Revenge

by Lexi Blake

  It would be interesting to see how Noah handled the Lawless women. “Well, we’ll know soon if he’s tough enough to handle us.”

  “I guess we will.” Bran sobered a bit. “Are you going to go find him?”

  Drew didn’t need to ask who Bran was talking about. Hatch. “Yes. I’ll go and look in his favorite bars.”

  “You want some company?” Bran asked.

  He would love some, but it would defeat the purpose. He needed to talk to Hatch privately, needed to figure out how he could calm his mentor down. “No, you stay here and talk to Riley for me. Explain what’s going on.”

  With a sigh, Drew went to get dressed.

  • • •

  “I wasn’t trying to be mean.” Mia stepped up to stand next to Shelby as they watched Carly and Noah talking to the salesman. They were in the men’s department at Neiman Marcus. Noah frowned at the slacks as though they weren’t what he’d been expecting.

  “I know that.” It was nice to have some company, and it might help her get a better view of Noah. She could stand back and watch how he related to the people around him. “If my brother had been a billionaire genius, I would have been protective of him, too.”

  “I know you won’t believe this, but I’m worried about you, too,” Mia said quietly. “Drew can be difficult, and he’s never been in a relationship with a woman like you.”

  “A woman like me?”

  “A woman who needs him for more than work and sex and money.”

  That was the question. Did she? So far their entire relationship had been about work and the tiniest bit of sex. She didn’t care about the money. She’d lived without it. As far as she could tell, it isolated Drew, but then his magnificent brain might do that all on its own. “I don’t know what we’re doing right now. It’s still a new relationship.”

  “And yet you’re living together,” Mia murmured. “I’m not judging. I’m actually going to ask you if Drew manipulated you into a position where it made more sense for you to simply move in.”

  Oh, she knew her brother well. “He bought my apartment building and had it condemned.”

  Mia’s laugh was a sparkly thing. “That is the Drew I know. So he lured you out here and now I assume he’s having your entire apartment shipped here.”

  It was due in the morning. “Yes.”

  “You have to understand that Drew views the world through the lens of his childhood. He didn’t have value except the money he brought in. First because the people who ran the group home he lived in made money off him and then because of the company he built. He can’t see that people might care about him without expecting something in return.”

  Drew didn’t seem to talk about his childhood more than necessary. He tended to focus more on what happened to his siblings than himself. “Do you know if he had any friends?”

  “He and Riley were together. I think he spent all his time and energy protecting Riley and worrying about me and Bran. He grew up fast and I think he skipped some of the socialization steps. I just don’t want your relationship with him to die because he’s so weird.”

  His weirdness did things for her. “I think I can handle Drew.”

  Somehow she really did. She knew it had only been a week, but they’d already settled into an oddly easy relationship. It wasn’t difficult to be around him. They didn’t have awkward silences. When Drew was working and lost all sense of time, she simply went to work on her own. When she got lost in her writing, Drew did the same. He didn’t accuse her of ignoring him or making things uncomfortable. They worked.

  But they were a transaction. They’d begun that way, right down to a contract. The sex hadn’t been written in, but Drew had found a way to bargain for that, too.

  Drew, who had everything, didn’t trust a woman to simply stay with him, to care for him. He paid the people who helped him. Always.

  “Why do you think Hatch reacted so poorly to Noah?” Shelby was interested in what Mia thought. It might give her some insight into Bill Hatchard.

  Something about the man didn’t sit right with her, and yet she’d already seen enough to know not to bring it up to Drew. Mia was another story. They were just two girls standing around talking about mutual friends and family members.

  Mia’s eyes strayed to where Noah had disappeared into the dressing room. “He’s protective, too. You have to understand that Drew and Hatch kind of saved each other.”

  That wasn’t how she would describe it. “It seems more like Drew saved Hatch. Wasn’t he a drunk on skid row when Drew went looking for him?”

  Mia frowned. “I don’t know that I’d say that.”

  “Bran does,” Carly said as she joined them. “Bran says Hatch was a mess in the beginning. According to him, Drew had to go looking for Hatch. He’d gone through almost every dollar he made from the sale of the company.”

  “Yes, I often wonder why he didn’t use that money to spare you from going into the foster system.” It bugged Shelby.

  “He was broken,” Mia replied, her shoulders sagging as though the very memory could hurt her.

  Unfortunately, not understanding what had happened back then could hurt them all now.

  Carly started going through a display of polo shirts that Shelby couldn’t see Noah wearing. “He’s apologized, you know. He and Bran had it out a couple of months ago, and I think they’re in a good place. Hatch was weak and he’s got some alcohol issues. From what he’s told me, he didn’t even realize you’d gone into foster care until it happened. He found out Benedict and Iris were dead and he lost it. He didn’t show up for corporate meetings or walk onto the job sober again. They sold the company and all the intellectual property about a year later, and they shoved his portion in the bank and no one heard anything from him for years.”

  “Drew had to track him down here in Austin. He had a place in Dallas at the time, but Hatch always considered Austin his home,” Mia explained. “He had gotten married and divorced by that point in time, too.”

