by Sybil Bartel
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I told you to never mistake me for my brother, and you’d have nothing to ever be nervous about.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I looked at him.
The intermittent sunlight coming through the clouds kissed his high cheekbones and glinted off his dark hair. His profile was as heart-stopping as if I was staring into his eyes. Knowing it was too late to matter, I asked what I should have all those years ago. “Why did you say that? Of all things to say to me in that moment, why that?” I suspected why, but he’d never spoken of it.
In true Ronan form, he didn’t answer. Instead, his voice went low and intimate, and he asked me the last question I was expecting. “Did Amherst force himself on you?”
Visceral and immediate, the memory I kept buried deep flooded my conscience, and my body reacted. Inhaling, I stepped back from the windows. “I’m not having this conversation.” Not with him. Not with anyone.
Quick and sure, he grabbed my chin and looked into my eyes with unadulterated rage. “Tell me right now.”
Anger warred with embarrassment, and I lied. “There’s nothing to tell.”
Searching my face, his grip tightened. “You’re lying.”
I was preserving my sanity. “You don’t get to judge me or pretend to care about me or my past. It’s too late for that. You cut me off. You walked away ten years ago. You’re the one who decided to not forgive me despite all my calls and texts.” I pulled out of his grasp and headed for the bedroom.
“Answer me.”
The demand, low and threatening, hurled at my back was the straw that broke me.
I spun on him in anger and yelled, “I was a dirt-poor Trinidadian girl in a rich man’s world. What would you expect me to do? Say no and lose the one shot I had at doing what I’d always wanted?” Except I didn’t know what I’d wanted back then because I didn’t know someone like me could even dream that big. I’d just wanted to keep Ronan out of jail, and I wanted the pain of losing him to go away, and last on that sad list, I’d wanted to sing, and Leo made me feel like my future hinged on spreading my legs for him.
So, I’d caved and done it.
It was horrible and demeaning, and I’d silently wept through the whole, thankfully short ordeal. Throwing up in the recording studio bathroom afterward because even though I’d already lost Ronan, it’d felt like I’d cheated on him and disgraced us both. I vowed to myself to never do it again, even if I lost my contract. But I never had to make that decision, because by the next week, a new singer who was even younger than me had caught Leo’s eye.
Shamefully glad, I kept recording my debut album.
I had to sing my songs. I’d needed to give the world the words that poured out of my broken heart, even though I knew it was never going to bring Ronan back. But I had to keep going, because I didn’t have anything else.
I’d never wanted to get handled, used, and taken advantage of at every turn. I didn’t want to become a megastar that had rabid fans breaking into every hotel I ever stayed at. I didn’t want my entire life on display twenty-four seven. I didn’t want to lose my virginity to a fifty-something-year-old man who’d pushed me into giving up the one thing I’d had left that’d been completely mine.
As if reading every one of my thoughts, Ronan’s nostrils flared and his hands fisted. “You should have told me.”
Bitter laughter twisted past my cynical lips. “And you would have done what? Come home from war when you weren’t even speaking to me and save me from the big, bad music industry?”
“Yes,” he ground out.
I didn’t know if it was the fourth note or this conversation or finally being alone with him after all these years and having it be so far from what I wanted, but something inside me snapped. Anger swelled to the point of no return, and consuming, raw defeat that I’d lived with for so long gripped my throat and threatened to take all my words, but I didn’t let it.
Not this time.
“I was powerless,” I forced out. “I was always going to be powerless once I signed that contract, but it was my decision, Ronan. My life. My choice. And I made it. I signed the stupid contract with that deplorable man, and every terrible thing that could’ve happened, happened, and not just to me, but to everyone I ever cared about. And yes, I care about your brother too, but the fact remains that I set all of this in motion and I’m still standing. I made it and here I stand.” Tears of rage, regret and pain welled, and I thumped my fist against my chest. “I’m responsible for all of it, good and bad, and this voice served me well. Because of it, I’m not powerless anymore. Never again will I be in that position. So, if you want to judge me, go right ahead. Keep blaming me for what happened. Blame your brother. I don’t care anymore. I can’t change you any more than I can change the past.”
