him.”
“Why?” he wonders, and she freezes.
His eyes are on her, demanding an answer, and she sighs. “He reminded me of someone.” Her expression turns bitter. “I suppose we both reminded each other of someone.”
She flicks a glance at him. There is sadness in his eyes, although she knows he will never apologize. He is a prince, a king, and she would never ask him to lower himself to that.
“I’m sorry,” she says, eyes on her plate, “that you were hurt—that you found out this way. I should have called you. I went to your place, yesterday. I had enough that it was time to go to you. Nicolette even thought so.”
He sucks in a breath, and she smiles. “I would not risk myself without some security, Seth. I told her, because you would refuse me outright.”
“She let you?” he whispers, eyes wide pools of anger and hurt.
“Nic wants you safe. We both do, and until we know what Caleb wanted, that won’t happen.”
“I’m supposed to protect you, Emma. Not the other way around,” he protests.
“No,” she says, “you’re supposed to trust me. Like I trust you.” He stares at her, silently, and she curses. “I did this for you—and now it’s done.”
“How,” he asks quietly, “am I supposed to trust you when you lie to me? How long, Em?”
She pales, her hands going flat on the counter between them. His eyes flick down and then up. “The truth,” he says quietly.
“Since graduation. That’s the first night I went to Bamboo.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “How did you lie to me that long?”
“How did you find out about Bamboo?” she challenges, and his eyes come up, startled. “You’re doing something, too, Seth. Keeping your own secrets—and you won’t even tell Nic what it is.”
“Did she tell you that?” he asks, surprised.
“No.”
He sighs, and she can see the conflict in him. “Emma,” he says quietly, “the ways of foreign syndicates are dangerous. You went there, and he saw someone in you that he lost. But that is not the way of them—and in time, you would learn that. I don’t want you to carry that kind of scar.”
There is pain in his voice, raw and heartbreaking, that strips her of every futile defense she came up with in the darkness of his car. His eyes, when they find her, are haunted, broken, so full of something beyond her, she gasps. “Seth,” she whispers.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head again. Exhaustion is pulling at him, and he is wavering where he stands. “You will not see him, without me,” he says, putting steel in his voice.
She shivers, but dips her head, silent acquiescence. He stands to leave and pauses next her, fingers brushing her cheek. “Thanks for breakfast,” he murmurs.
As he reaches for the door, she calls him. He glances at her, over his shoulder. “You’re exhausted,” she says quietly. He quirks an eyebrow, and she laces her fingers, shrugs eloquently. “You can sleep in the guest room,” she offers.
His eyes widen, and she understands it. Hesitation and worry is filling his gaze. She looks away. “If you want,” she whispers.
Can trust be built so quickly? Can he ever forgive her for this? Noise jerks her gaze back to him. “Thanks, Em,” he whispers hoarsely, suddenly so close she can feel the heat coming from him, the smell of alcohol and spices.
She nods, refusing to look up. He glances at the pearl handled derringer she left on the counter, the delicate curling vines that wrap around the barrel. It’s a designer, a gorgeous, deadly piece.
Caleb.
He shivers as he steps closer to her, pressing a kiss to her forehead before he vanishes down the hallway. She hears the creak of the bedsprings, and her breath rushes from her.
The admission, the warning—it was so much more than she ever expected from him. It brings a soft smile, a tiny sliver of hope that she may not have fucked this up
forever.
Seth is snoring, softly, exhausted, and she sighs as she picks up her messenger bag and the mass of paperwork waiting for her attention.
Chapter 29
Morgan Wyndsong, New York City. July 3rd.
The world is moving around her as she cranes her head up and stares up at the glittering façade of glass and metal. The hotel looms above her like a taunt, and she shivers. He’s in there, somewhere. Waiting.
“Miss?”
She gives her driver a distracted smile and pushes the door open, stepping out in the sunlight and the masses crowding the streets. They flow around her, giving her space, unconsciously. A tourist gives her a curious look that snaps Emma to the moment, and how she must appear, her hair falling around her shoulders in perfect curls, her dress long and silky around her legs.
He’s been distant since that morning after finding her in Rama’s arms. That he has called her to him, now—today, of all days—makes her heart race.
