“Okay, Reece,” she said. “Talk to me.”
He shook himself awake and took another gulp of his cooling coffee. Although he’d known Alicia since college, they’d never before had this kind of personal conversation, and the thought of doing so now had him shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Uh, you don’t have to—”
“I have nothing to do until Dylan brings me my tomatoes, and I know you guys don’t talk, not really. It’s all”—she deepened her voice and did a fair intimation of her husband—“‘Hey, man, relationship problems suck. Let’s drink and pretend nothing’s happening. Maybe bump shoulders in a manly show of support before the big game starts.’”
Reece laughed and it was genuine, if not a little weak. “What big game? And since when have either of us cared about sports?”
“Yes, you’re right. With you two, you’re more likely to bury yourselves in work.” She sighed, sipped her own coffee. Which reminded him he was still holding his mug, and he drank, too.
“Not that I’m any better,” she added, setting her coffee aside. She sat forward in her chair and scanned his face. “Which is exactly why I’m going to ask about the deal with Irving James. I received a request from his accountant for our books.”
His temples started pounding in tune with his heart. He took another fortifying gulp of coffee. “I’m sorry, Alicia. Work is the absolute last thing I want to talk about right now.”
She said nothing for a moment, then stood. “It’s a bad idea.”
“What is?”
“The deal with James. I’ve told you that from day one.”
He opened his mouth to tell her there was no longer a deal, but his tongue felt too big for his mouth. The room started to tilt-a-whirl around him and he tried to get up, but couldn’t find his feet.
Alicia stepped around the coffee table and took the mug from his numb fingers. “I really didn’t want it to come to this. The blackmail should have been enough.”
“W-Wha…?” Even to his own ears, he sounded unintelligible.
“C’mon. Let’s get you into the bathroom before Dylan gets home.” She slid an arm around his waist, wedged a shoulder under his armpit, and lifted him. He tried to push her away, fight her, but none of his limbs were responding to his commands. He had two fucking black belts and he could do nothing but stumble along beside her and try to keep his head upright.
In the bathroom, she none too gently dropped him on the floor. The tile was cool against his cheek. His skin felt on fire. “Wha…didya…give me?”
“Xanax. And I didn’t give it to you. You were so distraught over your fight with your wife, you came in here, found my prescription, and took too many.” Alicia pulled a pill bottle out of her pocket, opened it, and put it in his hand. His fingers wouldn’t close around it, and the pills scattered across the floor. She stepped back. “Unfortunately for you, I won’t realize it until Dylan gets home. By then, it’ll be too late.”
He pushed himself up to his hands and knees, wobbled, and crashed back to the floor. Pain thundered through his head as it bounced off the tile, and the room wavered. He flopped to his back, stared up at the wife of his best friend, a woman he’d known for close to fifteen years. And all he could think was…
“Why?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t let anyone see our books or they’ll know I’ve been laundering money through the company. Dylan—” She paused, seemed to gather herself. “He has a gambling problem. You didn’t know that, did you? I’ve done my best to keep it quiet, but he was in trouble. A lot of trouble with the wrong people. So I made a deal to keep him safe, but then you started this whole thing with Irving James… I knew I was about to be exposed. I thought blackmail would stop you, but that didn’t work. Then I gave the pictures to Lena, knowing she’d try to ruin you with them, but that doesn’t seem to have worked either. So now, you have to commit suicide because if you’re dead, Dylan will have control of the company and there will be no deal.”
“Already no deal,” he tried to say but it came out garbled. He tried again, enunciating, “No. Deal.”
“What?” Alicia knelt down, turned her ear close to his mouth. “What did you say?”
He fleetingly thought about biting her, chomping down on her earlobe, but that wasn’t going to help him get away from the crazy bitch when he couldn’t move. “There’s. No. Deal. I… ended it. Last…night.”
“Oh God.” She reeled backward, tripping over her own feet and slamming into the wall. “Oh God.”
“I’sokay. Call amble—ambulance. We’ll forget this.”
