Sebring

  Unfortunately, the last lesson would be the hardest.

  That lesson being he shouldn’t procrastinate.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Brightside

  Olivia

  10:23 – Monday Morning

  I was coasting into the parking area around the warehouse when my phone rang. I saw on my dash computer it was Nick so I took the call as I guided my Evoque to a spot.

  “Hey,” I greeted.

  “What are you doin’ at the warehouse?” he asked curtly in reply.

  He still had a man following me.

  His men had to have better things to do. Not to mention it was expensive to waste one following me everywhere.

  And having one tail me was a reminder of why I needed to be tailed, which wasn’t pleasant.

  I would be glad when those days were at an end.

  “Georgia texted,” I began to explain. Having glided into a spot, I threw it in park. “Wanted a meet. Her schedule today is such she couldn’t get to me, so I’m coming to her.”

  “My guy can’t get anywhere near that warehouse, Liv,” he told me.

  “It’s just a meet with my sister. Not a big deal. She wants to go over some new investments I’m suggesting.”

  “I don’t like this,” he muttered like he wasn’t talking to me.

  I didn’t like it either. I never liked being at the warehouse.

  But this would one day come to an end.

  I believed.

  Nick Sebring was not Tom Leary.

  And I was no longer the Olivia Shade I was when I was twenty-five.

  I was smart and I was savvy. I had a good head on my shoulders.

  And I could make a man like Nick Sebring talk about having a future with me.

  Babies.

  The only thing I wasn’t was strong. I had to admit that to myself so I could face it.

  I’d had my strength burned right out of me.

  No, I’d let them burn the strength right out of me.

  Then I let them do whatever they wanted to do and I’d quit fighting. I’d quit dreaming.

  I’d quit believing.

  Now, Nick was showing me another way. He’d once been another man, a maybe not-so-good one, and he’d learned. He’d learned not to be petty and selfish and manipulative.

  He’d grown up. He’d become his own man. He’d become the master of his destiny.

  And he saw something in me.

  I honest to God didn’t know what.

  But if he saw it, if he liked it, if he wanted a future with it, I wanted to give it to him.

  I wanted to make it worth it.

  I wanted it for myself.

  Nick had needed to grow up.

  I didn’t need to grow up. I was grown up. Too grown up. I felt a million years old.

  So no, I didn’t need to grow up.

  I needed to grow a backbone.

  Nick wanted to look out for me. He wanted to find a way to make me free.

  I loved that.

  But I had to help.

  And I had to make that struggle (and it was going to be a struggle) worth it.

  Thinking about all of this on the plane, wanting a life with Nick in it, wanting the future he was leading us to, as well as coming to terms with all of this, I also had to admit I was scared shitless.

  But I was beginning to understand that having a backbone wasn’t about being brave and stupid, jumping in with both feet, rushing to meet the horizon, so as the sun peaked it burned you blind.

  It was about being scared shitless, knowing the source of your fears, understanding them, outsmarting them, and going forth to conquer them anyway.

  I didn’t know what his plan would be.

  I just knew whatever it was, I had to find the strength to be with him all the way so I’d feel worthy of being with him the rest of the way.

  “I’ll be in and out,” I assured him. “Georgia’s got all sorts of stuff on. She’s never been overly interested in this kind of thing anyway. I’ll probably be back in my car on the way to my office in half an hour.”

  “I want you texting me when you’re out of there,” he ordered.

  Patiently, I reminded him, “I don’t text and drive, Nick.”

  “Then pull over, Olivia, and text me, or just call me and talk to me on your fuckin’ Bluetooth like you’re doin’ now.”

  At that curt demand, and the open disquiet behind it, I felt a chill slide over my scalp.

  Even so, I assured Nick again. “I’m just meeting Georgie, sweetheart.”

  “Just contact me one way or another when you’re out of there, babe. Yeah?”

  “Yeah, Nick.”

  “My man will be waiting. He’ll pick you up again when you leave. I still want to hear direct from you you’re okay.”

