by Julia Swift
With a sigh, I turn around and head straight back toward the house I only just escaped.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sloan
My brother’s bedroom light is shut off when I park out front, which is unusual for him. Normally he’d be glued to the computer in there. Must be watching TV or something instead. That or he’s out somewhere, which would be even weirder. Like, alert the media, it might be the end of the world, weird.
I park out front and take the steps up to his floor two at a time. Just before his landing, however, I pause, hearing my brother’s voice loud above me, as if he’s standing in the hallway.
“Oh, I know exactly what you’re saying.”
Freddie? I hesitate. He sounds angry. I don’t want to walk in on something. What if he’s got a girl over? Wouldn’t he have told me if he was trying to date someone? I think it’s been two years now since he went on a single date, but hey, you never know.
That or it could be one of his guy friends, the couple he plays video games with but almost never sees in person. I silently debate if I could climb back down the staircase without him hearing. I feel bad spying.
I’m about to turn and leave when a deep, masculine voice answers my brother. “Then you know how serious this situation is.”
My mouth falls open. No way. I can’t be hearing this right. I’m hallucinating. I’m just so mad about him standing me up, and pained at how much I miss him after such a short time, that I’m imagining Gage’s voice in my brother’s apartment building.
I can’t leave without finding out for sure. Poised on my tiptoes, I creep up the next couple of steps, toward the landing. In another step or two, my head will peak over the balcony in the hall. They’ll be able to see me, if they look over. I hold my breath.
“I do indeed. But do you realize? Because you don’t seem to know who I am or what you’re actually dealing in.” My brother’s voice has shifted from pure anger to a hint of cocky arrogance. That’s my twin—he could piss off a saint, I swear.
Also. Dealing?
“Don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough on your plate,” Gage answers. Even the sound of his voice makes my traitor heart beat faster, my limbs tremble with the memory of everything we did less than twenty-four hours ago, every way I let him claim my body, swallow my heart whole.
I can’t stand it anymore. I sneak up another step and steal a glance at them. Sure enough, Gage stands in the hallway, glaring through the open door at my brother, who leans on the frame just inside his apartment, arms crossed, a sarcastic smirk on his face. Then, before I can duck back down the steps, or leave to process exactly what I’m hearing and what’s going on, Freddie’s gaze flashes to me.
He shakes his head, just slightly, a subtle side-to-side, but I know my twin well enough to understand what he means. Now’s not the time to step in, Sloan. Back off.
Unfortunately, Gage notices the motion too. I can’t make myself turn away, not fast enough. It feels like I’m watching the scene in horrified slow motion, as Gage pivots on the spot and his eyes scan the apartment hall, until they finally come to rest on me. For a second, all three of us freeze, no one quite knowing what to make of the situation.
You stood me up so you could come threaten my brother? I want to shout. Because that’s clearly what he’s been doing. Freddie wouldn’t be posed there all defensive and asinine if Gage hadn’t started in on him about something. I wonder if this is about the gambling, if Gage has come to talk to him about the debt Freddie has racked up.
And if so, then what does that mean for me?
Why did Gage sleep with me? For this?
I don’t want to talk about this in front of Freddie. I don’t want to deal with any of this—not my brother, not the man I thought I was falling for, not the drama they’re both embroiled in.
Gage and Freddie both open their mouths at once, but I’m not sticking around to listen to their shitty excuses. Before they can speak, I whirl on my heel and thunder down the stairs, two at a time, moving as fast as I can toward my car.
Fuck this shit. I’m out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gage
“Sloan.”
She walks faster, legs pumping. Less than five feet to her car. “Sloan, please!”
I jog, and she breaks into a run, grabbing at her car door the way a drowning woman would grab a life raft. She flings the door open and throws herself into the seat, but by that point, I’ve caught up enough to grab the edge of the door, clench my hand tight around it when she tries to wrench it shut.
“Just let me explain, Sloan.”
“Explain what?” she practically spits. “I get it. Sketchy guy runs up a gambling debt, enterprising guy working for the casino in question decides to seduce his sister to get in good with him. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“That’s not what’s happening here, Sloan.” Not exactly. Not anymore. Maybe it’s the reason I first started following her, but she’s so much more than that to me now. She’s everything. “Please, just let me explain.”
“You stood me up tonight,” she spits. “You stood me up, in order to come here and threaten my brother. That tells me exactly where I stand, Gage. Let go of my door.”
I release my grip and she slams the car door tight. I press my palms to the window. “I can’t involve you in this,” I say, loud enough that I know she’ll hear me through the glass. “It’s not safe.”
“Nice excuse,” she shouts back at me, though I’m not fooled by the anger she’s putting on. I can see the tears glittering in the street lights, pooled at the corners of her eyes. Shit. “But I’m not buying it.”
“Sloan, you have to understand. I need to protect you.”
“I’m sure I’ll be safe when you piss the fuck off,” she spits.
