by Lexi Blake
And Ellie had a place in this family. Maybe she didn’t know it, but she’d already become integral to the Lawless clan. She challenged every single one of them. They needed that more than any of them would admit. Well, Mia would happily admit it. She was Ellie’s biggest champion. She loved having another woman in the house, especially one who questioned the Lawless authority.
Ellie was perfectly happy to go after Drew. She would argue with him on everything from politics to religion to what he was doing to make the world a better place. In Ellie’s mind that wasn’t much. She wasn’t a big proponent of revenge as world healer.
“Hey, any word when Bran’s coming back?” Hatch stuck his head in. He was dressed for going out in a pair of slacks and a collared shirt. “We’re supposed to meet up with a couple of very nice ladies tonight.”
Jesus. “By nice ladies you mean strippers?”
Hatch’s eyes narrowed. “I mean lovely women who might or might not spend some time on the pole. They’re artists. Do you really want to be a judgmental asshole here?”
He never wanted to be a judgmental asshole, but he wished his brother would get out of his stripper phase. “I think Bran should get more serious.”
Hatch stepped into the room. “It’s hard for him. He was serious once and it went really damn poorly from what I can tell. He’s worried about getting serious again.”
This was the first he’d heard of that. Bran refused to talk about his time in foster care. Drew had pulled him out when he was almost seventeen, but it had been years and Bran hadn’t been as successful at finding a permanent home as Mia. Bran had gone from house to house. He’d never stayed anywhere for more than a year, but Riley didn’t know a damn thing beyond the names of the foster parents he’d stayed with. There had been several instances of bad behavior during Bran’s adolescence. Most of them committed by Bran.
“He talks about it?”
“Only when he’s seriously drunk. Is that ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’? It’s awful. Who does that to a classic?”
The music had recycled back through. McKay-Taggart needed to seriously reconsider their wait time entertainment. “Don’t worry about that. What does Bran say?”
Hatch sighed. “He talks about a girl when he was sixteen. He tried to save her and couldn’t. That’s all I know, all he talks about. When he’s sober he acts like nothing ever happened. I’ve tried to get a name out of him, but he never gives that out. Bran is more damaged than he lets on.”
There was no question about that fact. Bran had too many run-ins, his anger far too volatile to be normal. He worried about Bran’s anger as much as he worried about Drew’s arctic chill. Whereas Bran had gone red hot, Drew was icy cold. They were both bad things to be.
Ellie was warm. She made him warm and happy. That was where a man needed to be. He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the only way a man ever made it there was through the right woman.
Or dude. If said dude was into other dudes, he would need the right one. No man could be complete without a soul mate.
“Bran should be home any minute.” He went back to looking through names. He needed to match them up to pictures, and maybe he could eliminate most of them. Once he’d gotten it down to a reasonable number he could start really investigating. If he didn’t find anything from this batch, he would open the list wider.
“Any word from your girl on the source code?” Hatch asked. “Though I think it’s odd Phil would want to hide it.”
Riley didn’t look back, simply kept sorting through the names Miles had sent him. “It’s stolen. He wants to hide it.”
“Why? Does anyone honestly care at this point? There’s too much money involved for the cops to really prosecute. Don’t think it doesn’t matter. When there’s no way to truly compensate the victims, justice tends to be thrown to the side. It’s the entire reason we went about this the way we did. We knew we couldn’t get Stratton and Castalano and Cain for stealing the source code.”
Hatch was making way too much sense. “All right. Let’s say what you’re saying is true. Why would Castalano deliberately send her after the code?”
“Because there’s something else he wants more. Look, I know how these people work because I was one of them once. Castalano wouldn’t have gone in on anything without having mutually assured destruction. He wouldn’t have taken a partner, much less two without it.”
“Tell me something,” Riley began. “Did he approach you?”
It was something he’d always wondered about. Hatch had been in the original investors. He’d been involved in the company before StratCast.
Hatch shook his head. “No. It was as much a shock to me as it was to you, but then I was always pretty plain about where my loyalties lay. I don’t think they would have been stupid enough to try to bring me in, but I understand fully why you would question me. I don’t think Drew has questioned me enough.”
He wasn’t sure why Drew had so much faith in Hatch. He simply knew he did. Drew had trusted Hatch with everything from 4L to watching over Bran, and for a few years after they’d gotten custody of his younger brother that had been a big job. It still was sometimes.
“We know you’re not the fourth, Hatch.”
Hatch seemed to shut down. “And how the hell do you know that?”
He gave him the only answer he had. “Because none of us wants to live in that world.”
Hatch’s shoulders slumped. “It wasn’t me. I loved your father like a brother, and as for Iris . . .”
“You just loved her.” Iris Lawless had been a stunning woman. He could remember how lovely she had been when she would get ready for an outing. She would sit at her vanity and put on makeup and smile at him as he watched her. She would be putting on blush with a huge brush and reach out to rub his nose with it. He would giggle and run away.
He could also remember his mother crying and swearing nothing was wrong.
