CLEAN to the BONE

by Heather R. Blair

  There was only one voice she was concentrating on. Jake’s voice as he pushed an oxygen mask away to speak to Bri. “He was after something. This wasn’t just about getting to me, or that Matisse.”

  She nodded. “I know. We heard. Agents are going over the inventory at the Barnes with the staff right now.” Then she glanced at one of her men. “I’m sorry about this, Jake. Truly.” Then she stepped back. “Cuff him to the stretcher and follow them out.”

  That shook Charlie from her daze. She pushed away the paramedic pressing gauze to her lip, and shoved her way over to Sabrina. The other marshals watched her but didn’t interfere. “What are you doing? He’s wounded.”

  “And he’ll get the hospital and the best care available, I promise you that,” Bri said, her tone trying for soothing but not quite getting there. “But he’s still a prisoner.”

  Prisoner? Charlie swayed, and the paramedic who had been seeing to her wrapped a quick arm around her waist.

  “It’s okay,” Jake said. “Or it will be.” Lying against the white stretcher, with one EMT trying to run an IV and another putting pressure on his wound, Jake’s face was tight with pain, but his voice was soft. Trying to sooth her. And not doing much better than Bri had. “I’ll probably have to go to jail, though,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “Just for a while.”

  “Going to jail is never okay.” She reached for him, but her paramedic and another of those agents stepped in to hold her back. “This is wrong,” Charlie shook her head, the room starting to spin as someone snapped the cuffs around Jake’s wrist and the metal bar, “and you know it.”

  Jake looked at Bri, something passing between them. The woman nodded and the men holding Charlie back released her.

  “Come here, darl.”

  She stumbled to him, tears stinging her eyes as she cupped his jaw, the familiar roughness against her fingers. “This is not happening. Jake, make it stop.”

  “I can’t. It’s out of my hands now.” He sighed. “Maybe I should have told you . . .”

  “Maybe?” Her fingers tightened unconsciously, and he winced. Instantly, she dropped her hand. Jake reached for her, but the cuff rattled and held him short. His fingers shook.

  “I’m sorry.” The pleading look in his eyes had her leaning forward again, but someone pulled her back.

  “So am I, but we got to go. You’ll be okay, but only if you get blood right now.” The EMT barked the words at Jake, stepping between them. The IV was finally in place and they began pushing Jake toward the elevator.

  “Wait,” Jake snapped, but they ignored him.

  “Move, Miss.” The paramedic’s eyes were kind, but his words sharp. “Or this is going to get a lot worse than some jail time.”

  She stepped aside, feeling numb. “How long?” she muttered as she watched him go. “Oh god, Jake, how long?”

  It was Bri who answered her as they pushed the stretcher in the elevator. “A year. Maybe less.”

  “A year?” Horrified, she looked from the woman and back to Jake. The elevator doors were closing, but he was smiling at her.

  “Enough time for you to forgive me?” His whispered question carried across the room, under the sounds of the marshals and her own pounding heart.

  A sob caught in Charlie’s throat as the doors clanged shut between them. The worst thing was, she didn’t know the answer.

  Even if she wanted to, she didn’t know if her heart could ever forgive Jake for what he’d done.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Seven months later

  * * *

  True to her word, Sabrina recommended a light sentence and got Interpol to agree to have Jake’s time served in the States. Eighteen months in a minimum-security prison in upstate Vermont. If things went well, she said he could be out in ten.

  He was out in less than eight.

  But it was still prison. And it went slow. Jake knew now that Lucjan had set him up in Gdańsk. In hindsight, the theft in Poland had obviously been to get him out of the way before John Harris/Darnell went down. Only things hadn’t gone quite as planned. His father was being extradited soon, after a complicated legal tug of war between the US and the EU and Australia. Jake still didn’t know if the Marshals had found out what his father was really after at the Barnes. Or how much Lucjan knew beforehand and how much of the whole mess the man had actually orchestrated. Jake hadn’t been in direct contact with his brother-in-law since well before Bri had pulled him into that limo.

