by JL Mac
“Come with me some place,” I whisper not even sure what I’m doing. I’m talking aloud. All I can think of is escaping to somewhere with her. Even if it’s for a day, I’d happily take it. A day to pretend she isn’t her and I’m not me. We can just be us.
“What?” she whispers breathlessly. I grip her hips and lift her, urging her off. She complies and rolls to her back. I settle myself between her thighs and brush errant hairs from her forehead.
“Come with me some place. Get outta Boston a while. Where d’you wanna go most?”
Her eyes dart around in thought and I tease her slit with the tip of myself. “Gimme an answer, baby,” I warn playfully. She smiles that painfully glorious smile that makes my chest ache.
Her face falls as a serious expression takes over the territory of her face. “Can Lan come with us? Can we invite her?” she whispers almost nervously.
Tell her. Tell her you’d take all of Boston along is that’s what she wanted.
“Where do you want to go Ena,” I ask pushing myself into her warmth only partially. She moans through parted lips. I draw back slowly and push partially into her again. Her nails digging into my shoulders urge me forward but I keep her just here.
“Ah, I can’t think like this,” she moans.
“Tell me where, baby,” I demand, biting her bottom lip then dipping my head to the swell of her breasts. I bite and lick and nip. Her hips push upward, needing more.
“Ugh. Carrick, I don’t know. Maybe… maybe Florida…,” she blurts. I freeze looking down at her, a genuine smile on my lips.
“You want to go to the beach?” I help myself to a quick kiss, grinning like a fucking idiot.
“Only real vacation I’ve ever been on,” she shrugs. “We had fun.”
“Fine. We’ll go,” I say before kissing her senseless and giving us both exactly what we need.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ena
Dangerous.
Foolish.
Reckless.
The door to Murphy’s apartment swings open and I stand firmly in place staring at him by the door. Gratitude engulfs me and sends me barreling forward to him. I launch myself at him and hug him tightly with my heart pounding and tears threatening. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” I whisper in his ear. He hugs me back but doesn’t utter a word. He sets me to my feet and I turn to find Beast looking at me with a puzzling calm gaze. We walk further into the place and Beast makes himself right at home. Murphy’s apartment is simple and homey but deceptively plush. He has a master suite, guestroom and an office. There is a large living room that is open to his kitchen where he has a small table situated in an alcove of bay windows that have a view of the water. His kitchen is not gargantuan like Carrick’s, but he has commercial quality appliances and beautiful cabinetry, and artful tile work. His floors are solid wood throughout giving him place a cozy feel. He has an oversized chair and ottoman, in one corner of the living room, close to the fireplace with a matching couch on the other side. There’s a shaggy beige rug in front of the fireplace and an assortment of books and things here and there.
I’m shocked looking around his place. Murph folds his arms over his chest and stares at me walking around his space. He side-eyes Carrick multiple times. He’s leery of me though he now knows the truth and my short leash looped around Beast’s wrist should assure him that I’m no threat to them. In fact, if Murphy ordered that I kiss his feet, I would. He saved my sister right along with Beast and he’s been attending to her since her return.
“How long has she been in there?” I ask pacing around his living room.
“She takes long showers a couple times a day,” Murphy explains, looking out his living room windows with a tense look on his face, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “She always done that?”
My mind wanders back to Mom fussing over Lan’s mop of hair, tangled and unmanageable. She’d scold her for not working conditioner through her hair well enough or long enough while in the shower. Always in a rush to get back to whatever she’d been doing.
“No,” I admit quietly. Murphy nods knowingly and my heart shrinks. It shrinks because I don’t want to think on it much less talk about it but I know what compels a person to take multiple long showers a day. You only do that when the dirty feeling won’t wash away. I pace the floor quicker, anxiety encroaching. “I can’t—I mean maybe I shouldn’t—” Beast stops me, pulling me to him. “I don’t know what to say,” I whimper into his silk tie.
“Then don’t say anything,” he advises simply. I close my eyes and inhale deeply relishing the feel of his hands on me, his fingers brushing a lock of my hair back behind my ear. I nod and do my best to relax. It’s difficult. I’m shaking with nervousness. I say a silent prayer, hoping I’m not dreaming, that this is real—I’m about to be reunited with my sister after all this time.
“I’ll go check on her,” Murphy announces taking meaningful strides down the hall. Beast keeps his hands on me, in my hair, on my face, looking at me while we wait. He’s distracting me.
“Ena.” Her voice is small, and so empty I nearly don’t recognize it. My eyes slip closed and my chest squeezes, belief settling over me like a warm blanket on the coldest night. I’m not dreaming. She’s not dead. She’s here. I turn on shaky legs to face her. I cover the distance from me to her in the blink of an eye and I slam into her, knocking the breath from both of us. It’s my undoing.
I can’t tell who is shaking more, me or her. I sob into her neck, her wet hair. She whimpers and collapses against me. “Lan,” I cry, my voice raspy with emotion. “It’s okay. It’s okay now.” I push her hair back and touch her face, inspecting her. I don’t believe it. She’s home. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have kept you away from it all. I should have known… known—”
“Known what? That Kevin would kidnap and sell me?” she mutters with an edge to her voice.
