Even at thirteen, I knew my answer couldn’t be ‘no, thank you, I want none of them.’ I couldn’t reject my father’s gift in front of these men and walk away without consequences.
In this room, if I were ever to be a part, a live part, of my father’s world and not a scared kid on the computer screen, I had to make a decision. It was then I noticed the manila folder lying on the ink pad on his desk. There was the corner of a glossy photo sticking out.
Next, I did the unthinkable—the unimaginable. I touched something on my father’s desk without his permission. That action had previously resulted in a crack against my cheek or against the side of my head. Even my mother wasn’t allowed in his office without him. I can’t say why I did it, but I did. I reached out and threw open the folder.
A glossy photo floated across the desk. It was a girl—young, maybe less than ten. I didn’t know. She had yellow blonde hair and pink cheeks and was wearing clothes. The lack of nakedness wasn’t what registered. What mattered to me, even at thirteen, were her eyes. They were the softest brown, as if they were made of the material from my mother’s suede coat. It wasn’t only their color. It was their expression: smiling. There was no fear or terror, no death or defeat. The girl in the picture was smiling at the camera, the way a young girl should.
I straightened my neck and turned to my father. “Her.”
The gregarious laughter from earlier faded to coughs and throat-clearing as my father sat forward. “She wasn’t one of your choices.”
“Think about it, Allister,” a voice from the room said. “If the rumors are true, she could—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Allister yelled as his hand pounded the desk. “How the fuck can the rumors be true? She’s a kid—we’re not even sure if it’s her.”
“Where else did it go?”
“Fuck, it’s more than the missing money. Some say if she’s alive, she has the evidence to back up her daddy’s claims.”
“Enough!” my father roared, silencing the room. He turned to me. “You’re going to have to prove yourself, boy, before you get the likes of her.”
I turned to the room. “I will.”
“If you do, you can have her. Her dad owed me.”
“Fuck,” Rudy said, “he owed more than you.”
“I’ll be the one to collect,” my dad said matter-of-factly.
“I’ll do it. She’s mine,” I said and turned to the room. With more determination than I possessed, I stared into the eyes of every yellow-toothed jackass in the room. And then with a nod to my father, I walked out.
When the door shut behind me, I hurried to the closest bathroom and threw up the contents of my stomach and then some. I’d made it out of that room. I wasn’t sure how I’d done it. The only other thing I knew was that despite not knowing her name, I would prove my worth because as of that day, she belonged to me.
Araneae 27
Present
I stared in disbelief as Sterling finished his story. This wasn’t even close to something I could have imagined. How could I?
Each word turned my stomach. “What about the other children?”
Sterling didn’t speak at first, his dark eyes warning me that there were some secrets best left buried. Instead of answering, he asked me a question. “Who have I repeatedly told you to worry about?”
“Myself,” I replied as I pulled the jacket sleeves down over my hands to ward off the chill. “It was me, wasn’t it? My picture was on your father’s desk?”
Sterling nodded as he took a long swig of the water bottle. “I didn’t know your name at first. I didn’t know anything about you or anything that those assholes were talking about. I just knew that those men could cause the life to go out of your eyes. I knew they had that power—I’d seen it.
“I vowed it wouldn’t happen.”
I stood and stepped from the blanket, my boots crunching the pebbles beneath my steps. Stopping at the shore, I stared out over the water as wave after soft wave came onto the mixture of sand and pebbles, only to disappear again into the depths of the lake.
Was that how it was with secrets? One would be revealed only to be swallowed up by the whole.
My mind couldn’t process.
Sterling didn’t touch me, but I could feel his presence behind me. I turned to face him. “How old are you?”
His head shook. “Of all the questions—”
“How old are you?” I asked louder.
His hands came to my shoulders. “Thirty-two, -three soon.”
My mind scattered. Thirty-two minus thirteen equaled nineteen. Twenty-six minus nineteen. “Seven,” I said.
“I know that now.”
The reality nauseated my empty stomach. “And you don’t think that’s fucked up? Really fucked up, like worse than Rita calling me by a name I don’t know.”
“I think it’s totally fucked,” Sterling said. “I was determined to find you. There’s something else I should probably confess.”
“What?” I took a breath. “Do I want to know?”
“I spent many years between obsessing over you and hating you.”
“Hating me? You didn’t know me. You still don’t.”
A half smile came to his lips as he squeezed my shoulders. “I know you were shitty at running track but are kick-ass on all-terrain vehicles.”
“I wasn’t shitty,” I argued with a shrug. “I wasn’t good. That doesn’t mean I was shitty.”
“I know you’re a true blonde.”
Though I didn’t want it to, blood rushed to my cheeks. “There was a razor on the plane. I thought it might be for…but I couldn’t.”
“Good. Don’t.” Sterling took a step back. “You think that the one story I just told you was fucked up?” he asked.
My eyes widened. “Yes.”
“Sunshine, if my life were an iceberg, I just showed you the very tip. Over time I realized that I didn’t really hate you. There were times that I hated what attracted me to you in the first place.”
I blinked, recalling the story of my picture. “My eyes.”
