by Jane Henry
Blake moved his hand to cradle her neck, his thumb stroking the soft skin beneath her ear, and blew out a breath as he digested this.
Overwhelmed, he could understand. God knew, he’d been dealing with the very same thing. Things had happened too fast—tension he now recognized as mutual lust had smoldered between them for months, and then had blazed out of control, like a wildfire.
But he hadn’t considered how hard it would be for her to come to grips with the knowledge that he and MisterHaven were one and the same. That process, at least, had been seamless for him—to the point where he’d wondered more than once whether he’d deliberately overlooked all of the evidence that Lanie was Elena, since it had allowed him to dominate Elena in the only way he’d thought she’d allow him. But for Elena…
“I could have helped you with that, Lanie,” he told her, in a low voice, while his fingers played in her hair. “It’s my job to help you, to care for you.”
“Every time one of your texts came in, I knew, I knew, I needed to answer, but I just… didn’t know how,” she continued, her eyes roving over his face. “The longer things went unresolved, the more I felt like I couldn’t answer.”
Blake closed his eyes briefly and nodded once. And that part is on you, he told himself. He shouldn’t have let things go so long. He shouldn’t have waited.
“Right. Tonight, then, we clear the air,” he told her firmly. “Once this business is done, we’ll meet up. After your shift, you can come to my place…”
But she shook her head nervously.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she denied.
He raised one eyebrow. “All right, then. I’ll go to yours.”
She shook her head once more. “I don’t think we should meet up,” she confessed in a whisper. “Not yet.”
Blake felt his temper kindle. “Elena, I messed up this week. I should’ve come to you sooner, should’ve made you face this head-on. I see that now. If you think I’m going to compound that error by staying away from you now, let you freak out and run away from this…”
She blinked, then frowned in annoyance. “I wasn’t running away,” she said hotly. “I was… Making a strategic retreat. I was contemplating, trying to figure out what I want and what I need.”
“Uh huh. And you can figure out if we,” he lifted his hand from her neck for a moment to gesture between them, “are what you need all by yourself? Pretty sure I see a flaw in that logic, baby.”
She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“How can you possibly know if you want me, if you can handle me, if I’m gonna give you what you need, if you don’t get to know me?” he continued.
“You make a point,” she allowed. And then she lifted her hand to his cheek. “But, Blake, just being with you makes thinking impossible. You are so physical. So damn male. I can’t resist you physically. I never could. I’m standing next to you, and my heart is beating a mile a minute. My frickin’ nipples are hard, and you’re barely touching me. You were looking at me like you wanted to murder me a second ago, and I can feel myself getting… wet.” Her voice was a husky whisper, and her eyes were alight with… with…
Jesus. His hand tightened against her neck before he forced himself to loosen it.
He wanted so badly to step into her, to put his mouth on her, to overwhelm all her fears and doubts with his own unwavering certainty. In that moment, there was not a doubt in his mind that he could do it. But to what end? That wasn’t the certainty that she needed, not the kind he wanted her to have. So, instead, he forced himself to take a step back.
“What are you suggesting?” he demanded.
Her eyes got wide, and she smiled—a burst of sunshine that lit up her entire face, the entire damn room. “You aren’t gonna try to steamroll me, are you? I was really worried that you would. Or, more like, I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, and that I was gonna let you.”
He snorted. The day this woman let him steamroll her would be a cold day in hell. “I’m not gonna let you call the shots, LanieLove. Not again. Not ever. But I’ll listen to what you have to say. Always.”
Her smile grew impossibly brighter. She sucked in a shaky breath and began, “See, MisterHaven, I had this idea…”
Then a burst of laughter out in the entryway startled them both.
By the time the door opened a few seconds later, Blake was sitting behind his desk, toying with a pen, and Elena was sitting in one of the chairs across from him, her eyes studying her hands which were folded in her lap. Matteo burst into the room, laughing at something Slay had said, and Slay walked in a moment after, carrying a spare chair.
“She behave herself, boss?” Slay asked, earning himself a glare from his sister, and a single raised eyebrow from Blake.
“I think your sister and I have just about come to an understanding,” Blake told him. He exchanged a brief glance with Elena, conveying without words that their discussion was most definitely not over and satisfied that she’d gotten the message loud and clear when a pretty blush stole over her face.
As soon as they were all seated and everyone had exchanged greetings, Slay leaned forward in his seat.
“So, Elena share her news with you?” he asked, looking from Blake to Elena.
Elena shook her head. “I was waiting for Matt so I could tell both of them at once,” she explained.
Blake frowned. What news?
“So, the other night… Um, two nights ago,” Elena said, casting a meaningful look at Blake before glancing away. “A couple of women came into the clinic for help, saying they’d been roughed up pretty badly.”
Matteo’s face darkened. “Shit. Did they report it to the police?”
