by Vi Keeland
Carter would take her life to save mine.
“Stop asking questions.”
Our heads snapped up and over. Noah stood in the other doorway, fuming with fisted hands at his sides. He jerked forward into the kitchen as his eyes were latched onto Theresa. “I told you to stop asking questions. You have to stop now! I mean it, Theresa.”
She straightened in defiance. “And what if I don’t?” She rolled her eyes. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
A low growl wrung from him as he cried out, “Are you kidding me?”
She paused, caught in the headlights of his glare. Then she swallowed tightly.
“You’re in a safe house of a guy you know has mob connections and you’re being snide about seeing him kill another man?” His eyes flashed in fury. “What part of that sentence is ludicrous? The. Whole. Thing! Think about it, Theresa!”
She frowned at him.
“You’ve always known who Carter was to me. I owe him my life, Theresa. My life! But that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. He’s been good to me and I will always be grateful to him for everything he’s done, but you’re talking about him like he’s five. He is a killer and she’s spelling it out to you. She’s leading you down the damn road, but you have to stop and think about what she’s not saying.” Noah stepped closer to her. He begged her, “Please let this go. Please, Theresa. He loves her. He snapped Scott’s neck because of her. What do you think he’ll do to you?” He reached for her hands and gripped them hard. Her tiny hands disappeared underneath his. “He’ll make you disappear and the only reason I’ll know about it is because of this conversation, right here. He’ll do it when you won’t be expecting it or it’ll look like an accident. I have no idea, but I know he’ll do it and it’ll happen because you’re threatening her life. Don’t you get that?” He lowered his head so he was eye-level with her. “Please get that, please, please get that, Theresa. Stop. Talking. About it. Just stop. That’s all you have to do.”
“But,” she opened her mouth as tears flowed down. Nothing came out. Her eyes jumped to mine, and I didn’t do anything. He was right. She needed to hear it. Then her mouth shut and she fell back into the counter. She would’ve fallen if Noah hadn’t been there.
He swept her up and turned to Carter. “She won’t say a word. I promise.”
Carter narrowed his eyes.
“I promise, Carter.”
He looked to me as if to ask if I should believe him. I didn’t do a thing. I couldn’t. I had no idea what Theresa would do or what she would think a month away, or even a year, or ten years, if she would remain silent. So I gave him no answer.
The corner of his lip curved as if to say ‘thanks a lot’, but his eyes were still flat.
“Carter?” Noah pushed.
He stepped back to let them through. That was the only response he gave to the unspoken plea from his friend. Noah’s shoulders sagged in defeat and he hurried them out the door. A car was outside.
When they shut the door behind them, I commented, “He thinks you’re going to kill the woman he loves.”
Carter watched me. “Should I?”
Twenty-four hours earlier and I would’ve been pleading for her life. She was innocent. She was pure. She meant no harm. But now I had changed. Theresa had become a friend, but everything shifted last night. Carter was my lover. He was my family. He was my only ally. And because of that, because she held a threat to his life, I told him, “I can’t lose you.”
Then I picked up the tongs again and turned off the stove. The bacon was burned by then so I removed the pan and left.
TWENTY-THREE
Carter never did anything with Theresa. I asked him one night what he intended to do. He had men watching her, but that was his only response. When I asked what would happen if she contacted the police, he shrugged. “I don’t see it coming to that. She cares about you and if she did anything, I’d take it to Noah first. I’m not completely heartless, Emma.”
She never did anything, which I had to admit made me relieved. After two weeks, nothing happened regarding Franco Dunvan either. He went missing and my gut told me that his body would never be found. There were no reports on the news about the upheaval that happened that night. It made me wonder how many other mob events happened that the general public had no idea about. I never asked about Franco, but I figured I was safe when Carter told me that I could go out with only two guards. That was fine by me. So much had changed, myself included. Work wasn’t the same. I had never chatted much with the other girls, but I chatted with them even less now. When I would go for coffee, I never looked to see who was in the breakroom. I got my coffee and returned to my office.
The new promotion was nice. I had more freedom over my hours and I didn’t have Mr. Hudson breathing down my neck. In fact, I was his boss now and he had to report to me. I was lenient with him, but I knew there’d be a day when I would enforce those duties. However, that day wasn’t now.
I worked closely with Theresa on the new account. Her excitement had waned, which made sense and I didn’t take offense to it. That meant that she had listened to Noah’s pleadings. One time I asked Carter if he still sparred with Noah in the mornings and he surprised me when he said he did. I thought their friendship would be strained, but it seemed like they went on as if nothing had happened.
It was the end of a week and I was about to leave. But as I stepped outside and saw the car waiting for me, I turned to Mike. He and Thomas stayed with me. They were the regulars. There were others, but I liked knowing who guarded my life the majority of time.
His hand fell away from the car door. “Maybe coffee today?”
I nodded and turned back inside. I went through the front lounge and headed for the café. Carter was gone again. Unlike the last couple times when he never told me where or why he was leaving, he explained to me the night before that he was going to Japan. He was brokering another business merger for a new website program. I nodded. I only cared about when he was coming back and I knew it would take at least a full day. It would be the longest we had been apart since the night he killed Scott Graham.
