THIRTY-FOUR - ROMAN
This had no doubt been the longest night in my entire career.
Scratch that—my entire fucking life. I’d been close to fatally stabbed by someone weaker than me, damn near blown up by my own brother, who I’d yet to see.
I’d kidnapped my girlfriend at gunpoint and shot her.
Now, I had a fuck ton of explaining to do.
“I need to sit down.”
“Let me help you.” Jameson limped along beside me.
We walked over to where most of the crew had gathered. I was relieved to see Josephine had made it out because I just knew she was going to wait for me at the main entrance.
“Have you seen River?” I asked Elliott since he was the only person besides myself who knew that he was even here.
So far, the only people I’d seen were Jameson, Elliott, Ivan, Josephine, Leon, and a few others from security. Kelly and Chris weren’t far away.
“River?” Jameson asked as she sat down beside me with her new furry friend curled up in her arms. “Your brother?”
“The one and only.” I carefully shrugged out of my suit jacket, balled it up, and pressed it into my side. “Fuck, this hurts like a bitch.”
“Haven’t seen him yet,” Elliott answered. “Glad you’re okay. Well, mostly.”
“Thanks.”
Jameson stared down at my blood-soaked shirt. “You need to go to the hospital and get checked out.”
“Yeah, I will…eventually.” I wasn’t worried about me.
EMS would be here until the last person had been checked out. What worried me was that no one had seen River, and I knew he didn’t up and leave.
“I’m a little heartbroken y’all went behind my back and devised your own scheme, but it probably saved me an ulcer or two,” Ivan said as he lit up what was probably his tenth cigarette.
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” I told him. “But I knew after we talked the other day that shit you had planned wasn’t going to work. Not with me involved.”
The day I’d walked out on Ivan talking on the phone, I knew there was more to the story, and he was gonna start spilling shit. If he wanted me to be his puppet, the very least he could do was tell me what the fuck was going on.
He laid it all out on the table.
Last year, when Elliott found out that Kane was still running people, he’d had enough.
Elliott devised a plan and called in some owed favors.
In order to do what had to be done, he needed to disappear.
So he faked his own death. That was where I came into play.
Ivan hired me to take out a hit on someone that he’d told me at the time was interfering with the family business.
He’d just left out who it was that he wanted taken out—and it made no difference to me at the time—because he knew that if he’d told me about any of what his and Elliott’s plans were, I never would have gone along with it. Not knowing Jameson was involved.
The night that I rolled up to Magnolia Estate, I still had no idea it was Elliott’s house. I’d never been. All I was given was an address and time, along with a new bike and backpack full of cash, to disappear.
I carried on just like I’d been instructed to do—break into the side door, find my target on his way to bed, single shot to the chest would do just fine. Except my target hadn’t been alone as I was told he would be.
Jameson was there. She’d been strategically called home early from her vacation due to needing help with the business, something she’d never questioned.
What they’d needed was for her to already be home, witness her father’s death, and take over the family business that night.
Otherwise, she might never have returned home.
It’s just a job. Ivan had assured me that was all this was—a job.
I usually never questioned him or his weird requests, not until it involved my own disappearance.
He told me once I completed the hit, I was to get on my new bike and head to another address he’d given me. Don’t call me; I’ll call you.
I’d been lying low in Nashville for the last year as though I’d never existed.
Getting the fuck out of Dodge wasn’t the problem; it was seeing Elliott’s face in the dim lighting from the night-light when I spoke the word “showtime,” the code word Ivan told me needed to be the last thing our victim heard before I pulled the trigger on him.
His life or yours. That was Ivan’s promise to me. I chose him.
Then I heard her…that scream. I knew I’d fucked up.
I’d lived with the pain and grief of that night for the longest time.
Hell, I almost took my own life at one point because of it, but I couldn’t.
Not knowing that Jameson would still be out there and possibly need me one day.
Whether she’d thought I was dead or alive at the time didn’t matter. I’d still have been here for her.
Thank fuck I’d held out as long as I did because once Kane got back from Italy, he immediately started moving people again.