“We gave them that option,” Elena confirmed. “It’s standard. We see quite a few domestic violence victims, both adults and teens, date rape victims, and other victims of assault. We have procedures in place to hook them up with counselors, social services, legal representation if they need it.” She took a deep breath and looked Blake in the eye when she continued. “What’s not standard is that these women stated that they were roughed up—slipped a drug in their drinks, then stripped, and tied up—by a dom here at The Club.”
Drugged? Stripped and tied up against their will? At his club? The tension that gripped him was immediate and total. He heard Matt suck in a breath and saw him sit up straighter, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. Slay, who had obviously already heard this nonsense, nevertheless gritted his teeth. Elena looked pissed.
“Impossible. Not a fucking chance,” Blake said flatly, and Elena nodded.
“I know,” she said calmly, and he understood she was angry not at him, but rather on his behalf.
Blake sucked in a breath. “Who are these women? I need their names, and maybe their images, so I can pull up security footage. Did they identify the dominants?” Without waiting for her answer, he turned to Slay. “Once Elena gets us that, let’s find out when they were here and who they were with.” See if there was an ounce of truth to the claims so they could take action.
But Elena shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’m not divulging their names to you.”
“Pardon?” Matteo demanded, his eyes sparking.
“Exactly what I said,” Slay agreed with Matteo, glaring at his sister.
Elena folded her own arms over her chest. “Those women come to Centered because there’s an expectation of confidentiality. I won’t break that.”
“You won’t,” Blake repeated. “You won’t help us figure out who’s making bullshit claims against The Club? Or, on the razor-slim chance that something actually happened to them, figure out the perpetrator and see them prosecuted?” His voice was deadly soft in a way that made even Matteo flinch.
But Elena simply shook her head again, unperturbed. “I won’t. For every woman who comes in making a bullshit claim—and yes, something felt off to me about these women even before they mentioned The Club, so there’s no doubt in my mind
that they’re lying—there are a dozen women, maybe more, who come in because they’ve been abused, because they are feeling depressed, because they know that we will do our utmost to help them without judging or even telling anyone they were there. If I thought even one woman felt like she couldn’t come to me because I broke confidentiality in this case, if even one woman had to stay in an abusive situation because she couldn’t trust my discretion, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.” She leaned forward in her chair and swiveled her head, eyeing each of the men in turn. “And neither. Would. You.”
Matteo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Slay nodded in resignation. Blake… Blake had never been so goddamn proud of anyone in his entire life. The flare of annoyance he felt at being stymied faded to nothing in the face of it.
Three huge, muscled dominants and this little woman—his woman—stood up for herself and took shit from no one. He had to fight to keep a totally inappropriate smile off his face. Instead, he cleared his throat and said simply, “I get you.”
Elena nodded, and as he watched, the fight went out of her. Her shoulders slumped and she smiled gratefully. It meant something to her that he agreed, that he understood.
Better and better.
“What I can tell you, after consultation with my boss,” Elena continued, “is that when the women were offered the opportunity to contact the police, and offered legal counsel, they declined both. They said they’d already obtained legal representation, and they even provided us with the name of their representative, which is not protected information. A man named…” She grabbed her phone and clicked a few buttons. “Jeremiah Hakim.”
Matteo frowned. He dug his own phone out of his pocket and began scrolling.
“Anyway,” Elena continued. “The women indicated that Mr. Hakim would be contacting the police and filing a claim for damages in a few days.”
“They can report it; I hope they fucking do. Let them investigate, because we have nothing to hide. But as to filing a claim, I don’t know what they hope to gain,” Blake said. “We have cameras on practically every inch of this place, we take every possible precaution, and nowadays we make even guests sign Waiver of Liability and Non-Disclosure forms. There is no way they have a case.”
Slay shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? Why make a false claim in the first place, when you know you’re making it harder for the women who are really being abused out there and are desperately trying to get someone to believe them?” He shook his head and sighed. “I’ll give Mantle a call,” he said, referring to Blake’s old friend, a former task force agent who maintained strong ties to law enforcement and had helped Matteo’s woman, Hillary, deal with a stalker a few years back. “Maybe he can look into this a bit for us. Give us a heads up if anything gets reported so we can jump on it.”
Blake nodded, absentmindedly tapping his finger on the desktop. He was back in a state of suspended animation and it fucking killed him. He wanted to deal with shit proactively. He wanted a target.
“Bingo!” Matteo said, staring at his phone. “Jeremiah Hakim. I knew the name sounded familiar. I mean, how many lawyers named Jeremiah Hakim could there be in the Boston area in this day and age? Not exactly John Smith, is it?”
“Your point, Matt?” Blake interrupted.
“Right, right. So, you know Slay and I have friends with access to some, uh, information that’s not common knowledge and is not always obtained with the assistance of a warrant?”
Elena rolled her eyes. “Super-secret-agent stuff. Got it.”
Matteo rolled his eyes at her, but went on. “I’ve used those resources to dig into the Church of the Highest Prophet.”
“Who?” Elena demanded, looking to each of the men for explanation.
Slay supplied it. “Some newfangled church that’s been encouraging its members to send Blake hate mail, saying they need to shut down The Club. We’re a bunch of degenerates, we’re going to hell, blah blah blah. They’ve apparently taken it a step further and started monitoring us, taking pictures of the exterior of The Club… and of Blake.”
