She gives him a deer-in-headlights look. “Isn’t it just a drill?”
I’m already past her desk and headed toward my father’s office, where I hope like hell I find him and Emily.
“Jesus, woman,” I hear Derek mutter behind me, clearly talking to our receptionist. “A fire alarm does not mean stay at your desk.”
“Translation,” Seth says, “get up and get out.”
I round the corner and bring Emily’s empty desk into view. “Damn it.”
Derek appears by my side. “I’ll get Mom and Dad.” He charges toward the door and opens it. “Holy hell,” I hear him curse as I walk to the hallway, followed by a barked, “put some clothes on.”
I’d laugh if I weren’t so fucking worried about Emily and Jessica, pushing onward to the lobby again, cutting left to the break room and then the copy room. There’s no sign of Emily or Jessica. Moving toward the exterior lobby and elevators, I dig my phone from my pocket and punch in Emily’s number, only to have it go straight to voice mail. My gaze catches on the ladies’ room, and I push the door open and enter. “Emily! Jessica!”
Nothing.
“Damn it.”
Urgency builds inside me, a tight ball that settles in my gut, and I rotate, exiting the bathroom. At the same moment, I find Emily and Jessica exiting the stairwell just as several staff members enter behind them. “What the hell are you doing coming up, not going down?” I demand, closing the small space between me and them, my focus on Emily. My hands come down on her arms and the relief I feel, the way just touching her and knowing she’s okay, allows me to breathe again, speaks of how on edge Martina has me.
“Is this the kind of trouble I fear it is?” Emily asks softly, angling her body away from Jessica. “The kind that visited last night?”
“What does that mean?” Jessica asks. “The kind that visited last night?”
“It means,” I say, glancing at her, “I’m going to have you escorted downstairs and out of the building.”
“We can go down on our own, Shane,” Jessica insists. “Go get your parents.”
Emily’s hands settle on my forearms. “Shane,” she says, urgency in her voice as she presses for an answer to her question.
“I don’t know,” I say, and being as honest as I can be, I add, “but we’re going to assume that it is until it isn’t.”
Seth exits the offices to join us. “Your father says he can’t walk right now, and your mother refuses to leave him,” he announces. “Derek’s staying with them.”
“They’re all leaving,” I assure him, the elevator dinging as Cody steps off.
Holding the door, he announces, “There is no fire. There’s something else behind the evacuation, and I can’t get an answer on what yet.”
“Then do we still need to evacuate?” Jessica asks, stepping forward.
“Yes,” I say in unison with Cody and Seth.
“The absence of a fire isn’t the absence of danger,” Cody states, his attention on my assistant. “In fact, the unknown is full of limitless possibilities.”
“Just another day with the Brandon family,” Jessica states dryly, her hands on her hips, eyes locked on Cody. “Obviously since you’re hanging out with Seth, you’re competent, but you started and then this happened. How do we know you aren’t involved in all of this?”
“Because I said he’s not,” Seth says flatly. “And he’s in charge right now. You and Emily need to go with him and get out of the building.”
Jessica laughs. “Delicate delivery has never been your specialty. God, how I love you.” She eyes Cody. “I’m ready. I don’t take orders well, but if you say please, I’ll call you Master.”
“If you say please, I’ll let you call me Master,” he replies. “Now get in the damn car.”
Jessica laughs. “Oh, I like him too. It’s not love yet, but it feels good.” She heads toward him.
I shake my head and focus on Emily. “You too, sweetheart. Go with Cody. But don’t call him Master. That’s me. And right now I have to get my parents to listen to reason and actually evacuate, even if I have to carry my damn father down. I’ll catch up with you.”
“I’m good at getting your father to do things,” she argues. “Let me help. Then we can all leave safely.”
“I’m not risking your safety over my father’s stubbornness,” I say, despite the fact that she’s right. She has a strange ability that no one else does to soften that man.
“I’m not risking your safety over your father’s stubbornness.” She grabs the lapels of my jacket. “Let’s do this together.” She softens her voice. “All of this.”
She’s not talking about now. She’s talking about last night. This morning. All of this.
“Sweetheart,” I say, reaching for her hands. “I hear you. I do. I know what you want, but right now, I need you to go with Cody and do what he says. Please.”
She wants to argue. I see it in her face, but all she says is, “This is killing me.” Her grip on my jacket loosens.
And damn, I love how eager she is to help but how smartly she makes the decision. I cup her face and kiss her. “Do not leave Cody’s side.” I release her and eye Jessica. “That goes for you too.”
“No worries there,” Jessica assures, me, linking her arm with Emily’s. “We’ll see you outside, Boss,” she says, setting them into motion, and Cody wastes no time herding them to the elevator car and sealing them inside.
Once I know they’re on their way to safety, Seth and I step together. “It’s a bomb threat,” Seth says. “I didn’t want Cody to create panic by telling them. I have men on every floor clearing them. Cody and two of his men are taking Emily and Jessica to the coffee shop a block down to get them out of the line of fire. Nick is waiting in the lobby to take you all there as well.”
“How worried are we about this?” I ask.
