Chapter 23
Alex
I didn’t spendas many hours at my office as much as I used to, but I still had to go from time to time. My staff were giving me strange looks, and they were very carefully not asking what was going on in my personal life. It made me realize that in all my years of running the Dallas office of Tower VC, I hadn’t made any close friends among my employees or my associates. I gave everyone regular raises and generous Christmas bonuses, but I didn’t hang out socially with anyone I worked with.
The businessmen I worked with liked me. You wouldn’t think, on the surface, that Texas entrepreneurs would take to a guy with a prison record and tattoos on his arms, but you’d be wrong. No matter what year it was, in some ways this was still the Wild West, especially if you had money. I’d had plenty of men—and women—come to meetings in which they were negotiating for millions, wearing Wranglers and leather jackets. Some of those people drove Ferraris, and some drove the pickup they’d inherited from their uncle. As long as I didn’t give them what they thought of as phony, stuck-up attitude, they liked me just fine.
Still, even among the entrepreneurs I did deals with, I didn’t have close friends. I could spend a night out on the town with one of them and do shots until midnight, but we’d never talk about anything personal, and afterward we’d never talk again. For friends, I had Aidan, Dane, and Noah, and they were enough for me.
But as close as I was to my partners, I hadn’t told them everything, had I? Like Kat had pointed out, I’d never talked to them about my passion for art, my donations to Dallas galleries, the pieces I’d bought because they spoke to me. Of all of us, I had probably changed the most over the years. Jail changes you—if it doesn’t, you were hopeless in the first place. And when Kat and I imploded shortly after I got out, I didn’t want to be that old, angry Alex anymore. The problem was, I hadn’t figured out who I wanted to be instead.
So I buried myself in work. It hadn’t been overly fulfilling, but it had more or less worked—until now. I’d come to the office to get some essential things done, and I kept getting distracted, thinking about Hawaii. Whether I could convince Kat to let me take her on a trip there.
She’d fight me, of course. But I expected that. Arguing with Kat was my superpower. The question was, could I win?
I might have to tie her up to get her on the plane. Then again, she might like that.
There were raised voices outside my office as my assistant, Michael, said to someone: “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me!”
“Don’t worry,” came the man’s reply. “He’ll want to talk to me, I promise.”
Thoughts of Hawaii vanished from my mind. Thoughts of work disappeared. My brain went blank. I knew that voice.
I knew that voice.
It wasn’t possible I was hearing it right now, after all this time. But I fucking knew it.
I looked up as my office door opened and my brother, Damon, walked into the room.
There wasno other way to put it: He looked like shit.
Most people wouldn’t notice. To anyone who didn’t know Damon, he looked like a good-looking guy, if rough around the edges. His brown hair was cut a little long, curling behind his ears and on the back of his neck. He had scruff on his jaw and he was wearing jeans, a tee, and a dark brown leather jacket. No one else would see him the way I did.
He was thin, much skinnier than he’d been thirteen years ago. His skin was pale beneath the scruff. His cheekbones were like blades. He had muscles and looked lethally strong, but not in a healthy way. He looked like a man who barely eats and works himself to death in a dank gym somewhere, just so he can stay strong enough to beat the shit out of someone if he has to.
And his eyes—his eyes were hard, with shadows beneath them. Women had always fallen for Damon’s eyes, which were hazel and ringed with dark lashes. Even when Damon was being an asshole, he could turn those sweet eyes on any girl and have her melt before she got too angry. But those eyes, right now, were very fucking cold. They said that this was a man you did not want to mess with.
Well, too fucking bad.
“Get out,” I said.
He closed the office door behind him. “I need to talk to you.”
On my desk, my phone rang. It was Michael. “Should I call security?” he asked when I picked up.
“No,” I said, because it wouldn’t be very satisfying to watch security guards haul my brother away. “I’ll kick him out myself.”
I hung up the phone before Michael could say anything else and repeated, “Get out.”
“Do you not fucking listen?” Damon said. “I told you I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
“Nothing you have to say to me could possibly be important,” I said, pushing my chair back and standing. “How did you get all the way to my office, anyway? There’s security downstairs and at the entrance to this floor.”
