Sebring

  Georgia communicated to me precisely what a hassle she felt this was for her. Regardless (mostly, my guess, because she needed me to do the job I was doing for the family, and no way in hell she was going down), she negotiated a deal that my father would make it through that twenty years in prison without any issues if he left both of us be.

  He’d balked at first. But something I was not made privy to happened in lockup so he changed his mind and made the deal.

  He was no longer in our lives.

  I had no intention of deepening my relationship with my sister because of that.

  I also had no intention of continuing a relationship at all with my father, so I didn’t.

  And as life was already dismal enough, I didn’t need other sources making it more so, therefore when Georgia cut off our stepfather’s kickback, I cut off my mother.

  She brought me no joy so why bother?

  Nothing brought me joy but Mom not only didn’t bring joy, she was a pain in the ass.

  So seriously.

  Why bother?

  It was not a surprise when my mother didn’t bother either. I imagined it was actually a relief to her. It freed up her social schedule and added time she could berate her employees and control my stepfather.

  I went to work because I got paid to do it. I went home to the huge-ass house my father made me buy that it was annoying to try to sell, and since I didn’t have to anymore, I took it off the market. I did Pilates. I walked on the treadmill. I had my eyebrows shaped and my pubic hair waxed. I went to movies by myself. I went to dinner by myself.

  I breathed.

  I existed.

  I pushed as far as Georgia would allow me to do so as my only enjoyment.

  When I knew I was pushing too far, I toed the line.

  The only other blip to getting to that was the unsurprising fact that Georgia had lost her mind about the fact that Nick had played me. She’d been infuriated at Nick for making that move. She’d been more infuriated at me that I’d let him.

  The conversation with my sister that came right after the conversation I had with Tommy telling him I was over him and we had no future, regardless of his plans for six years he shared not an iota of with me, was unpleasant to say the least.

  But one thing you could say for it, outside of it being done, was that I now definitely knew my place.

  My father might be incarcerated but I was a Shade and my life was owned by the head of the House.

  I could fuck who I wanted (not that I did) just as long as they were nameless and harmless. If I actually developed feelings for someone, the silent understanding was that I told Georgia.

  I might have found this even bleaker than my life if I had any intention to have feelings for anyone.

  Since I did not, it wasn’t a problem.

  In the case of Nick, I had no idea what was happening. That was part of the business she didn’t share with me. Although part of the unpleasantness of our conversation was me sharing I would very much rather my sister not put a hit out on the man who had dishonestly won my heart, but he’d done it all the same.

  This was taken as a weakness in my allegiance.

  I said no further to my sister on the subject.

  I’d made my warnings to Nick. He could take care of himself.

  Nevertheless, I sent an anonymous letter to his brother at his nightclub, sharing that the danger was still very real and measures should be taken.

  That was all I allowed myself to do mostly because it was all I could do.

  As I was not of that world anymore, I’d heard nothing. But watching the news and reading the paper daily did not share that a young, vital, handsome man had been found dead.

  So Nick was taking care of himself.

  That was good.

  In the four months since Nick walked out of my house, I heard nothing from him and saw nothing of him, which proved my assertions during our heinous final conversation true.

  I did not believe because there was nothing to believe.

  I had no earthly idea but my guess would be that a man who loved a woman would not walk away from her and not look back.

  So there it was.

  And in the four months since Nick walked out of my house, as I had a great deal of time, I spent a majority of that time wondering how I ever believed in the first place.

  Quite frankly, there wasn’t anything about me to love.

  I was quite attractive, but deep down, people didn’t love looks.

  They loved senses of humor. They loved personality. They loved manner. They loved someone who loved dogs, like they did. Or they loved someone who was passionate about issues, like they were.

  Whatever.

  There had to be substance to a person to be a person who could be loved.

  There was nothing to me. There’d never been anything to me.

  Now Nick, he was a person you could love. He teased great and he cooked great and he kissed great and when you spoke, he listened like there was nothing on earth he wanted more to do. He made me laugh. He made me feel. He made me believe there was something to me.

  The woman he spent years plotting revenge for, I bet there was something to her.

  But me?

  I was a woman he could walk out of my house and never again see.

  Truth be told, one of the reasons I decided to keep that house was because it was like keeping a bit of Nick with me. It was the only thing I had, memories of the few times he’d been there. Memories, if I was in the mood, I could pretend were based on something different.

  Something real.

  I’d been right that first day I woke up to him in my bed. Sometimes, if I was allowing myself to wallow (which I didn’t allow often, but it happened), I would ramble and remember his joke about the wood-fired stove. I’d remember falling asleep beside him on the couch after we got back from Vegas.

  I’d remember right where he was, right where I was, precisely what he looked like when he lied that lie that was so pretty, telling me he loved me.

  “Right, I’m here, I don’t wanna be here forever, so let’s start this. Harry’s retiring and he wanted me to ask you personally to come to his party,” my sister announced.