Someone bumps into her, and she can feel the tension rolling off her driver as he steps forward, involuntarily. She gives him a sharp shake of the head and then moves toward the shimmering glass doors. A sharply dressed doorman pulls it open, winking at her. She doesn’t notice—she doesn’t notice his model good looks, either.
Her palms are damp as she stands on the elevator. A few other hotel guests occupy it for the first few floors, edging away from her. She knows they’re sending cautious, curious looks her way, but it registers distantly, the way a fly would. All her concentration is on the penthouse, and him, and the too-slow rise of the elevator. She barely notices the stops, except to realize irritably that it’s slowing her progress. Eventually she is alone, rising into the heights of the tower. The elevator bumps to a stop, and her stomach twists as the doors glide open to reveal a brilliant, luxurious interior.
“Seth?” Her voice is shaking, and she pauses, discards her purse and raw silk wrap. Taking a deep breath, she tries again, louder. “Seth?”
The suite is painfully silent. Instinct—a tug that she has never been able to fully ignore—pulls her toward the French doors to her right, past the chocolate leather couch and oak table in the sunken living area. A discarded glass of wine sits there.
She pushes open the door to the master suite, peeks inside. He’s sprawled on the bed, propped against the pillows, a fog of smoke surrounding him, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Come in, Em,” he says, his voice rubbing against her like rumpled silk—a disturbing image that makes her ponder the wisdom of being here with him.
He props himself up on an elbow and lifts an eyebrow. She flushes, stalks into the room, pulling her long narrow skirt up a little. He hands her a cigar—no, a blunt—and she wrinkles her nose.
“You don’t smoke?” he asks, skeptical.
“Not those,” she sniffs, disdainful. Her pounding heart is settling a little, either from the smell of weed filling the room or the smell of him, so close she can feel the heat pouring off him.
He glances at the blunt and smiles, a sexy smirk that makes her blood heat. “I’ll blow you a gun,” he says, and she shakes her head, even though it isn’t a question. He inhales on the blunt, the cherry flaring between them, and then a hand hooks behind her neck, dragging her closer. His lips are there, so close they are almost kissing, and he exhales, a stream of smoke filling her waiting mouth.
She sits back, coughing, and he grins, inhaling.
He’s watching her, and beyond the amusement in his eyes, there is something cool and dangerous. She goes still, waiting, and he inhales again.
Confusion hits her as the smoke clears—the sexual tension is thicker, charged. He never plays on it, never even acknowledges it. Not in the years she crushed on him, not in the time he’s been back. What is he doing?
“You want to know,” he asks, his voice silky, “what Cuba was like?”
Her mouth goes dry, and she nods, shaky. His eyes gleam, and he leans toward her, gently blowing another gun. His fingers feather in her hair, long fingers tracing the shape of her face. He leans into her, his lips ghosting over her cheek and dropping down, hovering over the pounding heartbeat in her throat. His grip on the back of her neck tightens, and she jerks away, shocked.
“Seth?”
“That,” he spits, sitting up suddenly, “is how Cuba was. That is what the foreign syndicates are like.”
A confused frown furrows her brows “What?”
He runs a hand through his hair, and the carefree high is gone—he looks tired, worn. “They use you, Emma. They use sex like a weapon. They use whatever they can and break you.”
She sinks down next to him. “What happened? Who was she?”
He smiles, icy cold, distant. “No one. There was no one in particular.” He takes another hit off the blunt, and she watches him. Her stomach is still twisting, filled with delicious knots and longing. Every move he makes is graceful, gorgeous, and unconsciously sexual.
His eyes find her, hot and filled with promise. She gasps.
“And you,” he says disdainfully, “are not nearly strong enough to face them.”
Anger fills her, and hurt. “I faced Rama,” she snaps, stung.
“And how long, exactly, did it take for him to fuck you?” he demands.
She flinches, and he smiles, coldly. Inhales again, a glint filling his eyes. “Want another gun?” he asks suggestively.
“Why are you doing this?” she demands, her voice shaking.
