Murphy’s Law: Murphy’s Law Book One

by Michelle St. James

  Julia hadn’t been nervous as their eyes combed her body. She’d learned a long time ago that if you made up your face and flashed a little skin, few men thought you were more than something shiny to admire.

  She’d hated digging through Elise’s closet, but she didn’t have anything remotely appropriate for the black-tie event at the Whitmore. Elise, on the other hand, had been the frequent recipient of expensive gifts from the men she dated.

  Julia had tried not to think about whether her sister would wear the clothes again as she flipped through the gowns hanging in her closet, tried not to wonder if her eventual choice, a French blue Zuhair Murad column gown with elaborate beading and a simple silk cape, had been given to Elise by Seth.

  They’d entered into a large foyer with a high ceiling, an antique chandelier dripping crystals hanging over the marble floors. After checking their coats in what had probably been the front parlor of the original house, they’d proceeded to the sitting room, big enough to host a small ball, where everyone was mingling before the hors d’oeuvres were served in what Joel told her was the house’s old ballroom.

  She hadn’t been able to get a good look at the back of the house, but she did notice the stairs, and most notably, the fact that another guard had been stationed at the bottom of them.

  She’d had to hide her shaking hands. Was Elise up there right now? Was she being kept against her will by Seth and his powerful cronies? Were other girls there too?

  She suspended the part of her mind that believed people were basically good, that justice ruled, that it was impossible for a group of powerful, wealthy men to keep women against their will in a place frequented by so many people in a country like America.

  Elise was gone. She’d disappeared after seeing Seth, who was the subject of rampant rumors that lent credence to the possibility that he was capable of hurting women.

  Anything was possible.

  So far she hadn’t seen anything suspicious. The gathering at the Whitmore Club was what she would have expected — a bunch of rich people drinking and talking. She wouldn’t know for sure until she could search the place, including the second floor, but it was clearly off-limits, and she had no idea how to breach the security in a place like this one.

  Joel was looking at her strangely. “I’m sorry, I’m boring you.”

  “Oh, no!” She moved into ego-stroke mode. “Not at all. It’s just all so overwhelming, all these powerful people in one place.”

  She considered adding something about Joel being one of them, then decided that would be overselling it. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man who wanted a groupie, not an obvious one anyway.

  He nodded. “It is kind of crazy. I was surprised to be invited.”

  “Really? That’s funny. It doesn’t surprise me at all. From what I’ve heard, your accomplishments stand toe-to-toe with any of these guys.”

  And they were mostly men. There was a bit of arm candy — herself among them, she knew why Joel had been happy to bring her — but other than that, she counted exactly two women whose accomplishments Joel had described in his rundown of the crowd. One was the CFO of an international bank and the other was a senator from a long line of Boston politicians.

  “Now you’re just flattering me,” he said.

  She tried for a flirty smile. “Do you object?”

  He laughed. “Not at all.”

  He looked up as the crowd shifted. “It looks like everyone’s moving to the ballroom. Shall we?”

  He held out his arm and she slid her own through it.

  They migrated toward the back of the massive house amid a flurry of tuxedos and silk, the heels of the women clicking against the parquet floors in the long hall.

  The ballroom was bigger than ten of Julia’s apartments, with triple-height ceilings, elaborate paneling, and antique chandeliers and sconces that illuminated the room in a wash of dim gold light.

  A three-piece orchestral ensemble played in the corner of the room, and uniformed wait staff were already making the rounds with silver platters of food.

  “Another drink?” Joel asked, eying the bar at one end of the room.

  “I’d love a mineral water,” she said. She didn’t want to be drunk tonight — during the event or after, when she’d come face-to-face with Joel’s expectations.

  He looked disappointed but promptly slipped through the crowd toward the bar.

  She glanced around the room, marking the four sets of double doors leading to the rest of the house. As far as she could tell, none of them led to a kitchen, which meant the wait staff was traveling to the ballroom from the kitchen somewhere else in the house.

  She was considering the chances of finding a second staircase — most of these old mansions had back staircases that led to the upper floors, all the better for servants to travel unseen while waiting on the families in residence — when she spotted a familiar head moving above the rest of the crowd toward one set of doors.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  It was Ronan Murphy.

  She could only see the back of him, but she felt a visceral sense of recognition at the sight of the dark hair shaved close to his neck, his shoulders pulling under his tuxedo jacket, the singular way he moved through the world — unflinching and in command.

  She started calmly through the crowd, trying to catch up with him without attracting attention. When she reached the doors leading to the hall, she glanced at the bar, relieved to see Joel in line behind several other people.

  With any luck, he’d be busy for awhile.

  The wide hall was still crowded with people making their way to and from the more intimate sitting room. She was grateful she’d gone with the blue dress in Elise’s closet instead of a red Dolce & Gabbana she’d considered.

  Red would have gotten too much attention.

  She looked down one length of the hall and then the other, finally spotting Ronan’s dark head moving toward the back of the house. She kept her stride purposeful as she followed. She hadn’t spotted any security since leaving the sitting room, but she had no doubt they were here somewhere.

