Chapter Four #3
“Not like that. I don’t want to see him, that’s all.”
“He might act like an ass sometimes, but he does because he loves you.”
“I know, but I always feel like a disappointment.”
“This time it won’t be you he’s angry at. This is my fault.”
The sun’s starting to go down, and it’s cold out. Maddox Industries is too far away to walk, and I hail a taxi, a small glimmer of who I used to be coming out in the confident way I step into the street and lift my arm. Once again a pretty girl who gets whatever she wants.
A taxi slows at the curb, and we climb into the back. Reluctantly, I rattle off the address.
I’m not in any hurry to face Zane, and the ride doesn’t last nearly as long as I hoped. He’s not the most agreeable person, and it helps Stella will be there as a buffer. He’s going to overreact and it will only make things worse. If I didn’t feel like I had any freedom before, I won’t after this.
The cab driver lets us out in front of the building, and the skyscraper is an impressive sight, our penthouse reaching into the sky.
“Can’t wrap my mind around it,” Gage mutters, paying the driver. He slams the taxi’s door shut, and it slides into traffic.
I don’t reply to his comment. Usually it’s my memory, my mental health, my history, that I worry will keep Gage and me from being together. I never considered he wouldn’t want me because I have money.
We walk through security, and the guards stop us to give Baby a ton of scrubs to her neck. She’s in heaven, and one guard yells, “Hey, Miss Maddox!”
I wave, trying to act as normally as possible.
Across the lobby, Stella’s waiting near the bank of elevators, chatting with a woman I don’t know, and Gage and I walk toward them. The woman flicks us a glance, says a quick goodbye to Stella, and scurries off. Stella throws her arms around me and hides her face in my hair. She fists my jacket, rocking me back and forth.
“Stella.” She’s sobbing into my neck, her tears hot on my skin. “Hey.” Hugging her back, I whisper into her ear, “It’s okay. I’m okay. I love you, too.”
“I’m sorry.” She lets me go, wipes her eyes, and smiles at Gage, her lips trembling. “When I paid you for expenses, this isn’t what I meant.”
“What?” I ask, confused. “You’re paying Gage? For what?”
“To snoop around. Nothing to do with you, darlin’,” Linc says, walking up behind us.
I grin, pleased. I like Gage’s dad.
Gage scowls. “For fuck’s sake. Who called you?”
Stella laughs, watery and forced. She does not sound happy. “I did, dummy. Someone tried to kill you.” She peers around Gage’s bulk. “Hi, Linc.”
“At least someone has some brains in this outfit.” He yanks off his baseball cap and slaps Gage’s shoulder. “Come here, you old fool.”
“I think that’s my line,” Gage mutters, but he returns his dad’s hug just as hard.
The twenty-fifth floor is quiet and empty. This is a good time to have a meeting. Peggy isn’t here—not even Zane’s executive assistant works on a holiday.
My brother’s hunched over his desk, raking his fingers through his hair, growling at a stack of papers. I have no idea what he could be working on that he and Stella wouldn’t spend the holiday together, but she seems fine with it, stepping into the office like it belongs to her and not Zane. I suppose one day they’ll run our company together, like Mom and Dad did.
He glances at us, his eyes narrowing. I don’t know how Gage and I look. Wild, maybe, because of the explosion. Soot smearing our faces? Tears, for sure. I’m still a bit woozy, and I push back visions of the blast. I’ll never forget the picture Gage’s truck made as it blew up.
“Nobody died,” Stella says, peeling off her coat.
“Why does that not reassure me?” He rolls his chair away from his desk, holds Stella’s face between his hands, and gives her a searing kiss. Keeping her close, he shakes Linc’s hand and glowers at Gage, but he grudgingly shakes his hand, too.
If he knew what Gage and I spent the afternoon doing, I bet my brother would have done more than just glare. It’s silly, but in all the commotion, I forgot that just a few short hours ago Gage and I made love for the first time.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he mutters into my ear. “Stop it.”
Zane scowls at us in disapproval like we’re naughty children. Maybe he knows what we did after all.
“Someone blew up Gage’s truck this afternoon,” Stella says, zeroing in on the subject and the bar my father used to keep stocked positioned near the window. Zane’s no different, and Stella pours whiskey into crystal lowball glasses while Zane paces in a tight circle, anger lighting his eyes.
