by Chloe Cox
Two: If Jared was, at that moment, tormenting Sierra just because he could, Conor wouldn’t be holding back.
Three: Jared tormenting Sierra wouldn’t be the worst-case scenario. Sierra would expect that, know how to deal with it. No.
The worst-case scenario was what Conor found as he closed in on Sierra, Jared running away long before he got within distance. It was confirmed as Sierra turned around to greet him. She wasn’t hurt.
She was smiling.
She was happy.
She looked like a woman who’d just had a dream fulfilled.
“You are not going to believe what just happened,” Sierra said.
Conor’s eyes flickered up the stairs. Jared was lurking just inside the big double doors, which were open. Watching them.
“Try me,” Conor said.
“It was Jared,” she said, and the way she said it just about broke his heart.
Conor slid his gaze over to his sub. Every time he looked at her now, her beauty hit him harder. Her eyes were enormous, and full of love and hope and probably a few emotions Conor wouldn’t even recognize.
“He apologized,” Sierra said. “For everything.”
Not for everything.
“Do you believe him?” Conor asked.
Sierra’s eyes fell, then darkened, just slightly. Just enough. It hurt worse than getting kicked in the balls.
“I think maybe..maybe he’s like my father,” she said. “He didn’t realize how terrible he was until he was on the verge of losing everything.”
“Losing everything how?”
“I think he knows that this,” she gestured around, talking about the party, the event, the house, all of it, and paused. “All of this is…look, I won’t ever give up on my brother, but I wasn’t planning on being an abused doormat my whole life, either. I think Jared knows that. I think he knows that it’s on him to be better, or we’ll eventually just fade from each other’s lives. That all of this is a wake-up call. And he’s trying.”
“No he fucking isn’t,” Conor said.
It came out harsher than he meant it. Sierra’s head whipped around faster than he would have thought possible. Conor learned a couple of important things, really quickly.
His sub was his sub, but she was not a doormat. She was damn right about that. It only made him love her more.
“What?” she said.
And the cat was definitely out of the bag.
“He isn’t trying,” Conor said. “He isn’t changing. He’s worse than you know, Sierra. You can’t trust a fucking word he says.”
“How do you know any of that?” she said, very quietly. “My father—”
“Don’t compare him to your father,” Conor said. He’d never met the old man, but something about comparing him to the bastard who’d killed him didn’t sit right with Conor. Even Vincent Fiore deserved better.
Sierra shook her head back and forth rapidly like she was trying to Etch-a-Sketch her brain until things made sense. Conor wanted to laugh, even though he knew it was just because he wanted the hard, hurtful part to be over. She was cute, and funny, even like this.
Even pissed off.
“Conor, what is your problem?” she said.
Conor let his eyes slide back up to the grand double entrance, the doors still open. Silently, he took Sierra by the arm.
When he tried to walk her further from the door, she resisted.
Conor looked down. “I’m your Dom, Princess,” he said. “And your bodyguard. Get moving. Now.”
Sierra’s eyes met his, and the world around them might as well have fallen into the sea below.
Conor hadn’t known about connections like this. He could see her feelings. See them. The way the muscles at the corners of her eyes moved, contracted, relaxed. The way…fuck he didn’t even know what it was. Something below conscious perception. Something more animal. More ancient.
He was her Dom. She was his sub. And she was the love of his life.
And she still knew it. For now, at least.
After a moment she swallowed, nodded. And walked with him.
When they were well out of earshot, Conor dropped the bomb.
“He was working for Jared,” he said.
Sierra stopped, frozen. Her hand dug into his forearm.
“You mean—?”
“You know who I mean,” Conor said. “The man who was stalking you is called Tony Tomes. Somebody was paying him, giving him instructions. He’s an idiot who’s worked for the Costello crime family a long time. That’s Jared’s crew. And—”
“Stop,” she said. Only she whispered it. Like it was hurting her.
Fuck.
“Do you have any hard evidence?” she asked, finally.
“Not yet,” Conor said. “Soon.”
He could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. After a second, she closed her eyes, and sighed.
“Were you planning on searching the family office this weekend?” she said.
Conor wasn’t often impressed, by anyone. But that was impressive.
“It’s a joke, you know,” Sierra went on. “A family office is usually just a private investment firm, kind of. For insanely rich families. But my dad didn’t know that, because, you know, new money Italian-American, came from nothing, the whole thing. So, he built a literal family office. Eventually someone must had told him, and after that, he did all business out of that office out of pure stubbornness. Jared still stores stuff there, I guess. Prefers to think of it as a tradition, rather than a goofy mistake.”
Conor smiled.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was going to break in before the party, when everybody was busy getting ready.”
“You don’t have to break in,” Sierra said, and for the first time, her voice was bitter. Angry. Not even at Conor, or at Jared. At the whole world. “Or maybe you do, I don’t know. I don’t have a key, but I give you permission. It’s my house, too, so go ahead and do whatever you need to do. And…”
Then she paused, and looked right at him.
“I won’t tell him, Conor,” she said. “Just..be sure.”