  The crowd thinned as she reached the back of the hall, her eyes on Ronan’s back as he slipped into a set of doors at the back of the hall. They hung open for a split second before swinging shut, giving her a brief glimpse of a sea of white and stainless steel, black-and-white clad wait staff moving among kitchen workers.

  Bingo.

  She headed for the door, forcing herself not to hesitate. Attitude was everything. If she looked hesitant, she would attract questions. Then she’d be forced to pretend she was lost or looking for the bathroom and would undoubtedly be escorted to her supposed intended destination.

  She pushed through the doors at the end of the hall with authority and was immersed in the cacophony of a commercial kitchen: clanging pots and shouted instructions and the sizzle of something frying, the air scented with oil and butter, garlic and seared meat.

  A youngish woman in a black and white uniform glanced at her as she entered the room. Julia gave her what she hoped was a patronizing smile — rich lady appealing to the masses — before making her way deeper into the room.

  A flash of dark, bold against the kitchen’s sterility, flashed near a window at the back of the room. Ronan turning a corner? Disappearing into another room?

  She hurried toward it, her eyes focused on her destination as she moved around the bodies picking up full platters and dropping off empty ones.

  He disappeared quickly, gone before she was halfway through the room, but when she reached the wall of windows at the back of it she came upon a small closed door.

  She pulled it open to reveal a narrow staircase, winding upward to the second and third floors.

  Slipping through the door, she closed it behind her and started quickly up the stairs before someone in the kitchen got curious and came after her.

  The staircase was entombed in the house, the music and chatter of the party, even the noise of the kitc
hen, a distant memory in the cocooned silence of the closed space.

  She reached the second-floor landing and found the door locked. After a few seconds debating the possibility of trying to pick it, she continued upward to the third floor landing, feeling as if she were leaving the real world behind.

  She stopped outside the door and followed the staircase where it continued upward, wondering if there was another floor, but the door beyond the third floor landing looked too small to lead to anything but an attic.

  So this was it then. If Elise wasn’t here, Julia would have to find a way onto the second floor or call the Whitmore a dead end.

  She put her hands on the knob and pulled.

  It opened onto a long empty hallway, the wood floors covered with antique carpets, the halls lit with old-fashioned candle sconces. They flickered against rich, floral wallpaper. A row of doors marched down each side of the hall, all of them closed.

  There was no sign of Ronan.

  She started down the hall, aiming for the end of it. She would have to try all the doors, see if they were unlocked, work her way back to the front of the hall and the stairs that were her only escape.

  She had just placed her hand on the first doorknob when a soft shuffle sounded behind her. She turned to find Joel staring from the door leading to the staircase.

  “Doing a little exploring?” he asked.

  She tried to make her smile sheepish. “You caught me. This place is amazing. Have you seen all these original details? It looks fresh out of 1850.”

  He came toward her, his eyes glittering and hard. “You aren’t here to look at the house.”

  Her heart stuttered in her chest. “I’m not?”

  He stopped in front of her. “We both know why you’re here.”

  She smiled up at him. “Well, it was a good excuse to see you again.”

  He had her up against the paneled wall before she knew what had happened. “That’s what I thought.”

  His breath was laced with liquor, his hands cold against the bare skin of her upper arms.

  He tried to nudge her legs open with his knee, but the dress was too snug, and he cursed as he reached for the hem. “You should have told me this is what you wanted. We could have skipped the formalities.”

  She tried to shove him away, her mind screaming an alarm. “Why the rush? I’ve had a nice time. Let’s see where the night goes.”

  “This is where the night is going,” he said, yanking up her dress with one hand, his other one like a vise around her arm.

  She squirmed, trying to pull her arm away, abandoning her make-nice tactic as the warning in her mind escalated. “Get off me.”

  The tearing of her dress ripped through the hall as he maneuvered it to her upper thighs. “I know a lot of guys don’t like a tease, but I’ve always found it to be a turn-on.”

  He slipped his hand up her dress and reached roughly for her underwear.

  She was trying not to panic, assessing her options for getting away: kick him in the balls, knee him in the groin now that her legs were free of the constricting dress, scream (would anyone at the Whitmore hear her? Or care?).

  “You heard the lady,” a deep male voice said from the other end of the hall.

  Joel’s hand froze near her hip.

  He stepped away, turning toward the sound of the voice — and Ronan Murphy standing at the other end of the hall.

  15

  He knew what was happening as soon as he stepped into the hall from one of the bedrooms closest to the stairs. He’d seen the man’s back, a shimmer of blue-gray behind him, heard the snarl of his voice, the protest of the woman’s.

  Anger had boiled his blood, but it wasn’t until the woman behind him shifted and he caught sight of Julia’s face, her underlying panic almost concealed by an expression of forced calm, that his anger turned into unbridled rage.

  He hadn’t seen Julia at the party before that moment, but he wasn’t as surprised to see her at the Whitmore Club as he should have been. She’d seen the symbols Clay had pulled up from the blue door site, had obviously recognized the one for the Whitmore and decided she needed to take a closer look.