  “All right, honey.”

  “Right, Liv. Later, baby.”

  “Later.”

  He hung up.

  I stared at the grungy outside of the warehouse through my windshield, took a breath and shook off the weird feeling Nick’s call left me. That done, I threw open my door.

  I was walking up the stairs inside the warehouse that led to the hall of offices when a text sounded on my phone.

  I kept moving as I grabbed it and read it.

  It was Georgia, See you pulled up. Meet me in Dad’s office.

  Along with the lingering weirdness I felt from Nick’s call, I didn’t feel happy thoughts about that text.

  But this was my sister. This was Georgie. Even if Dad was in a snit about something, she looked out for me.

  And Dad was leaving me be. In fact, it seemed after I sorted the David stuff and moved on from Tommy, he was coming to terms with the daughter that was me. He wasn’t asking me over for cookouts, but he wasn’t in my space or my life hardly at all. This, to my way of thinking, was the best gift he could give me.

  So Nick cared about me. He didn’t like my family. He didn’t like me around my family. And he’d long since warned me to stay away from the warehouse so I knew he didn’t like me being here.

  He was just being protective.

  And I could shake off the weird feeling, get my meet done with Georgia (who probably told Dad about it and he wanted to horn in) and get out of here. Get out of here and get back to my life. My real life, the life I lived without all this and with Nick.

  I walked down the hall toward Dad’s door deciding that instead of looking at this in the sense I was back here in this dingy hall possibly about to spend time with my father, I should look at it in the sense that I hadn’t been there in over a week. My life no longer meant I had to come there every day. I only came there occasionally. And I didn’t have to stay for long.

  In other words, for the first time since Tommy and I failed in our escape, I looked on the Brightside.

  Because of this, my mouth curled up in a small smile as I put my hand on the handle of my father’s door.

  I turned it.

  I pushed in.

  I walked in.

  I saw Georgia coming up out of a chair in front of my father’s desk, turning as she did to face me.

  I also saw something out of the corner of my eye.

  I didn’t get the chance to look that way.

  Agony exploded from my cheekbone, coursing a path through my temple and eye.

  Having received the backhanded blow from my father, I staggered to the side, hand out to catch my fall however that might happen, eyes blinking in an effort to regain focus taken away by surprise and pain.

  I hadn’t succeeded before the next blow came. This one not a backhand but an open-handed slap across my cheek that cracked hideously through the room, the sound exploding in my brain.

  I careened from that blow only to sustain the next one, another slap, followed by another. But that one was a closed-fist crushing punch that landed right on my temple.

  Fighting to remain conscious but unable to remain standing, I fell to the side. Slamming into my hand on the silk carpet, my wrist t
aking all my weight, the throb of pain radiating up my arm, my hip hitting next.

  My other hand to my face, cowering away from the possibility of another blow, I heard Georgia cry, “Dad! Stop with the face!”

  “Fuck, you fucking stupid, goddamned fucking bitch!” my father shouted, on the second “fucking” grabbing hold of my hair in a painful grip and yanking back.

  I made a mew of pain, my eyes opening to see his red livid face inches from mine.

  “What the fuck’s the matter with you, you stupid, fucking bitch?” he asked in an enraged shout, his spittle landing on my face. “Christ! How have you not learned? It’s simple,” he yanked my hair with the last word and then again with each successive one, “you…do…as…you’re…told.”

  My head jerking with each tug, my neck stretched taut in a reflexive effort to fight the jolts and beginning to ache, my scalp in agony, I tried to gather a single thought.

  All I could do was notice that my sister was approaching.

  I also vaguely noticed Tommy was there, not too far away.

  And incidentally—so Tommy—not intervening.

  “Dad, back off,” Georgia said in a calming voice.

  Dad glared at me a moment before he yanked my hair one last time, like he was pushing me away from him, before he let me go and straightened.

  I swayed with the wrench, flinching against the pain, and righted myself. But I didn’t move further because my father didn’t shift away and both Georgia and he were fencing me in.