Damon flashed a grin that had no humor in it. “I have my ways.” He leaned on one hip and looked me up and down. I was in dress pants and a dress shirt, no jacket or tie. My sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, so my ink was visible. “You look like you’ve gone soft, brother,” he said.
“Try me and find out.” If he came at me, I had no problem fighting him. None. He looked like he weighed less than me, but knowing Damon, he’d fight dirty. Whoever was faster and meaner would win. “Where have you been all these years, Damon? From the look of you, I’m going to guess prison.”
For the first time, Damon paused, seemingly surprised. “You haven’t looked me up? I thought a man with your kind of money could keep tabs on anyone he wanted.”
He was so close to the mark, but I tried not to let on. “I could have, but I didn’t really care.”
Saying it caused an ache deep in my chest. I’d wondered so many times over the years whether Damon was dead. I’d told myself each time that I didn’t care. But now that he was standing in front of me, changed but very much alive, I was starting to realize that might not be true.
No. I couldn’t afford to start caring about Damon. He’d just showed up in my life out of the blue, which undoubtedly meant he wanted something from me. Money, maybe, or a favor. I had to remember that Damon hated me and wouldn’t think twice about fucking me over.
“I haven’t been in prison,” Damon said, reaching for one of my chairs and pulling it toward him. He sat down like he was planning to stay a while. “That’s a good guess, but wrong. And unlike you, I’ve been keeping tabs on you. You’ve done pretty well for yourself, Alex. Mom and Dad would be proud.”
That last part was sarcastic. We both knew it. “Then where have you been?” I asked him.
Damon scrubbed a hand through his hair and ignored my question. “I need to talk to you about Kat.”
Fuck. Of course he would say her name. It was his version of a gut punch without his having to lift a finger. I pulled my own chair in and sat slowly, waiting for my red-hot anger to flare up.
Surprisingly, it didn’t. I felt nothing at all. “What about her?”
“I know she’s staying with you,” Damon said. “I know she was attacked in Nashville a few weeks ago. I know the cops are looking for the guy.”
My voice was cold. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“I need to talk to her,” Damon said, ignoring me again. “Her old number has been disconnected and I can’t find a new one.”
It was true—Kat had changed her number, out of caution in case one of the men who was after her could find her phone number. “You had her number?” I asked.
“You’re not following.” Damon snapped his fingers. “I tracked down her last boyfriend and made him give it to me. That guy is a douche, by the way—I have no idea why she dated him. But she’s disconnected the number he gave me, and I can’t find a new one. She isn’t on any social media, except for an Instagram account she used to use for photos and hasn’t posted to in three years. The old boyfriend gave me an email address that bounced. I even looked for her on dating sites because I know she’s single now, but I couldn’t find her. And I sure as hell can’t access her in that fortress of a penthouse you’ve put her in. You’ve told security to lock down tight and not let anyone even call up. I need to talk to her.”
There was so much in this speech that for a minute, I couldn’t answer. Damon was looking for Kat—looking hard. Thirteen years ago, this would have meant that he was trying to sleep with her, but I didn’t think that was the case now. Damon wanted Kat for some other reason.
And he knew too much about her case. Which meant he was most likely involved.
“You don’t need to talk to Kat,” I said, my voice coming out almost a growl. “You’re not getting near her.”
“Look, I get it.” Damon leaned forward in his chair, the light in my office falling on the hard angles of his face. “You were always nuts when it came to Kat, and you have her back now, at least for a while. Until she leaves you and goes back to Nashville. Am I right?”
This was why I’d always hated my brother—he could see through me like glass, and he always used what he knew to cut me to pieces. “I’m keeping her safe,” I said. “My fortress of a penthouse, as you call it, is the best place for her to be. At least until your associates are arrested.”
“My associates?” Damon asked. “Is that what you think? That I’m involved with the men who attacked her? Use your brain, Alex. You’re supposed to be this brilliant businessman. Think again.”
We stared each other down for a long moment. Damon knew about Kat’s attack. He’d tracked down her old boyfriend, gone through all of her details because he had something he needed to tell her. Information he thought was important. If he wasn’t one of the criminals, then?—
“No,” I said. “You’re not a cop, Damon. That’s a lie.”
