Chapter Fifteen
NIKKI
Cade’s hold on me was almost painful, crushing my chest against his as a cool breeze licked at us.
Oh my God, we’d just had sex in a fucking graveyard.
What was I thinking? I wasn’t, and that was the point.
There was too much to think about, and I simply didn’t want to think anymore.
The chemistry between Cade and me pulled us together again, and I didn’t want to fight it.
Everything in my mind could wait because if this release could free me for even a short while, then I’d take it.
Cade’s cock inside me was ecstasy, and he took me hard and fast before letting me ride him with the same vigor.
There was nothing else even close to how he made me feel, and his hard chest pressing against my exposed breasts and my nipples rubbing against the fabric of his shirt was simply another sensation that drove me over the edge.
But as my high seeped away, all the thoughts returned, stronger and more persistent than before. I couldn’t fuck away my problems, but it was worth a shot.
Lifting myself from Cade, his fingers tightened on my waist before he let me go, and I moved to collect my discarded clothes and cover up.
Somehow, we’d not been caught, or perhaps if anyone had seen us, they’d decided they would rather not interrupt daylight fucking in a graveyard.
Cade was watching me, his dark eyes following my movements until I stood in front of him, and he looked up at me.
He was sitting in my shadow, the sun directly behind me so if I moved slightly to the side, he’d be temporarily blinded by the light, but he didn’t look away, holding my gaze and evidently seeing nothing but me.
After a moment, he pulled his pants up and covered himself.
Here with the sunlight blazing down on both of us and without the distraction of the feel of his naked body under my hands and between my thighs, the moment we’d shared before was shattered.
Cade stood, and when he moved to embrace me, I stepped away from him. Something passed over his eyes, a darkness I had only seen in the moments before he fucked me, but then it was gone and replaced with the familiar pain behind his expression.
“How did you know my father?” I asked. I should have seen it the first time we came here, something like guilt had passed across his face when he had seen the picture on the gravestone, and na?vely, I assumed his guilt was because of my grieving because he didn’t want me to hurt. What a joke.
Cade’s jaw tensed as he gritted his teeth, but he said nothing for a moment, frowning as I crossed my arms over my chest. When he finally spoke up, and all he said was my name, I held up a hand.
“I don’t want to hear excuses, Cade. I want the truth. Did you work together?”
Another pause, hesitation. Did he not feel he owed me the complete truth? “No.”
“What then?”
“Nikki—”
“Cade!” I threw my arms up, and he flinched. “Tell me the fucking truth.”
“I can’t.”
My jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, what?”
There was only sympathy on his face now, and I hated it.
I didn’t want him to feel sorry for me. I wanted him to tell me the truth, the full truth, and nothing but so I could finally move on with my life.
Because now I had spent years searching for answers and found only more questions, and the man who could answer them for me stood right in front of me, feet planted firmly on top of dear old Dad’s grave, and he said he couldn’t tell me.
“Can’t or won’t?” I said.
Cade closed his eyes for a moment, and I firmly shoved down the part of me that felt sorry for him because whatever internal battle he was fighting at this moment was his fault and not my problem. “I can’t, Nikki. I’m sorry.”
“You know what, Cade?” I moved forward, diving my hand into his jacket while he held his hands up, letting me rummage through his pockets. Finding the truck keys, I pulled them out and with everything I had, threw them across the graveyard. “Fuck you!”
The gravel crunched under my boots as I stormed away, and I refused to allow myself the luxury of turning around and seeing what I hoped was a stunned look on his gorgeous fucking face.
I didn’t want him to follow me to my car, trail me in his damn truck, or even worse, shove me in the back of his truck again under some bullshit excuse of protecting me.
Because he was just too damn handsome. His fucking words.
And because I didn’t want him to see me cry.
Without work to distract me, I had nothing.
Even the lure of the investigation wasn’t beaming as bright as it usually did.
Because who was this man I was avenging?
Now knowing that Urban was the hub of the business, I dove into research about the club for a while and found surprisingly little on it.
There were more articles about minor drug busts from smaller clubs around the city than there were from Urban.
