Keep Him Like Secrets

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

Soren

“Shit,” I hissed as I saw the name on my phone screen.

He was the last person I wanted to think about.

Especially after seeing dread on Saff’s face as Teresa moved into the elevator with her; then the smug satisfaction on Teresa’s face as she came back a few moments later.

It didn’t take a genius to know that something had gone down there.

The last thing I needed was tension between the two women in my life.

One, because I wasn’t sure my business could function without Teresa. And two, because Saff was finally starting to keep her walls down around me.

I was getting to see the fun and silly sides of her—once walking out of the building in the morning after she’d left to find her a half-a-block away baby-talking the pigeons sitting on the back of a bench, or dancing around my kitchen to some horrible aughts pop hit, not even stopping when she saw me watching her.

I wanted more of that.

I wanted everything she had to offer.

I didn’t even care anymore about the obvious lies, the secrets she was keeping for reasons I didn’t begin to understand.

I just wanted her. Point blank, period.

Sucking in a deep breath, I swiped the screen.

“Alen,” I said, wincing at the annoyance in my own voice. “I’m surprised to hear from you.”

Since, you know, he was supposed to still be in prison.

“Clearly,” I said, forcing some lightness into my tone.

I might have been sick of him, but I also couldn’t afford to be openly hostile toward him.

“I’m checking out this new club of yours,” he said, making my blood run cold.

He was always going to find out, of course.

But he was supposed to be behind bars for the next decade. Leaving me free to do whatever the hell I needed to do to keep expanding my business empire.

Not even he could fault me for that.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “We haven’t released the press briefing yet.”

“And yet, here it is. I like the marble floors.”

Oh, fuck.

He was literally checking out the club.

I was rushing out the door before I could talk myself out of it.

There were security cameras at the club, for fuck’s sake. Ones that Saff had installed, so I assumed she had access to. And if she saw some strange guy walking around, she was going to call the cops.

That was the last thing in the world I needed.

“You gonna be there for a bit?” I asked, ignoring Teresa as I flew into the elevator, jabbing the close door button as my heartbeat tripped into overdrive.

“Still got some looking around to do,” he said.

“Want some company?”

He had no choice.

I ran down the block, locating Calvin where he was parked, windows twitching in their frames from his music.

I pressed the phone to my chest to slam my hand into the door, making Calvin jump and turn off the music.

“Brooklyn. And do me a favor and don’t talk for a bit,” I said, getting a nod out of him.

His whole posture changed, tightened, likely picking up on my tension.

“Yeah, I think we have some catching up to do. It’s been a while.”

I didn’t like something I heard in his tone.

But I tamped down the churning sensation in my stomach that I knew as fear and forced my voice to be calm and light.

“Yeah, man. I’m on my way. It’s a bit of a haul from my office. So it’ll be about a half an hour or so.”

“I’ve got nothing but time now,” Alen said.

There was a shuffling sound, followed by a muffled ‘nuh uh uh,’ like he’d pressed the phone to his chest to not be heard.

What was he doing?

Was I walking into some sort of trap?

I wouldn’t put it past Alen to get violent. I mean, he had that reputation. But he’d never laid a hand on me.

Still, there was a first time for everything.

And this current Alen wasn’t the same friend of mine who’d given me a way off the streets, who’d helped me slowly become the man I was today.

True, his ‘help’ had never been free.

But up until this point, it had never been violent.

That said, he’d been unraveling for years.

There’d been a time when his arrest would have gutted me.

All I felt when it had happened, though, was relief.

It was all finally over.

Until his name was on my screen.

I should have known better than to celebrate too early.

Alen Hakobyan was like nonstick cookware. Toxic as fuck. And so slippery that nothing ever stuck to him. Especially not charges. He had one of the best criminal attorneys around.

I would know.

It was my money that paid for her.

“Good then. I’m on my way. Wouldn’t you rather meet somewhere else? Somewhere we could get some food or a drink?”

Anywhere but at the club where Saff might see him and call the cops. Or, worse yet, investigate herself.

My stomach twisted hard at that thought.

I never wanted her to know about Alen. Not any more than I’d already told her about the friend who gave me a place to stay and a leg up.

The Alen that I had known when I was young.

Not this one.

“No, I think this is the perfect place for the conversation,” he said, his tone cold. It made a sliver of ice slip into my bloodstream.

