Chapter 19
S lade’s phone buzzed as he sat in his office at the club. It was early evening and Club Slade wouldn’t open for a couple of hours yet. He had a to-do list a mile long. Including interviews with prospective new members.
But he couldn’t give a shit about any of that.
His entire fucking empire could crumble.
He. Didn’t. Care.
All he cared about right now was the fact that Indie was lying in pain in a fucking hospital bed.
Because of fucking Billy Moray.
He was going to kill him. Picking up the glass in front of him, he swallowed the last of his Scotch. As he set it carefully down, he was aware of the office door opening and Quaid stepping in.
The man moved so silently he could have worked as an assassin.
“Not going to throw that?” Quaid asked dryly.
Asshole.
“I’m cutting down.”
Quaid took a seat across from him. He always looked unruffled. As usual, his shirt and pants were neatly pressed. Not a wrinkle in sight. And not one hair out of place.
Unlike Slade, who probably looked like he’d been run over by a steamroller. His shirt was heavily creased and he’d been running his fingers through his hair since he’d left the hospital.
He’d wanted to stay.
He wanted to go back.
But of all of them, Spencer was the most likely to get through to her. To help ease their way to regaining her trust.
Well, him or Rock.
But Rock was acting weird and hadn’t wanted to stay when they’d had a brief, rushed conversation outside Indie’s hospital room.
Under any other circumstances, he’d be worried about his friend and trying to understand what was going on. However, he knew Rock was probably just attempting to come to terms with what he’d done to Indie.
What they’d all done to Indie.
“Billy needs to die,” Slade said through clenched teeth.
Quaid didn’t protest. Spencer would have. Although maybe not when it came to Indie.
His oldest friend nodded.
He and Quaid had been best friends since they’d met in kindergarten. In a lot of ways they were opposites.
Slade could be a hothead. He lost his temper quickly and fiercely. But he also loved with that same ferocity.
That was why he’d taken Indie’s betrayal so badly.
Well, her supposed betrayal.
Because for years she’d been his. He’d have done anything for her.
“I know,” Quaid replied. Quaid tended to be cold and calculating. He always thought first before reacting.
People didn’t gravitate toward him like they did to Slade.
They usually took one look at Quaid and ran the other way.
But not Indie .
“I can’t believe he fucking beat her. He’s been abusing her, Quaid,” he said in a broken voice.
“Our girl. He was abusing our girl. And we kicked her out like she was nothing. Like she was scum. What if Maggie hadn’t helped her?
What if she’d ended up on the street? Can you imagine what could have happened? ”
Quaid’s jaw tensed. “You don’t need to tell me. I have thought of little else but Indie and how she got all of those bruises.”
“And she’s pregnant.”
His girl was pregnant.
Quaid tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, clearly in thought. “What do you want me to do?”
Slade ran his hand over his face. “I want him found and I want him to pay. And from now on, anyone she comes into contact with, anyone she wants to be friends with, they all get thoroughly checked.”
“I’ll get Shepherd onto tracking him.”
Shepherd was a genius with a computer. When he was younger, Scotland Yard had turned up at their boarding school and dragged him away to interview him because he’d nearly gotten past all of security and into their databases.
“Good,” Slade said. “I’ve messaged Liliana and she’ll come in tomorrow to set up Indie’s room.”
Liliana was their cleaner.
“I’m not sure how long she’ll have to rest and recuperate. But it could be a while, especially since she’s pregnant.”
That fact was still taking a while to sink in. She was pregnant.
With fucking Billy’s baby.
He didn’t like that.
Oh, he would never reject the baby or treat them like anything but his own. But having a baby should be a special time. She should be treated like the princess that Spencer called her.
Slade had wanted her for years. But he’d been waiting. Biding his time. First, for her to finish college, then for them to amass their own wealth separate from their families.
And then for her to leave fucking Billy .
At least his father was getting a divorce from her mother. That removed one issue. Well, sort of. Plenty of people would still think it was weird and wrong.
Forbidden.
But he knew that their biggest objection would be to the fact that he intended to share her with his three best friends.
Not that he gave a fuck what anyone thought of his plans.
Indie was going to be theirs.
“Are you planning on keeping her?” Quaid asked.
Slade stared at him across the desk. “Are you saying you don’t want to?”
Because he knew that would be a lie. Quaid was just as taken with her as the rest of them.
“That’s not what I’m saying. But things are different?—”
“Because she’s pregnant? That baby will be ours too.”
