Sweet Southern Betrayal

by Robin Covington

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” Risa clung to the woman’s hands, struggling to put into words her gratitude over what Marian had done for her with this one conversation. “I never really had this…” She took a deep breath, pushing down the tears that threatened to spill out in a very unattractive crying jag that she wasn’t sure she could ever stop. “Thank you for giving me this moment.”

  Marian placed a hand on her cheek and Risa leaned into the warmth. “Now that is unforgivable.”

  And there was the look. Marian’s face filled with a little pity, but mostly with affection. It was a mother’s look and Risa stopped breathing with the impact of how very much she wanted what was being offered here by this woman and this place.

  Wherever she ended up, she would look for a place like Elliott.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid,” Jack said.

  Teague looked up at his friend, standing over him with a file in his hand and a very unhappy look on his face. Lucky and Beck were standing around the kitchen island of the apartment, ready to stop him or help him—he wasn’t quite sure.

  “What’s this?” he asked, reaching out to get the folder, biting back a curse when Jack pulled it out of his reach. “Jack. What the fuck?”

  “Teague, I did what you asked and ran the check on Risa.” He paused, glancing at Lucky and Beck, who also looked like they wanted to run. “This isn’t good.”

  “Hand it over.”

  “I’m serious, we’re going to hear her out before you do anything stupid,” Jack said.

  “Give it to me.” Teague held out his hand for the folder, resisting the urge to grab it away from him. Jack was a big guy and the only thing that would happen if he did that was a lot of the nice designer furniture getting broken in this really nice apartment. His mother would kill them both slowly and with great enjoyment. “I know what I’m doing.”

  Jack stared at him for a moment, finally placing the folder on the table and turning away in the controlled manner that told Teague that trouble was coming. He grabbed his beer and took a long drink before sinking down into the chair on the opposite side of the room.

  Teague picked up the folder, opening it and spying what he was looking for right on top. The folder was chock-full of printouts and forms, but what he needed was on the first page. He scanned it, processing the data very quickly: Risa owed money—$10,000—to Tony Giambetti. According to the documents, Risa had been unable to pay the money back. Shit.

  “She owes money to the Giambetti family?” Teague asked Jack, but turned to Lucky when Jack wouldn’t answer. “What did she borrow money for? Her business?”

  Lucky shook his head. “No, for her friend Pepper. Rehab. Pepper had a meth problem.”

  “Shit.” He continued to look at the file in his hands, trying to soak in all the details. “So that’s why she said ten grand.”

  “Big Tony has made it clear to anyone who will listen that he will take payment in kind from Risa,” Jack said.

  “What?” Teague asked.

  “Ricky told my guy that he’d forgive the debt if Risa would fuck him on a more or less permanent basis.”

  “More or less—?” Teague ground his teeth together. The thought of Risa underneath that man for even a second was quickly superseded by the million ways he would kill Big Tony if he laid a hand on her.

  “There’s more,” Jack said. His tone said it all.

  “Worse,” Lucky said quietly from where he’d come over to stand by him. Teague glanced over at Beck, positioned by the door and he understood—they were prepared to stop him from doing something stupid.

  He had a feeling that “worse” wasn’t going to cover it.

  “What is it?” He shuffled through the papers in the folder until he saw it.

  She’d set him up.

  Risa. Sweet. Funny. Sexy. Kind.

  She’d sold him out to Big Tony for ten grand.

  Teague stood, gripping the edge of the table so tightly that he felt a twinge as the bones in his hands creaked under the pressure. He didn’t give a shit about the pain—the slice cutting through his chest eclipsed any external source of agony. He’d been wrong. Duped by her big silver eyes and sex that made his eyes cross it was so fucking good.

  Reaching out, he snagged a bowl off the counter and threw it across the room where it hit the wall and shattered, antique china flying everywhere. Silence reigned in the room as his friends watched him with varying degrees of surprise and incredulity on their faces. He knew he looked like a crazy man—he felt like a crazy man. He wanted to do something stupid like fly out to Las Vegas and beat the shit out of Big Tony with his bare hands.

  And Risa? He wanted to shake her until she told him why she did it.

  “Feel better?” Jack asked.

  “No, I goddamn don’t feel better.” He slammed his hand down on the island with a thud. It still wasn’t enough. He really wanted to hit something and find a release for all this adrenaline.

  “Teague, what’s going on?”

  He spun toward the door and saw Risa, shopping bags in hand, standing there with Michaela and Taylor. Her expression was fearful and grew increasingly more so as she moved inside the room and took in the entire scene.

  “What happened?” she repeated as she dropped the bags onto the ground.

  “You fucking sold me out to Tony Giambetti,” he spat out without thinking.

  Risa turned ashen, stepping back with the force of being struck. “Oh my God.”

  He advanced on her, unable to stop even when he saw her retreating in fear. She goddamn better be afraid.

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” She was sucking in huge gulps of air, panting with the emotion of the moment. “How? How did you find out?”

  “It was in the investigation I ordered—”

  “You had me investigated?”

  “You wouldn’t tell me anything. I was forced to do it in order to protect you!”