“I do blame my brother,” he bit out. “For many reasons, but I never would’ve let you walk that path alone.”
“Maybe not, but you still wanted to control me.” Holding on to the past, I threw the accusation out in anger, but I no longer knew if I believed it.
“You’re letting Vance control you,” he accused.
Self-righteous indignation flared. “Vance gave me something you never did.” I hated myself for what I was going to say next, but I said it anyway. “He gave me power.”
“Power?” Ronan spit out with barely veiled disgust before stepping in to my personal space and dropping his voice to enunciate each of his next words. “He. Beats. You.”
“I let him!” I screamed, hating this conversation, hating who I’d become, hating him for judging me and hating even more that I was defending myself. “He trained me in martial arts, and we fight. He hits, but I hit back. Then I take that power.” My fist thumped again, my sore chest smarting. “I take it and I turn it around, and I fight. I fight for myself.”
Ronan’s face twisted and the reserved demeanor I used to cherish, feed off and breathe in like it was a lifeline exploded, and he let loose. “You never would’ve had to fight with me!” His nostrils flared, and he gripped my throat. “I never would’ve let you get hurt.”
Like energy cackling through dry air, awareness shot through my entire body. His single touch suddenly commanding my every breath, the pain, the rage, the regret—all of it—fell away. But my entire life came down to one single truth. “You never would’ve let me sign that contract.” And I never would’ve been famous. “You wanted to control me.” I said the words again because that’s what I’d been saying to myself for ten years to justify my actions when the guilt became too much, but they tasted as ugly as they sounded.
“I wanted to take care of you,” he bit out. “There’s a crucial difference.”
“You wanted me to be submissive,” I spat with all of the indignation of a society that condemns that sort of behavior, even though my heart and my body held no such convictions.
“I still do,” he roared.
My breath caught, and I blinked, because Ronan Conlon did not raise his voice, not ever. He didn’t have too. His presence alone made people take notice. But when he spoke? It was with measured, commanding authority. I’d loved that about him. I’d missed that about him. Yearned for it until I ached.
But this man wasn’t him.
This Ronan wasn’t calm, controlled and rational. This man had beaten his brother and clenched his fists when he’d asked me about Leo, and the look in his eyes was one I’d seen once before, ten years ago.
Fighting tears, I did what I should have instead of what I wanted. “Let go,” I ordered.
His jaw clenched and his hand tightened, but then he did what he’d done all those years ago.
Without a word, he let me go.
Except this time, it wasn’t him who walked away. Straightening my back, forcing air into my lungs and my legs to move, I made it all the way to the door before the first tear fell. Yanking the door open, ignoring the concerned look of the bodyguard just outside, I took one more stride and I was out of the suite.
The d
oor softly clicked shut, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
I fell apart.
HARM OPENED THE DOOR AFTER it’d closed behind her. “She’s aiming for the suite down the hall.”
“Stay with her,” I ordered.
Harm nodded and stepped back, but before the door closed, Vance appeared behind him.
Glancing down the hall before looking back at me, Vance paused. Then he walked into the suite.
“By the looks of things, that didn’t go your way.” Hooking two glasses, he grabbed a bottle of expensive scotch off the bar and sank onto the couch. “Pretty sure she’s the only woman who’s ever handed us our asses besides our mother.”
“What the fuck would you know about it?” Asshole.
Vance chuckled as he poured two stiff drinks. “Plenty. She’s taken her fair share of shots at me.” He held a glass out. “Here.”
That was because he beat the shit out of her. Martial arts training or not, he was still too goddamn rough with her. “I don’t drink.”
“Because you don’t want to be like our old man or because you’re too consumed with control?”
