by Piper Lawson
He rounds to my side, hand curling at his hip when he sees the damage.
“I’m so sorry, sir. I don’t know what could’ve happened.”
There’s a slice as long as my thumb clean through the rubber. “I do.”
It’s twilight, and I need to get on a plane for Spain, but while the driver promises to call me another car, I’m already tuned out.
Up the block, another black car is idling.
The back window is shaded, so I stare in the front for a second. Two.
I cross to the park on the other side of the street, sinking onto a stone bench with a view of pigeons playing in a fountain.
Less than a minute later, a man is out of the back and approaching me.
“I trust you heard I got the lease back,” I say as he shifts onto the other end of the bench.
Mischa’s mouth twists. “Never like to deal with landlords. Better to own property. Your parents always said that.”
“Before you killed them.”
He lifts a hand as if I’m the one being unreasonable. “I didn’t kill them. They indulged.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Remember when we did that job together? We made a strong team.” Mischa stretches his legs out, and it’s like we’re two old men reminiscing about good times.
If the good times were trafficking narcotics.
It was the first and last thing I did for his parents, back when he was trying to convince me to work for them.
“No. We were never a team. You never had a chance at recruiting me.”
“That’s what I told my parents.” He sounds almost sad.
I don’t know what they did to him for his failure.
I can’t find it in me to care.
“Congratulations,” I say, thinking of his engagement. ”I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”
He grins. “I have plans for her. You won’t miss her? I used to prefer blondes, but lately it’s brunettes. Strange to have preferences change after decades.”
My gut twists.
He’s not talking about Eva. He’s talking about Rae.
I lean across the bench, ignoring a pack of schoolchildren that runs past, and grab his collar. “You will never have her.”
The children are barely past when two men—no, three—start to close in on us from around the park.
I didn’t bring security to London, preferring to leave them with Raegan.
Now, I realize that was either wise or foolish as Mischa rises, dragging me with him. He produces a knife, holding it at my stomach, hidden from prying eyes by my jacket.
Despite the public setting, the blade is an unyielding promise against my abs.
Bloodshed is a crass way to get what you want. I prefer deals with wits and money. But adrenaline and rage pound in my veins.
“Coward’s way out,” I rasp. “You always took it, even in school.”
“Would you do it?” He wraps my hand around his, flipping the knife so it’s against his stomach. “You say you’re not like me. Let’s find out.”
I could do it, could end this for all of us.
My phone jumps in my pocket. I ignore it, but he grins.
The next second, he’s gone, turning and slipping into the stream of pedestrians along the sidewalk that borders the park.
I’m not a killer like he is. But I wish I were.
It’s not until I’m in my new car and on the way to the airport that I check my phone.
A slew of messages and notifications fills the screen, and one in particular grabs my attention.
Rae: We need you at the villa. This is not a fucking drill.
I call her.
No answer.
I hang up and try again.
Midway back on my flight, she finally answers.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did Ivanov—”
“It’s your brother. He had a bad day, and he’s really upset, and it messed with his head.”
My eyes squeeze shut. “Thank fuck it’s nothing serious. I’ll be home in ninety minutes.”
There’s a long pause. “No. Not ‘thank fuck,’ Harrison.” Her voice trembles, with sadness or rage—I can’t tell which. “Not everything wrong in the world is caused by a single man.”
She hangs up on me, and I’m left staring at the phone, frustrated and angry myself.
The plane lands, and I waste no time getting back to the house.
“Raegan!” I call when I barge in.
Leni’s the one who appears, looking tired and wary. She tilts her head toward the patio.
I stalk through the house and find Sebastian lying on the table. Confusion grips me as I watch him point at the sky, stabbing his finger in the air as he murmurs words I can’t hear.
Unreal. I hurried home with a gut full of panic only to find my own flesh and blood has indulged in some kind of party drug.
“What did he take?” I demand.
“Not sure. Rae found him. We’re waiting for him to come down.”
My jaw clenches. I cross to my brother and grab him by the shirt collar.
His glazed eyes find mine. “Harry—“
“Don’t,” I bite out, my grip tightening as I lift him to sitting.
Sebastian’s hands close around my wrists, trying to pry me off him.
“I’ve been trying to bring down the man responsible for all our problems, and you’re getting high?”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Rae’s voice at my back has me spinning.
“This is what you called me back for?” I demand. “My brother went on a trip?”
Her eyes flash. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What I know is my brother fucked himself up. I don’t tolerate drugs. It’s the only thing I can’t abide.”
Rae grabs my wrist and stalks into the house. “He had a rough night,” she says under her breath. “I went to find him.”
“He doesn’t need a keeper. He’s an adult.”
“And he fucked up, like we all do. That’s why we have friends and family. You showed me that. How you take care of people. It’s one of the things that made me love you.”
“I’m too much of a damned bleeding heart, and it’s going to stop.”
