Provoked

by Riley Murphy

  “Castrated, and the person is my younger brother.”

  Neil had witnessed firsthand Kelli’s special brand of brutality so he didn’t doubt that Wilde’s brother was in serious trouble. “Did you go to the police about this?”

  Wilde shook his head.

  “Why not?” When the guy refused to answer Neil put him on the defensive. He wanted to see how well connected Wilde was. “I hope your choice to not tap the police for help with this isn’t male ego standing in your way. Sharp is a crazy bastard. He doesn’t make threats, they’re promises.”

  He was going to leave but then Wilde finally broke his silence. “I couldn’t. Can’t.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He didn’t look happy about sharing. In fact, he looked as if he was choosing his words carefully. “The item that Cat stole from me? Me and my brother lifted it from the museum for purposes I’d rather not go into, but reasons some of the local authorities wouldn’t appreciate. If you know Kelli, you’ll know what I mean.”

  That answered Neil’s question about his contacts. Wilde had good ones if he knew, like Neil did, that Kelli was protected by the local police. It was pointless reporting anything that involved Kelli or any of his men.

  He eyed Wilde while he debated whether to trust the guy or not.

  “I could have fed you some BS about how I couldn’t involve the police because how could I explain being in possession of the stolen item without implicating me and my brother. Or I could have told you I did speak with the police and they did nothing. Instead I chose to open a door here, man. It’s up to you to walk through it.”

  Everything he said was true.

  Neil’s mind was spinning. Had Cat known what she was stealing? Was it her plan? He remembered her boss saying she was acting strange and seemed strapped for cash. If she was planning on leveraging the item for money to Sharp she’d be in all kinds of personal danger. “Okay. You mentioned that she stole stuff from you. What other items did she take?”

  Wilde leaned back against his car and crossed his arms. “Two things I wished I’d never laid eyes on. Money and a map. Both of which I won in a card game I played with Sharp.”

  “I think Sharp played you.” Neil was getting a bad feeling about this. “Did Kelli happen to know that you and your brother stole that item from the museum before you sat down at the card table with him? Tell me you didn’t play poker with the guy.”

  By his grim expression Neil had his answers.

  “Was the money in bundles? Did you clean it, before you locked it away?”

  As planned Wilde finally went on the defensive. “What was I supposed to do, launder it?”

  Neil was eight steps ahead of the guy. “He could have attached a tracker to the cash. Sharp is a poker pro. Are you?”

  Wilde shook his head and that bad feeling was getting worse.

  “What do you suppose the odds are that a pro would lose to a guy like you?”

  “Pretty slim.”

  “And what do you suppose the odds are that you’d stash the cash and the map in the same vicinity of your ill-gotten museum acquisition.”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Fuck. If there’s a tracker on that cash Sharp has a direct line to Cat and the rest of your stuff. You’ll lose your bargaining power if he gets to it first and she’ll be in serious trouble. As you said, Sharp doesn’t play nice.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to steal it from me. That wasn’t the plan.”

  “What was the plan? Let Sharp steal it back from you?”

  The silence that followed that question had both men on edge. Neil especially, because he was back to not trusting the guy. He didn’t have time for this shit.

  Wilde called, “Where are you going?”

  Neil didn’t turn back as he continued up the front steps to the house. “To get a shirt and my keys. Then I’m going to find Cat. Lesson time between us isn’t over.”

  “Yes, it is. She’s mine, Cannon.”

  Neil stopped at the door and swung around. He was ready to make damn sure that Wilde knew he was wrong about Cat being his, but the guy was staring at his phone as if he’d never seen it before. Then he looked up and Neil knew there was trouble.

  “They broke into my compound. One of my guys was killed and another is on his way to the hospital. They took Regina.”

  “Did you think something like this wouldn’t happen?” When Wilde shook his head as if he didn’t know what to think, Neil felt bad for the guy. “I’m sorry. Was that your sister?”

  “No, Cat’s assistant,” Wilde said offhandedly. Then swore. “Shit, I have to get back and deal with this. The cops are there trying to press fucking charges against my guys. Do you have a way to find her?”

  “Yes.” He wasn’t going to share that he’d installed a failsafe LoJack system on his car. In a few minutes he’d know exactly where she was.

  Wilde opened his car door. “Like I said before, she’s mine.”

  “The only thing that will be yours after I find her is the piece from the museum so you can save your brother from a ballless life of hell. I’ll make you that promise.”

  Wilde slammed the car door and stalked to the bottom of the steps. “Why? Why would you help me?”

  “I’m not helping you. I’m thwarting Sharp.”

  “Thwarting?” Jude’s eyes narrowed and then he stepped back a pace. “I remember now. You’re the guy who beat him to a pulp that night before the police got there. You’re the guy…the guy he wouldn’t press charges against.”

  “Like the media said. It was a bad accident and a horrible misunderstanding.”

  “They weren’t that kind, if I recall. And having met Sharp, I know what happened back then wasn’t an accident. Still doesn’t explain why you’re getting involved when we have a major roadblock standing between you and I ever becoming passing acquaintances.”

