An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3) (22 page)

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“See? We’re good. And Daniel’s dad said the cops will find out who did it and nail them to the wall.”

She was glad she hadn’t shared with him that she already knew who was responsible, in case he’d let something slip. She dragged herself up and into a sit. “I know. I just wish that you hadn’t had to go through that. God, Andrew . . .”

“I’m okay. We both are. Where are you? You’re not at home, are you?”

Hearing his worry, she quickly lied, “No. I’m at a hotel. A fancy one with room service like the one we stayed at in Italy last year. Remember?” They’d taken their first vacation in the spring, and it had been the best two weeks she could ever remember.

“Yeah. That was awesome. Remember the cannoli? Mmm. Now I want some.”

She laughed. “I’ll try to remember to pick some up tomorrow.”

“Cool. What time are you coming to get me? Will the door be fixed? We’re staying overnight here and going to church in the morning.”

“Are you? That’s sounds good. Um, the workers texted me earlier, and the door is fixed already so we’ll be good to go back tomorrow.” She wanted to warn him about Maksim. Tell him something about her Russian so that when they met tomorrow he’d at least be prepared. But she just couldn’t find the words right then. So, as she’d done with Maksim—and not by choice this last time—she put it off. “Text me when you’re on your way tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yeah. I kinda feel bad that you’re alone.”

Her love for her darling boy surged. “I’m not. Um, a friend of mine is giving me a hand trying to figure this mess out.”

“Oh. Good. Is it someone from the—?” He paused and then called, “Be right there! Mom, I gotta get back. We’re at the end of
Avengers
. Seen it a hundred times, but it’s still the best part. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yes, go. But, Andrew?” she said before he could hang up.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you today. You’re the very best part of my life, and I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

“I know that. I’m glad you weren’t hurt today, too. Love you, Mom.”

“Bye, sweetie.”

She hung up and slid the phone onto the nightstand before snuggling into the pillows again and pulling the blanket over her. Closing her burning eyes, she wished Emily was still there. She so badly needed to talk to someone, to ask for some guidance, for advice. Because on her own, she felt as if she was screwing up everything.

How could she have lost control like that with Maksim? Hoping she had enough strength not to let it happen again, she made a small sound as she slipped away.

CHAPTER 12

Standing on the other side of Sydney’s bedroom door, Maksim felt that unfamiliar warmth that had been growing inside flash-freeze and shatter. It splintered, the shards cutting deep.
It doesn’t matter. None of this matters
, he tried to tell himself as pain stole his breath.

How could he have been so stupid as to open himself to her? How had he forgotten what he knew to be true of people? They were selfish. They lied. And they hurt.

The urge to rip the door out of his way and storm into the bedroom to demand who
the fuck
Andrew was rode him hard. So hard his vision spiderwebbed, and he was soon panting from the effort it took to stay in the hallway.

I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you today. You’re the very best part of my life, and I love you more than you’ll ever know.

He staggered back as those quiet words reverberated through his head again. Fucking untrustworthy, selfish, self-serving, backstabbing people!

How the fuck had he missed her involvement with another man? How had they all missed this? He’d had four men hanging in her club since this began, and not one of them had seen her steal a minute with this guy? His boys were there until five in the fucking morning!

Maybe the fuck was married, and he and Sydney had to keep a low profile.

Entirely possible. Clearly she lacked morals. One minute allowing
him
to maul her into an orgasm, the next professing her love to some sucker probably hiding in his backyard so his wife wouldn’t overhear him talking to his lover.

Christ!

Spinning away, he plowed his way to the master bedroom and went straight through to the bathroom to have the hottest shower on record. He felt . . . betrayed. He’d just shared the deepest, darkest part of himself with her,
telling her of his past
. . . and within minutes she’d disregarded it as if it were nothing, had forgotten him, pushed him from her mind, and engaged the man she loved.

But she’d responded to him with that beautiful abandon that had seemed so genuine.
Your women can’t tell when you’re only half there either
, a timid voice whispered in the back of his mind.

Was this karma?

Had Sydney been imagining he was
Andrew
during their time together? When she came for him, as she touched him, while he had his fingers inside her, had she been imagining he was another man? A man she loved with all her heart. He’d heard it in her voice. The purity of her feelings. She hadn’t hid a goddamn thing when declaring herself just now. She’d been open and honest with that guy in a way she’d never been with him.

