Sebring

  She wasn’t there.

  He called her name.

  No answer.

  He went back on the move.

  She wasn’t in her bedroom. She wasn’t in any bathrooms.

  His temper spiked along with his concern as he instigated a room by room search of the house, repeatedly calling her name.

  He found her in her informal family room where she watched television. He’d not seen her in there because the room was dark, the curtains drawn, and she was at the far end of the room.

  Having pulled a curtain back, she was standing in it, her back to the door of the room. He almost didn’t see her even stepping into the room to look for her.

  He felt no relief due to the fact she didn’t even twitch when he joined her in the room and she had to have heard him moving around and shouting her fucking name.

  “Jesus, Liv, what the fuck?” he bit out as he moved to a lamp on a table by the couch and switched it on to light the dim room. “Tweaked as all fuck, been callin’ you—”

  She turned.

  He stopped dead as rage seared through him.

  “Jesus, fuck,” he whispered and took the last distance to her in two long strides.

  In that time, she slid out from the curtain, away from the window and away from him.

  Nick stopped moving toward her, instead he turned with her movements.

  First things first.

  “Who did that to your face?” he growled.

  “Dad,” she answered emotionlessly.

  He ignored the smoldering burn of fury.

  Again, first things first, take care of his girl.

  “You should have somethin’ on it. You got frozen peas?” he asked.

  “It’s perfectly fine.”

  He stared at her.

  It was not fine. The corner of her left eye was blood red with burst blood vessels, her temple purpled angrily, the cheekbone under swelling and shoving up the bottom of her eye.

  With some effort, he controlled his anger and ordered, “Come here. I want a better look at it.”

  “Actually, if you don’t mind, it’d be helpful if you left.”

  With those words, her demeanor finally penetrated.

  Yeah, Liv not communicating…

  Seriously fucking more than a little troubling.

  “Babe—” he began as he started toward her.

  “Though, before you go, you should know that they’re aware of your desire to have vengeance for your dead girlfriend so you should be careful. Georgia is dealing with a number of things and I’m told it’s highly likely she’ll also be dealing with that.”

  And at those words, Nick stopped dead again, his gut twisting and his heart slamming against his ribs.

  When she said no more, he whispered, “Livvie—”

  She cut him off again. “I’m very sorry that happened. I was unaware of it, of course. Not that, if I was aware, I could have done anything about it. I can imagine that was very painful. If it occurred as I was informed it occurred and it happened with you there to witness it…” She shook her head. “Actually, I can’t imagine. But I’m sorry you have that memory.”

  He moved cautiously toward her.

  To his one step, she took two back.

  He stopped.

  She did too.

  “Let me explain,” he started quietly.

  “I think I already got it,” she returned.

  “I know you don’t,” he replied.

  “Not that you asked my advice, but although I haven’t been told precise details of plans that have been set in motion, I’m getting the firm impression that, regardless that things went at a snail’s pace for some time, they’ll be moving quickly from here on out. I’m certain you can take care of yourself. But you may wish not to delay in—”

  “Livvie,” he interrupted.

  She shut up and swallowed, taking another step away from him.

  “Your father has been arrested for Drake Nair’s murder.”

  For a beat, she gaped at him.

  She gathered back her ice and nodded shortly. “As I said, things will be moving quickly from here on out.”

  “I need you to come to my place with me,” he told her.

  She took another step back, saying crisply, “That won’t be happening.”

  He took a step toward her and she again retreated.

  He stopped.

  “Liv—”

  “You need to leave,” she declared.

  What he needed to do, seriously belatedly, was stop fucking around.

  “Liv, it started one way, but you know, you gotta know, where we are now is a very different thing.”

  She ignored his words.

  “Now. If you don’t mind. You need to leave now,” she said, sweeping out an arm to indicate the door to the room.

  “I fell for you.”

  “It’s in your best interest—”

  “I fell for you, baby.”

  “To go immediately.”

  “Please listen to me.”

  “You need to leave.”

  “I’m in love with you, Livvie.”

  It sliced right through him but she ignored that too.

  “You need to leave now, Sebring.”

  He took another step toward her. “Baby, I’m in lo—”

  Suddenly, she leaned toward him, for the first time letting loose the formidable temper he’d sensed, but she’d never lost control enough to let go, and in a shrill voice that pierced through his brain and his heart, she shrieked, “You need to leave now, Sebring!”

  The pain in each syllable scoring away his flesh, he stopped moving and winced.

  He forced a quick recovery and whispered, “Please come to me, Livvie, so I can explain.”

  “You need to leave. You need to leave. You need to fucking leave!” she shouted.

  “Let me come to you.”

  “Leave!” she screeched.

  The ice was gone but the pain was worse.

  He had to get in there.

  “I couldn’t go through with it. That’s why I ended things with you. You got under my skin, Liv. And obviously,” he lifted both hands slightly at his sides, careful of even that move, the situation volatile, the outcome meaning everything, he was going cautious to the extreme, “I couldn’t get you out.”

