32
Sterling
Present Day
Two hours later and my blood is still up from my confrontation with Adair. Waking up to her was better than any dream, but like dreams often do, it quickly turned into a fucking nightmare.
Zeus watches me from the living room as I pace through the penthouse. He hasn’t moved since Carly returned him an hour ago.
“Why did I expect differently?” I ask him. “You know her. Did she treat you like this?”
Zeus whines and tucks his paws over his eyes. Great. Not only am I talking to a dog, he’s not listening. I’m not sure why what happened bothers me so much. I don’t need Adair to like me—I don’t want her to like me. Who cares what she thinks of me?
“Apparently, you do,” I answer my own question.
It shouldn’t change a fucking thing about my plan. I can’t let it. The MacLaines deserve retribution for everything their family has done. The list of their sins is long enough to stretch across half of Nashville. I’ve been called a mercenary, a murderer, a liar. I’m all those things. But I have a code and so do my brothers. Some lines we refuse to cross.
I should have dumped her at the Eaton last night or driven her back home despite her protests. Sentimentality is for fools and greeting cards. It’s not getting the better of me again. And then she acted hurt as she left? As though I’d wounded her. After all these years, she’s still chaos—as impossible to withstand as a tornado. One minute she’s accusing me of taking advantage of her. The next she’s hurt that I didn’t? I should know better than to try to make any sense of her. Sanity starts at home and Adair has always lived in a cuckoo clock.
My phone rings and I answer it immediately, half-expecting it to be her. “Yeah?”
“I have a special guest waiting for you,” Jack says. “Luca arranged a location for you to meet up.”
I’d nearly forgotten that he grabbed Oliver last night for a little chat. “Text me the address.”
I hang up and grab my keys. I need to blow off some steam and Oliver needs a wake-up call. The timing is perfect. It’s time to cross one name off my list.
The warehouse, tucked into an older, industrial section of Nashville, looks abandoned from the outside. A few windows are broken out, leaving behind their jagged memories. Someone’s tagged the receiving dock’s door. No one’s bothered with this place in a while. No one reputable, at least.
It’s times like these that I’m grateful for my stint in the military. Compartmentalization. It’s a valuable skill to have at the moment. My thoughts keep jumping to Adair but once I’m inside, in my element, I’ll be free of them. Right now, she’s a siren song I can’t resist.
None of that matters here. Someone cut the bolt on a thick lock and left the chain dangling. It’s practically an invitation. Trust Luca to have the perfect spot for a meeting with an unwilling associate. It’s a particular talent of the DeAngelos to have their own safe houses in major cities. I shouldn’t be surprised that even in Nashville, a city that’s largely managed to avoid the attention of organized crime, there’s one. There’s a lot of money in this town—more than most people realize—and it won’t stay unnoticed for long.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” I say when I spy Jack in the shadows. In a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt he blends in nicely, but he doesn’t belong here. He wants out of this life. Maybe I’d crossed a boundary asking him to nab Oliver. “You don’t have to do this.”
“You know that I have a special interest in these sorts of negotiations,” he says.
I do know that. Jack loves a minute alone with a man who breaks his moral code. I’ve been in the room for some of his chats with these monsters. I doubt the men were ever the same. He’s doing the world a favor when he takes an interest in these cases, but it was like watching Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Jack that I knew with his easy smile and simple ambitions turns ruthless and cold. It’s the same monster inside all of us. It’s what bound us together years ago. No matter how far we’ve come, it’s still there. Jack fights his monster. Luca embraces his. Me? I use mine.
You don’t wind up in a uniform at nineteen without some emotional baggage. We’re living proof.
“I’m not staying, but I wanted to personally deliver this piece of shit,” he says, sounding somewhat apologetic.
“I understand.” More than that, I respect it.
“Luca is already in there. “ He tilts his head to a room behind him.
“Did you forget what happens if you leave a cat alone with a mouse?” I ask, looking toward the door behind him.
“He’s bored,” Jack warns me. “He says you invited him to play, but you haven’t provided much entertainment.”
“The art of subtlety is lost on him,” I say dryly.
“How did last night go after you left?” he asks.
So much for keeping today’s events in tidy compartments. “I fed her, put her to bed, and this morning she accused me of attacking her.”
“She seems complicated.” Jack chooses his words carefully. He always does.
“You were the one asking me if I was having second thoughts,” I point out. Maybe now he can see exactly why she made it to the top of my blacklist.
“Have you ever considered that if two people just talked—without lying to each other—they might discover their bullshit stories only hurt themselves?” he asks.
“How wise,” I say. “You should write a book.”
“I saw the way you looked at her,” he says.
“Like I hate her?” I ask.
Jack laughs, but it sounds hollow. “You know it’s not true what they say. There is no thin line between love and hate.
