CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
“Father, your accounts. I checked what you asked.”
Father.
Nathan’s expression softens. Completely transforms. “Good girl,” he murmurs, touching her hand gently. “I’m almost done here and we’ll have dinner.” She leaves as quietly as she came.
Diesel and I exchange a look.
Nathan leans back again, his business mask dropping back into place. “Now,” he says coldly, “finish your pitch. Why keep you instead of the rat?”
I inhale slowly. “This isn’t just business for me anymore,” I say. “It’s personal.”
Nathan’s eyes flick upward with caution. “Go on.”
“Jimmy’s brother, Liam, hurt my woman.”
Nathan doesn’t react. “Hurt how?”
I swallow the rage burning my throat. “He drugged her. Raped her. And he would’ve done it again given the chance.”
Nathan still doesn’t move. But something sharp and dangerous flashes in his eyes. “He touched your family,” he murmurs.
“Yes.”
He taps the table again, harder this time. “And the boy’s alive?”
“No,” I say quietly.
Nathan’s brows lift. “And you didn’t kill him yourself.”
“No,” I repeat, voice low. “But I would have. And I want the option to deal with Jimmy the moment I’m ready.”
Finally, finally, Nathan shows something like interest. Understanding.
“You want protection for retaliation,” he says bluntly.
“I want permission,” I correct. “And I want to remove middlemen who cost you money. We’re disciplined. We’re loyal. We deliver on time. We don’t skim.”
Nathan’s mouth curves. Not into a smile, but into a calculation.
“And what do I gain?”
“Less risk,” Diesel says. “Less police interest, we have an inside man. More reliability. More control.”
“And no more rape-happy idiots with my product in their veins,” Nathan adds quietly.
I nod once.
Nathan breathes out, long and slow.
“If someone touched my daughter––” His voice drops to a whisper. “I’d tear this whole city apart.” Something settles in his expression. A decision made in the place where men like him keep their humanity locked behind steel doors.
He stands. “You have a week,” he says. “Bring me a route, a timetable, a proposal. Numbers. If they make sense—we’ll talk again.”
“And Jimmy?” I ask.
Nathan glances toward the door his daughter exited through. “Handle him,” he says simply. “Just don’t let it touch London.” He walks out without another word.
Diesel exhales like he’s been holding his breath the entire time. “Holy shit.”
I clench my jaw, standing. “Let’s go home,” I mutter. “We’ve got work to do.”
The clubhouse is alive when I pull into the yard. Music thumps through the brickwork, the kind that rattles the walls. I’m exhausted from the ride back from London and wired from the meeting with Cole, but the second I walk through the doors, I see her.
Eden.
She’s curled into the corner of the battered sofa while the girls scream karaoke into a dented mic. She’s smiling. That soft, shy curve of her mouth that used to undo me in about three seconds flat.
Christ, I’ve missed that smile. But then her eyes land on me, and it dies. Just drops off her face like it was never there at all.
My chest clenches, and instead of going to her, instead of doing the right fucking thing, I turn away. Straight into my office. I shut the door and press my hand to it like I’m holding back a flood.
I hate that I can’t even look her in the eye without feeling like I’m the bastard who broke her.
The blinds rattle softly when I pull them down. Back to work. Back to business. Back to anything that isn’t that look on her face when her smile disappeared.
Five minutes pass. Maybe ten. Then her voice brings me from my thoughts.
“Kade?”
She’s leaning against the doorway, her fingers twisted in her sleeves, eyes searching me like she’s trying to find something familiar on a face she used to know by heart.
I pull on a smile. It feels foreign. Tight.
“Hey. You look beautiful.” Her cheeks warm at that, and for a moment, I feel something tug in my ribs, something old and familiar, but I push it down before it can breathe.
“I didn’t think you’d still be up,” I add, turning back to the papers on my desk because eye contact feels like too much.
“The girls talked me into sitting up with them. It’s not like I’m sleeping properly anyway,” she says. “And I… I miss you.”
A scoff slips out before I can stop it. “I’m here all the time.”
Her face falls. “No, you’re not. Not really. You leave before breakfast. You come home after dark. And when you are here, you lock yourself away in here. I never see you anymore.”
I swallow hard, jaw clenching. She’s not wrong. But if I stay close, she’ll feel the guilt leaking out of me. She’ll feel the blame I put on myself every waking second. And I’ll have to keep looking at that sadness in her eyes.
“You haven’t been eating anyway,” I mutter, instantly regretting it as soon as the words hit the air. “What’s the issue if we don’t eat together?”
She flinches. That tiny wince. Like I’ve hit her.
“Fuck—Eden, I didn’t mean it like that,” I rush out.
“I’m sorry.” Silence hangs between us, thick enough to choke on.
“I just…” I rub my face. “Things are busy. I’m working on a new deal and I can’t—” I stop myself.
She doesn’t need club shit on top of everything else. “It’s just complicated.”
“So I don’t get to know anything?” she whispers.
I look at her. She’s tired. Thinner. Haunted. And still she’s trying. For us. For me.
“I’m not trying to shut you out,” I force out. “I’m just dealing with things my way.”
“And I’m dealing with things alone,” she replies softly.
I ball my fists, then stand, because sitting feels too stagnant, too suffocating. “Look, I’ll come to bed tonight. Okay? I promise.”
Her eyes lift, shining with hope. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I manage another smile, this one barely more than a twitch. “Really.”
She nods and steps back. “Okay.” When the door clicks shut behind her, I drop into the chair again and let the guilt swallow me whole.