Damage Control

by Lisa Renee Jones

  My hand presses against Emily’s back, intending to urge her forward, when I hear my father’s voice again. “Son.” I stop but I do not turn and he adds, “Come by the house Sunday night. Derek’s coming. It’s time we finish that chess game once and for all.”

  The air shifts and I know he is gone, leaving those words hanging in the air as the taunt they are meant to be. Every family get-together, my brother and I continue a game that has stretched years, and my father is telling me it has to end soon, and one of us has to be the winner, or the board will go to a sudden death vote for control. And my father is the king manipulating the tournament that I hope like hell doesn’t involve Emily. She’s either in trouble or she is trouble, and somehow, this night isn’t going to end without me finding out which one.

  I could start walking again, but I don’t. I wait and I do it for a reason. Emily wanted to leave. Let her go. I will find her. I will find her secrets.

  “I’m staying,” she says, linking her arm with mine.

  A few minutes ago, I’d have asked her why, but now it doesn’t matter. Now, my father has reminded me that anything, any answer, can be a form of manipulation. The only thing that counts from this point forward is the truth I need from Emily, no matter how I get it. Even if it means that I revert to my original inclination, take her back upstairs, tie her to the bed, and fuck her until I get my answers.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHANE

  I turn Emily and me around the corner and into the lobby, down the white-tiled path leading to Edge, the hotel restaurant. I don’t speak. Emily doesn’t speak. There is just her hand on my arm and the long row of tables to our left with cushioned chairs around them, busy with patrons. Those things and the damning silence. I don’t fill that space with words, and neither does she, but then, unless her staying has come with a change of agenda, she still won’t tell me what I want to know. My father isn’t all that different. He won’t tell me anything but he alludes and plays. He is the ultimate player playing the players, and will be all the way to his impending deathbed. And fuck me a hundred times over, I care that he is dying, despite all of these things. Like Emily makes me want to trust her when I have a family that has taught me not to trust.

  I lead us left again, directly into the interior of the dimly lit bar, couches and tables framing our path, red drop lights dangling above them. My father’s visit weighs on me as heavily as Emily’s secrets. He’s going to die, but most likely he’ll end up bedridden first, and instead of letting us be a normal family that spends quality time together, and makes amends for past sins, my father is pushing me to take part in his.

  We reach the rectangular glass and leather bar to my left, passing a row of stools, while Frank, one of Edge’s managers, a stout muscle-head who I hit the weights with every once in a while, lifts a hand. I give him a nod, and we’re finally at the entry to the dining room when Emily suddenly lets go of my arm.

  I turn to face her and she says, “Shane…” She seems to want to say something more, but changes her mind, motioning toward the arched entryway to a bank of bathrooms. “I’ll be right back.” She doesn’t wait for a reply, turning and rushing away, but not before I see the look of helplessness on her face that reaches inside me and touches the part of my soul that only she has visited. She’s running scared and not from me, and while I can’t afford to be stupid, the idea that she might be in danger is a hard blast of reality. I’ve known she had secrets she wasn’t ready to share, but yet I just attacked her for that very thing. Had I asked questions instead, had I given her the chance to explain, maybe she wouldn’t have withdrawn. She was right. I’ve let my family dictate my response to tonight’s bombshell, when this woman is the only good thing in my life right now. I can’t be wrong about that or her.

  I reach in my pocket and at the same time flag down Rita, the twenty-something redheaded waitress who I, and every regular, know well. “Hey there, Shane,” she says. “What’s hot tonight? You or your father?”

  I ignore what I know from our past exchanges is a joke about my father and his mistress. “Don’t let anyone into the ladies’ room for a few minutes,” I instruct, palming her a hundred dollar bill.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Kidding isn’t my thing,” I say, already heading toward the bathroom, and I don’t stop until I’m pushing open the door to the ladies’ room and stepping inside.

  “Shane,” Emily gasps, as I enter and find her standing in an enclave with a sitting area and mirror.