Elliott knew his window of opportunity to end it was really fucking small.
Initially, Elliott and Ivan had planned on working with their team of feds to invade his property and take him down, but when the first boat disappeared, Kane immediately jumped all over Jameson’s ass and went after her and her people. They had to switch things up.
That’s where I came in…or back.
Knowing Kane loved to make a spectacle of every damned thing he did, they betted on him coming after James at her own fundraiser.
Since I was still on payroll, Ivan called me back to Mississippi, knowing once I’d made it to the property and gotten all the details of my job, that I’d be more than willing to risk my life.
After learning everything from Ivan, I knew we couldn’t take Kane on our own.
Elliott and Ivan were way over their heads, even with the outside help they’d had.
The only problem was I still didn’t know how much I could trust Ivan since he’d already schemed behind my back and set me up once before.
So I called in my brother, River, for reinforcements.
I had the brawn; he had the brains. River was the intelligence guy and a chameleon of sorts.
I knew if I couldn’t get through this with his help, then it would never happen.
As soon as he got here, I had him do a deep dive into Elliott. Find him was all I asked. Lo and behold, he did…hiding out inside his own damned house—the one James and I had staked out because I just knew something was amiss with that place.
Turned out I was right.
The problem then became how to get to Elliott without anyone else knowing. But I put my faith into River that he could do it, and he did. I didn’t ask.
The new plan: let Ivan and Elliott’s original operation continue as normal, or at least let them think that was what was happening.
The reality was only River, Elliott, and I knew the new plan.
I didn’t want anyone else to find out because it was the best way to keep James safe.
I didn’t want her standing front and center on her own stage like a sitting duck, knowing that at any moment, Kane or one of his men could end her. Elliott agreed for obvious reasons.
River went undercover in I didn’t even know how many roles at Emerald Haze over the span of two days, but he did.
He pulled it off. One of Leon’s security being one of them.
He’d made sure that her dress had been reinforced with layers of Kevlar during a last-minute alteration, and assured her that it would be in her best interest not to tell anyone. Not even me.
Except I did know.
Once she took center stage, I knew we only had about three to five minutes of vulnerability, and if she made it off there safely, then we’d continue with my plan and not allow her to make it to the closing speech. Which was exactly where we’d anticipated Kane finishing the job.
I grabbed her as she came down the side steps and hauled her to the hull. I had just a few minutes to get her down there before Ivan or Leon and his men went on a manhunt looking for her.
Elliott had told River about an escape route he’d created down there, one of several on the property—some of which he’d been using to sneak into and out of his own office that James had been using.
She didn’t have a damned clue he’d even been in and out of there.
Turns out she wasn’t entirely crazy; her dad had been in and out of there on occasion, accessing things he needed but couldn’t just up and take with him.
Said he’d almost got caught by her once. That shit had me laughing.
Once I had her in isolation, locked up and safe, I had to do something to get her to shut up. She was going to draw unwanted attention to us, and I didn’t need anyone finding us down there, fucking up our entire plan.
So, I shot her.
I did it for a few reasons. One, if I’d shot at her, I’d have risked the bullet ricocheting off the wall and actually hitting her somewhere she was unprotected.
Two, I knew doing it would stun her into silence, even for a brief moment, and not leave her with any permanent physical damage.
Three, it gave Elliott the signal that she was in place, and I was heading back up, and he needed to get her the hell out of there.
Shooting the love of my life was not something I was comfortable doing, but River had assured me repeatedly that she would be fine if she didn’t move and I didn’t miss.
No pressure.
The plan worked. She got quiet from the shock of it all.
Then she got loud.
Really fucking loud.
I heard her screaming at me from all the way to the top of the stairs.
I left her down there with Elliott, who would then get her out another way. I knew she’d have a million questions, none of which I could even answer at the time, but she’d at least have her dad back.
As I made it to the exit to head back into the ballroom, I pulled the fire alarm. That was only one way I knew to get the entire place evacuated as quickly as possible. It was also River’s cue that James was in place and he could start working on things on his end.