I let my hands drop to my sides, defeated. She’s right, after all. She will be safer without me around. Without a fucking bastard like me, her life is normal. Maybe her brother’s knee-deep in shit, but if he cares about her at all, he’ll know better than to drag her into it with him.
Before I can wrap my head around a reply, an explanation for why I want to stick with her at least long enough to be sure her brother won’t do exactly that, won’t drown her in his panicked attempts to stay above water, she floors the gas pedal. I stand in the middle of the road, staring after her for what feels like an eternity, long after her taillights fade into the dark.
Fuck.
What the hell am I going to do now?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sloan
I pull into the lot outside my house and double over, breathing hard. It takes a minute for my vision to clear and my senses to return to me. When they finally do, I slide my cell out of my pocket and dial my brother.
He picks up on the first ring. “Sloan.”
“Come here,” I say. I hang up before he can reply. My brother knows me well enough not to stand me up right now.
That errand finished, I lock my car and drag my ass up the staircase to my apartment. Once inside, I don’t make it as far as the bedroom. I collapse face-first on the couch and scream into the pillow.
I didn’t really think that one through. That, or I underestimated how much muffling power the pillow would give me. A moment later there’s a knock at the door, way too quickly to be my goddamn asshole of a sibling. “What?” I groan.
Please don’t be Gage, part of me, the sane part, prays.
Please be him, the other part, the enemy half of my stupid brain, shouts.
“You okay in there?”
Lacey. Crap. “Yeah I’m fine. Sorry, long day.”
She laughs faintly through the wooden door. “I hear you, girl. Hey, you never told me how that date went the other night.”
My temples throb with a mixture of regret and sorrow. “Great, until the bastard pulled a dine and dash on me.”
“Shit, girl. I’m sorry.” There’s a creak as she leans against the door and sighs in sympathy. “You need company?”
She taps the door twice in solidarity. “Anytime, lady. You know where to find me. I’ll save some ice cream for you next time you’re free.”
I listen to her retreating down the hallway, and almost immediately regret not taking her up on her offer. I could use some company to distract me from myself right now. And some ice cream. Ice cream sounds awesome.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, I don’t have to wait long to get this over with. Ten minutes later I hear the crunch of tires outside my window, followed by the crunch of boots on gravel, a key in the latch. Freddie slinks into the apartment a few minutes later, not bothering to knock, the way we never do at each other’s houses.
He does, however, linger in the doorway, peering up at me from underneath a sad fringe of black hair across his eyes. Boy needs a damn haircut. He’s starting to look a little too much like me with the long hair. “Can I come in?” he asks after a minute, when I don’t wave him inside, but instead just glower at him from the couch.
“Unless you want my neighbor to hear all this,” I say.
He slips inside and shuts the door behind him. He does not join me on the couch this time. At least he’s that smart. “I’m sorry,” he starts, but almost immediately he seems to lose the thread, searching for a way to say what comes next.
“Explain,” I reply. I’m not forgiving him, one way or another, until I know the full story here. How bad is this, exactly. And what exactly he did.
“I never meant for you to get swept up in this. I should’ve realized that what . . . what I’m doing, there are consequences.”
“And what are you doing exactly, Frederick?” He flinches at my use of his full given name. I’ve called him that maybe five times in his life. They’ve never been pretty scenes.
“That . . . is a long story. Sloan, trust me, if I told you it would only drag you deeper into this mess. If there’s one thing in the world I want to avoid, it’s that. You’re the only person that matters to me right now. When I saw that creepfest trying to come at you in my parking lot, I . . . ”
“Gage,” I snap.
“What?”
“That creepfest’s name. It’s Hunter Gage.”
My brother frowns. “He told you that?”
“Yes, he mentioned it. In between the dates on which he tried to seduce me.” I narrow my eyes.
“Oh my god.” The color drains from my brother’s face. “You mean . . . the night you stood me up for the movies, the date . . . ?”
“Yep. That was him.” I set my jaw hard. “Three guesses why he picked me. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t for my lithe, sexy body or my fabulous personality,” I snap.
“Shit. Oh shit, I never . . . Sloan, oh my god, I had no idea Aaron would stoop so low.”
My frown deepens. Aaron. “Aaron . . . like that casino CEO guy Aaron? The one you claim isn’t a casino owner at all?” I lean forward, drawn in despite myself. I want to know exactly what brand of fire I’ve been playing with here. “Who is he really?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it, Freddie. I fucking . . . ” I swallow hard past a sudden lump in my throat. I do not want to share details of just how badly I’d been duped, not with my brother. Think fast, Sloan. “I fucking went out with this guy, okay? If he’s working for this Aaron person, I deserve to know at what.”
Freddie collapses onto my kitchen counter stool and drops his head into his hands. “A little bit of everything, really. Blackmail, extortion. Off-book loans, under-the-table deals. Probably drugs too, I don’t know. He’s bad news, Sloan, that’s all you need to know. Really bad news. And that guy . . . Gage? He’s one of his henchmen. Sent out to do his dirty work.”