  “To a stripper?” Shelby had heard some stories.

  Mia winced. “I believe she was an escort. She’s the one who actually spent all that money. He married her when he was drunk and she moved into his house. She spent every dime he had and left him nothing. Hatch was living in a crappy motel room when Drew finally tracked him down. He forced Hatch to sober up.”

  “Still not seeing how Hatch saved Drew.” She was questioning how a grown man could leave four children to foster care when he supposedly had been their father’s best friend.

  “4L wouldn’t exist without Hatch,” Mia said.

  “But Drew was the one who came up with the concept.” Wasn’t that the important part?

  Carly nodded. “He did, but no one would have taken him seriously. He was a kid and he needed capital. Hatch still had a name in the industry even years later. Without Hatch, the only thing Drew could have done was sell his own code for pennies on the dollar of what it was worth and start over. Hatch turned him into an industry leader. He also made it possible for Drew to get custody of Riley and Bran. So don’t ever expect Drew to question Hatch. He loves him and that means something to Drew.”

  Drew’s circle was tight, but he was beyond loyal to those he considered his. Would he be the same to the woman he ended up with?

  “So he’s never looked into what Hatch was doing back then?”

  Mia’s eyes widened. “No. Why would he do that?”

  Carly’s jaw tightened. “I don’t think he would appreciate that, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t quietly look into it.”

  Mia looked down at her sister-in-law. “You know we’ve researched that time as much as people can possibly research a crime. We know everything.”

  But they didn’t. “We know nothing about Hatch except what he’s told Drew. Did McKay-Taggart do a study on him and his actions during the time?”

&
nbsp; Mia’s jaw formed a stubborn line. “No, but we don’t need to. We know that Francine Wells was the fourth conspirator. It wouldn’t have been Hatch.”

  Something about his reaction to Noah had Shelby thinking. She couldn’t let it go, but she also wasn’t about to get into a fight with Mia in the middle of an expensive mall. “Of course. I was just thinking. Don’t worry about it.”

  Noah stepped out and looked around as if scared they might have left him behind. He was wearing skinny jeans and a violently orange T-shirt.

  Mia’s eyes widened in horror. “He’s gone rogue. I’m going to fix that. He won’t ever get a date looking like that.”

  Mia strode over. There was no way to miss the resemblance. Mia and Noah looked like brother and sister.

  “It’s weird, you know,” Carly began. “They’re a welcoming family, but there are things I’ll never understand about them, things that bonded them. You should get used to that. They’re tighter than other families.”

  “Like me and Johnny used to be,” she said wistfully. “Like you and Meri?”

  Carly smiled at the sound of her sister’s name. “I guess. I guess all families are different in their own ways. We bond over shared experiences because no one else in the world can know what it meant to be us. But the incident that bonded Bran and his siblings was so traumatic it could have destroyed them. Drew made sure it didn’t do that. He’s got a will unlike anything I’ve seen before, and Mia’s right. He puts people on his payroll. He doesn’t have friends outside his family. He doesn’t trust them. I’m worried Drew is trying to buy himself a wife.”

  Shelby laughed. “Marriage has not come up.”

  Carly’s eyes were so serious as she looked at Shelby. “I think it will. I think Drew looked at you and wanted you, and he’s been plotting and planning on how to get you ever since. A normal man would send you roses. Drew views courtship as a war he intends to win.”

  She started to laugh again but stopped because Carly might be right. Though she didn’t understand everything. Or was it Shelby herself who didn’t understand? “It’s not that serious. I don’t think you need to worry.”

  “Two weeks ago you were cursing the man’s name. You live with him now. He’s managed to draw you into his world and he’ll make you crave it. Not the money. He’ll make you crave the family he’s built, and that’s not a bad thing. But I know you. You’re not going to be the sweet, supportive executive’s wife, and he’s going to try to control you. It’s his nature. I’m worried about what happens the first time you don’t give in.”

  “I’m not a doormat and I never have been.”

  Carly held out a hand. “And he needs that, but he’ll try to manipulate you into doing what he wants. You have to call him on it if this is going to work. Do you want this to work?”

  More and more she did, but Carly was right. Drew was consolidating power. He’d dangled what she wanted most in front of her. A mystery she might be able to solve. More than that, he’d figured out that she wanted to belong somewhere, and he was offering her that, too. She might have been able to hold herself apart if she’d been working from her tiny place in LA, only flying out to do research and report back. But he hadn’t allowed that to happen. He’d brought her close, isolated her within his tight-knit group. He’d even gotten her to sleep with him. Oh, she was holding out sex-wise, but it wouldn’t take long.

  It was classic stalking behavior, and she should run. Except he wasn’t a stalker. He was a dumbass who needed to be retrained, and that needed to start soon because she did want this to work.

  “You’re going to look into Hatch, aren’t you?” Carly asked.

  “I am.” She might discover everything had been exactly as the family understood, but they needed an outside force to investigate, and it appeared they hadn’t allowed Case’s company to do it.

  “He was in love with Iris.”

  That was news. “Are you serious? Drew did not mention that to me.”