“I did,” Hatch admitted. “But I never made a move on her. It’s hard to understand that your parents are human beings, too. They make mistakes and missteps like the rest of the world. I know I’m not your parent . . .”
“You’ve been my father figure longer than my biological dad.” It was hard to acknowledge sometimes, but it was true. And Hatch was right. He’d had to come to terms with the fact that the two father figures he’d gotten were imperfect. Likely he would have been forced to face the same facts about his mother and father had they lived.
“Well, I wish like hell your father had been the one to talk to Bran about sex. That boy has some weird ideas, and he’s not afraid to share.”
Riley grinned. He wasn’t sure that by sixteen or seventeen Bran had needed much of a talk.
His cell buzzed and he looked down. Luckily Adam Miles had called on the landline. He could still hear the hold music as he answered his cell. “Hey, buddy. How is it going with Ellie? Did she and Lily have a good time?”
“She ditched me, man. I swear to God I walked downstairs to hail a cab and she never showed. I looked everywhere,” Bran explained.
“What do you mean she ditched you? Why the hell would she ditch you?” His heart started racing.
“I mean I talked to one of the building attendants, and he saw her leaving through the staff entrance. She knew what she was doing. She was trying to get away from me.”
“Why would she do that?” His mind played through a hundred scenarios.
“I don’t know, but she has the source code. At least we think it’s the source code. It’s something her father left for her, but we didn’t get a chance to open it.”
“What’s going on?” Hatch put both his hands on the table and stared at Riley. “Is there a problem with Ellie?”
He put the phone on speaker. “Are you absolutely sure Ellie isn’t in the building?”
“He lost Ellie?” Hatch nearly shouted. He was on his phone i
n a heartbeat. He would be getting in touch with Drew, no doubt about it.
“I’m sure. I’ve looked all over. The man I talked to said she was alone,” Bran explained.
It was a little surreal. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” was still playing in the background, an odd soundtrack to his life disintegrating around him. She’d walked out. She’d found the source code and then sent his brother off.
Or had she?
“Did she tell you to go get the cab?”
“No. I offered.”
He quickly turned to his laptop. “She didn’t send you away. She wouldn’t have. Something happened. Someone got to her.”
Hatch put the phone he was holding to his shoulder. “Are you serious? You think about this for two seconds. She has the source code and then she ditches Bran. Obviously either she’s taking it to Castalano in exchange for him not prosecuting her or she’s going to hold it over your brother’s head. She’s going to contact us very soon and ask for a ridiculous amount of money.”
What Hatch said made total sense. It really did. Except he knew Ellie. He knew that woman deep down to her soul. “No. Someone got to her. She’s in trouble.”
“We’re all in trouble, damn it.” Hatch put the phone back to his ear. “Riley’s thinking with his dick again.”
He was thinking with his soul. It sounded stupid but he couldn’t even contemplate that Ellie could betray him.
“I’m worried about her,” Bran said.
A beep came across the line. He pulled the phone away. Ellie was calling.
“Bran, it’s her. I have to go.” Without waiting for his brother’s response, he answered Ellie’s call. “Baby, are you all right? What’s going on? Please tell me where you are so I can come get you.”
Hatch was getting in his space. “Tell her we won’t give her a damn dime.”
“Riley, I have the code, but I can’t give it to you.” Her voice sounded strained, like she’d been crying.
“What’s going on? Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right.” If she wasn’t giving the code to him, something had gone horribly wrong.
“It’s not going to be all right. We’ll sue her if she doesn’t hand it over,” Hatch said.
“Stay out of this.” He strode away, trying to focus on her.
“I’m about to walk into StratCast,” she said. “I know you’re going to hate me forever, but I have to give it to Steven.”
There was only one reason she would do that and it had nothing to do with money or power or even getting even with a husband who had betrayed her. “I understand. He has Lily. Baby, is there any way you can wait for me to get there?”
He was already grabbing his wallet.
“He does have her. How can you believe that? I ran away from Bran because I thought he would take it from me.”
“I would have kicked his ass for doing it and gotten it back to you.” He had to get to her. “I can be there in fifteen minutes, Ellie. Please wait.”
He needed a gun. Why didn’t he have a gun?
He heard her gasp over the line. “I can’t wait, but I wanted you to know. I wish . . . Everyone in your family is going to hate me, Riley. I can’t come back.”
He gripped the phone, wishing he could see her. “I don’t hate you, baby. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I’m sorry, Riley. You’ll never know how much.”
The line went dead and he was left breathless and terrified.
“Riley?” Adam’s voice came back on the landline, ending the Guns N’ Roses cycle. “You won’t believe this. Lily Gallo was in the Bahamas that day. I just put it together. I’m sorry I took a while but one thing led to the other and I think she’s your girl. It looks like her father used to work for StratCast. They don’t share the same last name. He was arrested for insider trading a couple of years back and Castalano is the one who paid his bail.”
Ellie was walking into a trap. Riley turned to Hatch.