“Your vibrancy. Like the fucking sun. That’s why I call you sunshine. That’s what you’ve been, before you even knew my name. In every picture I’d receive, every video, or report, you were shining. I didn’t know exactly what took you from the Marshes—I was away at the University of Michigan when that went down—but even that… you didn’t let it ruin you. In college you were thrown curves. Sinful Threads started slow, and through it all you wouldn’t give up.” Letting go of my shoulders, he cupped my cheeks. “Even with me, you don’t cave. You don’t back down. Men who have known me for most of their lives wouldn’t dare talk to me the way you have. In you, there’s no fear, no fucking doll eyes.” His tone slowed. “Maybe I didn’t hate you. I envied you.”
I lifted myself to my toes and brushed a kiss over his lips. I wasn’t sure what made me do it, but once I did, I didn’t regret the impulsive decision. “I need more,” I said.
“Can you handle more?”
“You said you didn’t know what took me from the Marshes. Does that mean you do know now?”
His jaw clenched as his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Okay, who has targeted me and why?” There were a million other questions popping into my head. I only gave voice to the ones I longed to know.
When he didn’t answer, I reached for his hand and led him back to the blanket. Opening the basket, I found sandwiches and a container of fruit that Rita had packed. Handing Sterling one of the sandwiches, I opened the fruit container and placed it between us.
“If you’re counting on the old saying that a way to a man’s heart…” He looked down at the sandwich he was unwrapping. “…and think that food will make me tell you anything any faster, you underestimate me.”
My cheeks rose as I grinned. “If you think I don’t have other tricks up my sleeve, you underestimate me.”
His dark eyes shone as he took a bite of the sandwich.
As I ate, I th
ought about his story, the dark, dead doll eyes. Sterling’s eyes were the darkest brown I’d ever seen. I wasn’t sure I would ever want to know the things he’d seen in his life. Yet describing them as dead or lifeless couldn’t be further from their real description. In every encounter, his eyes were alive and animated. Calculating, contemplating, and searing with desire. There was no reason for this man to envy my vibrancy. Everything about him emitted dynamic energy, strength, power, and control. The air around him sizzled with the force of his presence.
Once we were done eating, I laid my head down in his lap and looked upward. The view from this angle was equally as handsome, the cut of his jaw and girth of his chest as he leaned against his back-stretched arms.
Slowly, he sat forward as his fingers came to my hair and began to gently twist and stroke. “You know, when I imagined your face near my cock, you were positioned a little differently.”
“You’re really incorrigible.”
“I believe the word is insatiable.”
“Please tell me more. What about my birth parents?”
That broad chest expanded and contracted as he weighed his words. “You may have guessed that Sparrows are not only involved in real estate. There is a world that isn’t mentioned in polite conversation. It exists. It’s powerful and dangerous, yet it does its best to stay under the radar.”
“I’m not sure I want to know more about that.”
“I’m certain you don’t. And you won’t.”
I reached for his hand that was now resting on my stomach and intertwined my fingers. “Go on.”
“What I can tell you is that it’s a dirty business, all of it. We’re hardly the only family involved, but I’ve worked very hard to make Sparrow mean much more than it did when my father was alive. I’m not proud of all I do and have done, but I can justify it when I lay my head down at night. Usually.”
I thought of him saying he sleeps occasionally. I didn’t want to know what he couldn’t justify, what kept him awake at night.
“I brought you here to the cabin because things will be different in Chicago.”
“How?”
He tilted his head down and kissed my forehead. “The man you’re with right now doesn’t exist there.”
I recalled the aching in my groin from the way he’d taken me earlier in the day, and a smile tugged at my lips. “If you’re a figment of my imagination, I have a great one.”
“Here is safe. Nothing about Chicago is.”
I sat up. “Then let’s not go back. Come with me. We can go to Boulder.” My enthusiasm to continue whatever this was between us surprised even me.
His smile was sad as his head shook. “I can’t. I never can. And neither can you. Like you are mine—belonging to me—so is Chicago. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, to where Sparrow is—Sparrow Enterprises as well as the Sparrow world that isn’t discussed. It’s me. I’m it. I took it from others, made it mine, and rule it.” He squeezed my hand. “The only thing missing from my empire is a queen, and you were born for the job. I can’t walk away from it—we can’t. Don’t you see?”
My head shook from side to side as his words weighed inside me.
Queen.
Fiancée.
His sunshine.
I was only ready to commit to one of those titles.
“My team and I have discovered that these recent attempts on your life and the targeting of you are for one reason. Up until recently, to many in the underworld you were a rumor, a myth, like a ghost who lurked just outside the third dimension. My father found you. There’s another family…I can’t say too much.” His hand raked his hair. “I can’t explain it all in one day or probably even a lifetime, but over time there’ve been reported sightings. Once I had power, my people made sure that those reports went unsubstantiated. Even those who should have known, who have the power to do what has been done…” A vein in his forehead popped to life. “…had you in their grasp, but didn’t realize who you were.”
My brows lowered. “What do you mean?”