  “Like I said, Drew and Hatch are mysterious. Drew doesn’t question him. I think it’s because he needs one person outside his siblings he can completely count on. Can you tell me why you want to look into Hatch? I was there that night, Shelby. It wasn’t Hatch who shot Bran. It was Francine Wells. You should be looking for her. The police aren’t. They’re useless.”

  No, they were being controlled by Drew Lawless, who didn’t want the story to get out that his mother had gone bad. “I am looking, but if it helps, I think she has what she wants and she’s not going to surface again.”

  Not until Shelby’s book came out and she cleared Benedict’s name. She had to hope that was enough to satisfy Drew. She didn’t want Carly worried that Francine Wells would show up and try to kill her again.

  “I know. I remember. I think it’s part of the reason Bran wants to stay in Dallas. He’s not protecting himself. He’s afraid for me, but we can’t allow that woman to win. If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know. We’re all pretending it didn’t happen right now because we need a break, but I think she’ll come back to haunt us all. One way or another.”

  “I think we’ve got this settled.” Mia walked up with a satisfied smile on her face. “He’s not allowed to ever choose his own clothing again.”

  Noah had a massive bag in hand. “I spent most of my life wearing a uniform. I thought the orange was pretty cool.”

  Shelby shook her head. “That color is only for citrus fruit. Come on. Let’s get this out to the car and we can grab some lunch.”

  Mia clapped her hands. “Thank God. I’m starving. There’s an Italian place I love close by.”

  Noah seemed happy to trail after his sister, his hands full of shopping bags. He looked like a completely open Drew, a Drew unburdened by the weight of the world he always carried around.

  Could she take a bit of that burden off his shoulders and make him smile more?

  They approached the door, and Shelby had to laugh because it was obvious Noah was trying to figure out how to open the heavy door that swung inward without the use of his hands.

  “You’ve proven you’re a gentleman, Noah.” She went to open the door for him. “You don’t have to be perfect.”

  “I already want to keep him,” Mia said. “I like having a younger brother to boss around.”

  “Don’t listen to her.” Carly walked through the door. “She bosses everyone around. It’s her thing.”

  Shelby followed along, her mind already working on what she needed to do. It was exciting to have so many leads. Dangerous, yes, but she couldn’t help it.

  Thanks to her handy new 4L credit card, she had a source coming into town. Pavel Volchenko, the assassin’s brother, was going to be in Austin in two days. It might be a horrible mistake and the man could know nothing and was just getting a trip to the US out of it, but it seemed like a place to start.

  Drew had even told her he was fine with her talking to him. She might not have mentioned that the talk would be in person, but then this was her investigation. She would share what she learned with Drew and he would have to be satisfied with that.

  Mia and Carly started toward the car while Noah turned to Shelby. The sun was shining and it was a stunning Austin day.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Shelby,” Noah said. “I know I’d still be in jail without you.”

  Carly looked down the road. The parking lot wasn’t terribly busy. There was a big black SUV sitting in front of one of the entrances. Shelby started across the street to join Mia and Carly, Noah following behind.

  “I seriously doubt that,” she lied.

  “Do you think Drew will be more comfortable when the DNA test comes back?” Noah asked. “I’ve heard that can take a long time.”

  Not when Drew Lawless was requesting it. “I think it will be faster than you think. Just let everyone get to know you.”

  The sound of tir
es rolling made Shelby bring her head up. The SUV was moving. Fast.

  “Mia’s husband seems cool,” Noah was saying. “Scary, but cool. Did you know he used to be a Navy SEAL?”

  Noah was paying no attention to anything but his conversation. That SUV sped up and Shelby had little time to react. Before she could take another breath, the big vehicle was bearing down on them. Specifically on Noah, who was slightly behind her.

  Shelby heard someone scream out, but she reached for Noah, whose eyes went wide. He dropped the bags and stumbled as Shelby pulled him away from the SUV. Her foot hit the curb and she went flying backward. She held on to Noah’s hand as hard as she could because that SUV wasn’t backing down. She could have sworn the damn thing swerved to hit them. Noah hit his knees as she pulled him to the small green space separating the road from the parking lot. He slammed into her, pain jarring through Shelby’s body.

  The SUV sped away without stopping.

  Noah’s new clothes were all over the place.

  “What the hell was that?” Mia ran over, kneeling beside Noah and trying to help him up and off Shelby.

  “I think he was trying to hit me.” Noah got to his feet and held out a hand.

  “Or it was an asshole on his cell phone. Damn distracted drivers.” Carly started to gather the bags again. “I didn’t get a plate number.”

  Mia shook her head. “It was some jerk. We’re lucky Shelby is so quick on her feet. Come on, sweetie. I think everything’s okay.”

  She started to look Noah over, but Shelby couldn’t help but wonder. Her mind went back to that moment when Hatch had stormed into the kitchen, staring at Noah like he was a snake about to bite them all.

  If you even try for a second to lay a hand on any one of these kids, I’ll kill you myself.

  What would Hatch consider a threat? Noah’s very existence? What he represented?

  She would like to know where Bill Hatchard was.