  That was probably for the best.

  He did understood now what Lucjan had meant about Darnell not going down the way Jake had always imagined. He also was pretty sure that Lucjan had known their father had replaced the real Darnell and that was why the man had been so keen to keep him and Stacia from getting too close.

  Where the Bratva figured in all this, Jake had no clue. But with him doing time, they would hopefully not suspect he’d helped the marshals bring their man down. After all, he wasn’t the big fish in this pond. That would be Lucjan. Whatever game Lucjan was playing, he was doing his best to keep Jake clear of it.

  That had extended to his time inside. His brother-in-law’s people had been there, watching Jake’s back. Not that Jake couldn’t handle himself. He got this language, these men. After all, it was in his blood. Were he and his dad really so different?

  Jake thought about that a lot while he was locked up. Stacia’s and his thirtieth birthday came and went, a bittersweet celebration. They’d kept their promise, in a matter of speaking. But what would his mother think of him now? Jake thought about that a lot, too. There was no shortage of time to think.

  Stacia visited him every week. Tomas came a couple times. But no one else showed.

  And his sister was alone when she came to pick him up the day he got out. She hugged him and he hugged her back, but as he got in the car, Jake didn’t feel like a free man. He just felt lost.

  The first words out of his mouth were simple, and oh so hard. “Where the fuck is she?”

  Stace didn’t ask him who he meant, didn’t even glance his way, but her hands tightened on the wheel. “New York City.”

  Good. They could be there in three hours. “I have to see her.”

  “That may not be a good idea. Charlie’s . . . she’s changed.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean? Aren’t you still friends?”

  Stace hadn’t mentioned Charlie often, but he’d assumed his sister was just sparing him. Since there was nothing to be gained by hearing about her, he’d let the silence go.

  “I suppose we are.” She gave him a sidelong look. “But she’s been avoiding me since the trial.” A long sigh. In that sound Jake heard his sister’s own pain. Stace didn’t have a lot of female friends. Well, any female friends. Charlie had been a first for both of them. “She got a new manager, Jake.”

  He cursed. Jake’s hand tightened on his thigh and he barely resisting the urge to put it through the windshield as Stace continued, her voice even, but hollow.

  “—on a speaking tour right now, giving talks like she did at Tomas’s. She’s giving one tonight, actually. At the Met.”

  “Charlie?” Speaking tour? He was thunderstruck. Then inordinately proud. “That’s great. So, she’s doing good then?” At least she hadn’t gone back to hiding.

  “I don’t know if good is the word I’d use,” Stacia said, choosing her words carefully. “Like I said, she’s changed. I don’t know if it’s permanent or not, but . . .” She shook her head. “It spooked her, Jake. All of it.”

  Of course it had. But his dad was behind bars now. ‘Darnell’ was no longer a threat. “I’ll fix it.”

  His sister sighed, touching the necklace at her throat. “Some things can’t be fixed, baby brother.”

  He didn’t say anything, but Jake refused to believe that.

  * * *

  Exactly two hours and forty minutes later, Jake walked up the steps to the Met. He’d changed into the clothes Stacia brought. Not evening clothes, just je
ans and a T-shirt. She’d offered to stop, pick him up something more suitable, but he couldn’t wait.

  He was glad he hadn’t. There she was.

  Charlie, in a simple white sheath, standing under the archway, the afternoon sun touching her hair, giving her a rose-gold halo.

  At the sight of her, everything inside him relaxed. Just like it always had.

  Charlie’s face lit up when she caught sight of him crossing the room. For a moment, she came alive with such pure, unrestrained joy, Jake felt his knees weaken. Fuck. When had she gotten so beautiful?

  But then that look faded into something . . .

  Something wary. Skittish. A familiar haze fell over those bright eyes.

  Cold and hard, fear settled in his stomach.

  By the time he stopped in front of her, she was pale, no pink blushing that beautiful porcelain skin that had haunted him every night since he’d last touched her. He had to fist his hands at his sides to keep from reaching out, because as much as it gutted him, he knew she wouldn’t welcome his touch right now. She was so quiet, almost like a statue of Charlie instead of the real thing.