“I need a gun.”
Hatch’s eyes widened. “I might be able to help you with that.”
—
Ellie’s hands were shaking as she turned off her phone. Riley would call back. He would try to convince her to give up the thumb drive.
Except he hadn’t.
She’d called because she’d found she couldn’t hand it over to Castalano without telling Riley what she was doing. She’d resisted the urge until she’d stood outside the building.
“Miss Stratton?” The guard on duty stood up at his station.
She wasn’t Miss Stratton anymore. Of course, she might be soon. “Hello, Thomas. Could you please tell Mr. Castalano that I’m here to see him.”
She had to request access to her own building. She hated that man. Hated him with a searing passion. In that moment, she understood why her brothers-in-law had sought their revenge. Steven was evil.
Thomas picked up the phone and did as she’d requested. When he put it back down, he frowned her way. “Are you sure you want to go up there? Everyone’s gone for the day. From what I can tell, you’ll be pretty much alone with him.”
And that was how he wanted it. Castalano wanted her alone and vulnerable. “I’ll be fine.”
Thomas pushed the button that gave her access. “I don’t believe a word he says about you. Almost none of us do. You stay strong. We all want you back here. You need anything, you call me.”
She might need one thing. “Thomas, I know it might get you in trouble, but my husband is likely on his way down here right now. I know he’s banned from the building.”
“He’s a smart guy. I’m sure he’s pretty sneaky, too. Man like that can get right past a guard.” Thomas nodded. “I’ll probably hear something I have to go and check out right about that time.”
So she might not be alone the whole time.
“Thank you.” She walked to the elevator and pressed the button, her hand shaking.
Riley hadn’t yelled at her. Oh, she’d heard Hatch. He’d reacted the way she’d thought Riley would.
I don’t hate you, baby. I’ll be there as soon as I can.
He hadn’t accused her of trying to steal from his family. He’d immediately known what the problem was, as though he’d known she would never do anything to hurt him if she could help it.
Riley trusted her. He trusted her almost without thought.
And she knew deep in her heart that he would be coming for her. He would have fought to get to her if Thomas had proven to be more loyal to Castalano.
She stepped into the elevator and let the doors close behind her before she hit the button for the top floor.
She trusted Riley with her life. She might need to throw out the notion of punishment and take another look at forgiveness.
What was she doing? The floors ticked by. She should have called the police despite what Castalano had said.
You have very little time to get here and save your friend. If you’re not here in twenty minutes or if I get a hint that you’ve called the police, Miss Gallo will be found dead in the ladies’ room. She’s already written out a note. Turns out she was involved in your crimes and can’t stand the thought of going to jail. It’s so easy to get pills these days. Isn’t that sad?
Had he already had Lily when Ellie had texted her? Or had the bastard duped her phone and he’d been waiting for a chance like this?
She should have gone straight home, handed everything over to Riley, and been done with it. But no. She’d had to text her friend. She needed Lily to know she’d gotten one thing right.
Now Lily was in danger and her in-laws would likely never speak to her again.
She had to do it. She knew damn well that Castalano wouldn’t hesitate to go through with his plan. And he would do it up right. If he said it would look like suicide, then it likely would.
After all, he’d managed a “
murder-suicide” once.
The doors came open and Kyle stood there. He was dressed in a suit, all dapper for his villainy. Excellent. At least she elicited some fashion from the criminals who had taken over her life.
She squared her shoulders. “You’re not getting a thing from me until I see that Lily is alive and well.”
Kyle’s eyes rolled. “God, you’re really going to play this out to the end, aren’t you? Noble Ellie, everyone’s savior. It’s actually quite sickening and exactly why you’ve lost this particular game.”
He had a hand on the elevator door, holding it open.
“I might lose a few battles,” she admitted. “But this war is likely to continue.”
Kyle smirked her way. “Honey, you don’t even understand the rules of this particular war. Come on. They’re waiting for you. And I could take it from you, if I wanted to, but this is going to be infinitely more fun for me.”
She stepped out of the elevator and looked up, noticing the cameras were on. A tiny green light blinked. There wouldn’t be any security cameras once she got to Steven’s office. Her father and Castalano had decided privacy was far more important. But he might have had to drag Lily down the hall. If they got that on tape, maybe they would have a chance with the police.
Lily would testify.
Which was why it didn’t make any sense for Castalano to give her up.
She stopped in the middle of the hallway. Why would he give Lily up? Why would he let her walk out?
Kyle’s fingers wound around her elbow. “Is there a problem, Ellie?”
Oh, so many problems. She hadn’t thought the situation through. Kyle was right about that. She’d run the minute someone had needed saving.
Please let Riley be on his way.
“Is Lily still alive?” Twenty minutes was more than enough time to get rid of a witness. They’d likely known she would follow their rules. Why on earth would she think for a second this could go any way but poorly?
“Of course she’s still alive.” Kyle hauled her along.
“But she won’t stay that way, will she?” She had one card left to play. “My husband knows where I am.”