  Why did she have to be so stubborn? So reckless?

  He pushed aside his frustration and concentrated on the man, now turning toward the sound of Ronan’s voice.

  The man’s face was recognizable — some kind of TV news pundit? a financial guy? — even if his name didn’t come to Ronan right away.

  “This is none of your concern,” the man said. “You should know better.”

  The words were fuel for the fire burning in Ronan’s stomach. He walked slowly toward the man. “And why is that?”

  “If you’re here you know the rules,” the man said, his voice calm. “Unless you’re a guest, in which case you’re not allowed up here.”

  “I follow my own rules.” Ronan looked at Julia, her expression half relief, half annoyance. “Leave.”

  She lifted her chin and stepped out from behind the man. “I’m fine. I didn’t need — ”

  “This room is closed to the party,” a voice said from behind Ronan.

  He turned to find one of the guards from the front door, his shoulders blotting out the entrance to the stairs.

  “I’d suggest you leave as well,” Ronan said.

  The other man, the one who’d been assaulting Julia when Ronan had stepped into the hall, straightened the jacket of his tux and started toward the guard.

  “Everything all right, Mr. Boylston?” the guard asked.

  Right. Joel Boylston. A venture capitalist who’d made hundreds of millions by investing in several of the Next Big Things.

  “This woman is a trespasser.” Boylston glanced from Julia to Ronan. “I’d venture this gentleman is as well, and probably a more dangerous one for the club. He was in one of the rooms.”

  The guard looked at Ronan. “I’ll see you out.”

  Ronan’s brain was telling him not to be a fool, to take Julia and get out while they still could. But something else inside him, some primitive strand of DNA, was screaming for blood, Julia’s almost-hidden fear when he’d caught sight of her emblazoned on his mind.

  Boylston was less than an arm’s length away, obviously planning to head for the stairs and let the guard do his dirty work, like all of these Whitmore bastards, when Ronan threw the first punch.

  Boylston’s head shot to one side and Ronan took advantage of the split second before the guard came for him to land a kick in Boylston’s solar plexus. Ronan registered the other man’s expression of surprise as he stumbled backwards, gasping for breath, right before a Mac truck slammed into his own face.

  The guard charged him, but Ronan turned his body at the last minute and pinned the guard against the wall before slamming his fist into the man’s face.

  He registered Boylston’s retreat onto the stairs as he took a kick to the stomach.

  He stumbled backwards and caught his balance in time to duck a punch from the guard, a momentary reprieve that allowed him to deliver an uppercut to the man’s jaw.

  He was meaty, the blow only slowing him.

  Ronan barreled into him, using his size to drop the man to the floor, but the man was prepared. He rolled on top of Ronan and the next thing Ronan knew, he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

  He got only a little satisfaction out of the fact that the man was dripping blood onto his shirt, the cut above his eye split open and in need of stitches. He was gauging his chances at twisting out from under the other man, calculating the time it would take to reach for his own weapon under his jacket, when a crash sounded from behind the man, jagged pieces of porcelain raining down around his head.

  He slumped to the side, half on the floor and half still on Ronan.

  “We should go,” Julia said, standing behind the man with the remainder of a Satsuma vase in her hands.

  Ronan shoved the guard onto the floor and stood. “I was fine. I didn’t need your help.”

  “Tell it t
o the guards probably barreling up the stairs as we speak,” she said.

  Her dress was torn, her hair falling from whatever she’d used to pin it back, and her eyes were wide with something that looked less like fear than excitement.

  She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  “Let’s go.” He took her hand and headed for the front stairs.

  “Are you sure we should take the front?” she asked.

  He was in one of the rooms…

  “They won’t want to alarm the other guests,” Ronan said without breaking stride. “Whatever they’re doing up here isn’t something their members want to make public.”

  He didn’t say the rest — that the back door presented other problems, that they’d have to get through the kitchen, that they might be stopped on their way to the street.

  The front door was an easy exit. Even if there was a guard or three there, they could push through, the door only a few feet away from the bottom of the front staircase, the guests likely to provide unintended cover: the Whitmore Club would see a drop in membership if bullets started flying at one of their signature events.

  He headed for the end of the hall where that fucker Boylston had tried to hurt Julia. He was guessing the front staircase was hidden behind the door there just as the back staircase had been hidden behind the door at the other end.

  “What if — ” Julia started.

  He gave the door a swift kick and it splintered in the middle. A second kick finished the job. The door flew open, the hinges hanging from the frame.

  “… it’s locked,” she finished.

  He pulled her down the stairs, the sound of the party getting louder as they left the confines of the enclosed stairwell for the half wall that was a transition to the foyer.

  They rounded a curve in the staircase and Ronan saw that three guards were conferring in urgent murmurs at the bottom of the stairs, a handful of guests milling around them in the foyer.

  Ronan drew his weapon and lifted it in their direction, waiting until he and Julia were close enough to maintain the element of surprise. “Move,” he shouted. “Now.”