Fuck.
Maks slammed the lever down to cut the water off and hung his head. Deception was such a nasty bitch. It hurt. Stung. Created such embarrassment once you found out how far off your thoughts had been from the other person’s. He’d choose to suffer the physical pain caused by a blade buried in his thigh over this shit any day. At least you could take something to dull the ache until the leg healed. With this, you just had to experience it.

Getting out of the shower, he dried off and was thankful the closet was stocked with items in a variety of sizes. After donning a slate-gray suit, white shirt, and purple tie—that he didn’t particularly care for—he went back into the living room without glancing at her door on his way by. He called Vasily and pretty much demanded a replacement. Repeatedly lied, saying everything was cool and he just wanted to oversee Juan’s departure himself. Then fucked off the minute his relief arrived.

As he drove out from the parking garage, he packed it all away until he felt next to nothing. His nape prickled. He ignored it. She’d be fine under the care of the two men he’d just left her with.

Alone in an apartment that had been thoroughly secured and soundproofed.

She couldn’t get out any more than someone could get in.

She’ll be fine
, he thought again around the cold sweat that popped up on his brow.

As she was this morning?
that timid voice piped up again.

He slammed his fist into the steering wheel a half-dozen times, but he kept driving. She would probably remain in her room for the night anyway. Yeah. So she could talk to that fucker, Andrew, until dawn.

What pissed him off the most? Had he done his job, had he listened to Vasily and kept this strictly professional—kept his goddamn word!—he wouldn’t give this much of a shit right now that she belonged to someone else. Yeah. Karma could suck it.

He blew into Rapture, making the girls who’d been loitering in the back corridor duck into their enormous dressing room to get out of his way as he stormed to his office. He’d put in weeks and weeks of effort, had wasted his fucking time, had actually started to
like
Sydney.
What. A. Fucking. Chump.

He dropped his ass into his chair without bothering to take off his coat and spun to face the back wall. Taking a few deep breaths, he simply stared straight ahead until the painting across the way registered. It was a Luis Royo. This entire series, which he owned every last one of, “spoke to him.” This particular one had a demonic beast bent over a curvy female’s back in a pose of total and complete possession. Yes, it showed the beast’s monstrous cock buried deep inside her, but that wasn’t what drew Maksim to it. It was the bliss on the female’s face, and the beast’s aggressive expression and body language that remained even as he loved his woman. One could almost hear the threatening rumble of his voice:
I will destroy anyone who dares. I will obliterate even the memory of you if you even think to harm that which is mine.
Beautiful. But not as beautiful as that bliss of hers. That expression of total surrender and complete confidence that even though he was a monster, this one was hers, and he would never harm her, not even with those powerful paws with their talons that dug into her flesh as he held her so gently.

The door opened, but he didn’t turn.

“Everything okay, my man?”

Micha.
By his tone, he knew things weren’t okay. Maks was tempted to ignore him but couldn’t. He did ignore the question. “Is Juan still with us?”

“No. I sent him off about fifteen minutes ago, as per your instructions.”

“Good. We should be hearing from Morales soon then. If he’s smart.” This was good. Business. He’d stick to business as he should have been doing from the start.

“Judging by the stunt he pulled this morning, I’m not so sure about that. I thought he’d make better choices,” Micha said.

“That seems to be the consensus. From what I’ve read about him, this hothead routine seems out of character.” Maks frowned as something made its way through the shit in his head and surfaced a little late. He spun his chair. “Do you think someone went over his head? Quan mentioned the brother being more a liability than anything. Guy has a history. Do you think rather than Luiz being pissed about Sydney, Eberto is up in arms about something else?”

He pushed with his foot and brought himself over to his monitors to call up one of his more invasive research sites. In gathering information on the Moraleses as a whole, he hadn’t bothered with Eberto as a singular threat. He typed in the name now and sifted through until he matched Eberto’s face from the pics listed . . . then took in a rap sheet from hell.
Fuck.
He could very possibly have been seeing the wrong brother as the main threat. Luiz was a dick for the drug trade, but Eberto was a fucking degenerate.

Who has no beef with Sydney
, he reminded himself.

That I know of
, he tacked on.
Fuck.
He should have kept his fucking mouth shut about himself and let her tell him of her past. Had he not put himself on the chopping block by sharing, he’d know if there was a connection between the two of them. He grabbed his phone and hit up her number, his face feeling like stone as he waited for her to pick up. She didn’t. Heart hammering, he dialed one of the guys that should be squatting in the living room of the apartment.