  “Let’s just say the last time I was in a position to help someone who was vulnerable to Kelli’s brand of sadistic temper I didn’t make it in time. After it happened I swore it would never happen again.” Which wasn’t a hundred percent true, because he’d been amicably removed from those circles to become the distant watch dog until they could nail Sharp to the fucking wall. He’d been given the one thing he needed to equalize the situation and keep Kelli in check over the last two years.

  “So I get it. I win the consolation. You get me the relic so I can bargain for my brother and Regina, and you get Cat, is that it?”

  Neil really hadn’t thought about it like that, but now that Wilde brought it up? “Yes. The way I see it? She came to me and only ran away after you showed up here. Who do you think she wants?”

  All he did was shake his head when Wilde started ranting.

  “Yeah, well fuck you, Cannon! And fuck her too! I never wanted the sneaky bitch. She’s more wily than a coyote that one. She’s picking your pocket while she’s sucking your cock. Who needs that complicated mess in their lives? I’m better off without her.

  Neil kicked the door shut as the phrase He doth protest too much came to him. But then so did the phrase, Vanilla guys in heat are unmitigated assholes…

  He thought about that while he gathered his stuff. He used to be just like Jude. Unfocused and ready to fly off the handle at the first drop of anxiety. Picking up his belt, he frowned while he stared down at the leather. Were his hands shaking? They were, all because thoughts of Kelli Sharp getting anywhere near Cat scared the ever-living hell out of him. Women had a tendency of disappearing after he’d spent time with them.

  He needed to find her and those things she stole before Sharp did.

  He was just threading his belt through the first loop when a part of his conversation with Wilde came back to him. He spun around and stared at the closed door, thinking.

  Since when did a sub working at a sex club have an assistant?

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So now what?”

  Charlie didn’t dare close her eyes. If she did, she worri
ed that Cat would continue touching things. Her sister couldn’t keep her paws off Neil’s knobs. Every few minutes Charlie would have to intervene and stop her sister from pressing or turning on one of the car’s instruments.

  Like now for instance. She side-eyed Cat and said, “No.”

  “This blows. I wouldn’t have suggested we take the ferry if I knew you were going to make me sit in an awesome car without touching.”

  “The ferry was a great idea. If Neil called the police they’ll be looking in the city or the highways, not on a slow moving boat. It also saves on the additional miles we would have put on her if we’d taken the interstate, and you know why you can’t fool around with this stuff. The less wear and tear the better.”

  “Speaking of wear and tear,” Cat cozied up to the subject as she snuggled back in the driver’s seat, “how much tearing did the Master do? Is he as good as they say?”

  Charlie let her head fall sideways so she could give Cat the stink-eye. “I told you. I’m not talking about him.”

  “Not fair. I told you about Wilde.”

  “And I told you not to.”

  “You can’t unhear it.”

  Charlie righted herself. “I wish I could.”

  “No, you don’t.” Cat walked her fingers over the curve of the steering wheel, saying, “My little vanilla sexcapade probably got you all hot.”

  “Is that what you call it?” Charlie made a pfft sound. “Seems to me, Wilde is a chicken-shit. All talk and no action. All threats and no follow through. A real man doesn’t speak about things unless he’s prepared to do them.”

  Cat’s finger-walking stopped and the tone of her voice was an octave higher than it usually was. “Oh? And you’d know about this because…?”

  “I’ve been with a real man.”

  “For a few hours.”

  Charlie wasn’t going to let herself be baited. “Jealous?” Then again, maybe she was.

  “I might be if you spilled the details.”

  Meh, she’d throw her a bone. “Master Neil and I played a few games. The first was not one of my favorites. It had a Scrooge vibe to it in that he made me reenact each of the scenes you did with his service guys.”

  Cat frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “Did you make one of his guys stand in the corner with your thongs on?”

  “Oh yeah.” She nodded. “I forgot about that. Wait, are you telling me he made you stand in the corner and wear his undies?”

  “No, not his, but men’s briefs…well, sort of. He actually took them down.”

  Cat smacked the steering wheel. “Now that’s hot. He ogled you while you were being humiliated?”

  “Worse. He got on his phone and made his business calls while I was left standing there completely humiliated.”

  “And that’s why he’s a Master.”

  Charlie took a good look around. They were sitting in Neil’s Cobra on a ferry heading home. This was the first time in years they’d been forced to share a confined space and they were talking about sex? She leaned over and gave her sister a little push. “What are we doing?”

  “Comparing notes. Wilde has a perpetual hard-on when he’s around me.”

  Okay, well that was interesting at least. “How fortunate for you, but what I meant was we should be talking about the most important thing. Why Mom refused to go.”

  Cat gave a non-committal shrug and Charlie knew what that meant. Her sister had the answer.

  “Tell me.”

  “The story about our crazy uncle with dementia who buried the deed to the ranch and most of Mom’s inheritance somewhere on the property was a lie.”

  “A lie?” Charlie was having a hard time letting that sink in. Her whole goal in life, since the time she was six and they were first told of the story, revolved around her finding the map that would lead them to the treasure. It was one of the reasons she’d worked at the museum. If that was…if it was all a lie…? “No.”