Pissed off, I grabbed the drink and downed it in one go before slamming the glass on the coffee table. “Because it dulls the senses, fucks with your cognitive functions, and delays reaction times.”
The asshole smiled. “That’s why you sip it.” Rubbing it in, he took a single swallow.
The hard liquor burning a path all the way to my gut, I thought about pounding my own brother’s face in before going after the one woman who could piss me off like no other. “You’re lucky you’re still breathing right now.”
He grinned. “Is that merely a statement of fact or an actual threat? Because I thought you already had a good go of it.” He cocked his head to the right, showing me my handiwork. “I’m still sporting the evidence.”
I hated everything about him now, including the British nuances he affected in his speech to hide the fact that he was a ruthless bastard. “If you hurt her again, I’ll end you.”
Vance laughed. “I was never hurting her. And for the record, not that you asked, but I’ll put you out of your misery anyway—I am not now, nor have I ever, fucked your woman. But go ahead, brother, keep up the good fight. I hear you loud and clear. Line in the sand pissed. Claim staked. I get it.” He sipped his drink. “The only question is, does she?”
The wall I’d spent a decade building around my emotions cracked further. Seething with anger that he even mentioned the word fuck in the same sentence as her, I fought to keep it in check. “We’re not discussing her, not now, not ever. This is me giving you your one and only warning. If you spar, fight, train, wrestle, or otherwise engage in any physical activity that leaves marks on her body, I will not hesitate to finish what I started two days ago.”
“Mm-hm.” Vance casually took another swallow. “So are you?”
“Am I what?”
He pointed at the door with his glass in hand. “Going to go after her.”
I glared at him.
“Right. Apparently I’m more interesting.” He took another sip of his scotch.
There was nothing interesting about him, but I wanted answers. “Why did you really come here? Sanaa didn’t need to take that meeting, and I’m not buying the bullshit about being on US soil so you’d have the tactical advantage. AES has more than enough resources. This should’ve been handled already.”
“Believe my reasons or not.” Vance shrugged. “I used every resource at my disposal at the time, and I still couldn’t find the asshole in the chaos of her tour schedule. Besides, this was a two-for. Isolate the bomber and see my brother. What can I say, I missed you.”
The lying fuck. “Bullshit.”
He smirked. “Fine. She missed you.”
“She doesn’t know me.” Not who I was now.
Vance laughed. “You haven’t changed.”
Yes, I had, but he hadn’t. Which made him joining the Marines after me even more suspicious. “Why’d you enlist after I deployed?” Vance liked the easy way out. Nothing about being a Marine was easy except the honor of serving your country.
The pretentious prick raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t know?”
I really didn’t care, but I was giving Sanaa time to cool down and Luna time to run background intel. I wasn’t about to let on to Vance yet that I suspected who we were dealing with. I wanted to see what Luna came up with and know if Vance was directly or indirectly involved in any way before I made a move.
I focused back on the conversation I didn’t give a shit about.
“You didn’t need a Marine paycheck.” Before I’d enlisted, while I was waiting for Sanaa to graduate, I was working construction, but Vance was doing security for a nightclub in Miami Beach. He’d said getting his hands dirty was beneath him, but I was sure he was involved in gun running back then. His fancy rented house with no roommates, the cash he always had on hand, the car he drove back then, none of it was what he would’ve been able to afford with an honest paycheck.
Vance’s laugh was humorless. “No, I didn’t.” He took a sip of his scotch, and his expression sobered. “Let’s just say I needed to stop working for the people I was working for, and the best way to disappear is in plain sight. So I enlisted.”
Right. “Ma found your guns.”
He laughed in earnest. “That wasn’t why I joined the Marines, but as a matter of fact, she did. I came home from work one night at three a.m. to a jimmied front door and the lights on. I walked into my living room and found a fuming Irish woman sitting in front of seventeen firearms I hadn’t unloaded yet.” Smiling ironically, he shook his head. “She’d even lined them up by make and caliber. You know how she was.”