Shock collides with hurt on her face. “I know you’ve been dealt some shitty hands in this life, but I won’t watch you destroy your family”—her gaze cuts toward the patio, toward my brother—“or yourself.”
Low laughter comes from Sebastian. It cuts off the second I level my gaze on him.
I nod to Rae. “Let’s go upstairs.”
But she steps back. “No.” Disbelief slams into me as she tilts her head at my brother. “Come on, Ash.”
“You’re going with him?” I demand.
“He needs help. You have no idea what happened to him, and you don’t want to. That’s how I know this isn’t you.”
Her eyes shine with more emotions than I can name. If I weren’t overtired and bewildered, I’d make her stay until I could tease them apart, have her explain each one to me until I understood.
She piles him into the car while I watch. I’m helpless and furious. A terrible fucking combination.
I call out to her, “You owe me a favor.”
Rae freezes and turns. She crosses back to me. “What did you say?”
My heart starts beating again. I’m not sure when it stopped, except everything in me seems synced to her.
“When you first came here last year, we made a deal that included three favors,” I go on, threading my hands into her hair. “You gave me two.”
Her lips part. “Harrison…”
“Don’t,” I mutter, leaning in to press my lips to her hair as my fingers tangle in the strands. “Don’t walk out on me.”
She’s not going to, I realize as she lets me hold her.
But when she pulls back, it’s to brush her lips over mine, cool and fleeting. “I am doing you a favor, but you have to see that.”
Those are the l
ast words before she disappears into the dark and I’m alone.
22
Harrison
“How do you like it?” Sawyer drawls over the video call.
I tap the controls behind the bar to watch the thing skim along a ceiling track and descend down a column on the other side.
“The photographer bots are even bigger, sales-wise,” he goes on.
I scan the club, empty except for a skeleton crew preparing for tonight’s show.
Since Rae walked out on me last night, I’ve needed to prove I’m not coming unhinged. Which is why I’m at Debajo, running my business.
I hang up with Sawyer, and the robot comes down the track across the ceiling, bringing a Post-it note.
Apologize, it says.
“Don’t tell me I hurt your feelings last night,” I toss at my second-in-command as Leni rises from behind the bar.
“Hardly. Your brother and girlfriend on the other hand…” With a cloth, she wipes down the surface. “What’s between you and your family is your business. But you can’t afford to cut your own clubs off at the knees indefinitely.”
The steel edge under Leni’s voice makes me blink. She’s always been a friend and an advisor. But right now, she doesn’t get how close we are to blowing this all up.
The door opens, letting in heated conversation exchanged between security and someone outside.
“What is it?” Leni demands.
“Some guys out back in the parking lot thinking they can sell,” security replies.
I stomp for the door, but the security guard clears his throat. “He’s gone, Mr. King.”
Lucky for him. God knows what I would’ve done in my current mood.
“Ivanov doesn’t sell at Debajo again,” I tell Leni. “If one of our patrons buys so much as a pill on my property, I swear to God I will fire everyone in that establishment. Do whatever it takes to stop it from happening.”
She hesitates before nodding. “On it.”
Two hours later, I’m back at the villa, cursing my brother and wondering whether Raegan’s lying in bed without me, when the call comes in from Debajo security.
“Señor King, it’s about Leni,” the man says. “They were waiting for her. She tried to stop them...”
I’m in my Ferrari and tearing down the driveway. I don’t look back to see if my personal security is following in their car.
The person who’s stood by me for the last decade is bleeding on a table in the emergency room.
When I arrive at the hospital, I barge in the doors and demand to see her.
“She sustained multiple wounds. She’s in surgery,” a doctor informs me.
The blood drains from my head. “Call me the fucking second she’s out,” I command.
I head out the front doors, kicking a garbage bin on the way.
It’s my fault Leni felt she needed to defend Debajo with the same fierceness I’d defend it with. To stop a deal in progress in the alley, not noticing she was outnumbered or thinking it might be a trap. But she’s not me. And Debajo isn’t hers.
An ambulance pulls up, so I round the corner of the building, more to avoid their eyes than to give them space. There’s a garden, and I grab a tall plant with red flowers by the stalk. I tear it out of the soil.
Another.
“Señor—“
I whirl to face a janitor with his cart. Whatever he sees on my face has him backing down, hands lifting as he disappears toward the parking lot.
Sweat beads at my brow, my neck.
My jacket is the next victim. I drag it off, then throw it in the dirt.
My knees buckle as I brace against the side of the building.
I yank my phone out of my pocket and stare at a picture of the four of us at the villa. Leni, Ash, Raegan, and me. Plus Barney’s head stuck between Rae’s legs.
I’ve hurt them all by knowing them. They’ve all stood by me.
Until Raegan’s words last night.
“I am doing you a favor.”
In my quest to punish the man who caused me pain, I’ve punished everyone I love. I wanted to protect them, and I hurt them instead.
My eyes burn.
