Chapter 29
ONE brEAKING POINT AFTER ANOTHER
RONAN
You’d think after a month, this gig would get easier. You’d think the old man would let up a little. You’d think I’d grow a thicker skin.
Instead, I was slinking out of the office just before five o’clock like a kid with the worst case of senioritis ever recorded, desperately hoping to avoid yet another round of detention.
Ever since the board had decided to wait on my appointment, I’d been putting in the extra effort. Late nights. Reviewing profit margins. Getting up to speed on the thousands of decisions the CEO of Blackguard had to make every day in between meeting after meeting after meeting.
I hated it. Even though I’d accepted it. Even though, as a child of Niall Black, there was some part of me that had always wanted it. I hated it more every day.
My house in Charlestown became a sanctuary in a way it had never been before, a port in this storm of my own making. And its light, guiding me home every night, was Laney.
The sex was one thing. After Seattle, I expected it to be great, though I didn’t think it would get progressively better every time.
But even more surprising was the way Laney challenged and excited me one minute while also providing a refuge the next.
How could one person provoke and calm at the same time?
I couldn’t even make it to the end of the workday without talking to her.
Sliding into the back of the Rover, I sent her a quick text.
OMW home. Expecting you naked and waiting within fifteen minutes with a prop of your choice.
When she hadn’t answered after ten minutes, I called. It rang to voicemail, so my next call was to Ruth.
I was becoming a needy little shit, wasn’t I?
“Hello, Mr. Black. How can I help?”
“Where’s Laney? She’s not answering her phone.”
I knew Ruth had organized the styling session this morning and was also going to be working with Laney on some other housekeeping necessities of being married to a Black.
I’d seen the way everyone looked at her when she met them for the first time.
Honestly, given the way I’d led previous hazings of my siblings’ significant others, I was lucky Laney got away with only Dad’s comments about her jewelry.
Still, I knew exactly what kind of verbal abuse my family was capable of, which was why I begrudgingly had Ruth set everything up before the reception.
“She’s still here at the penthouse with the styling team, sir. I believe she might be FaceTiming again with a Megan?”
I scowled. “They’re still working on her? She’s already perfect. How much did they have to do?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. Would you like me to convey a message?”
I huffed. I should let her be. I hated the penthouse and tended to avoid it at all costs, and the sooner Laney finished, the sooner she could come home.
Where I would have to wait alone.
Yeah, no thanks.
“I’ll be there myself in a minute.” I ended the call and looked at Mac in the driver’s seat. “Change of plans. We’re stopping at the penthouse.”
As Mac signaled for a turn in that direction, I felt another distinct vibration.
As the assumed CEO of Blackguard, I shouldn’t have needed to carry a burner phone with me anymore. I should have been looking for my own fixer to take care of these issues or finding ways of doing business that didn’t involve blood in the desert and dealings with crooked gangsters.
Unfortunately, neither of those had been accomplished yet. And old habits, as they say, die very hard.
I pulled the phone out of my jacket pocket and swore when I clocked the Vegas area code. Unfortunately, there would be no ignoring it either.
With a sigh, I answered it. “Yeah.”
“Black.”
My scowl deepened. Ares Antoni wasn’t quite as much of an asshole as his father, but he was close.
The Albanians had largely assumed the mob activities in New York and then had come out to Vegas to continue their takeover.
Neither of father nor son were people I’d want to be speaking at the start of my weekend.
“What is it?”
“There’s a situation. With your last trip to the desert.”
He was speaking obliquely on purpose, of course. We used burners as a precaution, but that was not a guarantee they weren’t tracked.
But his meaning was clear: something had happened to Billy Richards.
I drummed my fingers on my knee. “Go on.”
“Missing persons report was filed a couple of days ago. Vegas Metro’s sniffing around.” A pause. “Your name hasn’t come up. Yet.”
Fuck.
The threat was veiled, but clear. The Antonis were the only connection between me and Billy Richards, since they were the ones who directed me to him in the first place.
Chances were, they would have taken care of things if I hadn’t, but as it was, they had a choice to make: cooperate with the cops to throw their scent off, or cooperate with me for a much bigger price, I was sure.
“I don’t have to tell you that my guys found nothing out there.”
It could have been interpreted as an assurance, but I knew it wasn’t.