  Hazily, my attention drifted to my sister.

  “Dustin Culver, Liv,” she said.

  “What?” I whispered, that being the absolute last thing I expected her to say, not thinking I actually heard her say it and wondering if I was unconscious and hallucinating.

  “Told you to date him, sis. Not break up with the fucker,” she stated.

  I blinked up at her.

  “The man’s running for state senate next term,” my father spat, and I looked to him. “Way he looks. Money he’s got. Brain in his head. His pedigree. His education. His ambition. He’ll be in Washington in four years, if he doesn’t run for governor. He could even fuckin’ make a play for the White House. That kinda future ahead of him, you get him addicted to your snatch, leadin’ him around by his dick, what’s that do for the Shades?”

  I wasn’t certain I was hearing what I thought I was hearing.

  “You wanted me…” I shook my head. “What?”

  “Boy got your stepfather out of some shit, because your stepfather is more of a stupid fuck than you are,” Dad bit out. “Payback, Culver saw you out to dinner with your mother, he wanted a fixup. Your mother saw the benefits of such a union. She chatted with your sister, your sister chatted with me. We all agreed. You see him. You fuck him. You get him wrapped around your finger, you own him,” he jerked his thumb at himself, “then I own him.”

  I felt something coming off of Georgia, it was not nice, and since I didn’t need more not nice in the present situation, my gaze darted quickly to her only to see her aiming a sour look at our father.

  She rearranged her face when she noticed my attention and looked down at me.

  “Babe, getting you out of this warehouse? Getting you clean? Next young, handsome, hotshot Colorado senator sent to Washington is not gonna put a ring on your finger, you’re managing a crew of drug dealers.”

  Me moving offices hardly made me clean.

  “I’m still a Shade,” I pointed out hesitantly.

  “No Shade has direct ties to anything…” she hesitated before her lips quirked and she finished, “shady. Not anymore.”

  Her sister on the floor at her feet having been on the receiving end of four vicious blows from the father we shared, I had no idea how she could find anything amusing.

  Then again, as it sunk in that they were whoring me out to Dustin Culver, something she was clearly in on, maybe I did have an idea.

  I scooted back several inches, and with as much grace as I could muster, cradling my tender wrist in my other hand, doing my best to ignore the pain burning in my face, I gained my feet. I then shifted away farther, my eyes glancing from my father to my sister to Tommy, doing this also noting Gill was across the room, shoulder leaned against the wall, face blank, watching.

  They were all in on it.

  My face stinging and I could feel it swelling, I avoided my father’s eyes and looked at my sister.

  “So I don’t manage a crew of dealers. Now I’m a whore?”

  Georgia caught herself mid-eye roll at what she clearly considered my dramatics and threw out a low hand. “He’s not ugly or fat or stupid. How tough would it be?”

  I straightened my shoulders and held her gaze. “Maybe not tough but did it occur to you to explain your plans to me rather than telling me what I was to do without me really understanding why you wanted me to do it?”

  “I’ve been kinda busy, Liv,” Georgie replied. “I said date the guy. You dated the guy, okay. Then you broke up with him without clearing that with me. Not okay.”

  So now my sister thought she owned me.

  I didn’t acknowledge her ludicrous reply.

  I asked, “And did it occur to you to maybe ask if I wanted to get involved with Dustin Culver for a night or two or, say, the rest of my life?”

  “You might wanna watch your mouth, girl,” my father warned.

  I looked to my father, taking another step back, which was chicken, but doing it saying, “No, Dad. I wouldn’t,” which scared the shit out of me saying it but it was very much not chicken.

  Dad’s face screwed up, his body tightened, and mine did too because I knew he was about to lose it.

  But I wanted him to.

  I wanted him to beat the living daylights out of me.

  And when I crawled to the police and pressed charges then went home to Nick with the umbrella of protection he could offer me, I wanted to watch them squirm.

  Because I heard things. I did things.

  I knew things.

