He signals to one of the suited bouncers nearby. “Get him out of here. Now.”
“What are you doing?” I gape at Jared as the man runs off to carry out the order. “Jared, don’t let them hurt Daniel.”
He slices a dangerous look at me. “Still ready to defend him, are you? Don’t worry, my men are only going to take out the trash, not harm the son of a bitch.”
The music is still playing, but the din of conversation and other noise has now dried up as Daniel’s disruption captures the attention of everyone in the club. The bouncers close in on him, but he keeps yelling, his wild gaze searching for us among the throngs.
“Rush, you bastard! You sick, conniving fuck! I know what you’re trying to do! I know why!”
I look at Jared, afraid to guess at what Daniel’s accusing him of. “What’s he talking about? What does he think you’ve done?”
Two of Muse’s staff latch on to Daniel and begin wrestling him toward the door. I know they could easily overpower him. I know any one of them could silence him with a blow, but as Jared assured me they would, his men refrain from violence.
Daniel takes advantage of the small mercy and manages to break loose. His drunken gaze homes in on me where I stand beside Jared and he charges forward like a mad bull, the bouncers right on his heels.
“Mel, get away from him! He’s using you!”
Jared swiftly moves me around to his back, shielding me with his body.
Daniel is undeterred. “You don’t mean anything to him! All Rush’s wanted to do is destroy me! He’s been playing us both this whole time!”
The guards make a grab for him, yanking him off his feet. They restrain him without any hope of his getting loose now, but he keeps screaming in crazed fury, acting as if he wants to protect me.
I’m bewildered and unsure I can trust either of the men in front of me now. Daniel’s unhinged rage is shocking enough, but Jared’s chilling silence scares me even more.
“It was all a setup, Mel!” Daniel shouts. “The constrution project. The poker game. Pretending he wanted to paint you. It’s all been some twisted game of revenge for this sick son of a bitch!”
His accusations sink into me like sharp-edged blades. The pain of it makes a cry build in the back of my throat. When I step around Jared and see the bleakness of his expression, those knife points cut even deeper.
“What’s he talking about, Jared? Is he right?”
My voice is so quiet, I’m amazed Jared can hear me.
But he does.
And there’s no need for him to answer, because I see the truth written all over his rigid face.
29
JARED
The pain in her beautiful face wrecks me.
Her cheeks are bloodless and pale, the lips that only earlier tonight had been so loving and warm on mine are slack with shock . . . and dawning horror.
“Is Daniel right?” Her voice is soft, hardly more than a whisper, but it cleaves into me sharper than any blade could wound me. “Are you playing some kind of game, Jared?”
I slowly shake my head, casting inside myself for the words—any words—that could help her understand that no matter why I started this regrettable plan, none of it means anything to me now.
Only she does.
And she’s looking at me warily, as if suddenly realizing I’m every bit the ruthless beast she judged me to be that first night when this whole fucked-up situation began.
“I never believed it was just about the money Daniel owed you,” she says. “So, tell me now, Jared. Why?”
“Because he figured out who I am,” Hathaway puts in bitterly, his gaze crackling with contempt. His breath reeks of alcohol I can smell from three feet away. “It took me until a couple days ago to piece together how he could know that, or why it mattered to him.”
He’s still struggling uselessly against the security detail holding him. One of my men looks at me in question. “You want this piece of shit kicked to the curb now, Jared?”
“No. Let him go.”
As much as I’d like to erase Daniel Hathaway from this conversation, the damage is already done. Hell, it’s all self-inflicted. He’s not telling Melanie anything I haven’t owed her from the start.
I dismiss my men with a curt nod. They release him, stepping back, but hanging close just the same. He staggers forward a pace, his eyes glazed but seething.
“What do you mean, he figured out who you are?” Melanie asks Daniel. Then her head swivels back to me, understanding putting an even starker expression on her lovely face. “Oh, my God . . . Denton Sweeney. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“He was my father,” Hathaway announces. “I didn’t have any part in what he did. I was a kid for fuck’s sake. My mother didn’t tell me what he’d done until much later. It’s not as if I even knew the names of the people who invested with him.”
“Invested with him?” I exhale a sharp, humorless laugh. “He cheated dozens of victims out of millions of dollars. He would’ve kept on bilking even more if he hadn’t died at the height of his scheme.”
“You don’t know that,” Hathaway shoots back hotly. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know enough. I know that you and your mother used the money he’d stolen to flee to Montenegro, where you changed your names and disappeared for years afterward. I know that after she died, you returned to the States with what was left and you squandered it on gambling and expensive toys.”
He shrugs while I recount the details my investigator gave me a few months ago, and it’s all I can do to contain the contempt rising in me. He may not have committed his