  “Hello, darl.”

  Her lips parted, full and sweet and trembling, lips that he ached to taste. All at once, Jake didn’t give a fuck that she hadn’t visited, didn’t care if it had ripped his heart out not seeing her day after day. He owed her that much after what he’d done. But now they were together again, face-to-face. They’d work it out. He reached for her.

  A loud, cheery voice boomed over the soft murmur of the crowd.

  “There you are! We need to get going. The Met waits for no one.”

  Jake turned his head to the man in the pale gray suit, the owner of said voice.

  “Who’s this?” he asked Charlie, without taking his eyes off the stranger.

  Charlie’s throat worked, but again the man spoke before she could. “I’m Charlotte’s manager. Devan Majors.” He put his hand on Charlie’s lower back. Lightly, but with unmistakable possession. “And you are?”

  The stab of pain was so sharp it nearly dropped him. Jake let his own hand fall away. Maybe he couldn’t fix this after all. Maybe she was already out of his reach.

  It all came crashing down on him, everything he’d managed to hold back for almost eight months. The endless hours, long, dark nights listening to other men breath, snore, sob and shout, while he picked over every choice he’d ever made. All the while holding on to Charlie’s memory like she was a talisman, the only thing holding back the questions slithering in the dark. The ones that constantly asked if he was no better than his father.

  “No one,” he said, the words heavy on his tongue. “I’m no one. See you round, Charlotte.”

  Blindly, he turned around and stumbled down the stairs. He walked down the street and turned into the first open door he saw.

  Thank Christ it was a bar.

  * * *

  Stella Morgan was tired and she wanted her afternoon break, and no matter how cute this drunken Aussie shit was, she wanted him gone. Unfortunately, the work ethic and discipline of being an owner/operator who depended on customer satisfaction was too damn ingrained to allow her to be rude.

  Or at least really rude.

  “Let me guess, you’re trying to forget the one that got away.” The bartender rolled her eyes as she continued sweeping around him in the shadowy light. Had she heard this story a thousand times already or what? But everyone thought their pain was the original heartbreak.

  “You don’t have enough whiskey here for that.”

  She shook her head. “There are other fish in the sea, kiddo.”

  “Not like her.”

  “She’s that beautiful?”

  “She is that, aye. But you know what’s funny?”

  She gave up on him taking her hints and sat down beside him, leaning the broom against the bar, intrigued despite her impatience. He was a looker, this one. Had she been twenty years younger . . .

  Hell, maybe even ten.

  She smiled to herself and waved a hand. “Nope, sweetie, but you go right ahead and tell me.”

  He grinned, obviously aware he was a little drunk and not caring. He used his beer bottle to punctuate his point, liquid foaming over his fingertips.

  “The funny thing is, someone can be technically beautiful, with all the right parts, in all the right places, but after a while, you couldn’t care less. Same old, same old, you know? If they don’t have that spark, that depth . . . I mean, they’re aces to look at and all. But it doesn’t touch you where it matters. Like art. Some paintings are just oil on canvas, but others, they’re magic. We can’t get enough of them, even after hundreds of years.”

  “Sure. I get that,” she agreed as he waved his hands, spilling more beer. She cupped her chin in her hand and waited for him to continue, her brown eyes softening. Whoever he had it for, he sure had it bad.

  “Some people don’t get it, believe it or not.” He winked at her, then his face fell a little. “But then, then there’s people who, well, maybe you had to look hard to find the beauty at first. It was there and all, but not out in the open for just anyone to see. But day after day, it grows. Until one day you look around and realize they’re the most stunning person in the room.” He shook his head. “You know that old saying about beauty being skin deep, but ugly going clean to the bone?”

  She nodded, her eyes stinging despite herself.

  “They got that wrong. Because beauty like my Charlie’s? That’s what goes clean to the bone. So deep it marks your damn soul.” Those broad shoulders slumped. “It’s magic, that’s what it is. And I fucked it all up.”