Seth stares at her, at the wide pools of hurt in her eyes. She’s almost trembling, close to breaking. He suppresses the sigh that is filling him—he knew, even when he dialed her number, how difficult this would be. He’s avoided it. His first instinct is to protect her. This—this does not protect her. But he knows that it’s long overdue.
“When I went to Cuba, I grew up,” he says slowly, aware of her watching him. He unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt. “I grew up in a hurry. In Cuba, my name didn’t mean shit. My family was only good as long as they held up their end of the deal. I was just a tool, one easily killed if they didn’t like something the syndicate did. And I knew it.” He shrugs and, finally, puts out the blunt. “When I got there, I thought it’d be in and out. I thought my name would carry me through—but Havanna didn’t give a fuck. I was a gun, one with a useful family, but one who hadn’t proven his worth.”
“What happened?” she asks, her voice trembling.
“I killed. I made deals. I did their drugs and fucked their women.” A tiny smile tugs his lips at the last. “And eventually, they started to trust me. A few, I think, could even be called friends.”
He glances at her, caustically. “In the end, Havanna did trust me. For my worth, not the syndicate’s.”
“How do you know?”
He knows she’ll ask, and he reaches for a glass of rum. It slides down his throat like liquid fire that summons the ghosts of women and sticky nights and an ocean so soft it seems unfit to hold the dead. “He accepted me into his organization. They have a ritual, when someone joins them.” His voice is dead. “They have to take Havanna’s mark—a small brand.”
She gasps, and his eyes dart to her, before he looks back into his drink. His stomach churns—he has spoken of this to no one, not even Nicolette.
“They branded you?” she demands, furious.
He shrugs and throws back the rest of the drink. Maybe, he thinks, through the fog of alcohol and drugs, they will drown the memories.
“I was expendable to them. When he gave me his mark, Havanna told them all I wasn’t. I was more than just my family name.”
“Seth,” she whispers, her voice full of shock and horror. It hurts him, somewhere deep inside. Even knowing there is no other way, knowing she has to go through this, it still hurts.
“That’s what they’re like. What your whore is like,” he says, his voice empty.
She flinches, and anger fills her eyes. And hurt. “He’s not like that,” she says feebly.
“Really?” he scoffs
. “You think you know? Because he was good in bed? Because he didn’t use you?”
She flinches, and he leans close, invading her space. She can smell the rum on his breath, see the shape of herself in his eyes. Her breath is short, and she wants to move away, but he has her trapped. “You sit in your offices and count numbers. You go to board meetings, and see the family who has always sheltered you. You think because you carry that little gun, you have some idea what our world is like.”
“Don’t I?” she asks, her voice shaking. Her eyes are burning. She hates it, seeing him like this. She hates when he acts like this—so cruel and untouchable.
“You don’t have a fucking clue,” he says, his voice flat.
“And whose fault is that,” she demands, her voice a hiss. “You protect me as much as Mikie and Gabe ever did. Caleb is the only one, the only one who didn’t think I would shatter if I saw something real.”
He smiles, a smile so cold and feral, panic slithers down her spine. “I know.”
She blinks, and Seth uses the moment to put space between them, standing and unbuttoning his shirt. It falls to the floor with a sigh of silk. Her palms go damp as she watches him, the warm golden skin, the hair tickling the base of his neck, the strong arms that taper into elegant, long fingers. He turns as he pulls on a gray button down, and, faintly, she can see the raised skin of a scar—just the tip of it—peeking over the waistband of low slung pants.
He buttons the shirt with quick, efficient movements, and she follows his fingers up, meeting his grin. A blush stains her cheeks, but she lifts her chin, arches her eyebrows in silent question.
Approval flickers in his eyes briefly, before it’s gone.
She looks away as he reaches for the creamy white suit pants, and he pauses. “I’ve always protected you, because that’s what I thought was best,” he says, seriously, all the taunt slipping from his voice, leaving his tone empty. “I never wanted to expose you to the truths of our family. But the Asian—” He shakes his head, and a sardonic smile twists his lips. “If you want to learn, you will. My way. Not his.”
She licks her lips, staring at the silver silk of her dress. He’s crouching in front of her, looking delectable, sex seeming to pulse off of him. “First thing to remember—you’re a Morgan. Use it.”
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