“Alright, man. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“Good,” Alen said, and there were more shuffling sounds in the background. What was he doing? Moving shit around? “Because I’m trying to play nice right now.”

“Play nice?” I repeated, confused.

“Yeah, with Blue here. But she’s a feisty one. I might not be so nice for too much longer.”

I felt like the world fell out from underneath me.

Like I’d been sucked into some void.

Saff.

He had Saff.

My stomach churned so hard I was sure I was going to be sick.

I pressed the phone to my chest.

“Calvin. Fuck the red lights and speed limits,” I said, watching his eyes find mine in the rearview. There was an intensity I’d never seen there before, like he understood perfectly well that the shit had just hit the fan.

He nodded and wove into the next lane to a chorus of horns.

He had Saff .

“Alen, what are you doing?” I asked, surprised any sound could come out considering the way it felt like my throat was closing up.

“Trying to catch up with an old friend. Even if he is trying to fuck me over.” The tail end of that had his voice going tight and his breath coming out faster. Like—and my heart crushed at the thought—he was jerking Saff around.

“With her. What are you doing with her?”

“Nothing yet. But who knows?”

If you’d asked me early on in our friendship if I thought Alen was capable of hurting an innocent woman, I would have sworn up and down that he wasn’t capable.

Though, looking back, maybe that was just naivety.

Alen always had a dark side.

But he was pitch black these days.

And now he had Saff.

Fiery-tempered, stubborn, guarded, sweet, soft, perfect, tiny Saff.

In the hands of a fucking madman.

“Alen…”

“Drive fast, Sore. I think we both know I have no patience.”

With that, he hung up, leaving me tossing my phone to the floor with a harsh, “ Fuck! ”

Calvin said nothing, just floored it through a light as it turned red.

“Get me there in under twenty, Cal,” I said, heart hammering in my chest.

I could call the cops.

They could be there in five, maybe ten, depending on if they took me seriously or not.

But calling the cops would mean it would all come out; it could all come crashing down.

“I’ll do it in fifteen,” Calvin assured me. “Though you might wanna buckle up.”

As if to drive home his point, the car whipped into a turn that sent me flying across the backseat.

My gaze cut to Calvin, impressed despite the seriousness of the situation.

If my entire life didn’t blow up before the end of the day, I owed him a raise.

Not only for his driving but for his willingness not to ask questions, despite how serious the conversation must have sounded to him.

My gaze stayed glued to the clock on the dash as Calvin kept speeding through stop signs and weaving in and out of traffic.

Five minutes.

If Saff wasn’t fighting too badly, he wouldn’t hurt her. Not that fast.

But who was I kidding?

This was Saff.

She would struggle.

Ten minutes.

I felt like every inch of me was buzzing, like I was going to fucking shake apart from panic.

“Five blocks,” Calvin said as he flew down Brooklyn, making people on the sidewalk turn and shake their heads.

“Wait,” he called as he slowed out front of the nightclub.

“I can’t.”

But before I could even step onto the sidewalk, he was there in front of me, reaching under his suit jacket into the holster under his arm. Then handing me a gun.

“It’s clean,” he said, chin lifting. “Do what you gotta do. Know me some ways to… clean shit up if it gets messy.”

I had, apparently, grossly underestimated my driver.

But there would be time to think about that later.

Right then, I had to get to Saff.

I took the gun, carefully tucking it into my waistband.

“You need me?”

“No. No, stay out here. If Saff comes out, get her the hell out of here.”

He gave me a nod and I turned to walk into the building.

I felt the blood rushing through my veins, whooshing in my ears, as I pulled the front door open then stepped inside.

I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to slow my pace as I moved forward, knowing I needed to de-escalate this situation if at all possible.

My eyes adjusted to the low light inside.

Then I saw him.

Them.

They were both on the stage.

Saff was beside Alen, her hands duct taped behind her. Another strip was slapped over her mouth.

Alen’s meaty palm was wrapped so tightly around her arm that there was no doubt there would be bruises when all this was over.

Despite that, she was staring fucking daggers at Alen.

That’s my girl .

My gaze moved over her, taking in the bruise on her cheek, the dried blood under her nose.

My blood turned to battery acid.

“I was just telling your friend here that if you didn’t show up in another minute or two, she and I were going to have some fun.”

Alen looked nothing like the guy I’d once known.

He’d once been a tall, fit, gym-rat sort of guy with no neck and a round face. But bad habits had dissolved all that muscle.