“I am sure,” he said, not unkindly. Gentle as he could, he lifted her chin up towards his and kissed her. He felt a tear run down her cheek, and as he stepped away, she unconsciously wrapped her arms around herself.
“I will get you what you need, Sierra,” he said. “And I will keep you safe, no matter what. I promise you that.”
Conor felt her draw away from him, and he allowed it. She would need time. A hell of a lot of time. He would give her that, too. Whatever she needed.
Only question was whether she’d ever forgive him for it.
Thirty-One
Conor checked his watch, marked the time. He would have fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes to break into the family office, get what he needed, and get back to Sierra.
Conor took one last look at her. She was finishing the last touches on her makeup over by the window in one of the guest suites, with the last rays of the setting sun kissing her face. She’d refused to set up shop in her old childhood room, and Conor didn’t blame her. Besides, the guest suite was larger, which meant more room for more security.
There were five guys in here with her. Still didn’t feel like enough. Especially with Kane out running point—Sierra didn’t know any of these guys.
Though looking at the sadness in her eyes, Conor knew that might be what she needed. Space. Learning that your brother wanted to kill you would be heavy for anyone. For someone without any other family, it was another thing entirely.
“You going?” she said suddenly, looking over.
Conor nodded. “Fifteen minutes,” he said.
“You’ll be back in time for the party,” she said, and the relief in her voice fucking killed him.
“I wouldn’t let you do that alone,” he said.
After that, there was nothing else to say.
He opened the door, and made an automatic left, towards the service stairs
.
Conor had memorized the layout of the Fiore compound, and of the main house in particular. He’d assumed the worst, security-wise, but there wasn’t a system alive he couldn’t crack. He’d always shown a knack for hacking, messing with payphones as a kid, and the military had taken that knack and sharpened it into a fine edge. He could do the job in fifteen minutes, no problem.
Rationally, it should be fine. As long as Sierra stuck to the security protocol, there would be no problem. But Conor’s gut wasn’t rational. Not today. Today it was bellowing in straight caveman about leaving your woman unprotected.
“Being in love makes you dumb as hell,” he muttered to no one at all.
And just like that, he was at the Easternmost window of the East Wing of the house, where the shadows were already approximating dusk, for the lowest visibility. The party was in the West Wing, and in the garden designed to take advantage of sunsets. Here it was a comparative ghost town. He tested the window, knowing the alarm would be turned off, and opened it with surprising ease.
In one smooth motion, he lifted himself out of the window and climbed to the top of the easement.
Roof access was easy from there. He ran across the roof keeping low with a light foot, the way he’d been trained. Any other mission and Conor would be enjoying this. The rush of the adrenaline, the fact that he got to do fun shit like climb roofs and break into offices. All of that was objectively awesome. Except for the stakes.
The image of Sierra’s face flashed in his mind, tears in her eyes as he told her about Jared. He shook his head, just like he’d seen Sierra do, like he could erase it from his mind.
Focus.
He came to a fake chimney all the way at the northern end of the East Wing, the one that hid an air shaft. In less than a minute he was inside, repelling down on those soft feet, feeling his way in the dark. He counted out his descent and slowed to a stop just above the vent in the ceiling of the family office, and then carefully maneuvered himself around until he was facing down, looking at what should be an active alarm sensor hooked up to the air vent.
The sensor was there, but it wasn’t active. Someone had turned it off.
The feeling in his gut got worse.
Sierra was pretty sure she was in some form of shock. Which, to be fair, she had just found out that her brother was probably trying to kill her.
The worst part—or the worst part so far—was that she hadn’t been surprised. The horror she felt as Conor explained wasn’t the horror of shock or even disbelief. It was the horror you felt when the blanket of comforting lies you’d stitched together for yourself over many, many years was suddenly ripped away, and you were forced to stare at the naked truth.
She didn’t know what she felt, except that it felt like there was a tornado inside her. Occasionally the tornado would throw out a specific feeling, a storm of anger or grief, but then it would just go back to being a confusing tornado. After a while of that, she’d just sort of…shut down.
Turned out tornadoes were kind of exhausting.
And she’d been so happy. That morning, waking up with Conor, it had felt like…like a window onto a different kind of life. It felt real. Like he loved her. Like a life with a real, loving family was possible for her.
Suddenly, Sierra laughed. It was actually just like Jared to swoop in when she found something that made her happy and mess it up. That was, like, his jam. And she had to give it to her brother, he had outdone himself this time.
“You ok, Miss Fiore?”
One of the immense bodyguards Conor had left her with loomed out of the shadows at the other end of the room. Great. Now she was creeping out the bodyguards.
“Sure,” she sighed. “Why not. I’m fine, thank you.”
Only she was wrong about that, because then she started crying again.
Which made her laugh again.
“Ok, clearly I’m having a bad day,” she said, wiping at her face. “And now I need to do my makeup for the third time. Will you guys let whoever know that I’ll be fifteen minutes behind schedule?”
“No problem, Miss Fiore.”
“Actually, do you think I could have some privacy?” she said. “I just…I need to get myself together.”