  I’m in front of her in an instant, pressing her against the wall, my legs framing hers. “Are we alone?”

  “Damn it, Shane,” she says pressing on my chest. “What are you doing?”

  “Are we alone?”

  “Yes but that could change any minute. You can’t keep coming into women’s bathrooms.”

  “I paid someone to ensure our privacy,” I say, my hands bracketing her waist. “Why did you stay?”

  “Why does it matter?” she repeats. “I’m here.”

  “It matters. I told myself it didn’t, but it does. Why did you stay?”

  “Shane—”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Because your father gets to you like few others, and if you somehow connect us, even emotionally, you will come at me hard and fast. And you will not stop until it ends in trouble for one or both of us.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The kind you need to be able to deny.” She balls her fists around my shirt. “Plausible deniability, Shane. I need you to let me go. Don’t follow me. Don’t do Internet searches on me. Already Seth could have gotten me attention I can’t afford.”

  There is desperation in her, real fear that I do not believe could be about my family, and if it is, she is not operating of her own free will, and someone is going to pay. “Sweetheart,” I say, softly covering her hands with mine. “You’re safe. You’re with me. You have to know that.”

  “Seth dug around in my background, Shane. I’m not safe here anymore and you won’t be either, if I stay.”

  “Seth is an expert at being invisible. He didn’t expose you and he can help you stay invisible.”

  “He thinks he’s an expert. You don’t know—” She stops herself. “And you can’t.”

  “The biggest problem you have is not me or Seth. Whoever set up your fake identity left huge, gaping holes. Anyone with a keen eye can find that out and we can fix that.”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “No, that can’t be right. That’s impossible.”

  “It’s how we knew you aren’t who you claim you are,” I say, wondering whom she trusted this completely, but I don’t push for that answer. I’m not going to push for any answers until I get her alone, where I now know I should have kept her. “It’s how someone else will figure it out too. Let’s go back upstairs and I’ll show you.”

  “No. No, because you think if you get me back upstairs, I’ll tell you everything, and I won’t.”

  “Whoever you trusted to protect you isn’t protecting you,” I say. “Let me help you.”

  “I don’t need you to be my hero.”

  “Well, I’m going to be, whether you like it or not.”

  A knock sounds on the door and I curse at the poorly timed interruption, before we hear, “There’s a line for the bathroom, Shane.” I grimace and call out, “One more minute,” and refocus on Emily. “Whatever this is, we’ll find a way out of it.”

  “I need you to—”

  “Let you go? Sweetheart, you matter way too much to me for me to let that happen. That’s why thinking you betrayed me gutted me. I’m not letting you go. Not a chance in hell.”

  “You can’t afford to take a chance on me, Shane. You can’t afford the risk that I represent, that you don’t even understand.”

  I cup her face. “I’m taking care of you. End of conversation.” I kiss her, a deep, gentle stroke of my tongue that I follow with another, and another, and then another, until she moans, her hand fl
attening on my chest, the other at my hip. And I can taste her fear, her guilt, but more so, I can taste her submission, not to me, but to us. To a bond neither of us expected or looked for, but it happened, and while it’s indefinable, it is also undeniable.

  Another knock sounds on the door, and a loud, “Shane, damn it!” as I tear my mouth from Emily’s, stroking my thumb over her lip. “Whoever made you this afraid is going to be sorry,” I vow, but I don’t give her time to reply, caressing her hair behind her ear. “I don’t want to embarrass you. Hide out in one of the stalls so you won’t be embarrassed when the doors explode with women. I’ll be outside waiting on you.”

  I start to move away and she grabs my arm. “Shane,” she whispers. “You don’t understand what you’re dealing with.”

  I reach around her, cupping her backside and pulling her to me. “I’ve got you,” I say, and her hand settles on my cheek.