“She never told me.” I couldn’t stop thinking about what Sanaa had said. Had Vance really given her something I couldn’t? Or was she substituting?
“Probably didn’t want to stress out her good son.” Vance shrugged casually like he hadn’t just insulted me. “Anyway, she’d suspected something was off after that party, and she came looking. She thought she was giving me a choice when she told me to enlist or go to jail.” He stood. “And Clodagh Conlon wasn’t a woman you fucked with, so I made it seem like it was her decision, but I’d already spoken with a recruiter.”
He downed the rest of his drink. “Five days later, I traded illegally fencing weapons for legally firing them. The people I worked for never heard from me again, and Ma sent me off to basic with a handful of condoms, one of Dad’s old switchblades and forty bucks. Then she told me she’d kick my ass if I ever came back here.” Chuckling, he set his glass on the table. “Goddamn that woman had balls. I still miss her. Fucking cancer.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “If she were here, she’d tell you to pull your head out of your ass.”
“She’d tell you to back the fuck off.”
He grinned. “Probably. But when have I ever done that?” His expression turned serious, and he tipped his chin toward the door. “Besides, you and Sanaa? You two were always a force of nature.” He broke eye contact. “Maybe I used to wonder back then what it would be like to have a woman look at me like Sanaa looked at you.” He shook his head and met my eyes with an insincere smile. “Anyway, bygones, brother, bygones. I’m going to do a perimeter check.”
Same as we always did, we didn’t talk about the night before I deployed. But that didn’t mean it was justified. For either of us. “I’m not excusing your behavior, and this isn’t me letting you off the hook.” This was me being fucking practical because one more body looking out for Sanaa’s safety was one body between her and a madman.
“Right.” He chuckled condescendingly. “Whatever you say. Back in an hour.” He walked out.
I fished my cell out of my pocket and dialed.
“She’s safe,” Harm answered without preamble.
“You checked the suite before letting her in there?”
“Didn’t have to. Ty’s been on patrol. No one’s been on the floor
except us.” He paused. “But I checked anyway.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t respond.
“Anything else?”
Harm exhaled. Then, “Her neck, left shoulder, right arm, and both shins are bruised.”
My jaw clenched. “I know.”
“I thought we were here for a bomber.”
“We are.”
“This is more than a bomber problem.”
I couldn’t believe I was about to say the next words, let alone defend my brother. “It’s not what you think.” It wasn’t what I’d thought either, but knowing Vance was teaching her martial arts and using physical exertion with her to alleviate stress instead of fucking her into submission didn’t make me any less pissed off.
“There’s no reason to bruise her like that when sparring with her.”
“It wasn’t me.” But what I wanted to do to her wasn’t any better.
“I know.”
I glanced out at the wind that’d been steadily increasing all day and made a mental note to check the latest forecast update. “What’s your point, Harm?”
“Get her out of that situation.”
I didn’t get a chance to tell him I intended to do just that because he’d already hung up.
MY WORLD WAS CRUMBLING.
I was sinking into an abyss that’d opened underneath me the second I’d signed that contract ten years ago. Penning my name on the dotted line had opened the door to my future, but it also eroded the only foundation I’d ever had.
Ronan.
He’d loved me then.
He’d wanted to protect me, take care of me, and yes, control me, but not in the way I’d just accused him of. He didn’t want me to sign that contract because he hadn’t trusted that insufferable Kyle Abernathy. Neither did I, but I’d been naïve and desperate, and I’d needed to prove I was worthy of a man who was voluntarily going off to war.
So I’d signed.
Then I’d built a career on precarious stilts. Wading through broken promises and silver-tongued lies, I fed the shattered pieces of my soul with every note I sang. I didn’t get to pick my songs, my clothes, my venues, or my schedule. I didn’t have a say in what picture graced what album cover or what each song would be titled. They wouldn’t even let me record the songs I grew up singing. Yes, I had a career people would kill for and dozens of top hits. Except nothing was original save for my voice.