“Patrick was there. You were safe.” Before I could give that more thought, he went on. “It’s different now. The rumored Araneae McCrie has come out of the shadows of fabled lore to reality. You’d been discovered as Renee Marsh, and from what I could learn, when it was no longer safe, your life changed. Except to a privileged few who knew the truth, you were secured and hidden as Kennedy Hawkins.
“I take responsibility for bringing you into the light, but it would have happened anyway. Having you in Chicago was too risky. You, sunshine, are many things, and not the least of which is my perceived weakness.”
“Yours?” I recalled his story. “Those men…?” I said. “The ones in your father’s office?”
Sterling nodded. “Some remember, some are dead, and some have forgotten. Some couldn’t handle the reality of my leadership. Some didn’t live to question it further. Others, a very few, had made contingency plans, attempting my demise while seeking protection with another family. The reality of their lives—what the public sees—allowed them to live. It’s a decision I regret.”
“Why take me back to Chicago if it isn’t safe?”
His gaze was penetrating as his hand grasped mine. “Because as fucked up as it sounds, it’s the only way to make you safe. We’re going to show you to those who think they matter, those who will do anything to get to me. And we will make fucking sure they know you’re mine.”
“Maybe I can go back to being Kennedy?” Did I want that? Did I want to leave Sterling? This man I hardly knew had marked me as his own in more ways than sex. There was a connection I wasn’t sure I wanted to sever—or even sure I could.
“No.” He didn’t mince words. “You’re mine. Many years ago, I made that declaration, and now the word on the street is that it’s come true. Daniel McCrie’s daughter isn’t dead. And with you, they expect to discover the secrets that disappeared from your family when your father decided to double-cross the wrong people.”
“What secrets?” My eyes opened wide. “His name is Daniel?” I couldn’t believe my own lips. I was finally saying my birth father’s name. “Is he still alive?”
“That’s where the stories must be wrong, where lore has overtaken reality. Otherwise you would know the secrets, right?”
My mind scrambled. “I guess that makes sense. What am I supposed to know?”
His head slowly shook. “I should have known that you didn’t.”
“How without asking?”
“Because your father was deep in the dark world I now control. He was also an esteemed attorney. Today they call people like him fixers. Those people learn secrets that no one should know. It’s their job to make problems go away—any problem. If I told you what he supposedly knew, if you knew…” He ran his finger over my cheek. “…I would be responsible for taking the light out of your eyes. I’ve done enough. I won’t do that, too.”
Araneae 28
No matter what trick I tried—and I admittedly shamelessly tried most contained within my limited arsenal—Sterling refused to share more of my past. He promised he would but not until I was ready. The reality was that I knew more about myself than I had a day ago, much more than a week ago. He didn’t answer if my biological father was alive, and yet he discussed him in the past tense. While I wanted to rip the Band-Aid from my past, I had to concede that maybe Sterling was right: too much would be overwhelming.
Not that Sterling Sparrow wasn’t overwhelming in and of himself.
I decided that if once we arrived in Chicago, the man I was with at the cabin was going to disappear, while we had the chance, I wanted as much of him as I could get. So while he didn’t share more secrets regarding my past, he did share secrets to my body that even I hadn’t known.
The bedroom Rita had assigned to me no longer was on my radar. One nearly twice the size with two walls of windows, including a balcony that looked out over Paul Bunyan’s lake, was where my things were moved. We had two nights with a day in
between before we were destined to return to Sterling’s realm. While not all of the time was spent in bed, admittedly a majority was.
There was also a wall or two, a sofa that if I was positioned right, lifted my ass much like the bed on the plane had done, and also an amazing gigantic shower.
Sterling was serious when he said he only occasionally slept. There were many times I’d wake to an empty bed, only to be reawakened to his hard, warm body not only rousing me but also my desires. The abrupt connection in his office was replaced with hours of unimaginable and sometimes infuriating skillful foreplay.
He didn’t lie or make excuses. When he was away from me I knew he was working, doing whatever it was that Sterling Sparrow did. There were times his phone would ding, and by his mumbling I knew it was a summons from Patrick or others who worked for him. I found it difficult to believe Sterling answered any summons. It was more likely, as on the plane, that there was a continuous cycle of metaphoric fires that required his attention.
I hoped they weren’t more real flames.
I’d corresponded with both Winnie and Louisa daily via calls or texts, but my emails were left unattended. The only unexpected call I received was on Saturday afternoon. Patrick brought me my phone and indicated there was someone waiting. I didn’t recognize the number. Yet I reasoned, he wouldn’t give it to me if it were unsafe.
“Hello?” I answered tentatively.
“Who was that deep-voiced gentleman?”
I sprang from the sofa where I’d been sitting on the back patio. “Jeanne!”
“I wanted to let you know I’m all right. I’m sorry I didn’t look after your apartment better.”
Tears prickled my eyes. “You’re okay. That’s all that matters. I’m scared to ask, but what about Polly and Fred?”
“Oh my goodness. There was this nice lady who visited me in the hospital. Her name was Shelly. She told me that she found them and would take care of them until I was released.”
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