“Not because of the baby. The baby is ours no matter what.” Quaid glared at him, clearly offended. That was the most emotion he’d seen from the other man since they’d kicked Indie out of the penthouse.
“Because we betrayed her. We hurt her. There might be no coming back from that. There might be no way she will forgive us.”
There had to be.
He wouldn’t accept anything else.
“She will forgive us,” Slade told him.
Quaid raised his eyebrow. “You’re going to force her?”
“I won’t need to. She has a soft heart. Once we’ve had her in our home for a while, taking care of her, meeting her needs, she’ll forgive and want us.”
“And if she doesn’t agree to staying with us?”
Slade gaped at his friend. “Do you really think I plan on giving her a choice?”
“So you’d kidnap her? Do you think that’s wise?”
Who was this Quaid? The other man always went after what he wanted. And he didn’t let things like the law get in the way.
“You think we should give her a choice? Really?” Slade asked, leaning forward. “You think we should let her go? Leave her on her own? Where he might fucking find her and hurt her again? That we shouldn’t take care of and protect her?”
The questions fired out of him one after the other. He couldn’t believe that Quaid wasn’t a hundred percent behind the kidnap-and-keep-her-until-she-forgave-them plan. Out of all of them, he’d thought Quaid would be onboard from the beginning.
“We wronged her, Slade. I wronged her.”
“You’re growing a conscience now?” Slade shook his head. “Fucking why?”
“You’ve always been telling me I need to get some empathy.”
“That doesn’t sound like me,” Slade said.
“Fine, maybe it’s Spencer. Anyway, I’m growing a conscience.”
“No, you’re not,” Slade said.
Quaid glared at him.
Slade waved a hand through the air. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”
“Are you wanting to die today?” Quaid asked through clenched teeth.
Slade leaned forward. He knew that he should probably be more delicate. Mind his words. But he didn’t have time for this.
He needed everyone onboard with his plan. Or their girl was going to slip through their fingers.
He wasn’t losing her again.
“You’ve always had a conscience. Not much, but unlike your soulless father, you do know right from wrong. And you do feel empathy for others.”
“I am just like my father,” Quaid stated.
“You are nothing like your father. Do you intend to torture your kids until they learn to show no emotion? Do you plan on making a bunch of senseless rules and punishing them severely if they break them? If Indie’s baby is a girl are you going to sell her to the highest fucking bidder?”
“You know I fucking wouldn’t!” Quaid roared, standing up to slam his hands on the desk .
Slade stared at him in surprise. Although he’d be lying if he said that this wasn’t what he’d been pushing for.
Quaid thought all of his emotions, especially the softer ones, had been drummed out of him. But they hadn’t. They were there, just buried beneath layers of barbed wire and minefields.
Slade hoped like hell that Indie was going to be able to help Quaid. Help all of them.
She was the only person Quaid ever trusted outside the three of them. Which is why he’d reacted so badly to her supposed betrayal.
And likely why he felt so awful now.
Which was something he wasn’t used to. Slade got it. Quaid didn’t want to feel guilty, so he thought eradicating the source of that guilt from his life would take it away.
It wouldn’t.
It would only make it worse.
“Pushing her away won’t make you feel better,” Slade told him as the door opened and Rock moved into the room.
The other man stood silently in front of the door, as though guarding it.
Always their guard.
He was another issue. Rock seemed to think he was going to come second place in this relationship. Always the guard first then their friend.
Fuck. How did he help them both? Spencer was better at this sort of thing.
But Slade was the leader. So he had to do what he could to keep them all together. This stuff with Indie was tearing them apart and that couldn’t happen.
“She’s meant to be ours and you both know it,” Slade told them. “We wronged her, so we make it up to her. We treat her like she’s fucking precious and fragile.”
“Which she is,” Quaid said. “Too fucking fragile for us. And you’re talking around in circles. Either I have a conscience and don’t want to hurt her further by saddling her with me. Or I don’t have one and don’t care what you plan to do. ”
God, he wished he could kill Quaid’s father.
Slowly and painfully.
“I know that your father spent years trying to turn you into an emotionless, obedient fucking tool for him to use. And that might be the facade you present to the rest of the world. But we all know that’s not true. And so does Indie.”
Quaid stared at him for a long moment, then back to Rock who wasn’t looking at either of them. Instead, he was frowning at the wall.
“I think that you are right,” Quaid said.