He stops and opens his mouth to speak. I want to defend Gage, but I don’t get the chance. One second Zane’s eyes are burning holes into me, the next he’s crushing me to him, his arms shaking. He holds me until Stella says gently, “Zane, can you let her go? We need to talk.”
Without a word, he sets me down and kisses my forehead. He bows his head and leans heavily against his desk, his fingers gripping the edge. When he finally lifts his gaze from the floor, his eyes are wet. “Are you both okay?”
“Yeah,” Gage says. “We weren’t near it.”
“Fuck.”
My poor brother. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes as if trying to keep his tears inside his head. I’d almost prefer him pissed, angry at me or Gage, instead of this. Instead of beaten down, sad. Defeated.
No.
Not beaten down or defeated.
He’s scared.
Stella abandons the bar and wraps her arms around him, and he clings to her, just as tightly as he hugged me. I’m glad he has her. I think Stella can be strong enough to hold up everyone in this room. She has to be. Zane needs her to be.
Gage tugs off his leather jacket and hangs it on the coat tree near the door, and Baby curls up on the carpet in the conversation area where Zane holds some of his informal meetings.
Zane sits on a couch near Baby, dragging Stella with him, but she disentangles herself to serve Gage and Linc a drink.
My blood fizzes, and I’m full of a joy I can’t explain. Inappropriate, I know, but my family is here in this room, all the people I love are in this room, concerned about me, wanting to support me.
“What have you got?” Zane asks, his eyes never leaving Stella’s figure.
“Not much,” Gage answers, sitting on the couch opposite Zane. Stella offers him a glass, and he smiles his thanks. “I talked to the cops and they’re going to look my truck over. To be honest, I’m surprised something like this hasn’t happened sooner. Pop and I deal with a lot of bullshit. Retaliation is practically in the job description.”
Stella passes a glass to Linc, who rumbles, “Thank you,” and he sits next to Gage. Holding her own glass, she steps between Zane’s legs. He wraps his arms around her waist and positions her on his thigh, kissing her cheek. He steals her glass and downs half the contents.
“Then why are you here?” he asks.
Gage clenches his jaw. “Because I love Zarah. She was with me and it scared the fuck out of me.”
Still wearing my coat, I crawl into his lap, and his body starts to tremble.
“The shock’s starting to set in,” Stella says.
“Were you with them?” Zane asks her.
She shakes her head. “Zarah was still at the park when she called me, and I told her we’d meet up here. I think it’s a good idea we rule out Ash or Clayton aren’t behind this.”
“Or Willow Black,” Gage says, his voice rumbling under my ear.
Zane’s voice is full of surprise. “Willow?”
“Gage and I might have gone to see her,” Stella mumbles, “but I don’t think she has anything to do with Gage’s truck.”
“Were you going to tell me?”
I chime in. “Or me? You went to talk to Willow after you told me to stay away from her.”
“She didn’t give us much,” Stella says, lifting her hands. “We asked her about Zarah’s recovery and she pointed us in the direction of Quiet Meadows, but we don’t know what to do with that.”
Zane scowls.
Linc leans back, the lowball glass resting on his knee, and listens to the comments fly back and forth.
“What did she say about Quiet Meadows?” Zane downs the rest of Stella’s drink. He eases her off his lap and pours another at the bar.
“That possibly more was going on there than only treating patients.”
“That’s not exactly what she said,” Gage corrects her.
Zane quirks his lips and asks, “What did she say, exactly?”
“Nothing concrete. Her apartment’s bugged, so what could she say? That they were testing experimental drugs? The FDA and the pharmaceutical companies do that, not mental health facilities like Quiet Meadows.”
“So you came away with nothing.”
Stella shrugs. “She was cheating on Clayton, but we had to guess that too, well, Gage put it together. She let me go because she couldn’t admit to being where she didn’t belong.”
“She’s sleeping with one of her guards if that means anything,” Gage says.
“Willow never told me that,” I say, looking up from his embrace.
“It’s nothing she’d announce, sweetheart.” He brushes a kiss over my cheek.
My brother dry washes his face in frustration. “Then we have a whole lot of nothing besides you thinking this could be one of your pissed off cases.”
“I went to my mother’s New Year’s Eve party last night and Rourke warned me off Zarah,” Gage says.
I scramble off his lap. “What?”
“Rourke doesn’t want me seeing you. I don’t care, Zarah. I love you, and I’m not going to let Max’s father tell me what to do.”
“He threatened you.”