An object on the ground glints at my feet. I bend to pick it up.
My mother’s ring.
I’ve been carrying it around. Through everything.
Those words inscribe themselves on my heart with a blade duller than the one Mischa used back in boarding school.
I thought I was doing the right thing. Maybe she did too. Maybe they both did. They thought they were doing right by Ash and me. By people who worked for them.
I need to fix this. If I lose everything I’ve built, every damn penny, I need to make it right.
I hope it’s not too late.
I pull out my phone and type out a text because I can’t speak.
Harrison: Leni’s hurt. Someone attacked her outside Debajo. At the hospital now.
The ring back in my pocket, I stare at the photo once more. The woman I love looks at the camera with an amused smile. Before we took the picture, she asked if this was some kind of family portrait.
Leni said, “It’s as close as we’re going to get.”
It is.
Once, I knew how to look after my own. Raegan was my most stubborn challenge—she wouldn’t let me love her, wouldn’t trust me or rely on me. Somehow, I was given the most exquisite fucking gift of being the man by her side while she figured that out.
Now, she’s the person who called me out when I stopped being that man.
I’ve never prayed, but my gaze finds the sky.
Forget destruction. I need redemption.
I will do anything to make this right. Leni, Ash, Raegan. Everything.
23
Rae
I hated fighting with Harrison last night. But when his text comes through, the churning feeling in my gut is replaced with a block of ice.
I grab Ash and run downstairs and into the backseat of the car driven by security that stubbornly clung to me after I left the villa.
“Did he say what happened?” Ash demands as we lean forward, willing the driver to go faster.
“Nothing more than his text.”
At the hospital, we leap out of the vehicle and bolt inside.
The woman at the nursing station tells us Leni’s in the operating room.
“Did anyone come in with her?” I demand.
She gestures to the hall, where one of the security guards from Debajo paces, another slumped in a chair.
I race over to them, Ash at my heels. One of them says, “Mischa’s men. She went out to chase them off.”
My stomach drops, time stopping. “Where’s Harrison?”
Right now, all that matters is he’s alive. I’m terrified by the possibility that he was there too.
“I’m here.”
The two words make me spin so fast I nearly trip.
Harrison King fills the hallway. His shirt is rumpled and stained, his hands covered in dirt.
My heart stops beating. I rush toward him, scanning the dark stains on his white shirt.
“I’m alright,” he rasps. “This was intentional. They went after her as retaliation for my actions this week.”
My fingers thread through his, and Harrison’s expression fills with guilt and disgust as he stares at my clean hands and his dirty ones.
A doctor emerges from the double doors, stopping in front of us. “Are you her family?”
“Yes,” Harrison says immediately.
The doctor eyes him up and down. “Husband? Brother—“
“We’re everything she has.”
The doctor relents, tucking a clipboard under his arm. “She has suffered significant blood loss, but her condition is stable.”
Next to me, Harrison exhales hard. “I want her transported to my villa as soon as it’s safe for her to be transported.”
“She should remain under observation for forty-eight hours. That requires staff, equipment—“
“Fine. I’ll take it all. Spare no expense.” He cuts a look toward the door, then back at me. “I don’t want her alone here.”
“We could have security stay—“
“No. It’s not enough.”
The grim look on his face makes me realize how agonizing this is for him. He’s pale, his lips thinned, eyes haunted. He knows this is bad, and could’ve been worse.
“I want to see her.” Harrison looks past the doctor toward the doors, seeming to think better of charging through without permission. “Can I?”
“In a few minutes. I’ll show you to her recovery room.”
It’s midafternoon by the time Harrison sees Leni and makes arrangements to have her transported back to the villa later today.
Ash heads for the car, Harrison heading for his Ferrari.
I hold up a finger to tell my security to wait for me as I cross to Harrison.
“Should you drive?” I ask, leaning in the driver’s window.
He lifts his gaze to mine. “Yes. I’m all right.”
I nod, but before I can pull back, he lays his hand over mine. “Thank you. For being here.”
I swallow hard. “Of course.”
“No, not ‘of course.’ You’ve been keeping an eye on my family. All my family,” he goes on, meaning Leni.
I pull my fingers away. “What can I say? They grew on me.”
Our gazes hold as if neither of us wants to pull back from this shared connection. I’m not sure who needs it more.
Finally, I turn back and slide into the backseat of the car next to Ash.
This time when security asks where we’re headed, I say, “The villa.”
Ash cocks his head. “You want me to go another round with my brother?”
“You were barely conscious for the last one,” I point out. “And yes, you’re coming.”
His normally dancing blue eyes are dull, but he squeezes my shoulder. “I’ve had worse.”
We follow the Ferrari through the streets and up the driveway. When we get to the house, Ash tells me, “Think I’ll go crash for a bit.”
Harrison and I follow him inside, where a worried Barney greets us with a whimper. I scratch his head as Natalia emerges from the kitchen, looking equally concerned.