Two of the gigantic men exchanged a look.
“Just stay in the suite, Miss,” the larger one said. “We’ll be right outside.”
Sierra was kind of proud of herself for asking for that space. She probably wouldn’t have done it, pre-Conor. Probably would have just gone on feeling crowded and alone, all at once.
Hey, if she saw a silver lining, she was going to grab the hell out of it. Just like she grabbed her phone the moment it started buzzing.
Because it was Tiffany’s notification again.
The moment Sierra heard it, she had a terrible feeling of dread bloom deep in her belly. Dread so powerful it sucked that tornado right up into its giant maw. Some serious, serious dread.
Texts, this time. Not a call from a dealer. Thank God.
“Are you there?” the first one read.
The second one was worse. “I’m sorry, I know I wasn’t supposed to leave the program, but I couldn’t leave you for your birthday, and now I’ve screwed up again.”
And then, worst of all: “I’m sorry.”
All three of them came in terrifying succession, all from Tiffany’s number. Sierra called, immediately, but it was cut off. She texted back, watching the three little dots undulate on her phone as Tiffany wrote at the same time.
“Wait are you here? On the compound? Where are you? I’ll come to you. Don’t do anything.”
The dots stopped for a moment, then began again.
“I got a ride. I’m at the tree out back that looks like it has elves in it. Remember?”
“I remember.”
It had been their favorite spot when they were kids. It really was magical looking, one of those old twisty trees. Sierra used to try to climb it.
She sat there for a second, her adrenal glands trying to catch up to the ridiculous events of her life. But it only took a second. After that, Sierra was up and moving. She slipped into the bathroom of the guest suite, remembering correctly that the bathroom had an adjoining door to the smaller room next door. And that had a window she could climb out of. And if Jared hadn’t drastically changed the landscape, it would also have a row of bushes or hedges or whatever, set back a few feet from the house, but high enough to hide a child from view from the grounds.
Sierra left her shoes in the bathroom, climbed out of the window in her Balenciaga dress, and landed in the soft woodchip covering behind that same row of bushes. She’d remembered it right. And she remembered the hidden back way to their favorite tree, too, because she got there in under two minutes.
Only she didn’t find Tiffany waiting for her, wasted, under the tree.
She found Jared.
“Hey, sis,” he said, as he stepped out from behind that same tree, a smartphone in one hand. Idly, she wondered where Jared had learned to spoof a cell phone number. There was probably an app for it.
But that wasn’t really what held her attention.
What held her attention was the gun Jared held in his other hand.
Thirty-Two
“Where’s Tiffany?”
The first words out of Sierra’s mouth, with Jared pointing a gun at her. Where’s Tiffany.
Some far away part of her was aware of how ridiculous that was, but the rest of her — every single living, burning fiber of her being — was focused on the gun aimed at her chest.
“Seriously?” Jared said. His grim face broke into a smile. “You are so fucking dumb, I swear to God, Sierra. ‘Where’s Tiffany?’ You know I actually tried to get her to come to the party? Told her you needed her. But she’s ‘committed to recovery,’” he said, doing the air quotes with his free hand. “Turned out better for me anyway. Super easy to spoof her number, and this way I don’t have to deal with a junkie mess.”
“Makes sense,” Si
erra said hollowly.
Jared looked at her again, harder this time, in the dying light by what was formerly Sierra’s favorite childhood tree. Mentioning the tree—even though the text hadn’t sounded exactly like Tiffany, that tree was their place. But of course Jared had known about it. It was the one place he wouldn’t bother them because he was embarrassed when his allergies started to act up. It was a huge, sprawling, droopy willow tree, something her father had planted way back when.
God, her father.
Had Jared done this to her father too?
She closed her eyes suddenly, violently, as if someone had just hit her with a thousand-watt spotlight.
“Did you send the stalker after me?” she said. It felt like another stupid question, with a gun pointed at her. But it was all she could do. She had to hear it.
“Yeah, I suspected your hired gorilla might have mentioned that,” Jared said, sniffing delicately. Then, suddenly, he laughed. Loud, ugly, wild.
For the first time, Sierra wondered if her twin brother was truly insane.
“I bet that’s all he told you, too,” he said, leering at her. The way he did when he was enjoying a mean secret. “But yes, Sierra, I hired someone to stalk you in order to set up a plausible scenario for when I finally killed you. Just like I did with dad.”
“Oh, Jared,” she whispered. He was truly lost. Had been lost for a long time.
Sierra knew she was terrified. Her heart rate was so rapid it shook her, just slightly, while adrenaline sharpened her senses. She could smell the slightly damp soil, mixing with the ocean out over the bluff. The cloying cologne Jared wore. The slight breeze against her bare shoulders.
But at that moment, that particular moment, all she could feel was a deep sadness.
Jared saw it.
“Oh come on,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Dad was basically senile, Sierra. He was talking about confession. Not to the priest, to the fucking Feds. Can you imagine? He was going to give it all away. Possibly land me in prison right alongside him. He was such a fucking coward at the end, it was better for him to go out the way I did it.”