I jerk back feeling confused. Carrick said she’d been with Russians. I look back at him then to Murphy, then to Lan, whose eyes look empty. “What? What’re you talking about? You were being held by the Russians.”
“Yes,” she says drawing the word out slowly as she nods. “But the Russians aren’t the one’s who took me outside of Eden. Kevin did.”
“Our Kevin?” I splutter jerking back like someone has slapped me. Hard.
“That Kevin,” she amends. “I went to apply for a place on the lineup at Eden, but no one was at the club. I had planned to come back. As I was walking outside the building, Kevin was standing there on his phone. He didn’t see me so I stood there waiting for him to get off the phone so I could say hi,” she swallows hard and looks down at her bare feet.
“Go on,” I prompt her. She looks away and hesitates.
“You called and my phone rang. He turned around and saw me but I had already heard some bad stuff. Enough to know that Kevin is definitely not who we thought he was.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “He owed the Russians money so he sold me and Gianna to cover his debt. He kidnapped Gianna because he knew it would cause all of these guys to fight amongst each other. He picked me up with dumb luck,” she says with a laugh of sorts, a haunted sound I’ve never heard from her. “Think he was hoping everyone at the top would kill one another off and he’d be forgotten about, but I’m not sure. I tried talking to him more but he taped my mouth after a while and he drugged me with something,” she trails off looking to the floor beside me. I watch her absently rub at the crook of her arm where I assume Kevin shot her up with god knows what.
I sway on my feet, the light dimming, blood rushing in my ears, bile coiling in my stomach like a python. This is my fault. I called. My call coming in caught his attention and she paid for it. I stumble backward looking for something solid to lean against. “He—he was the detective on y—your case,” I mutter to myself, holding my head. I lean against a wall, knocking a picture frame to the floor. I brace my palms on my knees and work at breathing evenly. “I worked with him on it!” I
scream, rage building, squashing everything else. “This is my fault,” I whisper breathily. “Where is he?” I growl already knowing that Beast and Murphy must know where Detective Kevin Santini is. I look between both of them wanting an answer that I can already see they will not provide.
“I’ll kill him,” I whisper deadly serious, my eyes locked onto Lan’s once bright blue eyes now dim under the darkness I can only speculate she’s endured.
“Murph, get her a cell phone so these two can talk later,” Carrick demands. Murphy nods wordlessly and I pant feeling like burning the goddamn world down. He pulls me to him, leading me gently but firmly out of the apartment. I glance over my shoulder to Lan but she’s already turned away from me and is focusing on Murphy.
“I don’t want to go anywhere, Carrick. I want to see Kevin. Where is he?”
“He’s on a… vacation.”
“He took off? He ran?” my eyes bulge.
“Ena, I wouldn’t worry about Kevin Santini,” Beast says calmly, his tone in direct contradiction to the grim darkness teeming in his eyes. He drives us back to his place wordlessly reassuring me with his hand on my knee. He ushers me into his penthouse and I feel as though I’m on autopilot. “Look at me,” he orders, nudging my chin with his index finger. “Listen to me. Don’t worry about Teeny. Don’t worry about your sister, not right now. You wanna worry when we get back, then worry, but she’s in good hands. Murph is helping her arrange a plan to reunite with your mother. Until all that’s settled, you and me are going away.”
“She should come with us.”
“I already asked and Murph said she doesn’t want to.”
“Oh,” I say looking at his hand on my knee. “Then I should stay here,” I say shaking my head. Of course she doesn’t want to be near me. I had a hand in her kidnapping.
“You don’t have a choice,” he says leaning in and brushing his lips against mine. It’s a welcome distraction from the turmoil stirring inside my head. Discovering that Lan’s kidnapping was just a result of opportunism and bad luck? My terrible timing calling her? It makes me wonder just how often this sort of misfortune falls upon those around these men. It makes me wonder if I feel in danger at all being around him and his men. He’s a target and likely always will be. I could be a target by default. Lan is proof that just being caught at the wrong time in the wrong place around High Knoll could very well mean death and destruction. Truth is, in my gut I know the only danger I’m in is the very real, distinctly tangible danger of falling further in love with Carrick. The wholly objective part of my brain, the place where a small rational voice resides, guffaws at my disillusionment. I’m not in danger of falling in love with Carrick Ferguson, the ruthless Beast. I’m already there.
And it’s the single most foolish, reckless thing I’ve ever done.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Beast
The magnificent creature on the sand beside me looks divine in that little bikini but the sun is no friend of hers.
“You’re going to fry,” I warn her, tugging her beach blanket, essentially dragging her beneath the umbrella.
“Probably,” she sighs rolling to her side to face me. She’s had a sadness about her since she saw her sister yesterday. Somehow it makes her even more beautiful.
Sick, sadistic fucker.
“You gonna tell me what’s going through that head of yours or do I need to interrogate you a bit?” I smile.
“We didn’t save Lan at all. I don’t know who that person is, but she’s not Lan. She’s not my sister.”