  “But I was trying to protect you,” she said, her voice scratchy and wet with the unshed tears in her eyes.

  “Protecting me? By setting me up?” Teague loomed over her, catching a glimpse of Lucky just to his right, keeping a watchful eye on what was happening. “What exactly did you do to me?”

  She looked up at him, misery forming her features into harsh lines of despair. She was still a beautiful woman, a dangerous one like Delilah. Well, she’d taken him down just like Samson and he felt shorn, stripped, and raw.

  “I was sent to meet you that night.” She glanced at Lucky. “The night after your wedding.” She swallowed hard and returned her gaze back to Teague. “He gave me something to put in your drink. I only gave you half a dose. I couldn’t…he told me to be nice to you, to get you into a compromising situation and take photos. There are others from our hotel room. Graphic ones.”

  “What else? The wedding?”

  “It was supposed to be fake, but Big Tony set us both up with that one. He wanted to really cause trouble for you.”

  “And sleeping with me?” He held his breath, needing to hear just how big a fool he’d actually been. “Did you do that for Big Tony?”

  She shivered under his scrutiny, reaching out to him, but he stepped back, avoiding her touch. Risa lowered her gaze to the ground, but not before he saw the hurt cross her face like a shadow. Good—he wanted her to hurt.

  “No, that was all for me.”

  He leaned in close, his voice harsh and cold in her ear. “Well, I hope you got your money’s worth, sweetheart.”

  …

  Risa didn’t think you could hurt this bad and still be breathing. But the body was a machine and a simple thing like your heart shattering into a million pieces of glass that sliced you open from the inside couldn’t stop it from chugging on.

  She sobbed, a deep, anguished sound that wrenched out of her gut and echoed through the silence of the room. It embarrassed her to show weakness like this, to give in to the pain she’d k

ept at bay for so long.

  “Where are the pictures?” The sound of Jack’s voice was the only thing that pulled her back from further embarrassing herself by sinking to the floor.

  “What?” She brushed the tears off her face and peered around the room, noting all the different expressions on everyone’s faces. Lucky was stoic and blank, Taylor emotional with tears on her cheeks. Michaela pale and concerned, and Teague dark with fury. But Jack was calm, hard, and firm, but edged with a sympathy that was unexpected and threatened to make her lose it entirely.

  “Where are the photos you got for Big Tony?” Jack pulled himself out of the chair and walked over to her, his large form blocking out anything but him.

  “I…” Her throat squeezed with the fear that gripped her every time she remembered what she’d done. “I gave him the thumb drive, but I felt too bad about what I’d done. The way it would hurt Teague…”

  Jack leaned in close, his voice quiet but firm. “Risa. What did you do?”

  “I took the thumb drive from Big Tony,” she whispered, reaching into her purse and pulling out the thin stick of computer data and placing it in Jack’s hand.

  “Goddamn it.” Teague wheeled around and stalked over to her, warning Jack off with a glare when he tried to insert himself between them. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  She stumbled backward, only stopping when her back hit the wall. Risa was confused. He’d been inches away from murdering her just minutes before and now his face was a big mash-up of anger and worry—at her, for her.

  “You were so good to me. A good guy.” She didn’t know how else to put it than the straight truth. “You were so nice. A gentleman. I couldn’t do it. I’d never done anything for him before. I was desperate.”

  “Fuck.” Teague dragged his hands through his hair, his knuckles white from the strain he was under. He lashed out, his fist hitting the wall just next to her head. “You can’t steal from Big Tony. He’ll kill you.”

  “I know.”

  He stared at her, understanding blooming in his eyes. “So you ran. You came here.”

  “It seemed like the best thing to do. I needed to tell you about the marriage anyway.” She shrugged, knowing her plans seemed tenuous at best. “I’ll go back to Vegas, get Pepper, and disappear.”

  “Well, you’re not going anywhere now. You’re staying here until I can figure out what to do about Big Tony.”

  “You can’t make me stay here.”

  “Oh yes I fucking can.” Teague got into her personal space, doing everything he could to physically intimidate her, and the flutter of fear in her chest testified that it was effective. She’d bet that Big Tony had no idea who he was up against. “If you even think about leaving until I say so, I’ll lock your ass in this apartment. I’ll handcuff you to a bed. I swear to God.”

  Now she was mad. She knew she’d screwed up, but he couldn’t hold her captive as long as he felt like it.

  “Just who do you think you are?” she said, getting up in his face.

  “I’m the guy you fucked and fucked over, and I’m not letting you get a second shot when your conscience decides that fifteen grand is worth becoming an even bigger whore for Big Tony.”

  She slapped him.

  Risa didn’t even think about it. On instinct she’d extended her arm and hit him across the cheek as hard as she could. And she didn’t regret it.

  “Well, you’d know all about that. What’s the going rate to whore for Big Tony? Eight hundred dollars an hour?”

  She pushed her way past Teague and made her way down the hall to the guest room, where she slammed and locked the door behind her. Risa fell across the bed, letting the tears fall in silent sobs.

  …

  “Jack. Go away.”

