Marked (Branded Book 3)

by Scarlett Finn

  “What does that mean?” she asked Shaw and when he said nothing, she tipped her head to Archer. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a warning,” Archer said, his focus on Shaw who lifted a finger.

  “Not a threat,” Shaw said. “I don’t give a damn. I never really saw the appeal of having an old lady waiting at home. I always figure they slow you down.”

  “You move around a lot?” Nya asked.

  “No, born and bred right here in the city. Home is not far from here,” he said, looking around the room as if he could see through the walls. “Is that what this is, Archer? Getting to know me time? Well here’s what you need to know, I work alone. I know it’s a cliché and I know you’d say the same. But I don’t bog myself down with loyalty, I go where I please, do the jobs that I want to, and fuck whatever pussy I like. So I like your set up, your style, I actually think you’re a decent guy. But you won’t be getting any secrets from me.”

  Shaw stood up.

  To Nya, no loyalty meant no integrity and she didn’t respect people who had no integrity. “Are you happy, Mr. Spencer?” she asked and she’d bet the men were thinking about how female that question was, that it was a typical kind of question for a woman to ask, even in a business conversation.

  “What the fuck does that matter?” Shaw asked.

  Nya moved away from Archer, one slow step at a time. “Working alone I understand. Going where you want, I get that too. Doing only the jobs you want to, Archer’s exactly the same. But loyalty, a man without loyalty has no boundaries, has nothing to lose, nothing he cares about. If you can’t care about something, you can’t be happy.”

  Shaw had picked the wrong night to push her buttons on this subject. While she kept calm, she was using this conversation as a bit of a vent for her emotions about Tag. “Are you gonna tell me there’s a thick black line between right and wrong too?” Shaw asked. “That there’s always a right answer to every question?”

  “No. You can’t love a man like Archer and believe there’s no grey. But you have to be fighting for something more than yourself. You have to have a purpose. Archer has one.”

  “You,” Shaw said.

  “He had purpose long before I came along. But yeah, I’m a part of it now.”

  “So I should find myself an innocent little girl like you and play house with her?”

  “You should do what the fuck you want, Mr. Spencer. But either you’re lying about your lack of loyalty—which I could understand because it protects the people you care about—or you’re the lowest of the low. The man who’s price is less than a pack of smokes or an hour with a hooker. Nobody respects that man. That man never dies happy.”

  “Are you trying to save me, Miss Yorke?”

  “I see this more as an intervention, ‘cause one day you’re gonna need help. You’re gonna need advice or backup and if you’ve shown no loyalty to anyone, every door will slam in your face. Sometimes you’ve got to stand up for someone and if you do, that person may stand up for you and could end up saving your life.”

  “Your little showdown with Taggert tonight, was that you standing up for him or him standing up for you? It seems to me that loyalty’s got you in a lot of trouble, Miss Yorke.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But it was my loyalty that brought me to Archer. And my loyalty that helped him to fall in love with me. And my loyalty to my love that made me sure about my decision tonight. Tag’s angry, and even if he shuts me out, my loyalty to him won’t change and he’d never sell me out. Start somewhere, Mr. Spencer. Trust one person. Show integrity. Loyalty. And who knows, one day you may get it back.”

  Turning around, she folded her arms around herself as she moved past Archer and went back towards the bedroom. If the men had more business to discuss, they could. But she was too tired to think about making a new friend.

  If everything went down with this job that she still hadn’t heard the details about, Tag was going to leave. Nya didn’t really know what her life looked like without Taggert in it for more than a few weeks.

  Even if she wasn’t in Phoenix she should be able to pick up the phone or visit, if he didn’t put up barriers between them before he left. If he did and she lost him for good, Nya would be left with a set of questions about how to tackle their relationship; how to fight to get their relationship back, or whether she should let it drift away and die.

