Chapter 6 Bash
BASH
Kyle sends his report on Remy Jones across to me less than an hour later.
It all checks out. I don’t ask how he gets his information, but if it’s printed in black and white, and Kyle has given it his seal of approval, I believe it.
According to his sources, Remy and George Quinn have had no contact since their relationship ended, and she hasn’t been in a relationship since.
Her grades are above average. Parents divorced.
Her sister passed away as he mentioned before, and no other siblings.
Remy shares a dorm room with Ariel Floyd, Black, a barista in her spare time, family attends local church.
Other than dating George Quinn, a grifter who sees his recently acquired fiancée as a free pass to untold wealth and power, Remy is squeaky clean. So, why can’t I accept what happened between us and let it go?
Because letting it go isn’t an option.
The realization comes with a dull ache inside my chest that won’t go away with a glass of milk or over-the-counter antacids.
I let her slip through my fingers, and I didn’t even try to stop her.
I told myself that it was a one-off, that moments like the one we shared on the sheepskin rug on my apartment floor can never be repeated.
We could try, but we’d both be seriously disappointed. And then what?
The memory is destroyed when the second experience doesn’t meet expectations. We both get let down with a gigantic bang. And things become awkward.
So, I clung to the images in my head and turned Remy Jones into a fantasy that I would never forget.
I watched her on the casino floor the way a dying man in the desert watches a mirage of an oasis in the distance.
I branded her untouchable. Tried to focus on expanding my business and the shit going down with Cash while keeping her in my sight.
And every time she glanced at me from across the room and her shoulders dropped, I reminded myself that the reality could never live up to the ideal image of her that I’d created in my head.
I haven’t even told Cash how I feel.
This is a first, for both of us. We’re twins.
We can communicate without words. But this feels as if Remy has interfered with our silent connection and caused a glitch that neither of us recognized until now.
He must’ve taken her up to my apartment when I was away on business.
The clothes. The lost pendant. But he didn’t think to mention it either.
Why?
Because it was so trivial it wasn’t worth mentioning? Or does he know more about Remy than he’s letting on?
Not that I think Cash has anything to do with the grifter and his fiancée.
Trust runs deep in our family. We would die for one another in a heartbeat, and Cash and I were created from the same egg in the womb.
But something about the whole situation is niggling away at me, and I can’t fathom it out.
I switch off my tablet and refill my brandy glass.
Is it too late to tell Remy that I haven’t stopped thinking about her?
Cash saw her talking to her ex on the casino floor.
If—and I realize that I’m distorting the facts here a little—she knows what George and Isabella are up to, would she even believe me?
Or would she think that I’m using her to get to them?
I down my brandy in one.
It burns like the cut on my hand.
One-night stands don’t cause this level of distraction. In the heat of the moment, I said that she’d bewitched me, but I’m starting to truly fucking believe it, and if I don’t do something about it, she’ll become the chink in my armor that Isabella Leone is looking for.
Tomorrow.
That’s what I tell myself when I stare out of my apartment window at the blinking lights of the city.
I’ll tell her how I feel tomorrow, and if the fantasy is dispelled, then I’ll move on and chalk it up to experience.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Murray, but Ms. Jones quit.”
She quit? “When?”
The pit boss’s expression remains neutral. He’s simply doing his job, running the floor, making sure that the guests have everything they need to keep them throwing money at the tables.
“This morning. I received an email from her.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?”
“It isn’t normal procedure, Mr. Murray. I wasn’t aware that it required escalating to you.”
“I want to see the email.” I’ve no idea what I hope to gain from reading it, but it feels like my last tenuous connection to her. I start to walk away and then stop. “Did she state a reason for quitting?”
He studies me as though he no longer recognizes the person in front of him, and I suppress the urge to pin him against the wall by his throat and squeeze the information out of him. Perhaps it’s time to find a new pit boss.
“Personal reasons. I have no reason to pry. I can replace her with someone with experience.” He pauses, and I clench my fists when he adds, “Do you want me to run my selection past you before I interview?”
“I want you to hold fire until I’ve spoken to her.”
“Sir, might I suggest that she wasn’t exactly—”
“No, you might not.”
I don’t give him the opportunity to finish; he has already rubbed me the wrong way, and I don’t trust myself to deal with him fairly.
The email, when it reaches me, offers no explanation. It’s a generic resignation notice, one that she would send to any boss she no longer wanted to work for.
Did it mean anything to her? Did I mean anything to her? What does it even say about me that I’ve never second-guessed a one-night stand before?
I call her cell number from my office. If she didn’t want any contact, she’d have omitted her number from the bottom of the email, wouldn’t she? Perhaps this was her last attempt to poke the bear-boss and see what happens.
My pulse is racing. My shirt collar feels too tight. And the world tilts slightly when the call goes through to voicemail. I end it without leaving a message and instantly regret it.
I try a second time. It doesn’t even ring, and the voicemail option has been canceled.
Third time, when the number is unobtainable, I understand that she doesn’t want to speak to me.
I fill a tumbler with brandy and knock it back.
Great job, Bash. You totally fucking blew it because you didn’t think she’d live up to the fantasy, and now you might never know.
I’m past happy-drunk by the time I join my brothers and their wives at a gala charity event in the Wraith.
Cash and I have dates. For appearances’ sake.
Wealthy eligible bachelors wear a sign on their foreheads that the media have a fucking ball with, and it still blows my mind that our mafia status seems to add to the appeal.
My date is stunning. A curtain of pale blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a natural smile that could never be manufactured. Her dress has been poured over her curves, and her breast rubs my arm as we enter the ballroom.
