30. Scarlett
SCARLETT
BOILED SPAGHETTI
Aday after my run in with Arabella, after a couple of hours spent curled into a beanbag while I raced for my life and Koda’s ‘I won’t throw turtle shells at you’ flattery went out the window in the name of victory, I lie across Sebastion’s bed much like I did twenty-four hours ago, naked and sated, and a little too relaxed to consider interacting with the real world literally ever again.
My body aches in all the most delicious ways, my muscles protest the mere act of breathing, and my brain does this super annoying thing where it screams, time and time again, that becoming intimate with Sebastion Jameson is a really, really bad idea.
To be with a man, and to allow him the knowledge of what makes me tick, what makes me weak, and the things that build me up again… those are the trade secrets that give away my power and pass it to someone else.
Someone much larger and scarier than I am.
The very reason I’m here with him, on this property I really don’t want to be on, with people I don’t particularly enjoy, except perhaps three or four of them, is because I allowed Roy Daniels to control me in ways I should know never to accept again.
Yet here I am, willfully giving myself to someone far more dangerous, in a place he brought me to without my full consent.
I know this is not the same, but the beats are here. The similarities. The panicked thrum of my heart every time I have more than a few minutes alone to think through my situation.
While the shower runs and Sebastion washes off a long morning training with his men, and then an even longer hour bathing in… me, I twist lazily to the side and stare at my vibrating phone.
A groan works along my throat, but I stretch my arm and slap my palm over the buzzing device. Dragging it back and spying my brother’s name on the screen, I smile and answer, knowing I couldn’t if this were a video call.
Thank God it’s not.
“Hey, Linc.” I press the phone to my ear and dig my free hand under the back of my head to act as a cushion. “Solve all my troubles yet?”
He chuckles, low and throaty and just tense enough to tell me everything I need to know.
“Not yet. But we’re working on it.” He grunts, so in my mind, I imagine him lowering into a chair.
“Everything okay with you, Little Girl? You sound…” He considers for a moment.
Please don’t say thoroughly fucked. “I dunno. Better, I guess. A little less sad.”
“Eh. You know me. Making lemonade out of lemons.” I cough out a soft laugh and close my eyes. If I don’t look at the room surrounding me, I might forget precisely where I am. “Almost died yesterday.”
Just as I knew they would, my words stun a choked mix between a gasp and a growl from my brother’s throat. “What the fuck do you mean you nearly died? Explain.”
“Well…”
“Right now!”
How much am I allowed to tell him? Does Lincoln even realize Sebastion has brothers? If not, is he allowed to know?
Jesus. I don’t even know.
But just as Sebastion’s loyalties have been declared, so, too, have mine.
“So, it turns out Sebastion has a little brother.” Wary, I twist and glance toward the bedroom door, just in case Arabella storms in with a freakin’ axe.
“I spend my days in my room, drawing or whatever. I sit in the window and watch what’s happening outside—”
“You’re still treating it like a prison?” He grunts. “Or you finally went out, and nearly died when you did?”
I snicker. “Actually, I was in my room when Sebastion’s brother snuck in. He—”
“What the fuck do you mean he snuck in? If that asshole’s brothers are as bad as him, and he’s not keeping them away, I’m gonna—”
“His brother is five,” I insert quickly, silencing Linc in a way that ends with his teeth snapping audibly shut.
“He has two brothers, actually. But this particular one is five. He snuck in to get a look at the leper guest, I suppose. But it turns out he enjoys climbing the walls and hanging from the ceiling, so when I came out of the bathroom and saw him up there, I screamed. He screamed. We both screamed. Then I guess Arabella thought I was torturing her kid or something, so she screamed at me.” I bring my hand out from beneath my head and press my finger and thumb to my closed eyelids.
“The woman is a peach. I didn’t die, obviously.
But I get the distinct impression I shouldn’t find myself in a dark alleyway late at night alone with her. I might disappear.”
He releases a frustrated grunt from somewhere deep in his chest. “You’re okay? Did she hurt you?”
“She didn’t touch me. Lucky me, I survived to see another day.
” I roll my eyes… sort of. I move them, anyway.
“Are you closer to figuring this mess out? Because I’m seriously over it all.
” I drop my arm to the side and blink-blink-blink the darkness from my vision.