  “But who has you, Shane? That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “You. More than you know.” I kiss her, hard and fast this time, and then I walk away, opening the door and exiting the bathroom, really fucking pissed at myself for making this about me and my family, not her. Entering the hallway, I’m greeted with several glowering women and Rita, who pulls me to the archway and out of the path of the door.

  “You now owe me,” she hisses. “My boss was furious.”

  “He’s my friend,” I say. “I’ll talk to him.” I reach into my pocket and hand her an extra hundred. “A bonus.”

  She glances down at it and her eyes go wide, her glower fading to satisfaction. “I’ll guard the door any time you like,” she says, her lips curving. “But I’d rather be the woman that made you go in the ladies’ room.” She laughs, rushing away, while Seth steps in front of me in her place, and considering his tie is missing and his short blond hair looks in disarray, this can’t be good.

  “What’s her story?”

  “It’s not about me or the company,” I say. “For now, that’s all I’m prepared to share.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I am,” I say.

  “Well then, moving on to another problem. We need to talk about allegations made by your plastic surgeon pal.”

  He means Eric’s patient’s claim that our pharmaceutical brand is being used to package illegal drugs, and I have a good idea where this is headed, though the timing of the conversation is curious. “If you’re telling me you want me to ask him for the patient’s name—”

  “I don’t need a name. Eric said the patient was the estranged wife of a professional athlete and while he has numerous sports connections, only one patient fits that description exactly.”

  I should have known he’d already have the answer. “Who is it?”

  “Do you know Brody Matthews?”

  “Pro pitcher from Denver,” I say. “Everyone in this city knows him and I’ve met the guy. I don’t know where this is going, but I read people and I like this guy. He’s another Eric. He walks a straight line and he doesn’t cross it.”

  “Yeah well, this straight arrow suffered several injuries this past year, punched a fan tonight at a game, and is married to one of your pal Eric’s patients. And I found this in his nightstand.” Seth produces his phone from his pocket, and shows me a photo of a medicine bottle with our label on it, the drug name Ridel. The same one we’ve suspected is being used by my brother and the Martina cartel to run Sub-Zero through our facilities.

  I hand Seth back his phone. “How the fuck did you get that?”

  “What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”

  “Now you sound like Emily.”

  He arches a brow. “For some reason, I thought you indicated she was giving you answers?”

  “She’s in trouble and she doesn’t want to drag me into it.”

  “That gets my vote.”

  “Yes, because leaving someone I care about to crash and burn on her own is who I am,” I say, that remark of Emily’s about being selfish still weighing on me. I have a brother in bed with a drug cartel. How safe am I really keeping her?

  “Easy, man,” Seth says. “I didn’t realize this was as serious as it clearly is.”

  “Back to the pill bottle,” I snap, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

  He settles his hands on his hips under his jacket. “Unfortunately it was empty, but I have the bottle. Nick can get it tested for residue.”

  Nick being his ex-FBI buddy whose private security team I now employ. “I’m going to call Brody and invite him to dinner on the pretense of corporate sponsorship,” I say. “If I can sit down with him, I can evaluate where his head is right now. Maybe I can even get him to talk.”

  “Brody isn’t our problem,” Seth says, “at least not immediately. It’s his wife. She’s running her mouth and getting noticed. It’s only so long before the FBI gets word of her claims and the Martina cartel as well. And for her, that could be lethal.”

  “She wants money,” I say. “Give it to her. In payments with a confidentiality agreement that ensures she won’t hold us captive for more.”

  “As in how much?”

  “Start low and cap it at three hundred and fifty thousand, but you handle it. Not Nick or one of his people. I trust you. Not them.”

  “Understood,” he says. “I’m actually meeting Nick here at the hotel to hand over the medicine bottle in fifteen minutes and then heading home, but we have people watching the hotel and her apartment.” He eyes the bathroom area as an elderly woman exits the hallway. “Unless you need me to stay?”

  “Go. I’ve got Emily handled.”