  She didn’t want to lose Tag, she loved him as a brother, but she was absolutely certain that being with Archer was right. Tag wasn’t her home. Archer was.

  eighteen

  Three days later, Nya was in her apartment tossing croutons through her salad waiting for a knock to sound on the door. Tag had refused to speak to her for the first two days, but she’d called him this morning and he’d actually picked up the phone. She didn’t know what had changed, but he’d agreed to come over.

  Archer was at Sizzle checking on progress for her. The workmen were in tearing the place apart and it made more sense for Archer with his intimidating stature and stare to go and chum along with the construction guys rather than her who’d been fobbed off with plenty of mollifications like, “Sure, darlin’,” and “Don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

  She was sort of sick of hearing their placations and that was saying something, because Archer was the king of condescension. But even when he said things to her in his patronizing tone, she knew he heard her. These guys seemed to have her on permanent mute like Archer did with his television. It was just a shame that Nya couldn’t turn on her own subtitles for them.

  The front door opened and she tensed, expecting to see Tag coming in. But instead it was Ester. Having the woman here when Tag was on his way probably wasn’t smart, but Nya always smiled when she saw the vivacious blonde.

  “Hello, my daughter,” Ester chirped, carefully putting her purse by the door as she closed it before trotting over and taking Nya’s face in her hands. “So beautiful.” Ester kissed each of her cheeks and then her lips. “Pregnant yet?”

  “No,” Nya said amazed at how having Ester around relaxed her. She actually managed a laugh, which was incredible given how nervous she’d been just a few minutes before. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  Ester peeked into the salad bowl and plucked out a crouton to pop it between her lips. “Is he cute?”

  “Tag. I’m waiting for Tag.”

  There was obvious disappointment on her face as her hand fell onto the breakfast bar. “Oh,” Ester said.

  “You don’t like him,” Nya said, taking the salad past Ester and over to the table.

  “He’s cute,” Ester said, searching for something positive to say.

  Nya put a hand on the back of a chair and turned to put the other hand on her hip. “Is it because Archer doesn’t like him or because… of something else?”

  “It’s because of the way he speaks to you,” Ester said, creeping around the breakfast bar. “There’s a lack of… respect? Maybe? No. I think he respects you. He just feels superior or maybe he expects you to worship him. I don’t know. I don’t like the way he snaps at you. The way he makes judgements.”

  “Archer snaps at me.”

  “Not in the same way. Archer snaps to protect you when he’s telling you to be quiet or sit down or take your clothes off, I don’t know. Tag…” Ester rolled her hand at the wrist like she was searching for something, but it didn’t come and she exhaled with a shake of her head. “I don’t know. He just seems to care an awful lot about himself and not an awful lot about anything else.”

  Nya couldn’t blame Ester for thinking that way, she’d only known Tag as a man strung out on drugs, snapping at her over a crowded dinner table. As far as Ester was concerned, he probably had a lot to be grateful for.

  While Nya was still wondering about her friends’ opinions of each other, Ester was ready to move on. “Would you like to go shopping when you’re done with your friend?” she asked, doing a lap of the room like she was checking for anything new or different.r />
  “If you want,” Nya said. “I’ll have to call Archer—”

  “Oh, Chase doesn’t care if you shop. We can get our nails done too!”

  Ester’s nails always looked newly-manicured, but she was always looking for an excuse to pamper herself. “Maybe,” Nya said. “How are things with you? Is Derren still in town?”

  Ester stopped and put her fists on her hips. “Yes, he is.”

  “And you’re…?”

  Nya tried to read the woman’s expression, but it was difficult to figure out what she was thinking. Archer would go crazy if she did, but Nya was sort of tempted to offer Ester some alcohol because her tongue loosened when she was drunk.

  “Do you think Archer has any money lying around upstairs?” Ester asked.

  Nya wouldn’t let Ester skirt the issue. “Ester! You know everything that happens between Archer and I, and I get in trouble for talking to you about it. What’s going on with you and Derren?”