Still, he was a bulky guy.

Even without all his old strength, he could easily overpower someone as small as Saff.

“Why don’t you take that tape off her, so she can go?” I said, moving closer.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

“Why not? She has nothing to do with us.”

“See? I think you’re lying,” Alen said, his hazel eyes narrowing at me. “See, she had a key to the front door…”

“Lots of people have a key to the front door. We have a lot of people working here now.”

“No, we don’t, do we ?”

“Look, Alen, I get you being a little confused—”

“Oh, no, no, no. I’m not confused. I’m pissed.”

“Okay. Pissed. I can see that. But you have to understand—”

“That the so-called friend who has everything he has in life because of me decided to fuck me over on his new deal? No, Sore. I don’t think I will understand that.”

“You were going to prison,” I reminded him.

“Clearly not.” He waved a hand down at his body.

“I thought you were going to prison. Was I supposed to put my life and business on hold for a decade?”

“You definitely shouldn’t have cut me out, acted like I’m not the man to put you where you are.”

I could feel Saff’s gaze on me. I knew I would see a million questions there. I couldn’t bring myself to look, to face the confusion, anger, and betrayal.

Besides, something told me it wasn’t smart to take my eyes off of Alen.

“I couldn’t cut you in when you were behind bars, Al. You know that.”

“You fucked me over. You’ve been fucking me over for years,” he snarled, yanking Saff’s arm hard.

Unprepared for the movement, she stumbled over her own feet, sending her falling down to her knees.

My heart dropped at the thud as she landed.

My gaze was on her as her eyes flicked up.

I’d seen her fire before.

But this was something brighter, hotter, more lethal.

If I hadn’t been watching her so closely, I might have missed it.

Her arms yanked out from behind her back, no longer bound, then her one hand came whipping across her body.

The small bit of light in the club caught on something metal in her hand just a second before she stabbed it into the hand that was still holding her arm.

Alen’s roar filled the room, but Saff was unaffected as she whirled out of his reach, then jumped off the stage and ran toward me.

I braced, sure she was about to slap—or stab—me.

And, hell, I’d have deserved it.

But her hand shot out, reaching under my shirt, and grabbing the damn gun out of my waistband.

I wasn’t even sure how she could have known it was there.

She slid off the safety then raised the gun with one hand while reaching to yank the tape off her mouth with the other.

“Seems like we have a lot to talk about,” she said, giving me a hard look before rushing back toward the stage as Alen clutched his hand to his chest, the blood soaking through his shirt.

“You have no idea how badly you just fucked up,” she said, kicking him so hard behind the knee that despite his size advantage, he went down on his knee.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the swiftness of her action, how confident she’d been with the knife and now the gun.

But then the damn door burst open.

And several men rushed inside.

“Saff!” a voice called.

“Right here, Renz,” she called back.

“You alright?” another voice asked. It took a second to realize he was speaking to me.

Turning, I saw Bastian.

With a gun in his hand.

My gaze shot around, seeing Saff’s driver—and camera installer—making his way toward the stage.

“Alen Hakobyan, you piece of shit,” the man Saff had called Renz said, shaking his head. “The fuck you doing in my neck of the woods, huh?”

“Renzo, no, no. It’s not like that. This is personal.”

“Renz, how the hell are you here right now?” Saff asked, brows pinched as the man came across the stage on the other side of Alen.

“I got a call.”

“Fucking Cormac,” Saff grumbled.

“Cormac Gallagher?” Renzo asked, head cocked to the side. “Why would he call me?”

“Ugh, great,” Saff said, sighing.

What the hell was going on here?

Who was Renzo?

Why did Saff’s employees have guns?

Who was Cormac Gallagher?

“No, I got a call from one of Elian’s cousins,” Renzo said.

“Elian’s cousin who?” I asked.

Renzo’s gaze moved in my direction.

But, no.

He wasn’t looking at me.

He was looking behind me.

It was right then that I heard the click of heels.

My stomach tightened.

Because I knew that sound. I knew that walk.

I’d been hearing it daily for years.

I half-turned to find Teresa walking up beside me.

“Hey, Renzo,” she called, lifting a hand to wave at the man on the stage with Saff and Alen.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I asked, head spinning.

“Yeah,” Renzo said, looking at me, then giving Saff a hard look. “That’s a good fucking question.”