“I can’t. They’ll arrest me. I’ll lose Dylan. He—he doesn’t know about any of this. He’ll hate me.” She shook her head hard, strands of dark hair escaping her ponytail. “No, I’m sorry, I can’t. I can’t lose him.”
Alicia fumbled for the door. Just before it shut, she looked at him again, and he thought he saw real regret in her eyes. Or maybe that was only the Xanax blurring his vision.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was only trying to protect Dylan.”
And the door shut.
Reece drifted somewhere between wakefulness and unconsciousness. His thoughts scattered and blurred, but every once in a while, one would pop back into sharp focus.
Shelby.
If he died here, he’d never see her again and, Jesus, he wanted to. If he died here, he’d never be able to apologize.
He made another attempt at pushing to his hands and knees. Got up and wobbled there, but didn’t go down.
Progress.
Now he had to get some of the drug out of his system before he passed out or he was toast.
The toilet was about a foot in front of him and he dragged himself over, pulled himself up. Leaning over the bowl, he jammed a finger down his throat. His gag reflex kicked in, his stomach emptied. He gagged until there was nothing left, until his throat was raw and his stomach spasmed with cramps.
Body heavy, he slid to the floor again, the tile a wonderful relief to the internal combustion going on inside him. Fire blazed just under his skin even as shivers wracked his body. There was a sudden burst of noise, but he couldn’t pinpoint where it was. What it was.
Didn’t matter.
He had to focus, stay awake.
Shelby.
Yes. Had to focus on her. She was his wings. She helped him fly when he hadn’t even known he could.
And he loved her. No matter what she’d done, he would always love her.
Light pooled around him, and there she was, hovering over him, her face streaked with tears, her hands cool on his cheeks.
He must be hallucinating. Dying. Still, he reached up for her, and her hand closed around his. She felt so real. She had to be real.
Her lips were moving, but her voice sounded far away. “Reece. Reece, can you hear me?” When she blinked, he felt the saltwater of her tears splash against his face.
Wait.
She was real.
“Shelby?”
“Yes, I’m here. We’re here, and the paramedics are on their way. So hang on, Hershey.”
His head lolled, heavy on his neck. There was something he needed to say to her. He mustered every drop of energy he had and wrangled his tongue into submission. This had to come out clearly. She had to know…
“I love you,” he managed. “Stay with me. Please.”
And then he drifted away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“He’s going to be okay.”
Shelby gazed up at her sister standing in the door of Reece’s hospital room. In her leather jacket, jeans, and boots, she looked every inch the kick-ass cop that she was.
“Docs say he’ll be out of here in a few days,” Eva added, rocking a little on her feet, hands stuffed in her pockets.
“I know.” She returned her gaze to the bed, where he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness since the doctors treated him for the Xanax overdose. “But he asked me to stay with him, and I just can’t bring
myself to leave until he comes around.”
Eva nodded and stepped into the room. “Shelby, I’m sorry. I was pissed when I found out about you and Reece, I’ll admit it. Reacted…” She winced. “Badly.”
“To say the least. You punched him, Evie.”
“I was afraid for you. I thought, how can this possibly work?” She looked at the bed, heaved out a breath. “But, you know, I was wrong. It does work. For the two of you, it does. Cam said he’s never seen his brother so…at ease. Even with the shitstorm flying around him this past week, Reece has been happier. You do that for him.”
“Not after yesterday.”
Eva came the rest of the way into the room and sat down in the chair next to Shelby’s. “Yeah, well, he had a right to be pissed off. You fucked up, Shel. Why didn’t you ever tell me about this Jason Mallory character?”
“I didn’t want you to be ashamed of me. More ashamed of me,” Shelby blurted, unable to keep the truth from slipping out when all of her emotions were so close to the surface. She stared into her sister’s eyes, saw tears there, and her own vision blurred. “I see how you are with Mom, and I’ve always been afraid I’ll just keep doing the wrong thing and someday, I’ll reach for you and you’ll turn your back on me like you have her. I’m terrified of that.”
