Chapter 9 Cash #2
There is no air in Bash’s office. My shirt collar is choking me, and I loosen my tie, although it offers no relief. Did someone break the air conditioning?
What the actual fuck.
I glance at Bash. His face is pale, his expression stony, and something stretched taut inside me snaps in two, so violently, I swear I can hear it.
“Nice fucking work, B. You sure told her, huh?”
He faces me slowly, dazed, silent. I’ve never seen my brother so floored.
He always knows what to say or do in a situation; he was born ready to take on the world, and now it seems he has finally met his match.
I would fist-punch the air on Remy’s behalf if I could coordinate my brain and my arm to work together.
Then his eyes come back into focus, but duller than before. “You slept with her.”
“So did you.”
This is a first for both of us. An all-time low. Even I’m scared of what will happen when our mom finds out.
Bash clears his throat. “This proves that she was using us.”
I shake my head. “Say it with some fucking conviction, Bash, or try again.” My hands are already balled into fists.
“She knew this would have the desired effect,” he mumbles like the words are sticking to his tongue.
“She’s trying to get under our skin. She’ll sue the shit out of us, knock us down so that Quinn and his bride-to-be can swoop in and fucking destroy us.
Then she’ll disappear off the face of the earth. ”
I react blindly. My head is swimming in a sea of red mist, but my body acts on muscle memory. I pin my brother, my other half, up against the wall by his throat, and he stands there, eyes bulging, saliva collecting in the corners of his mouth.
“Where is she now then?” I grind my jaws to cracking point. “I don’t see her asking for money. I don’t see her accusing us of fucking her over. I don’t hear her threatening to go public with the news.”
Bash doesn’t fight back. We’ve never had a fist fight, never had a reason to before, but also because we’re evenly matched and it could get messy. And our mom would string us up by the balls and make sure it never happened again.
My brother blinks, and a single tear falls from each eye.
I release him, and he slumps onto the floor with his knees raised and cradles his head in his arms.
“I’m going after her.” The red mist is fading, but I’m still wired enough to cause damage if anyone gets in my way.
“What are you going to do?” Bash raises his head. His eyes are moist, and there’s a faint flush crawling back into his pale face.
“I don’t know. Speak to her. Make sure she’s okay. Convince her that we’re not the fucking assholes she thinks we are.” I haven’t thought beyond that, but I can still see the fear in her eyes when she realized that we’re twins.
Remy Jones didn’t set out to conquer the Murray twins.
She had no idea there were two of us until I walked into the room, and I’m not so fired up that I can’t see who’s to blame here.
I never told her my name. I didn’t reach out to her after it happened.
And I understand that it would’ve taken a truckload of courage for her to walk into the Rinse and announce that she’s pregnant.
The elevator reaches ground level in moments, but it still isn’t fast enough.
I’ve lost track of time since she left Bash’s office, and my heart lurches when she isn’t in the foyer.
This is arguably the busiest city in the United States of America.
If she doesn’t want to be found, we can throw all our money and resources at it and still draw a blank.
That shit only works on people with a carbon footprint, and my guess is that Remy isn’t one of them.
“Where did she go?” I ask the concierge.
His eyes rake my loose tie and disheveled suit jacket, and I wish that for once I could drop appearances and lose my shit without anyone noticing and storing it up for the perfect occasion.
“She left, Mr. Murray.” He knows better than to ask who.
I push through the doors and stand on the sidewalk, scanning the street left and right. Too many fucking people. Why can’t they find someplace else to be, give a desperate guy a chance?
Choosing a direction is pointless. She’s gone. Bash generally handles the practical side of the business, but I’m clearly still capable of thinking under pressure when required. I go back inside and find Terry watching me from the foyer.
“Is anyone trailing Remy Jones?” I ask.
“She was upstairs in Bash’s office. He said he would handle it.”
Shit.
I’ve got too much adrenaline buzzing around my veins to go back upstairs and talk this through. If I don’t find a release, soon, I know I’ll do something I’ll regret.
“Who’s on Quinn-duty?”
“Rollo.” Terry doesn’t need to check. He knows where every member of his security team is at any given moment.
I don’t wait around. Outside, I locate Rollo’s number on my cell phone and hit the green button. “Where is he?”
Rollo gives me the address of a gym on West 54th.
I walk. Dodging pedestrians, head down, fixated on Remy’s ex. I don’t have a plan. I’m simply going to make it clear to him that if he doesn’t leave her alone, he’ll feel my wrath in all its ugly glory.
The receptionist’s expression morphs from a bright smile to confusion when I hold the door to the gym open and tell her to leave. “Now!” I growl when she raises the handset on the desk to her ear.
The usual Lycra crowd are using the equipment, earbuds in, sweat beading on bunched-up muscles. My target is at the rear of the gym on the running machine, almost as if he is hiding behind them like the slimy worm he is.
One glance at the weapon in my pocket, and everyone else vacates the building, leaving me alone with George Quinn.
He must sense the change in atmosphere. Either that, or the mass evacuation registers in his peripheral vision while he pounds the treadmill. His eyes dart around the room, searching for an escape route, and he instinctively pulls out his earbuds.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demands.
His engagement to Isabella Leone has obviously inflated his ego and given him delusions of grandeur. He must believe that he’s untouchable. No bodyguard. Or perhaps, his fiancée’s money doesn’t stretch as far as protecting her future husband.
It occurs to me then that he’s a bigger fucking idiot than I gave him credit for, stalking Remy when there’s every possibility that his fiancée will find out. Or she is the one pulling the strings. Either way, it ends now.
I cross the gym in three angry strides, drag him from the machine, and throw him across the room. He doesn’t cry out. He doesn’t try to stand up. He doesn’t find his cell phone to call the cops.
Instead, he lies there in a crumpled heap on the floor, watching me.
I pick him up by the scruff of his Nike vest, and shove him against the wall, pressing hard on his windpipe with my forearm. “Leave Remy alone.”
“Or what?” His Adam’s Apple bobs beneath my skin. It isn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be.
“Or I’ll make sure that you never set eyes on her again.”
His mouth twitches at the corners. “Confident of that, are you?” There’s no cowardice in his tone; it almost sounds as if he is taunting me.
A low growl erupts from somewhere deep inside. “Try me and see what happens.”
I stand up and back away. My chest is heaving, but the adrenaline is already starting to crash, and through it, I understand that I’ve achieved nothing by coming here.
His expression is still smug. He cricks his neck from side to side and touches the back of his head. His fingers come away bloody.
“Bring it on,” he says, panting. “You forget that I know Remy, and you’re not her type.”
I stumble outside the gym and along the sidewalk, avoiding the receptionist and the group of Lycra-clad visitors waiting to get back inside.
Fuck.
I walked straight into that one like the mouse who thought he was better than the cat.
George Quinn didn’t fight back because it suited his agenda to play the victim.
But more importantly, I barged in there wearing my heart on my sleeve, and now George and Isabella have found the crack they were looking for.