by Angel Payne
With her head nestled against my father’s shoulder.
“Who is she?” Fershan queries.
“Besides the goddess of everything gorgeous?” Wade mumbles.
“And a succubus with a chainsaw for a heart?” Foley counters.
Wade groans. “Goddamnit. Real life’s supposed to be different than video games.”
“This isn’t real life, dude.” Foley tsks. “Remember?”
Emma pivots forward to get a better look at the screen though drops her hand to keep our fingers entwined. “Who are all these other people? What event is this photo from?”
Wade leans back in the chair. Pushes away from the desk and circles to face her. “Well, that’s the interesting twist,” he declares.
Fershan nods. “We were trying to jump over Scorpio cartel firewalls, looking for a loophole or a back door. But many times, the best back door is the front door.”
“Huh?” Emma frowns.
“They’re right.” Foley all but growls it. “I’ve been thinking so hard about all of this, I overthought it.” The growl finally erupts as he palms the center of his forehead. “The easiest entrance. The softest sites to hit. Social-media pages, photo collection or video scrapbook web pages…”
“Easily located by searching for hashtags with the Scorpios’ shell companies,” Fershan finishes.
“Only reason this one took so long for us to find was because it was taken three and a half years ago,” Wade adds. “It’s from a Flickr page. Says it was taken at the Consorcio Sciences board retreat…in Barcelona, Spain.”
Emma starts to tremble. The trembles become shivers. The shivers become sobs.
“Consorcio.” Foley sounds like he’s ready to hurl. I don’t know whether I’m more tempted to join him or Emma in her rising tears. In the end, my rage eclipses both—especially as Wade voices the fact that drives this shocking dagger in deeper.
“Consorcio. That’s Spanish for…what? Consortium?”
Foley snarls softly. Emma snuffles harder. And all the glowing crap inside my chest and gut now congeal into a payload of nuclear-grade explosives ready to be cut loose and detonated over one prime target.
The man looking like a goddamned Valentine’s Day card with Faline in that picture.
Surrounded by a bunch of people who, like that bitch, are marked with the same scorpion tattoo on their necks.
Who have been working with the Consortium. Who have been financing their “fringe science” experiments. On non-voluntary human beings.
Like me.
“Fuck.”
It falls out of me as I wheel away from them all, hands dragging through my hair, dread weighing my steps. Just one word on my lips but representing so many more, all burning and terrible. The nuke in my heart has turned into a vat of lethal, searing liquid.
What was Dad’s relationship with Faline? Were they lovers? Just “close chums”? Did he know about the real organization all his fellow “board members” represented? Was Consorcio Sciences the genesis for the Consortium—and how far they chose to take torture in the name of advancing “science”? And did he know that too?
And if he did…
“Fuck.”
I can barely stand to summon the thought to my brain. To even form the words, though silent, in my psyche.
But I have to.
As much as gouging out one of my own eyes seems like a less painful alternative, this is where the fucking rabbit hole has burrowed to.
If my father knew about the Consortium and their plans, did he betray me into their captivity? Did he offer me for their lunatic experiments?
On the other side of posing the question, I’m confronted by an even more relentless pain.
That of not having an answer.
And the compulsion, a unique torment all on its own, of needing to find out.
Only when I’m glaring at the cuts across my fist, and the blood turning purple because of the throbbing blue light beneath it, do I realize I’ve marched across the room and tried taking out my fury on a framed pop art poster. Not able to meet anyone’s gaze, I duck my head, hunch my shoulders, and head for the bathroom to clean up.
As I expect, Foley follows me in.
As I also expect, so does Emma.
After dunking my hand beneath the faucet, I let the mirror convey the violent tempest still ruling my senses. My irises have gone silver, and the white orbs around them have filled with spikes of furious lightning. Neither of them flinches, thank fuck. Emma, with her pumping chest and tear-tracked cheeks, humbles and moves me more than ever. Even now, in the middle of this insanity, my soul connects to hers in a new, raw reality of utter honesty. For my heart to belong any more to her, I’d have to carve the thing out of my chest and lay it in her hands.
Foley, thank fuck, is a lot less emotionally invested. Oh, he’s pissed to be sure but is clearly capable of thinking beyond the blast zone of this new revelation. I bore my gaze directly into his, hoping like hell I’m correctly interpreting his scrutiny.
“Hit me with it.” I add a determined nod now. “What’s your plan?”
For the first time, Emma rips her gaze away from me. “You have a plan?” she demands at him.
Sawyer twists his lips. “I wouldn’t call it a plan.”
I succumb to a grimace. “So you are thinking the same thing I am.” My voice is dismal. “Fuck.”
“Which is what?” Emma ping-pongs her stare between the two of us, obviously barraged by the same questions in the wake of that photo—which is corroborated by more shots of Dad and Faline from other events, judging by Wade’s and Fershan’s outcries from the next room.
Foley jams his hands into his pockets. Squares his shoulders. “In order for you to get those answers about your dad, you’ve got to get close to your dad.”
I coil one hand into a fist against the counter. “And that means getting back on the Virage project.”