  He watched as she visibly tightened her entire frame, pulling it together, pushing him out.

  “She’s gonna hurt you,” she declared. “She’s got acid in her veins, my sister. You’re a threat and she’ll eliminate you. She doesn’t care. She put her father out there for murder. He’ll never breathe free again. Her father. She won’t blink at taking you down.”

  He started moving slowly toward her again. “I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. We’ll figure it out. We gotta do it with her, we’ll figure it out with your sister.”

  “Do not come an inch closer to me, Sebring,” she warned. She was losing it again, her tone suddenly feral, the green in her eyes flashing.

  He had that, not the ice, he could work it.

  He had to.

  So he kept moving.

  “I fell in love with you, Liv.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It isn’t. It happened. And you—”

  “It’s impossible because there is no me to fall in love with. I don’t exist.”

  That made him stop moving.

  She continued speaking.

  “I breathe. I’m here. I take up space. I eat. I drive. But I have no brain. No will. No strength. No opinions. I do not matter to the point I do not exist.”

  “You exist for me.”

  “I didn’t when you targeted me as your in to destroy my family,” she returned immediately and unfortunately fucking accurately, going on the same way, “I can only assume you knew I had no dealings with that. You could, I’m sure, perform for a woman who was simply a tool. If you thought I had a part in trafficking humans and murdering your girlfriend, not even you could set that aside so completely a
s to perform so convincingly and repeatedly.”

  He tried to stop her. “Liv—”

  “And it didn’t matter to you that you were going to obliterate my world. I could not be tied to that heinous business but I was far from clean. If you took my father down, Georgia and I would go down with him. You sallied forth anyway, I meant that little to you. And of course you did. You didn’t know me. You only knew I was a Shade. So of course I would mean that little to you. Being what I am, it’s no surprise I mean that little to everybody.”

  Fuck, she was killing him.

  He had to fucking get in there.

  “Baby—”

  “Little did you know that all you would have had to do was approach me, share what had happened, and I would have been your insider ally, I’m so disgusted by just how despicable my father has proven that he is. And you can well imagine just how disgusted that is, with all I’ve shared with you during our artificial relationship, since I was already disgusted because I already thought he was extraordinarily despicable.”

  “What we have is not artificial, Livvie,” he told her firmly.

  “What we have is a lie,” she returned coolly. “Started on a lie, built on a lie, enduring on a lie and now, if you carry on with your bullshit, Sebring, ending on a lie. Now I think you’ve had your fun with me, I’ve definitely had my fill of you, so please, get the fuck out of my house right the fuck now.”

  “Babe, plea—”

  He stopped that time because, with no warning, she charged him. Slamming her hands into his chest and shoving hard, he heard her cry out in pain and whip one hand down before she retreated just as quickly as she came at him. She did this lifting an arm and raking her fingers through her hair so hard it was like she was tearing at it.

  And she did all of this shouting, “Can you just stop? Can you just please God stop?” She shook her head, her eyes brightening with wet. “I can’t take anymore. I can’t take anymore. No more lies. No more schemes. No more using. No more orders. No more bullshit. No more! I cannot…take…anymore! God!” She tore her hand through her hair again. “I need you to go!”

  “Livvie, fuck me, baby, please come here. Please listen to me,” he begged.

  Her eyes locked to his and at the look in hers, Nick’s lungs hollowed out.

  “I believed,” she whispered.

  “Let me come to you,” he pleaded urgently.

  “You made me believe,” she accused.

  “You know how it started,” he replied immediately. “And I can’t deny that, baby. I can’t deny that, my Livvie. I fucked up. So many times, I told myself I needed to come clean with you. Too many fucking times. I couldn’t do it. I knew it’d hurt you. I couldn’t do it. But you know it now, so why would I be here trying to convince you I’m in love with you if I wasn’t in love with you?”

  “I don’t know,” she shot back, also immediately. “Why would you watch me for years? Plant bugs in the warehouse and listen to everything? Why would you own the club without telling me? Why would you sleep with me knowing my father ordered your girlfriend’s and your murder? Why would you pretend to begin caring about me when you knew that, nearly every day, I saw the man who carried out that order?”

  “I loved her,” he shared.

  She flinched but didn’t miss a beat.

  “I can imagine, planning for years to avenge her. She must have been something.”

  “Liv—”

  “I don’t believe anymore, Sebring.”

  “Ba—”

  “You want me to believe you care? Even a little bit?” she asked, but didn’t wait for him to jump on it, she quickly finished, “Then leave.”

  In desperation, unable to remain cautious, he moved to her. She moved with him, retreating around the room with each step he took. He didn’t speed up, he didn’t get aggressive, but he didn’t let up.

  And he did all this saying, “First, we gotta see to that eye. Then I’ll give you some time on your own to wrap your head around this shit and calm down. I’m not leaving, but I’ll give you space. You calm down, you let me talk to you, you actually listen to me, I’ll get you to see more clearly what’s happening here.”

  “I ask for one thing, even that you won’t do,” she pointed out. Having put the couch between them, she stopped. “It’s over, Sebring.”