  “Wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you.” Stella glanced over his shoulder with a small smile before moving away, down the bar.

  * * *

  Footsteps behind him. Familiar footsteps.

  “Charlie.” For a moment, that feeling came over him again, the one that said all was right in his world. His Charlie feeling. Then he remembered she wasn’t his anymore. “Or should I say, Charlotte?”

  Manners made him turn toward her and get to his feet.

  She looked at him, her eyes quiet and utterly miserable. “Please don’t call me that.”

  “I thought it was what you went by now.” He stood until she slid onto the stool next to him.

  “Dev calls me that. No one else.”

  “Dev, is it?”

  “He’s a good guy, Jake.”

  “He better be.” He grabbed his drink again. “Since you’ve used him to replace Stacia. And me.”

  She frowned, looking at his glass, as if mentally calculating how many he could have had in the hours they’d been apart. “Dev’s my manager. Nothing more.”

  Jake sucked in a breath, trying to hide the shameful stab of relief that left him weak. “I thought . . .”

  “I know what you thought, and that’s why I’m here. He’d like that, sure, but I need you to know—there hasn’t been anyone since you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “You . . . What?” His heart leapt, but when he reached for her she flinched back, the warning in her eyes clear. He dropped his hand slowly, the light feeling in his stomach turning into a cold, hard lump.

  “Loving you isn’t something I can change,” she said carefully. “It’s like the sun rising in the east or taxes in April. It just is. But it doesn’t mean that we can be together.”

  “Why? For god’s sake, you love me and I love you, what more do we need?” But he knew exactly what she was getting at, didn’t he? Something she’d always needed and that he hadn’t come close to giving her.

  “The most important thing. Trust.” She cleared her throat. “You lied, and what’s worse, you left me behind. You promised not to leave, Jake. You knew what it would do to me. You more than anyone,” she whispered.

  Each soft word felt like she was tearing out bits of his soul and setting fire to them. “I know I did, but Charlie . . .”

&n
bsp; “I believed you. I believed you when I haven’t believed in anyone for so long, I thought I’d forgotten how. I can’t do that again.” Her voice was so final it terrified him. No. He could still fix this. There had to be a way.

  “Yes, you can. I promise you, Charlie—”

  “You promised before. And look how that turned out.”

  His heart sank. Then he got angry. “I’m not the only one whose lied here.”

  “What?” She stared at him, those walls firmly in place, her armor impenetrable once again.

  “I’m not sure you ever really believed in me—or us. You were always looking for an out, a way to keep me from getting too close.” He reached for his drink again, then abruptly pushed it away, getting to his feet. “You still are.”

  Those pretty lips started trembling again. “You know how hard trust is for me.”

  As abruptly as it had flared, his anger drained away, leaving only a sick, sad emptiness behind. “I do, darl. I really fucking do. But did you never consider how hard it is for me?”

  She blinked.

  “I couldn’t lose you. Not the way I lost my mum, I couldn’t—” His voice broke. Somehow, he forced it to steady. “I had to keep you safe. Maybe I did choose wrong, but I did the best I could. I can’t be sorry for trying to save you. He was threatening your life, Charlie, and I fucking panicked. Can’t you understand that?”

  A single tear fell down her cheek, but she didn’t answer him.

  He swallowed hard. “You say you love me, but I think you love that fear of yours a whole lot more.”

  When she still didn’t say anything, Jake did the only thing he could do.

  He left.

  Chapter Thirty

  After he was gone, Charlie sat there for a long time, her head down, eyes tracing the same whorl in the bar over and over. She’d seen Jake disappear into this bar before she’d gone into the Met with Dev, and taken a chance he would still be here once her talk was over. It hadn’t been one of her best deliveries, but she hadn’t been able to focus. Sometimes it felt like her time with Jake had been nothing more than a dream. A dream she had been lucky to wake from before it was too late. Lucky to escape while it was still possible.