“My gut says I should go to your father’s office and pull a gun on your parents to get us all the hell out of here.”
“Then let’s go get them.” We rotate and step forward, when Derek and my parents appear behind the glass in the lobby, walking in our direction.
“The gods of bitches and bastards answered my prayers,” Seth murmurs.
“Hey now,” I say. “This is my family.”
He laughs. “Exactly,” he says at the same moment my mother exits the lobby.
“Finally we’re here,” she announces, hugging herself, her dark hair a wavy wild mess. Her pale skin, which is as perfect as I once believed her to be, is now smeared with mascara, telling me she’s been crying. My mother doesn’t cry.
My father follows her, joining us, and immediately launches into a hacking fit, a napkin to his mouth, his head down, the lion, the king, weak, defeated. Hating that we see him this way, and the truth is, I do too. I really fucking do. Derek does too. I see it in his eyes as he exits, then looks at me, his expression stormy and some mix of frustration and torment, which I think he’s earned. The man just saw our parents fucking, followed by what preceded that discovery.
Seth crosses to the elevator panel and punches the call button, seeming more than a little eager to end this little hallway clash of the Titans, or rather, the Brandons. “Let’s get everyone to a secure location.”
My mother’s brow furrows. “Isn’t it unsafe to take the elevator in a fire?”
“There is no fire,” Seth explains. “We’re cleared to use the elevators, but we’ve been asked to move quickly. Once we’re on the ground level, we’ll be keeping you under lock and key until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
My mother lifts a frustrated hand. “I don’t even want to try to read between the lines. I won’t like what I find out.” She grabs my father’s arm, and he seems to recover, eyeing me and Derek.
“I’ll expect an explanation,” he says. “A good one.” He turns and heads to the elevator, strong enough now that he has my mother in tow.
“A good one,” Derek says dryly, stepping to my side, his voice low,
biting. “The irony of that statement stretched continents. I’ll be taking the next elevator down.” Seth motions us forward, and Derek lifts a hand. “Shane and I need to finish a talk we were having.”
Seth gives me an arched brow that I answer with a confirmation nod, hoping like hell Derek has some confession that will help me end this nightmare. Seth inclines his chin, his eyes reading his understanding. “I’ll be waiting on the ground level,” he says, disappearing into the car and allowing the doors to shut.
Derek puffs out a breath and rubs his hand on the back of his neck, punching the call button for another car. “How insane is it that I can’t stand the idea of being around Mom right now? And yes. I know I’m a grown adult, but that doesn’t seem to matter right now either.”
“Been there, still doing that,” I admit, “even after Emily logically reminded me that Mom’s not only human, but that good ol’ Pops has worn her down with a pocketful of women over the years.”
Derek shoves his jacket back, hands settling on his hips. “I just saw our mother naked in our father’s office, on top of him, after finding out she most likely was naked with another man last night. I’m a couple of bottles of Father’s best Scotch, which I plan to swipe, away from logic working right now.”
Small talk, no matter how reality based, doesn’t suit us, and the minute the elevator dings, we face each other, that unfinished business between us demanding a conclusion I welcome. “Leave Teresa out of this,” Derek warns. “Involving her will only lead to more trouble.”
“This from the man who fucked her to get to her brother?” I demand, instinct driving me to push him, wanting to take him over the edge and hoping like hell I can be the hand that pulls him back to the top.
“I did fuck her,” he says. “And I am fucking her and I will keep fucking her. Which is exactly why I know that any path that involves her leads to no place good for you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a dangerous territory, brother. One you don’t want to face with Adrian Martina.”
“You want reality? I’ll give you reality. He wants to take what is ours. He’ll kill you and he’ll kill Emily and who knows who else. I won’t let him take our company. I won’t let him take the people I love, and he needs to know I will cut where it hurts. And if that means I involve Teresa, I will involve Teresa.”
His eyes flash with challenge. “Now which one of us is in dangerous territory?”
“You paved this path I’m forced to travel to keep us all alive.”
“Leave,” he urges. “Go back to New York and then it’s on me.”
“You aren’t the first to make that recommendation,” I say, leaving out Emily’s name. “But this is Adrian Martina we’re talking about. Do you really think he’ll let us walk away alive?”
“You mean you don’t want to walk away from your newly inked CEO position.”
“The one I may never assume? Martina wants me involved, and if I walk away, he’ll kill you to get me back.” I fix him with a hard look. “Our division is our weakness. I’m choosing family. When are you going to do the same?”
“Like you did when you left your legal career?”
“Yes,” I say. “Like I did when I left my legal career.”
“Like you did when you tricked me into signing a document that named you as CEO in the event Father was incapacitated?”
I feel those words like the whip they are intended to be, but with no regret. “I’d explain my reasons for that decision, but you won’t hear me, and this isn’t the time or place for us to fight personal wars. They have to wait or there will be nothing left to claim in victory. We have two mutual enemies. Adrian Martina and Mike Rogers.”