When I went inside the cafe, Amanda was behind the register. She signaled for someone to take her place and gestured towards a back booth. It was our old booth. When I saw that she grabbed two mugs and a coffee pot, warmth flooded me. It felt good to be falling back into our old routine. It made me feel like I still had one other friend.
“New threads?” she asked as she slid into the booth.
I waited as she filled both mugs. “I got a promotion. It requires better clothes.” That was half true, but I wore the clothes Carter bought for me when I first went to live with him. After making love one time, I asked where the clothes had come from since they all fitted me perfectly. He said he ordered them when I came to him at Octave. He had known even then that I would be with him. My response was to pull him back down to me and it hadn’t been long until he slid back inside of me.
Thinking about that night sparked desire within me. We hadn’t slept much.
“So are you going to tell me about the new man in your life?”
I almost dropped my mug. “Excuse me?”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Please, Ems. It’s all over you. Even now you’re blushing. I’m not an idiot. Who’s the guy?” She shook her head. “Please tell me it’s not Ben.”
I grinned. “I’m going to have nightmares now. Can you imagine? Waking up and seeing him strutting around the apartment?”
She giggled. “With nothing on except his boxers?” She pretended to stick out her gut how Ben always would. He would rest his hands on the back of his hips and stand, trying to make his gut look bigger than it did. He was always trying to convince us that he wasn’t just skin and bones.
Both of us groaned. I shook my head. “I think I threw up in my mouth just now.”
“Me too.” She giggled some more. “Remember the time he told us he could join an MMA fight club but didn’t because he didn’t
want to harm any of the other fighters?”
“You’re right. He said it wasn’t fair to the humanity of the MMA standards if he fought.”
As she sipped her coffee, she shook her head. “He was such an idiot.”
“Pretty much.”
Then she sighed, “Am I pathetic for missing him?”
All of the amusement fled and I was left feeling empty. “I miss Mallory.”
Amanda closed her eyes and lowered her head. She put the mug down on the table as she cleared her throat.
I heard the emotion there. I felt some of it as well.
She said in a quiet voice, “Mallory changed, Ems. What he did to her and what you did in front of her, I think it changed her. She wasn’t the same Mallory before they disappeared.”
Anger speared me. Mallory would’ve never left without a word before it happened. But I left first. I had no right to be angry with her. Then I admitted, “I think that changed all of us.”
She wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s never going to be the same, is it?”
Her eyes held mine. There was a spark of longing in them. She wanted me to tell her everything would be fine. The gang would be back to normal, but it wasn’t the truth. I couldn’t think of a way to lie to her and make it sound convincing. All I could say was, “We can still be normal.”
Her eyes closed in defeat. “You’re different, Ems. We can’t be normal. You’re not normal anymore. I think what you did changed you too.” She opened them again and frowned at me, chewing on her lip for a moment. “It’s like a part of you died.”
A part of me did die. “I think that happens when you kill someone.”
She wiped another tear away. The coffee had grown cold by then. “I’ve been thinking about moving, leaving this place.”
“Where?” A pang stabbed me.
She shrugged. “Maybe back home. They offered me a teaching position and I could take care of my mom. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything here for me.”
I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t want to lose another friend, another part of my old life.
She had been watching me. She asked now, “What do you think about that?”
I hesitated. “I don’t want you to go. I wanted us to be friends again.”
Pushing her mug away, she leaned back and sighed. “I don’t know, Ems. I really don’t know. Things are so weird now. I have to make new friends. I have no idea where-”
“I moved in with Carter Reed,” I interjected in a rush. Then I blinked, startled, at what I had just said. Oh god. She knew. I waited, biting my lip, for her reaction. What would she say? What would she do?
A confused look came over her. “Um, what?” Her eyes lit up. “Carter Reed? He’s hot!” She seemed awestruck then. “Wow. I mean-whoa. He’s hot and rich. You’re living with him? Holy shit, Emma. No wonder you didn’t say anything. He’s like the boyfriend of all boyfriends.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait, you are boyfriend/girlfriend, right? He’s not tossing you around, using you for sex, is he?”
I shook my head, fighting back a smile. “No. I love him. I love him a lot.” It felt good to be sharing this, talking about him to someone who didn’t think he was brainwashing me. I admitted, “I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you.”
Her hand reached out and she placed it over mine on the table. “Me too.” A third tear slipped down her cheek. “Me too, Ems.” She let out a timid smile. “Maybe we should do dinner every Friday night or something. No, wait, that’d be date night. Okay, Thursday nights. Let’s do something then.” She sat up. “Hey! Does that mean we can go to Octave sometime? That’d be amazing.”
I laughed as my chest felt lighter. “He owns restaurants too. We can eat at any of them, any time.”
“Oh man. Wow, Ems. That’s great.” She nodded, her lip quivering from emotion again. “That’s where you went, didn’t you? To be safe from Franco. You went to him and he protected you.”
I nodded.
Her eyes grew thoughtful and she sighed again. She looked defeated now. “Ben didn’t get that money from his job, did he?”