“And that means cleaning yourself up and issuing a public apology to the city and your family,” he confirms.
But simply hearing the words detonates the explosives inside my chest all over again. Having to get on camera and appear contrite is on par with a colonoscopy. The end is worthy; the means is a goddamn mess.
Then I’ll just have to focus on the goal. Wiping the slate with the mayor. Smoothing the path back to Dad. Clearing the air with Tyce—and hoping he’ll recognize the gesture, despite its impersonal delivery method, to try to reach back out to Emma or me once more.
I snarl again, harder and deeper.
Focus on the goal.
Do what’s right.
No matter how hard it sucks.
I lean over the counter, wondering how many punches it would take to break open the marble slab beneath my palms.
“Do it.”
I snap my head up at the pair of words that break the silence—coming from the woman who now steps back next to me. Emma palms the side of my face while pressing tight against me. The electric rage in my eyes now reflects in hers, but against her turquoise depths, the light turns into glimmers like a vast fairy tale lake. Because that’s what this woman does to my life. In her view, my ugliness is turned to beauty, my darkness becomes light.
“Do it, Reece,” she repeats in a whisper. “Do it, and know I’ll be at your side through every step of the journey and every second of the storm…no matter what.”
For a long moment, all I can do is stare. My mind bursts with amazement; my soul implodes with love. How have I come to deserve this woman? What did I do to earn her belief in me and this insane existence, in which she’s ordering me to apologize to the world in order to determine how far the monster factor really runs in my family?
I have to shut my eyes as those questions take a terrifying turn.
When will I have to make an equally tormenting sacrifice for her?
When do I decide that the storm is too dangerous—and it’s time to let her go?
I pull her tighter against me, mashing the beats of ou
r hearts against each other, and pray like hell it’s the one question I’ll never have to answer.
After several long minutes, I reluctantly release her. We leave the bathroom hand in hand. Back out in the office, I scoop up my phone and punch in the autodial for my office at the Brocade. “Joanne,” I utter after my assistant gives her cheery greeting. “I need you to call the media reps at Richards corporate. Tell them I need to call an emergency press conference for today at noon Pacific. They’ll already know what it’s about.”
Because the storm’s already started.
Part 8
Chapter One
Emma
“Kneel before Zod, my ass.”
The tight grumble, belonging to my sexy-as-hell but secret-as-purgatory fiancé, is practically muted by the chaos of camera shutters and reporters’ shouts that accompany his exit from the Hotel Brocade’s ballroom. Reece’s tone matches his look, as somber as his three-piece gray suit and as stiff as the quart of hair product taming his tumbling chestnut waves.
“Reece! Reece! Just one more question! Just one more, man!” But they’re already contradicting themselves, because at least five of them bellow the same damn thing at once, making that five questions and counting. His straight, strong jaw hardens into a rigid line, clarifying he’s come to the same conclusion, as he grabs me by one hand and starts tugging me across the foyer—not that the mob lets us get more than three more steps. They’re back, forming a human barricade between us and the door Sawyer Foley is holding open, leading to the freight elevator that’s waiting and ready to transport us to the ground floor and out of here.
Away, at last, from their gauntlet. And the hundred ways they’ve made Reece run it for the last damn hour. And now, their blatant desire to double that number in a fraction of the time.
“So why, exactly, was your brother in the Griffith Observatory’s ladies room with Emmalina last night? Did he ever really tell you?”
“If it was all a big misunderstanding, why did you insist on dragging him out and beating him up anyway?”
“Do you consider yourself mostly a hero, a vigilante, or a terrorist?”
“Did you use the Bolt Jolt to break any of Tyce’s bones?”
“…fry any of his nerves?”
“…damage any other key body parts?”
“Why did you wait until now to issue an apology about it?”
“Why were your parents included in the apology too?”
“Have you spoken to your family since last night?”
“What did you do after leaving the gala?”
“Do you and Emma watch late-night TV?”
“Who makes the best Bolt jokes? Kimmel or Fallon?”
“Do you two have snacks in front of the TV?”
“Do you two sleep naked?”
I pull in a long breath in place of dropping my jaw, mostly because I don’t know if it’d be to laugh or snarl at the bunch. Every one of these has already been asked and answered—yes, even twelve different versions of the naked activities—by the man at my side, enduring how they pummel him like a criminal less than twenty-four hours after extolling him as LA’s guardian angel.
Surprise, surprise—one of the anchors who led the bunch last night shoves to their forefront now, his model-perfect facade from last night replaced by stubble, a wrinkled suit, and an expression aimed at grizzled and tough. Add a fedora, and he’ll have the others calling him Perry White in no time. He obviously agrees, clearing his throat in order to bark, “I have it on good authority that the Griffith Observatory is pushing for a lawsuit now. The place is an historic treasure to the city, after all.”
“All right,” I mutter. “That’s it.” I stomp forward, narrowing a glare at the pompous douche. “So you’re saying that an architectural ‘treasure’ is more important than a human one? That the hundreds of occasions in which Bolt has laid his life on the line for the betterment of this city, including its Observatory, don’t matter?”