  “His reinstatement didn’t last long,” I murmured.

  “He wasn’t really reinstated, Liv,” Georgie murmured back.

  No, he wasn’t. That was another bit of info I learned years late.

  Harry didn’t need me giving him the odd job to make his load a little lighter. He was on Tommy’s dollar and on Georgia’s payroll, part of his duties being looking after (that meant monitoring) me.

  An unexpected betrayal that shouldn’t hurt as much as it did.

  But it did.

  “I’ll take a pass on that,” I told Georgia.

  “Babe, you gotta—”

  I stared at her right in the eye. “There are a lot of things I gotta do, Georgie. All of them you know. So please don’t tell me what else I gotta do if it’s telling me how I should feel or if I really don’t gotta do it. You cannot dictate how I feel. Now, as you sign my paychecks, if it’s your order that I attend Harry’s retirement party, I’ll be sure to attend. But I’d rather not.”

  “We were all looking out for you,” she informed me.

  She truly believed that.

  Which, of course, made it all the worse.

  “That would make a great deal of sense, if I was seven,” I retorted. “As I was not, it makes no sense at all.”

  “Liv—”

  I interrupted her, “Can we move past this?”

  She shook her head in annoyance.

  “I don’t care that you didn’t want Tom back. Tom was patient, sure, but he was also weak. I’m actually glad you’re smart enough not to settle for that. He got his opening, and if he wanted to win you back, he could have. Months now, he’s done dick. He’s excellent in the role he’s in. Watching you, he learned from a master, put his spin on it, things are going great. But he’s not the man for you and you fi
guring that out, I’m glad.”

  I said nothing because there was nothing to say and because I was bracing since I didn’t know where this was going.

  “That said, I’m your big sis. I was looking out for you. Leading Tom along with the promise he’d get you when he had a purpose to serve, served my purpose. It worked out. You didn’t give him what he wanted, he’s got other shit he wants, so he’s not complaining. But again, you, Liv, got something up your ass and you just gotta let it go.”

  “This is you telling me how to feel, Georgie,” I pointed out.

  “This is me telling you that we are out of the fire but we jumped right into the frying pan. Valenzuela is up in my shit and things are hot and going to get hotter so you need to strap in, Liv. No way I worked my ass off to get us to where we are to have some psychopath pull that rug out from under me. And you gotta be all in because, however I need you, you’re gonna need to kick in.”

  Marvelous.

  “You with me on that?” she asked when I said nothing.

  “Is there a choice?” I asked back.

  “That’s not saying ‘I’m with you,’ Liv,” she retorted.

  “It’s the best I have, Georgie,” I returned.

  She sighed a beleaguered sigh.

  I sought patience, and as I was a practiced hand at that, found it.

  “You know where Sebring is?”

  At this surprise question, I made a sharp noise in the back of my throat.

  “What?” I asked.

  Suddenly, her eyes on me were frightening and her tone was a whisper.

  And with that look and tone, as she spoke, I wondered with not a small amount of alarm if I ever really knew her.

  “Babe, you do, you spill. Okay?”

  I stared at her. Right in the eyes, I stared at my sister.

  I suspected she had acid in her veins but I’d also hoped she had a soul.

  She had no soul.

  Looking right at her I saw it. For the first time I saw it.

  Like our father, Georgia Shade had no soul.

  “I don’t,” I told her.

  “You do, he contacts you, you spill.”

  “I understand where things are at with Gill, his ring is on your finger, but—”

  It was her turn to interrupt me.

  “This, we do not discuss. This is not up for discussion. We have a liability. We,” she bit off the last word while lifting a hand and waving it between us. “There are no words exchanged when we have a liability. When we have a liability, the crew unites while Momma takes care of the threat. You’re either a member of that crew or you’re not, Liv. And I think you get where you are if you’re not. You can bitch and complain and act superior all you want. It’s annoying but it’s you and I’ve swallowed it enough my whole life, I’m used to the taste, so I don’t give a fuck. But we got a threat, you close ranks. That’s it. No words. It happens. Now, I asked, you got that?”

  She asked if I got it that, if I protected Nick, she’d mow me down to get to him.

  Obviously, that was not okay.

  But I got it.

  “I got it,” I stated.

  “So he’s not contacted you.”

  “No,” I confirmed.

  She stared at me, clearly assessed I was telling the truth, and nodded.

  She relaxed.

  I did not.

  Her manner might have changed, but the look in her eyes was no less frightening.

  “I want you to rethink Culver,” she stated.

  I sat still and silent, my eyes anchored to hers, not of my choice.

  “I’ve been paying attention to the moves he’s making, and one thing in his whole, fucked-up life Dad was right about is that Dustin Culver could be an asset,” she continued. “He could be useful. Give it time. A few days. Think on it. We’ll talk. When we do, if you don’t want to go there, I’ll want good reasons, Liv. Really good reasons. So when we talk, if you’re not up for giving that another shot, you need to have those reasons. Yes?”