  “Who knows with that man,” Ester said, folding her arms under her breasts and cocking a hip. “He…”

  Oh. Nya grew worried. Ester never hesitated when she talked. She never hesitated, she just… didn’t. Rushing away from the table, Nya went to take hold of Ester’s arms and pulled her over to the couch, which wasn’t as large as Archer’s, but gave Nya the excuse to stay close. Keeping hold of Ester’s upper arms she peered into the woman’s face wondering if that really was upset that she could read.

  Since Ester wasn’t talking, Nya started making guesses. “He hurt you? He said something to hurt your feelings or…? He never laid a hand on you, did he?”

  “What he did was much worse,” Ester snapped. “I’m so shocked and appalled and disgusted and outraged and…”

  Oh God, this was going to be awful and Archer would be so torn if there was real conflict between Ester and Derren. “What did he do?” Nya asked.

  “He wants to get married! Can you believe that bastard?”

  It was a nightmare, a travesty, a tragedy, a shocking, outrageous liberty that he’d made such a horrible suggestion. “He does?” It was weird, but Nya felt overjoyed and tears actually sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Ester, why do you look so sad?”

  “Because he wants to get married. He wants to tie me down. He says it doesn’t matter, that we can go on as we are, live our lives the way we do and I can screw whoever I want… Course that means he’ll be able to as well, but…”

  Hmm, what an odd thing for a guy to say when he was proposing. “So why get married?” Nya asked. “If you don’t love each other…”

  “Of course we love each other. We’ve loved each other for decades. We just don’t like each other very much most of the time.”

  Nya sagged as she exhaled and her fingers covered her mouth. What on earth was Archer gonna say when he heard about this and why the hell had Derren decided to do it now?

  “Ester,” Nya sighed.

  “He said either we get married or that’s it, we’re over for good.”

  This was confusing and came out of left-field as far as she could tell. “Does he really want to marry you? If you believe he loves you, why wouldn’t you marry him?”

  “Because it will wreck it,” Ester said, slow, as if she was explaining something to an idiot. “I love Derren. He loves me. We never say it. We don’t go for all that romantic, soppy shit.”

  Men could be such idiots; the problem was clear as day. “Oh, Ester,” Nya said, putting a hand on the back of the couch. “That’s why you’re upset. You want him to say that he loves you. You want him to tie you down. That’s what you’ve been looking for all these years, the same fucking stability that Archer wants.” Nya had found that mother and son actually had something in common, two such opposing personalities, while all along they wanted the same thing. “You want Derren to demand commitment.”

  “I do not!” Ester said. “How dare you! Take that back!”

  The woman did a good job of acting offended and Nya momentarily considered taking her words back, but her smile wouldn’t allow it. “Tell him the truth. Tell him you don’t want him screwing around. Tell him you need fidelity. Tell him exactly what you want.”

  “No,” Ester said, folding her arms tighter in a show of petulance. “If he doesn’t already know—”

  “He’s a man! And he’s trying to give you what you want. He just doesn’t understand what that is. Sometimes we have to spell it out for them. He wouldn’t be asking to marry you if he didn’t love you. You’re right to believe that he does and I guarantee that he doesn’t want you screwing around. No man wants his woman sleeping with other men and if you were married that’s exactly what you would be. You’d be Derren’s woman.”

  There was a knock on the door and Nya pulled Ester to her feet. “That’s Tag?”

  “Go upstairs and wait for me. This is either gonna take five minutes or five hours, I don’t know which.”

  “Plenty of time for me to search Archer’s place for the big bucks and the good liquor,” Ester said, winking at her and scurrying across to pick up her purse. “If you need me just holler.”

  Ester opened the door with a theatrical flourish and swanned past Tag who was wearing a scowl. Behind him, Ester waved to her and then disappeared down the corridor.

  “Come in,” Nya said from her place at the couch.

  Tag stepped inside and closed the door.