In any other circumstances, I’d make her feel special.
Sure, she’s getting the kind of attention from journalists and the other guests that will keep her current and open doors, and perhaps that’s enough for her, but this whole fucking scenario sticks in my throat.
She’s a human being. She deserves better than clinging to my arm and pretending that we’re attracted to one another.
I don’t even remember her name for fuck’s sake.
“Look…” I extricate my arm from hers.
“Ruby.”
“Ruby.” I’m a shit person, but I can at least try to do better. “I appreciate you being here tonight, but please don’t feel that you have to be by my side all evening.”
The smile doesn’t falter. She’s a great actress; I’ll give her that.
“Oh, believe me, I don’t.” She leans closer and whispers in my ear. “You’re not my type either. I’m a lesbian.”
She wanders off, and I watch her take a glass of champagne from a passing server and raise it to toast me.
“Did you breathe on her or was it something you said?” Cash appears beside me, smiling widely.
“Not now, Cash.”
I peer around at the guests in their evening gowns and crisp suits. They all have well-practiced smiles, a distraction while they note who else made the guest list, and who is most likely to claim the best-dressed prize.
Most—not all— attend events like this, not because the charity is close to their heart but because it gets them recognized as a philanthropist. It’s simply the way it is.
Money doesn’t always talk the same language as compassion.
It’s something that I’ve learned to accept and ignore, even though it scratches on my nerves all the goddamned time, but tonight, it seems, my cup of patience has run dry, and Cash is going to bear the brunt of my foul temper.
“Am I supposed to know what’s wrong, or are you going to share the burden before you slaughter your other hand?” He smiles at his date across the room. She’s gorgeous too, with a mane of jet-black curls and olive skin.
My brother wears charm the way other people wear cologne. But it’s a front, a facade beneath which a sensitive soul rarely gets to make an appearance.
“The fact that you even need to ask the question, is your answer right there.”
“Okay,” he says. “How about I give it a shot?”
I love my twin brother more than life itself, but he never knows when to tone it down. He rolls out of bed in the morning, reaches sixty miles an hour before his first coffee, and keeps accelerating until he runs out of road.
“You’re worried that you didn’t recognize a mole when she was right in front of you. You don’t like that your dick overruled your head, and now you think that she’s going to make a fool out of us.”
I turn sharply to face him. “Us?”
“Sure, we’re family. We’re in this together.”
I thought we were. But that itch is still niggling away at me.
I watch Caleb and Victoria greeting guests as they enter the ballroom.
The whole family got involved when Olivia Dragonetti tried to tear them apart because it’s what we do: we look out for one another.
If one of us falls, we all come tumbling down.
But I realize now, I never asked Caleb how he felt when Victoria was kidnapped.
I watched him lose his shit, but I never wondered what was going on inside his head.
Because I never thought it would happen to me.
I fucked Remy once. I shouldn’t feel as though I’ve lost the best thing that ever happened to me, but I don’t know how else to explain it to myself.
“What happened when I was out of town?” I ask my twin. It didn’t seem important before, but now it does.
“Is this an open-ended question, or can you narrow it down a little?”
This is what Cash does. He blusters and jokes his way through life, charming everyone who knows him with his dazzling smile, and never getting called out on serious stuff.
Unless it affects the Murray empire. Even when he got indicted, he shrugged it off and waited for Kyle to wave his magic wand and set him free.
“Sure, I’ll narrow it down for you. Remy Jones was in my apartment.”
“You know about that, huh?”
Is it my imagination, or did he flinch when the question landed?
“She lost a pendant in my guest room.”
With what happened after Remy found the silver teardrop, I didn’t give its hiding place underneath the bed much attention, but now that it’s out there, I realize that was my first big mistake.
My second mistake was believing that my brother is an open book.
“There was an incident. She got accosted by a guest under the guise of ‘being a good Samaritan’.” He makes speech marks in the air. “Her uniform was covered in champagne and rum. I offered her some clean clothes.”
Our connection may be glitching, but I still sense that there’s more to come.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Cash is staring at the couple who have just walked into the ballroom.
George Quinn and Isabella Leone.
I didn’t check out the guest list. The Wraith is Caleb’s domain, and because the invitations are always vetted by Terry, I gave it a cursory glance and moved on.
Mistake number three.
I head towards them, but Cash grabs my arm. “Not tonight, B. Not like this.”
“He needs to be taught a fucking lesson.”
This is no longer about the guy and his connected fiancée trying to make a name for themselves.
This is personal. If Kyle’s sources are correct, and I have no reason to doubt them, he dumped Remy for a power trip, and I need to be sure that he has no further claims on her.
I need to know that all ties were severed when he showed his true colors, and that he can’t manipulate her into doing his bidding.
“He will be.” Cash releases my arm. When he speaks, he keeps his voice low. “You seriously think that his fiancée is on his side?”
I follow my brother’s gaze as the grifter tries to take his fiancée’s hand and she discreetly places it out of reach, fake smile in place, eyes seeking a suitable distraction.
George recovers quickly, shakes another guest’s hand, engages in a conversation that is too far away for us to hear.
But his body language screams humiliation.
It confirms that he’s in it solely for the ride, but it doesn’t soothe my jangled nerves.
Because if he and his fiancée have zero feelings for one another, he might still see Remy as fair game. He could play the ‘I made a mistake’ card, worm his way back into her life, promise her the world without any intention of following through.
And I won’t stand back and watch him hurt her a second time even if she has made it abundantly clear that she doesn’t want me.