“Yes, he did, but I don’t think he’d blow up my truck because I didn’t listen to him. I haven’t cared about anything he’s had to say all my life. I’m not going to start now.”
Zane sinks onto the couch and rests his hand on Stella’s thigh. “We have lots of bits and pieces about lots of bits and pieces. This isn’t new. All it means is someone’s lying or leaving out a helluva lot of truth.”
“One of the cops said something at the station. He said maybe Ash doesn’t like me seeing anyone. Stella could be right.” I say this, wanting to help my own cause.
Zane bites the inside of his cheek in thought. “He was territorial. That could be the closest explanation we’ll ever get. That, or one of the men who paid to hurt you is wanting revenge for putting him away. I want to jump to a lot of conclusions, but there’s no point to that. What do you think, Mr. Davenport?”
“Linc. I think Gage and I will keep doing what we’re doing. Now that we know someone has a vendetta, we’ll be a little sharper. The police might find something useful.”
“Not if they’re working for Ash and he wanted this to happen. But I don’t understand why Ash would want to kill me. Willow said he never loved anyone but himself,” I say.
“He wouldn’t have done it for love. It’s ownership. He sold you—he thinks you belong to him, to do with what he likes. Someone needs to tell him he doesn’t own anything anymore.” Gage perches on the edge of the cushion, his body rigid with anger.
“We don’t need to tell him, we’ll show him. I’m not Ash’s puppet. Maybe he thinks I still am.” Zane heaves a sigh, holds out his arms, and Stella crawls into his lap.
I walk around my father’s office. The floor-to-ceiling windows give us a spectacular view of the city. King’s Crossing’s nightlife wakes, the skyline blinking on against the purply sunset of a Minnesota winter.
“Are you doing okay?” Gage asks, cuddling me to his chest.
“Yeah. I’m not as shook up as I thought I would be. I can still feel the heat.”
“Fucked me up,” Gage mumbles against the top of my head.
Linc clears his throat.
I guess there’s a lot of sexual tension in the room.
“Right,” Zane says, taking the hint. “Let’s go upstairs. We’ll scare up some dinner and find a football game, think about something else for a bit. Maybe if we stop obsessing about it, something will float to the top.”
“Beer?” Linc asks hopefully.
“You know it.”
“Sounds good.”
Zane punches in the security code, and we ride the private lift up to the penthouse. In the kitchen, I feed Baby a container of shredded chicken and place a big bowl of water onto the floor. I like taking care of her.
We spend the evening munching on gourmet pizza Lucille stocked in our freezer and watching football. I couldn’t care less about sports. I couldn’t follow the rules before Ash decided to drug me up, and there’s no chance in hell I can now. I doze against Gage’s chest, the adrenaline rush fading and leaving me exhausted, and the rumble as he cheers and jeers is the perfect lullaby.
The night ends much too soon, though it’s late when Linc and Gage start suggesting they head out after the final touchdown.
Zane leans against the wall near the elevator, Stella resting her head on his arm.
I want to go home with Gage, but he didn’t invite me and I don’t ask.
“About your truck—” Zane starts.
“Nope,” Gage says immediately, cutting him off. “Not needed. I have full coverage.”
My brother sighs and shoves his hands into the pockets of his dress pants.
Linc coughs. “I’ll let you two work that out.” He turns to me. “Watch yourself. I don’t want to be around this jackass,” he says, hooking a thumb at Gage, “if something happens to you.” He kisses my cheek, and because the lift didn’t go down, he’s able to quickly escape.
Zane presses his lips together. “Are you going to marry my sister?”
Gage’s eyes land on mine, emotion sparking in the gold flecks. “If we can get this shit figured out, yeah. If she’ll have me.”
My brother holds out his hand, and Gage shakes it firmly. “Then take the truck. I’ll have Peggy schedule an appointment at...what do you drive?”
“Fords.”
Zane grimaces. “I can’t talk you into a GMC, at least? Their newest models are top of the line.”
“Don’t press your luck.”
“I’ll ask Peggy to call the dealership. Think of it as replacing collateral damage. It’s what you get being associated with the Maddoxes.”
For the second time today, Gage pales.
Zane swears. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Max.”
Gage blows a breath. “Yeah. It’s okay. I’ll see you later?” he says to me.
I tilt my head and he rubs his lips against mine. “Yeah. Goodnight.”