  I got that too.

  With Tommy no longer in the picture, which meant whatever she promised him in regards to me not something she had to worry about, she now intended to revisit the idea of whoring me out to Dustin Culver due to the possibility he might be useful to the House of Shade. No reason I gave, including the fact I just wasn’t into him, certainly not the fact I was in love with one of our enemies, would be good enough.

  The decision was made. I already had a mission: get Dustin Culver addicted to my snatch.

  No.

  My sister had no soul.

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “He’s a good-looking guy. You two’ll be good together,” she assured, as if looks were the only thing that mattered.

  “You’re right. He’s not difficult to look at,” I agreed.

  The scary went out of her eyes and she smiled.

  I watched her smile and another part of me—the last part, a tiny part, the only part living, that being the part that was my love for my sister which I thought reciprocated the love she had for me—died.

  I did not let this show.

  I was a practiced hand at that too.

  The rest of our business wasn’t nearly as much of a roller coaster ride, and when it was concluded, she left.

  I wondered about Bali.

  Or Fiji.

  Or Timbuktu.

  But in case they had someone following my browser history, I did not turn to my computer and do searches.

  I’d learned.

  I breathed but I did not exist.

  This would always be the way.

  The thing was, I wanted that way to be somewhere else so, even if I only breathed, I did it in a place I breathed easier.

  One thing I learned from my sister and Nick Sebring was how to play the long game.

  I would not go tomorrow or next month or maybe even next year.

  But I’d go. Patient. Smart. I’d go.

  Worried she’d try to find me, I’d never breathe free. Georgie had proved even more than Dad that she had no intention of letting go an asset she could use, an asset she thought was hers.

  But maybe someday in the far distant future, I’d breathe easy.

  And in the meantime, it was clear she was turning her full attention to Nick Sebring.

  That was not my business.

  He could take care of himself.

  I never breathed easy.

  But just the thought of my soulless sister deciding it was time to take care of that particular threat…

  It was a wonder I could breathe at all.

  * * * * *

  11:13 – That Night

  I stood in my great room, staring out the front windows, the old burner phone I used to use when I called the club in my hand.

  I’d looked up the number in the phonebook. That way, no one could trace the search.

  I’d memorized it.

  I shouldn’t do what I was thinking of doing.

  I couldn’t not do it.

  I looked down at the phone, punched in the numbers and put it to my ear.

  It rang four times before I heard a woman answer, “Slade.”

  There was dance music in the background—not loud, muted. She was in an office at a nightclub.

  Knight Sebring’s nightclub, Slade.

  “I’d like to speak to Knight Sebring,” I stated.

  “Mr. Sebring doesn’t take calls through this line. You have to talk to his PA, Kathleen, during normal business hours. I’m sorry, but if you don’t have her number, it’s difficult to get to him.”

  This meant she wasn’t giving me Kathleen’s number.

  “Tell him it’s Olivia Shade.”

  “Ms. Shade, it’s unlikely—”

  I cut her off.

  “He’ll want this call and he’ll know why he wants this call. What he won’t want is to find out an employee got this call and didn’t share the information with him the call was placed. He can call me back. But tell him Olivia Shade w
ants to speak to him. He has tonight to call me. I won’t answer any other time.” I gave her my burner number and finished, “He has tonight.”

  I then hung up.

  She clearly had a direct line to “Mr. Sebring,” because in astonishingly little time, my burner rang.

  The small display on the flip phone said, Unavailable Number.

  Definitely Knight Sebring.

  I answered with, “Mr. Sebring.”

  “Olivia, it’s—” Knight Sebring started.

  I didn’t let him get any further.

  “My sister is interested in your brother’s whereabouts. He knows that as I’ve told him before. He’s undoubtedly taken measures. Even so, he should know, she’s getting impatient.”

  “Oliv—” he started, sounding irked, urgent and impatient.

  I flipped the phone closed.

  Before it could ring again, I slid the back open and pulled the chip out. I took it to my sink, dropped it into my garbage disposal and turned it on.

  I dug through my trash and buried the phone in it, tucked inside a used food container.

  After that, I washed my hands, dried them and took a deep breath.

  I’d done what I could do.

  All I could do.

  Now it was over.

  All that was left was unfamiliar territory.

  That being hope.

  The only hope I allowed myself to have.

  Hope that Nick stayed safe.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Morning Light

  Olivia

  Four Days Later

  The hand closing over my mouth woke me with an agonizing rush of terror and panic.

  “Be calm, Olivia,” a deep voice came through the dark, right in my ear, and I could sense him hovering over me on my bed. “It’s Knight. I need you to come with me.”

  Knight?

  Knight Sebring?

  I turned my head on my pillow to look up at the shadow above me and the hand over my mouth came with me.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” he told me. “I’m here to deliver a message. When I do that, what’s next is your choice.”

  I stared at his shadow.