“Oh,” Eva breathed and closed her eyes as if in pain. She leaned over and wrapped Shelby in a hug. “That’s not going to happen. I will always be there when you reach out, no matter what. And I might get mad and I might say things I shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop loving you. Ever. Until Cam, you were all I ever had. Nothing can break that bond, okay? So tell me when you get in trouble from now on.”
Sniffling, Shelby drew away. “I don’t plan on getting in any more trouble.”
“That’ll be a nice change of pace.” Eva straightened her shoulders, whisked away tears with impatient wipes of her hands. “Okay, enough waterworks.” She stood. “I’m gonna go, but when that man wakes up”—she indicated Reece with a jerk of her thumb—“you make sure he knows how you feel about him. Life’s too fucking short to miss out on spending it with the man you love.”
Shelby gazed over at Reece. He was pale, so still under the bleached white blankets of the bed. Her heart clenched. Life was short—and his had almost ended far too soon.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Eva said from the doorway and tossed a small padded envelope to Shelby. “Thought you might want that back.”
Heart thudding, she waited until her sister was gone before opening the metal prongs that held the envelope closed. She dumped the contents into her palm…
And wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
Her wedding ring.
She slid it onto her finger and immediately felt whole again. A sob caught in her throat. Okay, the tears were going to win out, as they had so many times in the last few days. She loved this ring, loved what it symbolized.
And it killed her that it wouldn’t mean anything after the annulment.
Sobbing openly now, she slid the ring off her finger and returned it to the envelope.
It was two days before Reece was able to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time and although he still felt fuzzyheaded and nauseous, he was happy to at least be upright again.
He knew Shelby had been with him for the last forty-eight hours, because he remembered seeing her at his side the few times he’d resurfaced. She’d appeared hazy, apparition-like as if he were dreaming her, but he was positive he hadn’t been and waited restlessly for her to walk through his door. Except she didn’t. The day wore into afternoon, then into evening, and she didn’t.
But Dylan did. He tapped on the frame and hesitated. “Can I come in?”
Reece’s immediate gut reaction was a massive hell-to-the-fucking-no he couldn’t come in. But he couldn’t be held accountable for his wife’s sins, and their friendship ran too deep, went back too far, to dismiss him outright.
Reece nodded and sat up straighter in the bed. “All right.”
Dylan shuffled inside, and the guy looked like he’d been dragged through the innermost ring of hell. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been in the last time Reece saw him, all wrinkled and sweat-stained. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a mess. Several days’ worth of growth darkened his jaw. He scrubbed at that stubble with one hand and wouldn’t quite meet Reece’s eyes. “I’m, uh, sorry.”
“Yeah, I know, buddy.”
“No, you don’t.” He finally lifted his gaze. “Reece, I suspected—no. Fuck. I knew what she was doing. I knew she was laundering money through the company to cover my debts. I—” He stopped, drew a sharp breath. “I’m the one who anonymously tipped off ATF. I knew James would ask for our books, and I knew she’d be caught when he did. I had hoped by tipping them off, they’d focus on you long enough for me to get Alicia out of the country.”
“Oh Jesus.” If Dylan had hauled off and punched him, it would have hurt less. “Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you both just come to me? I’d have helped you, found you a good treatment center. I’d have even footed the bill if you needed me to. All you had to do was ask.”
Dylan shook his head. “I didn’t want to admit I had a problem. And Alicia…she was just protecting me.”
“And you were protecting her. I get it. I do,” Reece said softly. “And I forgive you for it, but don’t ask me to forgive her. She tried to kill me.”
Dylan said nothing for a long time as emotions battled over his features. “I stand by her. For better or worse.”
“I respect that, but you can’t be a part of DMW anymore. You’re fired, Dylan.”
“I figured as much.” He nodded once and went to the door but glanced back. “I am sorry for all of this and I hope someday—someday you can forgive her.”