  She felt like throwing up.

  “It wasn’t a crazy uncle who did this and far from being a family quest, it’s more an unearthing of secrets. Mom and Dad’s secrets that Mom doesn’t want to…”

  Charlie’s eyes were tearing up because Cat’s already had. Any second drops were going to be sliding down her cheeks like they were her sister’s and she wanted to know why. “Doesn’t want what?”

  Cat wiped the moisture aside and sniffled a couple of times. “Mom doesn’t want to die without knowing, okay?”

  Charlie’s heart pounded. “She’s not going to die. We raised the money. They have it. She’s going to the best vascular doctor in the country. She’s not going to die,” she repeated, wanting so badly to believe that, but then something occurred to her. “What secrets?”

  “I don’t know.” Cat took a deep breath, before blowing it out. “One thing I do know is that the secret’s bad.”

  “Is that what Dad said?” Charlie whispered.

  “No, but it has to be something monumental if Mom’s more worried about it, or at least retrieving it before she dies.”

  “She’s going to be fine,” Charlie gritted out. “It’s a blocked artery and if her collaterals were better we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

  Cat leaned over and put a hand on Charlie’s knee. “They lied about that too.”

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “After all the research you did on Mom’s condition, you even told me how strange it was that Mom had a major artery that was close to one hundred percent blocked with little to no collateral veins to support it.”

  “I’m not a doctor.”

  Cat squeezed her knee. “I know, but you could have been. I totally understood the way you explained it. I never did get what the vascular doctor was saying.”

  She shook her head in frustration. “My explanation? I don’t remember. What does Mom’s condition have to do with the secret?”

  Her sister let go of her and sat back. “You told me that arteries were like roads. Cars, or in this case blood, traveled through them. When the roads got blocked, cars, or again in this case, blood, made alternate routes to get where they needed to be. You even showed me a stupid map with main highways outlined with thick red lines. Those you said were the arteries. Then you pointed to a whole pile of secondary routes that were drawn in thinner yellow ones and said those were the collaterals that could get you to where you were going as well. They might not be as wide or direct as the main arteries but the body creates them to protect itself over time. To keep a person alive. You said Mom had no secondary routes, no collaterals, and that’s why we were in crisis mode. We needed Mom to get the procedure done as quickly as possible. That’s why I sat in a cold tub and let a lecher and his wife take pictures of me. Isn’t it also why you entered that bikini contest and then broke the law?”

  “Yes. I get it.” Charlie still didn’t understand where Cat was going with this.

  “But you stopped asking why. You stopped wanting to know why Mom’s body hadn’t been protecting itself over time and building the collaterals it needed. Or maybe you just didn’t ask the right person. I asked Dad.”

  “And?” Charlie held her breath.

  “Are you ready for this?”

  Charlie nodded.

  “That artery wasn’t blocked by the conventional way. Not by plaque, that’s why there were no collaterals. It was compressed by scar tissue that had shifted.”

  Charlie released the air in her lungs and breathed normally. “That’s why they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her for so long.”

  “Correct. And where did she get that scar tissue from?”

  “An old injury probably.”

  Cat let her head rest against the upholstery and then closed her eyes. “Yup. One that has something to do with the map, the secret, and a man I know by the name of Kelli Sharp.”

  “Mr. Sharp?”

  Her sister sat up and pinned her with a look. “You know him too?”

  “Yes. He’s a larg
e financial contributor to the museum. I got a bonus when I brought him on board as a patron. He’s very generous. He’s even donated pieces from his personal collection…” Charlie’s eyes widened as the dots began to connect.

  “Son of a bitch. He donated the stick guy, didn’t he?”

  Charlie recalled how angry Mr. Sharp had been when he’d discovered the museum had lost the item in transit. She’d never given that part of the key’s history a second thought because any owner would have been mad over losing an item like that. Even though insurance covered those kinds of losses, it wasn’t about the money to a collector. “He’s a collector.”

  “He’s also a trader of rare things.”

  “Artifacts?”

  “People.”

  Charlie did a double-take. “No. For real?”

  “That’s the rumor. He’s someone you don’t want to cross.”

  “He was always nice to me when he called.”

  Cat stared right at her. “I wonder why. I’m also wondering what he could possibly have to do with Mom and Dad and this secret that Mom’s willing to put her life on the line for.”

  “What about the deed to the ranch? Do you think a man like him could have anything to do with the trouble Dad’s having with the bank over it?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  “You seem to have heard more than me.” Charlie did a mental checklist of all the things she’d based her future prospects on and asked, “So tell me, is the deed buried or was that a lie too?”

  “No,” Cat stretched her back with a sigh, “as far as I know that’s still the truth. Damn, it has just occurred to me that Mom and Dad have really benefited the last few years with me and you being on the outs. Between Mom confiding in you, and Dad confiding in me, we would have had the whole truth out of them before now if we’d been closer.”

  Charlie tended to agree. She thought about what drove them apart and what she’d decided when Neil had her facing her fear of the water. She thought about some of the other things he said and realized she’d been a scattered mess. Clinging to the bits of her life and not getting any strength from the glue. It was time to turn that around. “Cat?”