Brushing his thumb over my cheek, he says, “Goodnight. Be careful.”
“I will.”
“Night, Gage. Thanks for watching out for Zarah,” Stella says, and standing in the lift, he only has time to nod before the doors shut and it carries him and Baby down to the twenty-fifth floor.
We decide it’s too late to drive home and that we should spend the night at the penthouse. Zane hugs me and asks, “Are you sure you’re okay? Don’t lie to me. I fucking hate this. Every five seconds someone was trying to kill Stella, and I don’t want to worry about you.”
“This isn’t the same.”
“It sure as hell feels like it.” He releases me and says to Stella, “I’m going up to bed.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m going to clean up the living room first.”
“Don’t stay up too late.”
“We won’t, Daddy.”
Zane smiles devilishly. “That’s a fantasy for another night.”
He trots up the stairs, and Stella waits until she hears the shower turn on to say, “So you and Gage did it, huh?”
I pad into the living room and collect glasses and plates full of crumbs. “We did, and it was lovely.”
She doesn’t ask me any more about it until we’re in my old room changing into our pajamas. I sprawl on my bed and tell her every second of the afternoon.
Lying next to me, she says, “He sounds like a romantic.”
I start crying when I describe how I made him cry, trying to break up with him, and I’m embarrassed I thought he would give me up so easily.
“If he’s as tenacious as Zane, he’ll never let you go.” She pauses. “Zarah, I’ve been keeping things from your brother. I don’t tell him everything because not everything is mine to share. If you don’t feel comfortable telling me, or if you think Zane will react badly, then tell Gage. He loves you, and he’ll protect you. But this is serious. Don’t keep anything to yourself, no matter how small you think it is.”
I rest my head on her pillow. “I promise not to hide things if you don’t.”
“I promise. When we talked to Willow, we found out she was having an affair with Max’s dad.”
“Rourke.”
“Yes.”
“Gage knows.”
“Yeah.”
“What does it mean?”
“Nothing, I guess. Gives me a bad feeling, that’s all.”
I scramble to connect the dots, but my world in the past year and a half has been boiled down to Ingrid, the dogs, and trying to get better. Thinking back to Stella’s escape and her breaking into my room at Quiet Meadows, it’s like I’m trying to read tea leaves. I can’t make sense of anything, and it’s futile to try. The only thing I can do is go back to a beginning that I know.
“Why was Max involved?” I ask.
“What do you mean? He was a journalist.”
“Yeah, but why was he investigating Clayton in the first place?”
Lifting a shoulder, she says, “Because he didn’t think the plan crash was an accident.”
I meet Stella’s bright blue eyes. “But why did he think that?”
She pauses, her perfect white teeth biting into her bottom lip. “He never said. I assumed he was chasing leads for his job.”
“Maybe Willow told Rourke something and Max found out.”
Stella frowns. “Okay?”
I sit up, my heart pounding. “And Ash kills Max.”
“That was a fluke. I was there. He was shooting into the crowd.”
I shake my head. “No. It only looked that way. Willow slipped up, and she accidentally said something to Rourke about the plane crash. Max found out what it was, and she had Ash kill Max to stop him from looking into anything else.”
Stella’s eyes widen, and she sits up, too, clutching at my arm. “No. Not to stop Max from investigating. Clayton and Ash were already going to prison by that point. Ash knew about their affair and he wanted to punish Rourke for betraying Clayton. Ash shot Max to teach Rourke a lesson. You don’t fuck with the Blacks, literally, and get away with it.”
Stella falls asleep in my bed, and it’s nice to listen to her breathe as I lie next to her, rolling the implications around in my mind.
Willow’s locked up. She and Rourke aren’t seeing each other anymore. I wonder if she misses him. If she loved him. People think Willow’s a freak, an animal they can gawk at through the glass, but she’s human, has a heart and soul. It must have been lonely being married to Clayton, and I don’t blame her for looking for love wherever she could find it. You’re probably asking why she didn’t get a divorce if she was that miserable, but it doesn’t happen like that. An attorney would have to have a death wish to go up against Clayton Black. Willow would never have found an attorney willing to try, and even if she could have, she never would have been able to afford it. And if by chance she could , the judge presiding over her case would more than likely be a crony and do whatever Clayton wanted.
It was much easier to tolerate her marriage, try to find what she needed elsewhere, and pray to God she didn’t get caught.