“Velvet.” Reece’s growl, close to my ear, is filled equally with soft pride and commanding caution. “No poking the lions unless they’re me.”
I step back with pursed lips, visually daring the munchkin to ask his question again, but his retreat only makes way for a curvy brunette who clearly fancies herself as the next Katie Couric. “But what about the reports that your brother, Tyce, was seen after the altercation with bruises so bad, he looked deformed, even burned?” she fires, rendering me without a comeback now—because there’s a chance she’s right. All too vividly, I recall Tyce’s face just before Reece found him in the Observatory’s bathroom with me, appearing as if to be pushing himself on me. That hadn’t been the case, but Reece had reacted to his first impression, leading to the scene that’s become the latest viral video and—obviously—the new object of the media’s obsession. But one memory from last night sticks the hardest with me: the bizarre transformation to Tyce’s face in those split seconds Reece’s rage had fully ramped up. I’d honestly thought I’d been served a spiked drink. “Burned” or “disfigured” were perfect descriptions of that change.
I’m yanked from the memory by the Couric wannabe. “And is it also true he was admitted to Cedars-Sinai under an alias, to undergo emergency surgical procedures for the damage you inflicted?” she lobs, adding a well-rehearsed stare of “journalistic” intensity.
Reece tsks at her. “Who’d you pay for that little tidbit, Renee? Because I’d be asking for a full refund if I were you.”
“So you’re denying it?” pipes a guy standing next to her who looks eerily familiar, with the exception of the twirly tipped mustache taking center stage on his face.
“Yes,” Reece utters at once.
As he cocks his head, his man bun gives him away. It’s the asshat hipster from the press throng that invaded the lobby last year, having switched out his purple-rimmed glasses for the impressive ’stache. “So if we call Cedars now, asking for a ‘Richard Dangler,’ they’d tell us there’s nobody admitted by that name?”
Even with the tension barnacled over every inch of his frame, Reece joins a few of Snidely Whiplash’s peers in visibly tamping down a smirk. “Oh, Pete. I’d give Tyce more credit than that, wouldn’t you?”
Now the guy looks ready to actually twirl his mustache. “Why, Mr. Richards. That sounds like full-on brotherly love, right there.”
“Which shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, Pete. Or were you so busy trying to get a lollipop boost on your phone that you missed the full apology I just gave to my brother, my family, the mayor, and the city?”
Pete isn’t fazed. “So you’re saying that all is well in the land of the Richards empire? That they’ve already accepted your apology?”
And crazily, Snidely himself has just set up Reece for the sole thing he needs to say the most this morning. “I’m saying they have no reason not to.”
In the space of those five seconds, I watch an entire layer of tension leave his body. Doesn’t mean the seven beneath it are going anywhere, but it’s a better start than I expected. Reece actually smiles at the mob now, beaming the panty-slayer grin that has landed him on the cover of more magazines than I can remember or track, and states, “Now folks, you’re really going to need to let us go.” He releases my hand to tuck me fully against his side, curling a possessive hand around my shoulder. “My girl’s stood by me through a lot of hell the last few days, and now I intend to thank her with a bit of pampering.”
As if he’s Moses and the words are a magical rod, the mass parts down the middle like the Red Sea—including several faces, of both genders, turning into gawking, envious fish as we walk by. I don’t waste time stopping to point out they all wanted Reece’s head on a platter an hour ago. As life has been teaching me in epic object lessons, the media is a fickle trade wind. Wait five minutes and the direction will favor another direction.
And right now, I’m only focused on one main direction.
The same one Reece reiterates as soon as we reach the portal where S
awyer is standing.
“Get us the fuck out of here, Foley.”
Reece’s growl doesn’t stop Sawyer Foley from chuckling as the three of us hurry down the hotel’s service hallway. Despite our near sprint of a pace, I dart a reproving scowl at the guy—though not fast enough for my all-observing man, even in his purposely powered-down state.
“It’s all right, Velvet.” Reece slides his hand back down, once more fitting it solidly against mine. “If that press conference wasn’t one of the shittiest things I’ve ever had to do, I’d be laughing too.”
Sawyer and I trade a fresh glance. In the guy’s seafoam-green eyes, I discern the same recognition that’s just hit my head and heart. Reece Richards’s list of “shittiest things I’ve ever had to do” is a lot different than anyone else’s, with things like “escaping from mad scientists” and “thwarting a bitch from killing his woman in an airplane turbine” topping the bunch. But I also have to remember that Sawyer was at Reece’s side for that second adventure and that it wasn’t the only occasion the man was my man’s solid Sundance Kid. In the seven months since Reece first hired him to help out with intel and tracking duties on the Consortium, Sawyer’s been a wingman beyond compare.
So I take a deep breath and let the chortle pass—especially when Sawyer follows it up by encouraging, “Well, Zod got his ass handed to him in the end, so buck up, Clark Kent.” He reaches over to push Reece’s glasses up his nose, earning him an instant slap-down, which results in his snarky sing-song, “Have fun on Krypton.”
“Excuse me?” I charge, wheeling on Reece like a lawyer with a murder suspect. “Have fun where?”