She didn’t have to look at me. She already knew the answer.
“I’m sorry, Emma. I’m so sorry.” Then she asked the question I couldn’t answer, one that I wanted to know, too. “Where’d they go? Where did Ben and Mallory go?”
I didn’t know, but I hoped against hope that Mallory was okay.
Carter came back the next night. He woke me when he slid into bed and I glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning. When his hand curved around my thigh, he tugged me close and rested his head into the crook of my neck. He pressed a kiss there and his hand explored my waist before it slid upwards. When it came to my breast, he spread his palm out and held me. His thumb rubbed back and forth over the peak as he murmured, “Japan was exhausting.”
Desire pulsed through me. He felt my tip hardening under his ministrations. “I’m glad you’re back.”
He moved up and gazed down at me. His eyes darkened with lust and his gaze lingered on my lips. “Me too.”
He lowered his head and my heart fluttered, ready for his kiss and ready for the hunger that always enslaved me. When he slid inside of me, I hoped that I’d never get used to how alive he made me feel. All of it took over me. It was later as he held me close and he had tucked himself around me that I wondered if he was healing that part of me that had died.
It was the next morning when he asked if I was alright.
I lowered the orange juice in my hand to the counter. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I know you. I know something’s wrong.”
A fierce surge of love rolled through me. It was overwhelming and sudden. I gasped from the intensity and couldn’t speak for a moment. I wanted to protect him. I wanted to protect us and I would do anything it took to do that.
His saw what was in my eyes and took me back to the bedroom. As he lowered me to the bed, he gazed down at me for a moment. His hand slid through my hair and cupped the back of my head. “Do you know much I love you?”
The same feeling of protection washed over me again. I could only jerk my head in a nod. My throat was thick with emotion. It was suffocating me and I gasped as I pulled him down to me, “As much as I love you.”
The next night he took me to one of his restaurants. It was one of his more exclusive ones and as he led me through to a back section, I wasn’t surprised when I saw celebrities spread through the dining area. It seemed that everyone in the restaurant emanated money. When we passed by the restrooms and three women walked out, my mouth dropped open from how beautiful they were. One called to Carter, but he ignored her and pulled me to a small set of stairs. We went to a second level that I didn’t know existed. I realized the second level was the most private area in the whole restaurant. There was only one long table for the entire level. We were able to look down over the main floor through a glass floor beneath us, but no one could see us. I remembered seeing a mirrored ceiling when we were below.
As we sat, the chef came to greet us. Carter did the introductions, but I was surprised as I watched him talk with his employee. He wasn’t faking the warmth. He genuinely liked the man. After he left us and a server brought over a bottle of wine, I asked, “How do you know him?”
He waited until the server had left, after filling both of our glasses. “Remember when I told you when I went to the Mauricio warehouse? That was Farve.”
Shocked, I murmured, “You said he was drinking buddies with your dad?”
Carter’s smile thinned. “He never approved of what my dad did. I think he took me in to make up for not stopping my old man.”
I shivered as I remembered some of the worst times Carter came over for our couch. “He could’ve protected you from him.”
His eyes shot to mine. “You protected me from him.”
I held my breath, captivated by him.
“So did AJ. You gave me a home when I needed one.”
“You kept going back.” The bittern
ess was still with me.
“Because I loved my father.” Darkness flickered in his depths. “I was a fool, but because of him, Farve saved my life. He gave me a third home after I lost you and AJ.”
“You never lost me.”
His eyes held mine steadily. He said, softly, “I did. I let you go so you could be normal. I never wanted this life for you.”
“This life?” I gestured around the restaurant, teasing.
“The life you would’ve had then, if I had brought you with me. For awhile there, it was hard. They had me do horrible things, Emma.”
I knew what he was doing and I didn’t care. I never flinched. I never looked away. Instead, I picked up my wine and sipped it before I replied, “I wouldn’t have cared. I don’t care now.” He was warning me away, testing to see if I was scared. “I know who you are, Carter. I’m the only one who knows you.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I told him about Amanda that night in bed. He nodded, replying, “That’s good. You met her in college?”
I shifted down in bed, surprised that he knew that, but knowing that I shouldn’t have been. He had men watching me all my life. He probably knew more about me than I knew myself. “No, not really. I didn’t have a lot of good friends in college, none that stuck. I knew Amanda from freshman year. We were in this social club they did. They grouped a bunch of freshman together. I think it was to help jumpstart a social life. I stopped going to the club outings after the first night when I realized we didn’t actually have to be there.”
He trailed a hand up my arm, sending tingly sensations in its wake. “You didn’t become good friends with her then?”
“No, it wasn’t until I was hired at The Richmond. She teaches, but works at the café next to it during summers. We reconnected. I met Mallory before that. She was my only friend since college.” I sighed, feeling some of the emptiness from those years again. “It took me awhile to learn what good friends were like. I never pledged to a sorority but I was friends with a bunch of them during college. We went to fraternity parties, and those were the worst. To be fair, I think it was just the girls I had become friends with. They were the stereotypical stuck-up girls. I don’t even know why they were friendly with me.”