  Nya had never been awkward with Tag before Archer came into her life. But it wasn’t her lover’s fault that things were strained between them—not today.

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” Tag said. “Say what you want to say.”

  “Do you want to come in and sit down? We can have lunch, have a drink, or a coffee?”

  He stayed rigid. “Is that why you brought me here, Nya? For food?”

  His anger wasn’t as intense today, but it certainly still hung around him. It was unmistakable.

  Nya didn’t want them to be like this. “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” she said. “I never wanted to.”

  “I’m scared for you, Nya,” he said and his words were so sincere they were striking. “We’ve never lived thousands of miles apart.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m worried about you too. If something happens or something goes wrong, I might not know or be able to get to you.”

  “You have to come, Nya. It’s the only way you can be safe.”

  It was disappointing that he’d come here to try to persuade her to leave.

  “I never thought this would happen,” she said. “I never thought it would be this way.” Damn the tears that wanted to come, the sadness that welled up inside her and heated her eyes as her chest grew tight. “I’ll always need you in my life, Taggy. I don’t want to say goodbye.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” he said, a sort of callous shell began to form around him. “If you choose Archer—”

  “It’s not a choice. Why is it that you think I can only have one of you? Why can’t I have both? We’ll be far apart, but we can visit, we can call.”

  Tag was shaking his head. “But we won’t. He’ll take over your life and I’ll have a new one. You know what it’s like for us. We go a few weeks, few months, but we always come back to each other. Except, how will we come back to each other if we’re a continent apart? If you fuck up, if I fuck up, yeah, we might look for each other. But if you think it’s likely you’ll need me like that, then you should be coming with me now.”

  Tag was confident that nothing would go wrong at his end, but he was equally sure that something would go wrong at hers. “Archer will look after me. He won’t break my heart, he promised—”

  “Oh, well, as long as he promised,” Tag said.

  He hadn’t even left the doorway. He was inside the apartment, but he wasn’t making himself at home as he would everywhere else she’d ever lived. He’d been here before, they’d hung out and had fun, but, he was seeing this place now for what it was… Archer’s property, just like she was.

  “This job
, this one you have to do before you leave?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Tag said. “There’s a group of us involved, each of us have different skills… We do our part, prove our loyalty, and Lucas will set us up in Phoenix.”

  “Lucas? That’s the man in charge?” Tag nodded. Archer had used that name and her love didn’t trust this Lucas—that was enough for her to be wary, but not enough for Tag. “Why do you trust him? Why does Gio trust him? What’s so special about—”

  “Look, Nya, I never talked to you about my work, I always kept you away from it. Kept you safe. I know Archer involves you in everything, that he drags you into his work, but it makes me sick. I don’t think you need to know anything that could endanger you.”

  Like his address? It was ironic to hear Tag on his high horse, judging Archer, when the closest she’d ever come to losing her life in recent years, was the night she refused to give up Tag’s address.

  “I don’t want you to leave hating me,” she said because the truth was, their friendship was more valuable to her than arguing about work. “I want to fix this. I want you to be happy for me.”

  “How can I be happy when you’re choosing another man over me?”

  “I’m choosing the man I love,” she said. “The man who loves me. The man I want to make a life with. The man I want to have a future with. This is not some casual guy who I met last week who I’m kind of attracted to. This guy is the one I hope to marry and have kids with.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “Yes, he does,” she said, trying her best not to be upset or offended by the way Tag spoke of her relationship with Archer. “Archer is honest with me and I am honest with him. He knows what I want and I know what he wants. And we love each other! We have respect and—”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Tag said. “I know you, Yorkie. I know how you get infatuated with guys. It’s like Damien all over again. Something about these arrogant pricks gets you going and for a while, it’s fine, you’re safe. But how long did it take before Damien turned on you? He was great for six months? A year? Was it as many as two? You weren’t honest with me about what happened in that relationship. I don’t expect you to be honest with me about your relationship with Archer, about how many times he’s raised his hands to you.”