But then I lock eyes with Sebastion and startle half a foot off the bed. “Jesus!”
“What?” Linc’s voice jumps a couple of octaves, too. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Sebastion presses a single finger to his lips and silently asks me not to snitch. And I… God. I clamp my mouth shut.
“Scarlett?” Linc’s heavy boots pound against the floor wherever he is. “Speak! Now.”
“I-I’m okay.” I swallow a heavy lump of nerves and force them down, down, down into my belly. “Thought I saw a spider.”
And now I’m lying to my brother.
Just like I did with Roy.
Shit.
“Are you sure?” His breath comes fast, his rage so easily brought to the surface on my behalf.
I mean, he’s the brother whose entire life is already in flux, he has a girlfriend who needs protection from the likes of Richard and Arabella Aster, and yet, he packed up and crossed the country the instant he realized I needed help. “Scarlett?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Sorry.” I push up to my butt and study the water droplets still on Sebastion’s broad chest. The towel slung low on his hips, and the softening of his eyes now that I’ve lied for him.
Good job, Scarlett. These are the exact steps you took when Roy came into your life.
“Are you nearly done over there?” Ashamed of myself, I lower my gaze from Sebastion’s ridiculously built frame and the deep lines digging into his towel.
Shaking my head, I hold the phone between my shoulder and ear, then I snag a pair of panties and step into them.
Then my jeans. My bra. “I’m ready to come home, Linc. I’m ready to not be afraid anymore.”
I move past Sebastion and go in search of a sweater, and though he attempts to grab my hand and draw me to a stop, I twist and escape him with dizzying speed.
His disapproving stare warms the back of my neck.
“I’m really, really ready to come home.”
“I heard about this guy who used to work for Richard.” Settling back where he started, Linc’s voice grows a little deeper, a little gruffer. “Might call Tank after this and see what he knows, actually.”
Gulping, I select a sweater and peek back at the man whose eyes follow my every step. “Who is he?”
“Dude’s name is Austin Greene. I’m not sure he went by that name while working for Richard, but I tracked him back through Richard’s financials.”
Surprise brings me around again as I finish dressing. “How did you get access to Richard’s financials?”
Oh God. I feel the heat of Sebastion’s hard stare on my back.
“A little bit of digging, and a whole lot of calling in favors. Obviously not everything Richard did was on the books, but since I can’t track the under-the-table shit, I’m starting with this.
Greene was listed as security for Aster, but we both know Aster’s security looked more like Tank, and it’s not like Tank was taking a regular salary with benefits.
When one plus one doesn’t equal two, it makes sense to look a little deeper. ”
“Okay. So…” I take my phone in one hand, and tug my hair free from my sweater with the other. “You’re gonna talk to him?”
“I’ll try. He may not be open to a meet and greet, especially now that Aster’s dead and his operation has been torn apart. Whatever Greene did for him, we can be pretty sure it wasn’t legal.”
“So if he finds out you’re looking for him, he might disappear instead?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. The account appears legit, so if he wanted to stick to the party line of ‘this was business and I’m a genuine businessman’ then he could, and there’s not much I can do about it. But I wanna get eyes on him before I let him know I’m looking. “
“Alright, well…” I draw a shaky breath. “Where does he live?”
“Right here.” Exhaling an unhappy sigh, Linc’s voice grows darker. More dangerous. “Denver, Colorado. Might be a coincidence…”
And it might not be. “If he worked for Aster, and he lives where I live, it’s entirely possible he knows about Roy.
” Dread sits like a slicked anvil in my stomach as I lower my voice and murmur, “You worked for Richard a long time ago, right? And he didn’t want you to leave.
Then the Roy stuff happened, and suddenly Richard had new material to bring you back into his business.
Maybe Greene heard about the Roy thing and fed that to Richard, or maybe Richard heard about it and kept Greene nearby to watch me. ”
“If he loses his leverage against me—”
“Me,” I gulp. “I was the leverage.”
“Right. If he lost you, or if you died or handed yourself in or whatever, then he’d lose control over me. It’s possible Greene’s assignment was to monitor you, so when the time came that Richard needed my services again, he’d have someone already in place who could apply a little pressure.”
I exhale a shuddering breath and loathe the goosebumps sprouting all over my skin. “If that’s true, then that means he’s been watching me… for years,” I groan. “Gross.”