“Including seducing the sister of a client who owes him big?” I ask dryly.
Freddie massages his temples. “I’ll fix this. I’ll tell him to stay away from you.”
“No worries on that score,” I mutter. “I made my position on ever seeing his face again pretty clear this evening.”
“If he ever bothers you again, though, you’ll tell me?” Freddie manages to meet my eye now, and I’m surprised at the amount of angry fire in his gaze. “I mean it, Sloan. Tell me the second he tries anything, even just talking to you on the street, texting you, anything.”
“I don’t owe you any kind of promises. I can take of myself, thank you very much.” I stomp across the room and fling my door open.
“Sloan, this is serious, these people are dangerous criminals who—”
“Get out, Freddie.”
For a minute, he looks like he wants to protest. He must realize from the look on my face that it will be a bad fucking idea to keep trying to talk to me right now. Finally, he raises his hands in surrender and shoves to his feet. “I’m going to fix this,” he says as he passes me. “No matter what it takes, Sloan, I promise you. I’m going to make sure these people never hurt us.”
Too late, I think. Then I slam the door in his face.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Gage
Two days. Two days since the night in the parking lot, when she drove away from me. Two days of drinking myself to sleep and waking up to the live-stream of her apartment every morning.
Watching her hurt isn’t doing me any favors. It’s clear exactly how much she’s aching. She tossed and turned all night after the confrontation with her brother. I notice he didn’t tell her everything, but gave her enough details that she knows by now exactly how bad an idea it is to hang around me.
I can’t blame him. If it were my sister, I’d have done the same thing. I am bad news, after all. All kinds of bad news. She deserves so much better than me.
That’s the only reason I’ve been able to force myself to stay away. I know exactly how dangerous my line of work is, and Freddie is right, even if he’s the asshole who landed her in Aaron’s crosshairs in the first place. This situation is no place for a woman like Sloan, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
Even if it means never seeing her again. Never seeing her, never kissing her, never wrapping her voluptuous body in my arms and licking every inch of her pale, perfect skin. Never fucking her senseless, never listening to her moans as I thrust into her, never hearing her scream my name as I tongue her into oblivion. Never feeling her perfect, bow lips fold around my hard cock again, never feeling the warm, soft tug of her hands at my balls, the way she touched me last time so confidently, squeezing just hard enough to make stars spark in my veins, not hard enough to stop me coming hard, her swallowing it all, because when it comes to each other, we are both insatiable.
Goddamn it. I’m hard again just remembering it.
I swear to god, I’ve been hard since the moment I first met her.
But it doesn’t matter how right it feels to hold her against me. It doesn’t matter how she makes me feel. All that matters is Sloan, and her safety.
I shut off the camera with an effort and roll up my sleeves. Back to business. Frederick Casey texted me an hour ago. Let’s finish this. Saturday. Tell me where to meet.
That gives me five days. Five days to scout out the perfect drop spot and secure the area, make sure the handoff of $500k goes as smoothly as possible. Aaron’s already chomping at the bit, asking me if we can’t talk him into meeting sooner. I told him to cool his heels for five more days. This will be my last job for him, the last risk I ever have to take. We’re going to do it right. By the book, because damned if I’m going
to get nabbed on our last gig ever.
I snap my laptop shut and grab my phone instead. One quick call later, I’ve got permission to head to the site I’m thinking about, the roof of a dirty businessman’s offices downtown. It’s remote, it’s inaccessible save for the few people who already work in the building, a short list that will be easy for us to vet. Plus, since we know the owner and his predilections, we can be reasonably sure no cops are going to bust in in the middle of our deal.
“Set it up,” Aaron tells me when I call him to make the suggestion. “But remember. No mistakes this time. We need to be absolutely sure this Casey kid is going to follow through. Do whatever it takes to make sure.”
Whatever it takes. The threat rings in my ears long after I disconnect the phone. All I can think about is Sloan, and the last time I spoke to Aaron, when he threatened to sic another operative on her if I couldn’t follow through.
As I climb into my car, checking the closest route from my place to the building, I realize it will pass right by Sloan’s street. A fist clenches around my chest.
Resist, Gage.
But her brother is right. I’ve put her in danger by association. And yes, Freddie has agreed to play ball with us for now, but I wouldn’t put it past Aaron to try and secure his investment by threatening the target’s sister.
After all, he threatened to send in someone else if I couldn’t get this done. I have been getting it done, and yet . . . I just have this nagging feeling at the back of my mind. His words ring in my ears. Whatever it takes, indeed.
I really will do whatever it takes to make sure Sloan is safe. Even if it means breaking the unofficial restraining order I’ve given myself with regards to coming near her.
It doesn’t take me long to reach her block. I roll down the street at the slowest possible speed I can without raising suspicion. No light in her windows. No one in the parking lot outside. Only a few stragglers day drinking in the bar beneath her. Three cars in her lot, all of them empty, all of them plates I remember seeing there before.