  Shit, fuck, fuck.

  “It’s not over, Liv. I’m in love with you.”

  “It’s over, Sebring.”

  “And you’re in love with me too.”

  “You mean something to me,” she stated and at that, his lungs started burning. They iced over when she finished, “But so did Tommy.”

  “Liv—”

  And that was when it happened.

  Defeat slid stark all over her. It was in her face. Her eyes. The line of her frame. It was so extreme, he could feel it in air and taste it in his throat.

  “Can’t you see you’re killing me?” she whispered.

  He swallowed past his throat closing and whispered back, “I can’t leave you.”

  “You can’t stay either.”

  “We’re not done.”

  “We never even started.”

  “Baby, we did.”

  “It isn’t for me,” she stated.

  “What isn’t for you?”

  “Dawn.”

  Beyond tweaked, that word made him more so.

  “Dawn?”

  “I live in dark. Dawn never comes for me. There will be no new day where I wake up complete. Happy. Loved. There is no other side to make my way to. There is no believe. It just isn’t for me.”

  “I can take you there.”

  “No you can’t, Sebring. Can’t you see?”

  “No, I can’t see, Livvie.”

  “You can’t give me dawn and all I can give you is dark.”

  “That’s fucked up and not true.”

  “It’s every day for thirty-one years, except a few, the few I shared with you, and they were all a lie.”

  “Livvie—”

  “Leave.”

  “Liv—”

  “Leave.”

  “Baby—”

  The tears slid down her cheeks and the whisper came again.

  “You’re killing me.”

  He said nothing and not just because she wasn’t letting him.

  “And she’s gonna kill you, Nicky,” she kept whispering. “I can try to stop her but there’s no stopping Georgie. It’ll be her or you. I know it. I don’t want it to be either. Please be safe. Please get safe. Please get out of here and make yourself and your family safe.”

  “I love you, Liv.”

  More tears fell as she replied, “I wish, honest to God, I really wish I could believe that, Sebring.”

  He held her eyes and watched the tears fall.

  Then he made a decision.

  “It’s gonna gut me to walk outta here not touching you.”

  Her lip quivered so she bit it.

  His stomach roiled like he was going to vomit.

  He fought through it and did what he had to do.

  “I love you, Olivia. And I can make you safe. I can make you happy. I want a lifetime of nothing but that.”

  Another tear fell out of her swelling eye but she said nothing.

  “I’m gonna walk out of here not touching you and the last thing you’re gonna hear from me is that I love you, baby. Fuck, I so fuckin’ love you.”

  They stood, her in front of her couch, him behind it, and stared at each other.

  Neither moved except for the wet that slid out of Livvie’s sad, dead, beautiful green eyes.

  “Love you, Livvie,” he whispered.

  She pressed her lips together.

  Nick Sebring watched.

  Then he turned and walked out.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  No Soul

  Olivia

  Fifteen Weeks Later

  I looked to my list of Today as shown to me down the side of my email screen as I heard the noises in the o
uter office.

  On a sigh I turned my attention to my office door.

  Georgie came in.

  “You know, us getting rid of that shithole warehouse and me getting awesome new offices you won’t move into so I don’t have to haul my ass all the way to DTC to have a sit down with you is a pain in said ass,” she complained instead of offering a greeting.

  I didn’t reply.

  I had no intention of moving into her offices.

  Not because, even with the exit of Nick from my life, Tommy did not reenter it and he didn’t take very kindly to that. Although this surprised Georgia, she didn’t say anything. She had (albeit doing it as a means to a current end) encouraged me to get over him. She couldn’t be upset I’d actually done that.

  And since Tommy was the man behind the less seemly part of Shade operations, he never came to her office anyway.

  Which meant, thankfully, I never saw him.

  Also not because Gill did show at the offices frequently. What happened with Nick and his girlfriend notwithstanding, he was as clean as Georgia (though not as clean as me). He was also officially taking Georgia’s hand in marriage. With Tommy managing the boys, he was therefore recruiting them, so her pussy was now out of commission except for Gill’s use. They were planning a lavish affair where the flowers cost more than an SUV and her gown was being custom made.

  I had no idea my sister had fallen in love with a man seven years ago.

  I was fine with that.

  I’d had plenty of time to think about it and the decision I’d made was I was fine with anything that kept me out of their loop.

  I was also fine with my father being out of the picture. The evidence pointing to the fact that he shot Drake Nair in the head in cold blood overwhelming (because he actually shot Drake Nair in the head in cold blood), he copped a plea. That still put him behind bars for twenty years, which meant he’d be deep in his seventies when he got out.

  There was a small blip to this insofar as Dad got a message to Georgia reminding her she and I were present at that particular murder. His insinuation was that, if he went down, he was taking both of us with him, so he needed her to be certain he did not go down.

  Considering the fact she’d masterminded his arrest, and he wasn’t stupid enough not to know that, he figured she could do something to reverse the situation, and as was his wont, he was using both of his daughters as a means to that end.