“What’s it gonna take to cheer you up?” I ask redirecting my eyes to follow the line of the horizon in front of me. “Mickey Mouse and his crew are right down the road. Wanna go?” Seeing her unhappy does weird shit to me and fills me with a foreign impulse to make it all vanish just so she’d feel better again.
“Nah. This is great. Mickey is overrated. My dad thought so too,” she snorts.
“Your dad died in the line of duty?”
“He was murdered. Shot in the back of the head. Don’t think he even saw who targeted him,” she huffs. This is obviously something that she’s thought about a lot.
“The investigation hasn’t gone anywhere?” I ask though I already know the investigation has been at a standstill since the day it happened. I remember it. How could I forget? I watched it happen.
“No. Of course knowing what I know about Kevin, now… who knows what’s been botched. Who knows if it was a hit meant for him or… I don’t know,” she says swiping at the sand in frustration.
I could tell her. Sure. I could tell her that Detective Kevin Santini had accrued a substantial gambling debt and had dirtied his hands in the Boston underworld. When his partner discovered as much… well, Kevin had a mess on his hands and information to conceal. I could tell her that the information implicated not only High Knoll but also criminal bookmakers all over Boston. I could tell her that under pressure from all sides, Kevin got a gun—from me—from my arms cache and put a bullet—one of my bullets in the back of her father’s head. I could tell her I’d promised Santini I would plant the gun elsewhere by selling it to a thug that would be convicted for the crime before he even saw the judge. I had assured Santini it would look great. He would make a bust and receive credit for bringing in the man who had shot his partner. He would be hailed as a hero. He did ask what I wanted in return and I explained to him that he was going to be an inside man, occasionally giving me a heads up about police activity. Simple. Teeny being the lowlife piece of shit that he is, took the deal and did the deed. But instead of framing some young unfortunate fuck, I held onto that gun and waved it over Detective Kevin Santini’s head, spurring him to do exactly what I commanded. His prints were on the gun. A single round fired matching the one that ended his partner’s life. Not to mention the debt. I’ve owned Teeny ever since. I could come clean. I could twist the truth to suit my needs. I could remain silent.
I keep my eyes focused on the water and the sun sinking on the horizon, thinking about the web I’ve woven. My cell buzzes from the pocket of my shorts and I fish it out.
Murphy: Got the package you were looking for. It’s banged up but it’s here.
Me: Good.
I replace the phone in my pocket and glance over to Ena. “How’d you end up in foster care?”
“Something you don’t already know?” she smiles, fake gasping. “All I know is what I was told, and that is that my biological mom was a homeless teenager. I have no information on the sperm donor. She gave me up at the hospital. I was placed with Rob Bonner, somehow, and I was there until the day the cops came. Officer Perryman was one of the cops there that day.”
“What happened?”
“Oh. The normal sort of thing that happens in a place like that. Viv was a whore and Rob pimped her out but they were also… an item. It was weird. Anyway, one of her regulars was there doing what they did and his wife showed up. They fought. The John ended up shot. Cops came. I was hiding in the coat closet but I heard the whole thing.” She shrugs like it was no big deal.
“That’s the shit you grew up in,” I state more to myself than anything. Hating to think of how different her life would have been. She likely would have grown up knowing her mom was definitely no homeless teenager who didn’t want her. She probably would have been given the room that became mine when Orin took me in.
“And Rob, he burned you,” I add thinking aloud. I shouldn’t feed the rage welling up inside me but it will serve me well when I get back to Boston and go have a visit with the package Murphy picked up for me. “What else?”
“Oh, c’mon. It’s a buzz kill. We’re enjoying the sunset on a beach in Florida; don’t ruin it with ancient history. We all have screwed up childhoods,” she shrugs.
“Tell me,” I demand. She huffs and drags her finger through the sand first writing her name then random doodles.
“I slept on the floor. I ate whatever crap they left lying around for me but mostly I only ate at school. Viv
pimped me out to the Johns that paid for it,” she says coolly and my mouth goes dry. “They—uh—they did some really messed up things to me, but I was one of the lucky ones. I got out virgin status in tact,” she says nodding at the water.
“Why didn’t you tell someone what was going on?”
“I didn’t have anyone. They told me not to trust teachers because I would be sent to an even worse home. I didn’t have family. I didn’t have friends. I had no one,” she says, shrugging with her eyes lingering on the sea. My throat has seized shut. My heart has stopped and my anger is simmering barely beneath the surface. “Then, all of the sudden, I had this perfectly normal family one day. A mom who was sweet and smart, a dad who was protective and attentive, and even the cutest, annoying little sister. They saved me and while I couldn’t save my dad from what happened to him, I knew I would die trying to save Lan if that’s what it took,” she says finally looking to me. And I am rendered speechless by this brave, amazing, stubborn, one hundred percent McCrae of High Knoll woman that I am in love with…
In love.
“I’m sorry Ena,” I reach for her face and pour out my apology making sure to say with as much sincerity as I can. “I’m so sorry.” And I am. I’m sorry I had anything to do with her dad’s murder. I’m sorry she wasn’t raised as a McCrae in her rightful home. I’m sorry I almost fucking killed her. I’m sorry I have insulted and debased her. I am sorry I fell in love with her and I’m ultimately sorry that the worst is yet to come.