Elena stared at Blake, concern written on her face. “They’re monitoring… you? Like, a personal threat?”
Trust his woman to latch onto the same idea that had been nagging at Blake, but Blake shrugged easily, not wanting her to be alarmed. “I’m the face of The Club, honey, that’s all.”
If Slay or Matt noticed his use of the endearment, they didn’t show it. He used the term casually, when dealing with their women, or even with Daphne. They didn’t understand that he used it now in a very, very uncasual way.
Elena nodded, and then her eyes widened. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed. “The protest! I completely forgot!” She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand and jumped up from her chair. “The other day, the other morning, I mean. The morning of the day that these women made their claim?”
Blake nodded. “Calm down, Elena. Everything’s going to be fine,” he soothed. Meanwhile, he had to grab the edge of the desk with his hand, so strong was his urge to leap up and calm her down.
Christ. She’d better come to grips with things sooner rather than later, so they could get their relationship out in the open.
She kept her eyes locked on him and sucked in a breath. “That morning, I was running late to work.”
Blake nodded. He remembered. Or, rather, MisterHaven did.
“There was a protest happening near the hospital as I was going in for my shift. Picket signs, angry yelling, the whole nine yards. I didn’t have a chance to check it out, but I would almost swear that they were protesting The Club.”
Slay let out a soft curse. Blake exchanged a glance with Matteo, who grimaced, as all of them connected the dots.
The women didn’t need to prove their claims. They just needed to get them publicized. The false claims, the protests, the hate mail… all were part of a very, very well-executed smear campaign.
One that would be hard to keep from touching Elena, if they were to continue their relationship.
FUCK.
“It gets worse, boss,” Matteo said. “Since we’re already playing six-degrees-of-Jeremiah-Hakim, wanna guess what other notorious baddie is on Jerry’s client list? I’ll give you a hint—this guy was actually represented by Jeremiah the last four times he was in court and got off on technicalities every fucking time.”
He pulled up a picture on his phone of two men in business suits walking down the steps of what might have been a courthouse. One was younger, Caucasian, whip thin, with dark hair and glasses. The other, was a heavyset, middle-aged Latino whose friendly smile made him look more like your friendly neighborhood tax accountant or overworked school principal than what he really was.
“I’ll take ‘Asshole Cartel Leaders We Hoped Had Gotten Themselves Dead’ for $200, Alex,” Matteo said in his best Jeopardy-announcer voice.
Slay shot him a furious look. “Funny, Matt. Except it wasn’t your girl who was tossed around by a goon on Chalo Salazar’s payroll.”
Matt nodded and clapped Slay on the shoulder in apology.
Chalo Salazar. Drug dealing criminal with a penchant for young ladies… very, very young ladies.
That was all this fucked up situation needed.
“So Salazar is behind this,” Blake surmised. “The whole smear campaign against The Club is his brainchild?” If so, the photo of Blake was not a shot in the dark, but a declaration of intent.
Matt shrugged. “Sure seems that way.”
Slay shifted in his chair and reached up a hand to rub the back of his neck. “He took a hit publicly after his little lackey, Gary Levitz, was convicted of assaulting Alice. We weren’t able to get enough to tie him to anything directly, but we were able to nail a couple of his best sellers and get them off the street, meaning he also took a financial hit. I was involved very heavily in both of those events. He’s been laying low for a while, but it would not surprise me at all if the first thing he did when he’d gotten himself back on his feet was to come back
at me, and through me, at The Club and Blake.”
There was a thread of remorse in his voice that Blake had to address. “Hey,” he said, pointing an accusatory finger in Slay’s direction. “This is not on you, brother. Not remotely. You get me? And Jesus, so what if some Salazar-backed nut job wants to send me to hell? Your sister’s been sending me to hell since the day we met and it hasn’t worked yet.”
Slay snorted.
Elena’s eyes met Blake’s, and he winked at her. She smiled widely, even as she shook her head at him.
“You worry about Alice,” Blake continued, addressing Slay. “Allie and Charlie are your priorities, and you let me worry about The Club.”
“Problem is that the fucker is so slippery,” Matt said, scrolling through the information on his phone. “There’s no way to get this information legally, and so there’s no way to tie him to the church. And the church, while annoying, hasn’t done anything illegal yet, so…”
“So, we ride it out,” Blake said.
“Or maybe not,” Elena said slowly.
All heads turned to look at her.
“What if we don’t have to prove anything? What if we play Salazar’s game right back to him?” She looked from Slay to Matt, then her eyes caught Blake’s and held. “What if we contact someone at The Boston Star about the information Matt obtained—all hush-hush, obviously, and not naming any super-secret-agent sources. And we could have her investigate things, and if she finds any evidence, she can write up what she learns! It might not be enough to convict Salazar of anything, but if we can suggest a relationship between a reputed drug kingpin and this Church of the Highest Prophet…”