  I knew better than to turn rat. I had Shade blood running through my veins. That was never going to happen.

  But I’d never been one of them. I’d never fit. They knew that.

  So they didn’t know I’d never turn rat.

  I was done.

  Utterly finished.

  Nick could keep me safe. He’d promised. And even Dad had said he and his brother were untouchable.

  He’d make me the same way.

  I believed.

  I fucking believed.

  So fuck them.

  “Tom,” Georgia muttered, turning slightly toward Tommy, who was now on the move, coming my way.

  “I’d really rather it was Dad who finished the job, Tommy,” I told him.

  “Quiet, Liv,” he murmured, getting close.

  Taking my elbow in a firm grip, he turned me to the door.

  “Good. You get him to get her outta my fuckin’ sight and then you get her shit sorted, Georgie.” I heard Dad order as Tommy escorted me to and out the door. “You get me?”

  “It’ll be handled, Dad,” Georgia replied, managing to sound both conciliatory and annoyed.

  It’d be handled, my sister offering me up as Shade property.

  Oh yes, I was so done with my family.

  Tommy shut the door behind us and I let him walk me five feet down the hall before I tried to twist my arm free.

  His grip tightened to the point of pain, and in surprise, my head shot to the side and back to look up at him.

  He’d never touched me like that.

  “Tom, let me go,” I hissed, twisting now not only to get loose but against the pain.

  “Shut the fuck up, Liv,” he clipped angrily, not letting go but now manhandling me toward my old office and in.

  Everything was still there except my personal effects. The décor. The furniture. Nothing had changed.

  And I would find, in short order, that was agonizingly correct.

  Nothing had changed.

/>   Not.

  One.

  Thing.

  Tommy pulled me in several feet, let me go and shut the door.

  He turned to me and I braced in shock when I saw his face was a mask of fury.

  “Are you fuckin’ stupid?” he whispered, his tone harsh with rage.

  “You know,” I returned conversationally, “I don’t need you to be ticked, Tommy. My father striking me four times to push the point home about Dustin Cul—”

  Suddenly, he rushed me.

  I scurried back, hit a chair, hit a table and hit wall, Tommy pinning me there with his body and his anger.

  “I’m not talking about Culver, Liv. I’m talkin’ about Nick Sebring.”

  Fear slamming through me, I stopped breathing.

  “Yeah,” he bit off. “Harry told me.”

  Oh God.

  Harry?

  I didn’t have to verbalize the question. Tommy was more than ready to give me the answer.

  “Taught you how to take the tracker off your car. Taught you how to spot a tail,” Tommy explained. “Seein’ as it’s comin’ clear you got shit for brains, never occurred to you, he taught you how to spot a tail, he’d know how to tail you without you spotting him.”

  “But why would he even do that?” I asked quietly, unable to make my voice even a normal volume.

  “For money. For me,” he ground out, jerking a thumb at himself miraculously in the minimal space he’d allowed. “For us,” he went on.

  I shook my head. “Us?”

  “Fuck, Liv, do you pay attention at all?” he asked.

  Apparently, I didn’t.

  But I thought I did.

  “Tom, I—”

  “Your sister is taking over,” he said low, getting even closer to do it. “Your dad’s goin’ down, Liv. She’s maneuvered him right out. He’s been so taken up with findin’ new sources of horse and blow, comin’ up with crazy-ass bullshit schemes like marryin’ his daughter to some asshole he’s convinced is gonna be the next fuckin’ president, for fuck’s sake. Not to mention, generally fucking things up doin’ stupid shit, like gettin’ caught up in that human trafficking bullshit that almost brought us all down. He didn’t see it.”

  There was a lot there, none of which I got to process because Tommy was still speaking.

  “Now, when Georgia’s in charge of things, and she will be and she will be soon, things’ll change. And those things changing means I get you. You get me. She gets Gill. Your dad gets ousted however she’s got planned to oust him and she’s got plans, Liv. Make no mistake about that. She is not fuckin’ around. Not anymore.”