  He studies me for several beats, as if he wants to ask the questions about Emily that I can’t answer, then inclines his chin and starts walking. My gaze goes to the bathroom, which Emily has yet to exit. Something feels off. I walk toward the bathroom and I’m at the archway, fully prepared to enter the bathroom again, when Rita catches my arm. “No,” she snaps. “You are not going back in there no matter how much you pay me.”

  “Go inside and find Emily for me. Petite. Long brown hair. Blue eyes and she’s wearing a navy skirt and blouse.”

  She glowers, but sighs and heads in that direction. I follow her to the door and wait, ready to just walk in myself. She has ten seconds and then I’m going in. One. Two. Three. Four. The door opens. “There’s no one in here.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  “Wow,” she says. “Shane Brandon’s been blown off.”

  I ignore her, already walking toward the lobby, my phone in my hand and Seth’s auto-dial punched in. “Emily slipped past us. Tell me someone is following her.”

  “She hasn’t come out the front door. I’m calling my men.”

  “Meet me at the front door.”

  EMILY

  Still reeling from Shane’s confrontation, which I’d foolishly convinced myself would never happen, I round the corner to enter the lobby now bustling with people, leaving Shane, along with a piece of my heart, behind in the bar. White tiles line my path to the front exit of the hotel Shane calls home, that I dared to believe I might be able to with him. But this is no yellow brick road, with an emerald palace waiting on me, and it never was. I should have left a long time ago, before I got this close to Shane, before someone like Seth thought I could be a problem. I can’t believe a kiss and a promise from Shane almost made me forget how unfair the burden of my confessions would be to him. And how dangerous. Even knowing this, standing there in that bathroom, he’d made me believe he could take on every monster in my closet and win. To exit the bathroom and find him absorbed in an intense conversation with Seth had thrown much-needed water in my face. I don’t have one monster to defeat. I have many, some of which are not just powerful, they’re capable of destroying him, which means if I lead them to him, I’m the one destroying him.

  I can’t do that. I won’t do that.

  The sudden urge to turn and look behind me comes with the prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck and a
sense of being followed or watched. It’s all I can do not to at least peek over my shoulder, or quicken my pace, both of which will draw attention to me, which I can’t afford. If Shane or someone else is pursuing me, nothing changes. I’m getting in a cab, even if it means making a scene. How I’ll escape from there, I’ll figure out later. I’m about to pass the hallway leading to the elevator bank, and my plan changes. It’s a dangerous decision, and a good way to get trapped, but I cut right and down the hall, hoping for a true escape. All I need to do is get outside, and lost in the many nooks and crannies of downtown Denver. It’s not a good plan, but it’s my only option.

  Reaching the cars, I punch the call button and hug myself, nervously watching for Shane or Seth or who knows who else to round that corner. Almost instantly, the doors to one of the two elevators open and I rush inside, facing the panel, about to punch the garage level, when a realization hits me: There’s a camera in the elevator. My mind racing for yet another plan, I punch in the gym level, and hope that it will appear I am hiding there, which could buy me much needed time. Hugging myself again, I wait to be sealed inside, collapsing against the wall when no one stops my departure. Then I watch each floor tick by.

  Finally, the doors open again, and I hold my breath, half expecting to be greeted on the other side, relieved when there is nothing but empty space. Exiting into the deserted hallway, and following the signs leading me to the gym, I spy the stairwell I feel certain won’t have a camera. I could go into the gym and maybe get a change of clothes, but that seems like time I can’t afford. Change of clothes. A daring idea hits me and I head for the stairwell. Even if the hallway is recorded, they’ll expect me to go to the garage. I’m going where they won’t expect me to go, and where I can change clothes. Shane’s apartment.

  Entering the narrow corridor, I seal myself inside, leaning against the door, nerves jumping around in my belly at the craziness I’m about to undertake, but I see no other option. Glancing toward the lower levels to confirm I’m alone, and then upward to do the same, I find the empty space quiet and empty, a taunt telling me this is what awaits me after my escape.