He stares at me, his gray eyes cutting, sharp, before he walks to the panel and punches the button again. The elevator opens and we both walk inside, turning to face forward, side by side, every word we say now recorded, but as I watch him punch the button for the lobby level, that bandage still on his hand, I issue one final warning. “A blade in your hand now. A blade in your heart, or back, later.”
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t reply. He simply steps into the spot next to me, both of us instinctively curling our fingers into our palms. Alike and so fucking different. The doors slide shut and we don’t speak, a band of tension wrapping around us, tightening with each floor that passes, until we are at the lobby level. The elevator dings, the doors starting to open when Derek says, “I find myself wondering who is more likely to shove that blade into my heart. You or them?”
I don’t have the chance to ask who “them” is. He steps out of the elevator, and the sound of shouts fills the air. Derek looks over his shoulder at me and I’m by his side in an instant, both of us jogging toward the noise and rounding the corner to the main lobby, where we both stop dead in our tracks. People pour in through the doors, running toward us and away from the thick smoke quickly overtaking the front of the building. My gaze scans and catches on a security guard and several men I recognize from our security team near the entrance, and they actually seem to be urging people in our direction.
“Out the back door!” a police officer shouts over a megaphone. “Proceed out the back door!”
“Whatever this is,” I say to Derek, “it’s on us, and we have to make it right.” I don’t wait for his reply. I start walking toward the problem, not away, trying to ensure everyone who could be affected is being supported and is safe.
Derek is instantly beside me, keeping pace, and for a moment, I contemplate that he might be part of this, whatever it is, and that is why he’s staying with me. Maybe that’s why he kept me upstairs, and I foolishly played into his hand. I do not like this idea, but I focus on getting to the front of the building, my strides longer now, quicker. Derek’s stride matches mine as well, his energy too, my worries of moments before fading with them. He senses what I do. He fears what I fear. And we don’t know what that is. The crowd is now behind us, and the smoke calls to me, to us, neither of us slowing, until we are standing just outside the wall of glass that encases the front of the building. I watch then as the smoke begins to dissipate, and in its depths sits an ominous-looking six-by-six wooden crate.
“Any idea what the hell that is?” I ask.
“What the hell is right,” Derek says as the crate begins to rock back and forth.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHANE
The crate continues to rock back and forth, and in all of thirty seconds there are a half dozen uniformed officers pointing guns at it but staying the hell away from it. My immediate thought is every possibility that box holds: a bomb, a person, an attack of some sort. My next is of Emily and my parents, and I reach for my phone, punching in Emily’s auto-dial.
“Shane,” she says, answering on the first ring, the sound of her voice delivering instant relief. “Where are you?”
“Derek and I are together at the front of the building,” I say, the sound of my father’s deep, gravelly coughs in the background telling me she’s still with my parents. “Where are you?”
“We got caught in the smoke, and it’s not treating your father well. Cody and two of his men are escorting us to our apartment so he can safely rest.”
“Good,” I approve, damn happy Cody was smart enough to get the hell away from here. “Text me when you get there.” Derek points to the crate, and I watch as it splinters down the front. “I need to go, sweetheart.”
“Wait, Shane.”
“Stay with Cody,” I say, ending the call as another splinter bulges the wood of the crate. Another blink and it bursts open, a naked man falling out of the wooden encasement and onto his side, his hands and feet bound. “Holy mother of Jesus,” Derek murmurs.
Holy mother of Jesus is right, I think as cameras begin to flash, news crews pushing toward the scene while officials push them back, forming a perimeter. The naked man curls forward, hiding his face and as much of his body as he can from the many prying eyes I suspect he didn’t know were wait
ing on him. Nick suddenly appears in my line of sight, an officer with him, the two of them approaching the circle of armed men around the crate and the naked man.
“I assume we’ve just found your missing security person?” Derek asks, and while I can feel his eyes on me, mine are on the man, anger burning in my belly at his demoralizing circumstances. Because of me. Because of Derek. Because of my fucking father. But Ted’s alive. The way I told Adrian I expected to have him returned, but he’s also paying for me forcing Adrian’s hand.
“Shane—” Derek presses.
“Yes,” I say, watching Nick rush through the line of officers to kneel next to the humiliated man. “That’s him.” Seconds tick by, and Nick motions to the officers, pulling out a knife to cut Ted’s hands free, while EMS workers hurry forward and a blanket is pulled over Ted, but he doesn’t move, which seems to indicate he’s injured.
“He’s telling you to heel,” he says. “Or he’ll make you pay the price.”
All he did was piss me off, I think, and when I’m pissed, I win and I win big. “I’m not going to heel,” I reply, glancing over at him. “And the brother I used to know wouldn’t either.”
“Who said I was going to heel?”
“Haven’t you already?”
His expression tightens. “No. I have not and I never will.”
The glass door just to the left of me opens and Seth appears, his gaze sliding between myself and Derek. “I need to get you out of sight before the police and the press corner one or both of you,” he says, clearly in the role of head of security for the company. Before he’s even finished the statement, Derek and I are walking with him, our strides long and quick.
“How’s Ted?” I ask.
“Missing a finger, from what Nick just told me,” he replies, cutting me a look, this news delivered with barely contained anger when Seth is never barely contained about anything.