Generally, I paid the Antonis well to clean up the messes I made, and sometimes, like this one, they went out on their own accord just to be safe.
But this time, they’d gone out to the desert, and I happened to know they hadn’t found anything there.
“You know what I’m saying here. Is there anything that needs to be… addressed? Loose ends? Some garbage or whatnot?”
He was asking where the body was. More importantly, he was asking for money to take care of it when it was found. A solid bribe to make sure he didn’t decide to cooperate with the cops on the matter.
Mac was watching me in the mirror.
“We took care of everything,” I said. “Completely. But I appreciate your thoroughness, and I’ll send a token of that appreciation soon.”
There was a long pause. For a moment, I thought he might argue. Ask for more than just a token.
Christ. One dirty family had already scammed its way onto the Blackguard board. The last thing I needed was a bunch of mobsters making their entrance.
“All right,” Ares said at last.
I exhaled. Thank fuck.
“But Black—if there’s any more noise, we’ll have to dig into things ourselves. Can’t take too many chances with the environment. Vegas has a very… frail… ecosystem. You understand.”
Translation: If we go down, you’re coming with us. If Billy Richards was found and could be traced back to either of us, the Antonis would take care of it. I knew that. But then they’d have even more leverage over me. A very significant card to play.
I just prayed they’d never find a trace of what I’d done.
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“All right, then. Give my regards to your wife, by the way. I hear congratulations are in order.”
The call ended before I could respond, before I could even think through the sudden tightness in my chest. Fuck. It was one thing for them to leverage veiled threats against me. Another completely for someone like Ares Antoni to mention Laney’s existence within the context of this conversation.
I stared at the phone, fighting the sudden urge to punch my window out and hurl the device into oncoming traffic.
I could use a drink. Or a hit. Or someone to beat the shit out of.
Or… Laney.
That was when I realized the car had come to a stop outside the Quayden.
“Stay here,” I told Mac.
If the penthouse wasn’t empty, it would be soon. This couldn’t wait until we got back to Charlestown.
I needed my girl, and I needed her right fucking now.
The fact that the penthouse was still full of people didn’t help my mood. Voices echoed off the marble edges and gold fixtures—a mausoleum of wealth that was supposed to go with being a member of this family, decor I used as a mask for the life I had in the shadows.
Per usual, I wanted to leave the moment I stepped inside. But not without Laney.
I followed the voices down the bedroom wing until I reached the opened doors of the primary suite. Three people dressed in black were laughing and joking over some Al Green crooning in the background. They surrounded someone standing in front of the big mirror hanging from the far wall.
One of them turned, and I recognized Kate Zola, the stylist out of New York my brothers and I had all been using for a few years now.
The dark-haired woman pushed a pair of thick cat-eyed glasses up her long nose. “Mr. Black. We weren’t expecting you today. I do have some new suits, however. Dario can run down to get them from my—”
“I just want my wife,” I interrupted. “Where is she?”
The other two people had turned nervously, revealing a woman between them in nothing but a simple black dress that flowed to the floor, her dark hair twisted elegantly up without so much as a tendril out of place above her swanlike neck dripping in diamonds.
Laney turned, green eyes bright with anticipation.
Her skin had been painted and smoothed into porcelain, her eyes rimmed with enough black to shine a shoe.
Her cheekbones were sharper, her brows thinner, her lips shinier.
Even her nails, usually simple and elegant, had been painted a garish red that reminded me more of a midlife-crisis Corvette than my soulful wife.
She looked beautiful. Of course she looked beautiful—there was no way she couldn’t.
But she didn’t look like her. And I needed my Laney. Now.
“Do you… like it?” she asked.
I frowned. “I do. Now, take it off.”
Laney’s brow crinkled. “What?”
Two of the stylists hid their mouths as they giggled.
“Babe, I think that means yes,” said the one I assumed was Dario.
I strode forward, not bothering to acknowledge either one as I grabbed Laney’s hand and yanked her out of their circle.
“Ronan!” Unsuccessfully, she tried to twist out of my grip as I towed her toward the bathroom. “Ronan, we aren’t finished.”
“Oh, you’re finished,” I pushed her inside before I turned to the stylists, who were all watching us with open mouths. “If you can give us a minute.” Then I slammed the door before turning back to Laney.
“Ronan, what is going on?”