It was almost too clean. But what did that tell me?
Basically nothing. Because all I had to go on now was what people had told me, and I didn’t feel like I could trust any of them.
It felt like everyone had been lying to me about everything, and I didn’t know who to believe.
Even the simple fact that I doubted my father’s character bothered me. Why was I so ready to accept what Cade had told me? I’d known Dad for much longer than I knew Cade, so why take his word over family?
Because a voice in my head told me there are too many things you ignored.
Meetings with men who definitely weren’t in real estate, accounting, or whatever other drivel I was sold.
The gun I’d found in the drawer in his study that I’d never mentioned to anyone.
That time he’d come home with what looked suspiciously like blood splatters on his clothes, which I readily believed was paint.
The way he avoided photos being taken of him as best he could—really, I had none of him that I could recall.
The ridiculous hours, the secrecy whenever there was a phone call.
Fuck, was I as blind, stupid, and na?ve as the cops I’d been talking shit about?
Garrett—or Mitch, I didn’t even know what to call him anymore—had invited me into his family as though I were his own daughter. Was I so taken with that, I was willing to forgive and even ignore a few missteps?
What I needed was proof, or at least the word of someone I trusted, and it didn’t feel like there were many of those left.
Snatching my cell from the kitchen counter, I typed out a text before dropping the phone and pacing, impatiently waiting for a response.
Minutes later, it vibrated, buzzing across the counter in my otherwise silent home, and eagerly I grabbed it again.
Niles: I’ll come by in a couple of hours.
It was the longest two and a half hours of my life, and when he knocked and I swung open the door, Niles swept my body with his gaze, not even bothering to hide the disapproval in his eyes.
“You look like hell,” he said, stepping inside as I closed the door behind him.
“Thanks. Want a drink?”
“No, I can’t stay.”
“Good, because I just want to ask you a question, and I need honest information.”
“Is this to do with Torres?”
I shook my head. I’d almost forgotten her, it seemed so long ago, a flicker of a happening that had been dampened by the tidal wave of information and doubt that plagued me now. Torres and Kim, victims of someone’s cleaning up house, cutting loose ends and ties to this city.
Shit, why couldn’t I think straight?
Was the mystery fucker trying to silence me simply to protect himself? It seemed obvious that would be his number one priority. But if he were after my father because of the business they were in and not the assets which Emrick admitted he had taken, then there were dangerous people involved.
This was sounding less and less like real estate, and every minute that passed felt like another dagger in my soul.
I was falling apart at the seams and barely holding myself together because I didn’t know who I was anymore.
So long with a goal in sight only to have it slapped out from underneath me left me without stable footing and a whole world of questions I didn’t have before.
“No,” I sighed. Did I really want to know? Steeling myself, I finished, “I need you to tell me about Mitch Murphy.”
Niles’ shoulders tensed, and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his tan jacket, looking off to the side at nothing in particular while his jaw worked double time as though attempting to grind his teeth into stumps. “Why are you asking?”
Waving my hand dismissively, I pressed on. “Irrelevant. I need to know who he was.”
“Tell me why, Nikki.”
“I…” I licked my lips, realizing the irony of my next words, a direct reflection of what Cade had said to me. Cursing internally, I moved forward. I wasn’t here to question Cade’s motives or to think about him at all. “I can’t tell you.”
Niles stared hard at me, sighing before checking his watch and looking at me again. I could almost see the cogs in his mind turning, trying to figure out why I’d be asking about a man like Mitch Murphy, wondering if I was doing the opposite of instructed and investigating while suspended.
Of course, I fucking was. He knew me better than that.
“He disappeared years ago, and no one’s heard from him since.”
“And?”
Niles sighed again and looked at me like he wished he’d taken me up on my offer for a drink. “It’s no secret this city is run by the crime syndicates that thrive underground. They have their fingers in everything and have control in almost all departments of law and justice.”
I resisted the urge to reference my father’s death being signed off as a suicide when it was murder, not to mention Torres and Kim. Right now, Niles was giving me information he probably shouldn’t, and burning that bridge would be a stupid idea.