Damon leaned back in his chair again and ran a hand through his hair, making it messier than before. “Technically, no, I’m not a cop. I’m unemployed right now, and I wasn’t regular police. I worked more at the federal level.”
“The FBI?” I said, incredulous. “You actually expect me to believe that? When I last saw you, you were dealing drugs. And doing them.”
“You last saw me thirteen years ago,” Damon said. “When I last saw you, you were a street rat just like I was. Now you’re a multimillionaire and apparently a big deal. It looks like a lot has changed for both of us. And I was DEA, not FBI, though your guess is close enough.”
Fuck. He had a point. No one who knew me when I was in prison would ever guess I would end up where I was right now. But Damon had always been a liar, and he’d always hated me. I wouldn’t put it past him to make something up, even now.
Drugs. The DEA—if Damon was telling the truth—meant that what Kat had seen had been a drug deal.
“Do you have any DEA ID?” I asked him.
“Not anymore. I just took early retirement.”
“Retirement? You aren’t even forty yet.”
“Yeah, well, things happen.” Something dark flickered behind his eyes, then was gone again. “I mostly worked undercover, so if you set your bulldog of a private dick on me, he won’t find much.”
How the hell did Damon know about Patrick? He might be lying, but then again, he had a lot of information. Including where I lived, which wasn’t public knowledge.
And the Nashville detective had told Kat that the Feds had gotten involved in her case.
And there had been a man at Kat’s old bar, looking for her.
“Was it you at Knoxy’s?” I asked Damon.
“It was,” he replied. “Did that bartender kid call her? Damn it. I was looking for Kat’s new number, and that dumbass had it. I should have got it from him myself.”
I didn’t think the bartender at Knoxy’s had called Kat—I was pretty sure she had been the one to place the call. But I didn’t bother to correct Damon. “He thought you worked for the guys who tried to kill her,” I said. “You don’t look like a DEA agent.”
“You mean, no suit and sunglasses? I told you, I spent my time undercover.”
“If you’re actually telling the truth.”
My brother shook his head. “I get it, Alex. I do. I haven’t earned your trust. What happened all those years ago?—”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” Just the thought about what he’d done—telling me he’d fucked my wife while I was in prison—made the anger start to rise for the first time.
“I was an asshole,” Damon said, because he always had to push me. “I did it because you had what I wanted, and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted you to be as miserable as I was.”
“You succeeded.”
“If it makes any difference, it was one of the lowest things I’ve ever done. So, fine—you still hate me. I get it. But this is about Kat. About the men who tried to kill her. What’s past is past, and I’m trying to help now. Just give me her number.”
“Tell me what your message is, and I’ll pass it to her.”
“No. She was the victim of the attack, not you. What I have to say gets told to her directly.”
He was really starting to piss me off. “Damon, I’m not giving you her number.”
“Fine.” He took a piece of paper from the breast pocket of his leather jacket and put it on the desk between us. “This is my phone number. Pass it to Kat and let her decide for herself.” When I didn’t reach out to take the paper, he added, “If you care about her, Alex, don’t fuck this up again. I’m warning you.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” I said.
He stood up. “You know I’m right.”
“Get out or I’ll kick your lying ass out of here myself.”
My brother gave me one last look, and then he turned and left. Leaving me alone.
I stared silently at the piece of paper on my desk. I hated to admit it, but Damon was right. I couldn’t make this decision for Kat. She had to make it for herself.
But if Damon was lying about being a DEA agent, I had to know.
Would he really lie about that?
Then again, this was Damon. What wouldn’t he lie about?
I scrubbed a hand over my face. It was hard to admit, but in a way, it had been…good to see him. Good to know he was alive, at least. Even though he looked like shit.
Damn it, Damon was one of the two people on Earth who could tie me up in knots like this. The other person was sitting in my penthouse, and she’d be mad as fuck if I didn’t tell her about what had just happened.
I would tell her. But I needed information first.
Leaving the piece of paper where it was, I picked up my phone and called Patrick.