“Yeah.”

“Everything good?” he asked, listening for background noise.

“Uh, yeah. Nothing’s happened in the thirty minutes since you left.”

“Let me talk to Anton.”

There was a pause, and then Anton’s calm voice came on. “Maks?”

Feeling like hell over his suspicions, he asked, “Has she come out of her room?”

“No. You want me to wake her?”

“No. Leave her. I thought if she was out, you could ask her something for me. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

He hung up, and a lightbulb went off in his head. She’d be away all night, her club closed and free of eyes. Perfect time for him to brush up on his B&E skills and snoop the fuck out of her place, upstairs and down. At least he’d get something to tide him over until he could talk to her in the morning. His lip curled at the very thought of sitting across from the two-timing witch.

He focused and continued reading. Eberto Morales’s records went all the way back to juvie, physical assault and battery charges against
both
sexes, multiple instances of intercourse with minors—which wouldn’t be a glaring red flag considering he’d also been a minor at the time. But the “questionable consent” that was bracketed next to that entry had Maksim’s teeth gnashing together. Again, both sexes were mentioned in the margin, letting everyone know the guy wasn’t particular about who he nailed. He turned the laptop to Micha, who came in close and read while Maks filled him in on what Quan had told him about the Mexican.

“Well, isn’t he a piece of shit,” Micha murmured. “If you want my opinion, whether he’s heavily involved or not, he should be dealt with.”

“I’ll talk to Vasily.”

Micha straightened and gave him an appraising look. “Why are you here? I thought you were planning on watching the Aussie’s back tonight. I was about to head over to keep you com—” Maks shook his head once, and Micha paused, then nodded without pushing for more. “I’ll be out on the floor if you need me,” he said. “Vex and a few of his boys are here. Caleb was asking about you.”

Nika’s brother. “I’ll be out in a few to say hello.”

Micha nodded and left him alone.

Vincente had been right. Distraction was damaging. But it wasn’t as if Maks hadn’t already known that. He glanced to the couple in the painting as he shrugged out of his coat, tossing it aside as he left his office. Looked as if he’d be taking that loss after all where the Australian was concerned. He’d do his job, act accordingly, and be done with her.

He entered the club, nodding to a few of his regulars. Then he shook hands and exchanged social pleasantries with a couple of others. Being Saturday, the place was wall-to-wall with bodies. He shifted away from the wandering hand belonging to the lover of a well-known Wall Street exec, winking at her to soften the rejection. And then he allowed an inner-thigh caress from another overly made-up woman who belonged to a television producer Maks could never stand. The guy was an overweight, pompous ass with nothing to back up his enormous attitude. It gave Maks a kick of satisfaction to let the woman get back at the prick for the shitty way he treated her when they came to Rapture. Too many times she was left alone at the table while the exec went off to one of the secluded rooms in the back for a private session with one of the dancers. Why some women put up with that sort of treatment he’d never understand. Money, he supposed.

His phone went off to signal a text as he headed for the corner booth. Reading the message sent by the guy he had stationed outside of Apetito, the smile that curved his lips felt grim. Morales had just shown at the restaurant. And his timing couldn’t have been better, because Juan would either have just been dropped off or would be at any moment. How long before Luiz responded to his message?

When he reached the large booth that had six of the ODMC’s finest surrounding it, a round of fist bumps and handshakes were exchanged. He pulled up a chair between Vex and Caleb and gave a faint nod at two of his dancers hovering off to the side, giving them permission to come over and engage the generous tippers the bikers normally were.

Business as usual
, he thought as he settled in to wait on Morales.
Business as usual.

“Excuse me, Mr. Morales?”

Luiz turned away from his wife’s too-bright gaze—he’d confiscated a vial of coke that he’d found in her jewelry box before they left home, but clearly she had more than one stash. The satisfied smile he’d left her with that morning had become chemical by early afternoon. Like Eberto, she’d started dabbling a few years ago. To give her some energy after the baby, she’d said when he’d confronted her. Once those occasional hits had become regular, he’d insisted she stop. She had. Briefly. Now it was a cycle. Occasional use. Regular use. Quit. And repeat.

Who suffered because of her addiction besides him? Their five-year-old son.

“Yes, Paulo?” he finally inquired of one of his waitstaff, who stood next to the booth Luiz and his wife had just settled into.