That’s why Willow tried to watch over me. Once I got trapped in Ash’s web, there was no escape. It’s been seven years since Ash stole my virginity at Temptations, seven years since Ash asked me to marry him, and I’m still writhing desperately in fear, waiting for the spider to strike.
Maybe I’ll never be free of Ash. Maybe, like Gage said, he’ll always think he owns me.
The maze of his lies and what-ifs is exhausting, and I snuggle next to Stella, her body heat comforting me. She thanks me for introducing her to Zane, but it’s the other way around. She saved what was left of my family, and I thank her every day. If she hadn’t fallen in love with my brother, if she’d had one ounce less of courage, or if she hadn’t believed with all her heart that my parents’ deaths weren’t accidents, I’m not sure where we would be now.
If she had given up, trapped at Black Enterprises, if she’d accepted that she would be Ash’s slave for the rest of her life, I’d still be in Quiet Meadows, a prisoner in my own mind.
Without us, Stella would have lived a good life. She’s smart and has drive. But without Stella, my life, my fate, was sealed by Zane’s blind faith in Ash’s lies.
I fall asleep holding her hand.
The next morning I crawl out of bed and pad barefoot to the kitchen. Stella’s still sleeping, and I don’t wake her.
Dressed for work, Zane’s sitting at the table reading the paper and sipping a mug of coffee. A rush of love swamps me, and I hug him fiercely, catching him off guard. The tentativeness we’ve been feeling toward each other is fading, and I hope he’s finally realizing he can’t shoulder the blame for every single thing Clayton and Ash have done—even from prison.
“You stole my fiancée last night,” he says, rubbing my back and letting me go, “but I’ll give you a pass this once.” He smiles and humor warms his eyes.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t be a good long-term replacement. We were up late talking.” I pour myself a mug of coffee. The kitchen feels strange without Lucille, the silent TV that always used to play the morning talk shows she loves so much.
Zane folds the paper into a neat rectangle. “I didn’t get mad yesterday,” he starts, and I resist the urge to sigh and leave the kitchen in a huff. Here comes the lecture. Here comes the “I’m on too many drugs and can’t take care of myself” speech.
“Mostly because I want to believe the explosion doesn’t have anything to do with us. I’m sure being a private investigator has its own pitfalls, but as long as the Blacks are alive and as long as we’re Maddoxes, we may always have to live looking over our shoulders. I’m sorry, Zarah.”
I blink. That wasn’t what I was expecting. “Sorry for what?”
“All of it.”
“You can’t take responsibility for all of it. I won’t let you. Dad and Clayton were friends all their lives, and Dad trusted him. Why should you have been any different? The Blacks have been sleazy for a long time. We didn’t know, and that’s not your fault.”
“I try to believe that. I’d hoped when we exposed them at Ash’s fundraiser that this would be over, but Clayton and Ash are pulling strings on a puppet we can’t see. Something’s happening, but I don’t know what.”
“Maybe it’s as simple as jealousy.”
“I don’t know, Z. Clayton was into some nasty shit. We thought he was selling weapons for the money, but maybe there was more. Something that’s classified. If the FBI knows what or who or why, Banks didn’t tell me, and back then, I didn’t care about anything except keeping you and Stella safe. When she was with her parents, all I could think about was helping you get better and hoping I hadn’t fucked up so much she didn’t want to come back. The things Ash did at the club, the girls, Nathalie. I was a part of that.
I’d be in prison too, if I hadn’t had a hand in putting them away. Up until now, it’s been about sex and money, but Clayton didn’t care about sex. There was only one thing Clayton Black cared about more than money, and that was power. What was he after, Zarah? And why am I only asking now? It might be too late.”
At some point, Stella walked into the kitchen, and she stands next to me.
I’ve never seen the look in Zane’s eyes as he stares at Stella now. Like she’s saving him from a lifetime of torture.
“Every day I try to be the man you need me to be,” he whispers, cupping her face in his hands. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. It’s by God’s grace you see past them.” He kisses her, and she wraps her arms around him.
I miss Gage so much. I know in my heart, I know, it’s impossible to see him as much as I want. He works, and he would still work, even if I told him he could stop. I miss him, and watching Zane and Stella devour each other, I feel funny. I want what they have.
They worked hard for it.
Gage and I will have to, too.
Zane sighs, tenderly kisses the tip of her nose, and slings an arm around my neck the way he used to, before he was scared to touch me. “Be careful today. Don’t die.”