It’ll be a cold day in hell, buddy, Reece thought and sank back against his pillows as Dylan walked away. He rubbed at his chest because, fuck, that conversation had hurt. It was like losing a brother.
Or, no, he decided when another knock drew his attention and his brothers—minus Greer—filed into the room. Not like losing a brother, because his brothers would never stand by a woman who tried to kill him.
Jude’s hands were full of smiley face plastic bags from their favorite Chinese restaurant and Reece smiled, some of the ache easing out of his chest. General Tso’s in hospital rooms was starting to become a Wilde family tradition.
“Dudes,” Jude said as he passed out the white cartons. “This hospital thing is getting old fast. Knock it off.”
Vaughn scowled and popped open his carton, grabbed his ever-present bottle of Tabasco sauce out of his pocket, and liberally doused his shrimp chow mein with the stuff. “You can’t blame me for nearly getting blown up.”
“Or me for being poisoned,” Reece added.
“I can, too.” Jude pointed his chopsticks at Vaughn. “You set yourself up as bait. And you?” He jabbed them toward Reece. “You should know better than to take coffee from strangers.”
“She wasn’t a stranger.”
“Still,” Jude muttered and stabbed a piece of chicken. “You’re supposed to be the smart one.”
Reece smiled slightly. His little brother usually had the best disposition out of all of them, was a silver-linings kind of guy, and only got crabby like this when he was scared. “I’m okay, Jude.”
“Yeah, well. You better be.”
After that, nobody said anything for a while. Just the sound of the TV and the occasional call for a doctor over the hospital’s PA system. After a nurse came in to check his blood pressure—apparently low blood pressure was a concern after a Xanax overdose—Reece finally broke the silence to ask the question that had been nagging at him since he regained consciousness. He shut off the TV with the remote by his bed and waited until his brothers all turned to face him.
“How did you guys know Alicia was behind everything?” He knew now that it hadn’t just been Shelby there that day, but also his brothers, Ev
a, and the cops.
His brothers all shared a look, each passing the conversational ball. Cam, being Cam, was the one to finally take it and run with it. “Shelby and Eva were confronted by the PI Alicia hired to dig up dirt on you—the guy their mother brought to our wedding. Apparently, he was using Katrina to get closer to Shelby, and therefore, to you, but it blew up in his face when he decided it wasn’t working and dumped her. She went off the deep end, dove right back into the drugs, and robbed you thinking she’d win her lover’s affection by bringing him information—your laptop.”
“Which is encrypted,” Reece said.
“Yeah, and maybe that’s part of the reason the guy decided to cut his losses. He couldn’t get any info off it, and things were spinning out of his control, so he took everything back to Shelby and bailed.”
“Assholes like that give PIs a bad name,” Vaughn muttered.
“No doubt,” Cam agreed and several beats of silence passed.
“What about Katrina?” Reece asked.
“She was picked up yesterday for buying drugs from an undercover cop.” Cam rubbed the center of his forehead, eyes closed. Then he shrugged. “Maybe this time, she’ll get the help she needs.”
Vaughn grunted. “Doubtful. The system sucks.”
“You know,” Jude said, “I suddenly feel the need to call my mother-in-law and tell her how awesome she is.”
Reece could only work up the energy to glare, but Cam summed up his thoughts with a succinct, “Jude, you’re an ass.”
“What?” He held up his hands. “All I’m saying is I didn’t realize how good I got it with Mrs. Pruitt. Could be a lot worse than the occasional meddling and the when-are-you-going-to-give-me-grandbabies talk. Next to you two, I won the mother-in-law lottery.”
“An ass,” Cam repeated.
“Yeah, I got one. It’s a fine one, too. Ask my wife.”
At the resounding groan from everyone in the room, Jude grinned and pushed himself out of his seat. “And speaking of my beautiful wife, I’m going home to her now.”
The twins stayed for a few more minutes, but eventually they left Reece alone with his thoughts. He didn’t like it. Too much nasty going on inside his head right now, too many conflicting emotions, and the longer he stared at the TV, the more depressed he got.
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