  Teague sat on the back deck of the apartment, looking at everything and nothing in the dark of the woods. He lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed down another gulp of the whiskey, drunk enough not to wince when it burned like hell as it went down. But he was sober enough to know Jack wasn’t going away.

  “What the fuck, Jack?” Teague asked.

  “I want to talk to you,” Jack said, pulling out the deck chair next to him and lowering his large frame into it.

  “I don’t feel much like talking.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  Teague shut his eyes and leaned back in the chair. He knew that voice; it was Jack’s Marine voice and it meant he wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted. “Fine, but hurry up because you’re interrupting my time to get absolutely shit-faced.”

  “Glad to see you’ve got plans.”

  “I just found out that I got married after being drugged by a woman sent by a mob boss who also happens to be a huge client for my firm.” He decided that needed another drink. “I’ve got all kinds of plans, but I think they’re illegal just about everywhere.”

  “She didn’t give them the thumb drive.”

  Teague bit back what he wanted to say and merely laughed in his old friend’s face. “Don’t try to make her out to be a saint. That dog won’t hunt.”

  “She’s no saint. She borrowed money to put her best friend in rehab from the absolutely wrong guy and didn’t think through how she was going to pay it back. That’s foolish, not mean-spirited.” Jack’s voice was low as he recited his points. “She’s a woman who went to great risk to help you and essentially gave up her whole life to help a stranger.”

  Teague felt the weight of Jack’s stare on his face, but he refused to answer. He was still angry and no amount of painting Risa as a do-gooder was going to help.

  “She has no way of ever going back to her home, her job, or her friends.” Jack paused, his voice taking on a hint of humor. “And she wound up really married to you in some ugly-ass wedding chapel by Elvis. Poor girl got the worst end of that deal.”

  “Bite me,” Teague said, laughing in spite of the shitstorm his life was in. Jack wasn’t wrong, and he was trying to do what he thought was the right thing. “What’s your point? You want me just to forget what she did? Kiss and make it all better?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then what? Because I’m trying to salvage my life here and figure out how to beat Big Tony at his own game.” He wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, massaging away the stress collected there. “As far as I’m concerned, Risa is part of the problem and I’ve got to assume that she’s still working for Big Tony.”

  Jack scooted forward, his movement taking his face out of the shadows.

  “Do you remember when I met Kayla?”

  “Yes, of course.” It hadn’t been a year since Jack had fallen hard for the beautiful doctor and decided to settle back here in Elliott.

  “Do you remember how I met her?”

  “You picked her up in a bar.”

  “The second time I met her.” Jack reached out and smacked him upside the back of the head. “I was working for her father, a man she hates more than anything on this planet, and I lied to her. Not once but over and over.”

  “And your point?”

  “In spite of my words, my actions spoke louder. Kayla knew what kind of man I really was because of what I did. For her.”

  Teague couldn’t deny the truth of her actions, but it was more than his head understanding the logic of the issue. She’d hurt him. Deeply. And a part of him he wasn’t used to consulting was trying to win this argument.

  His heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Have you guys talked at all? It’s been days,” Beck asked.

  Risa tore her gaze away from where her husband sat on the patio and looked to her left, where Beck was settling into the empty chair next to her. The light from the fire pit and the low lamps scattered around the lake house at Promised Land farm cast him in a shadow and gave his mischievous features a wicked edge.

  The Landons had invited everyone over for an impromptu barbecue party. She’d come with Teague, both of them going out of their way to play happy newlyweds for the benefit of everyone else. It was total fiction because everyone in the family circle knew what she’d done and how angry Teague was with her. They hadn’t taken sides, a credit to how gracious they all really were.

  “No,” Risa answered. Things had been achingly strained between Teague and her since the blowup over her working for Big Tony. He hadn’t actually locked her in her room, but she hadn’t tried to make a run for it either. Teague had been a shadow in his own home, leaving early and coming back late. Beneath her own emotion of anger simmered something very close to her missing him, but she pushed it down with a firm hand and ignored what it might mean.

  Beck sighed, putting down his beer bottle and turning to face her. He was serious, the usual cocky grin replaced with the lines of real concern tightening his lips.

  “He didn’t mean it.”

  “Yes, he did. The last comment was out of line and he knows it,” she said, her lingering anger giving her words a bitter bite. She wasn’t ready to make nice just yet. “He refuses to listen to any explanation I have. I know I was wrong, but he won’t even listen…”

  “I know.” He held his hand up, stalling her next comment. “Look, Teague is a black-and-white kind of guy, especially when it comes to his career plans.”

  “But he won’t even let me in on what the plan is.” She threw her hands up, knowing she looked and sounded childish.

  “Teague’s a fixer. He sees a problem and he immediately does whatever he has to do to make it go away.”

  “This is my life, too. I want a chance to fix what I did since I’m going to have to live with the result.”

  “It’s what he does. He takes care of the people in his life,” Beck said. “And he thinks he has the answers.”

  “He’s arrogant.”

  “Self-confident.”

  “Narrow-minded.”

  “Focused,” Beck said.

  “Damaged.”

  -->