Black Collar Queen (Black Collar Syndicate Book 2) (19 page)

House girls come to
clear their salads and serve them a spread of shrimp, scallops, and lobster
over rice, garnished with pineapple. It looks amazing, but still Seth's stomach
just turns. He imagines Emma's to be doing the same, because, for some reason,
in this misery he values her company. He follows the lead of his host anyway,
and takes a bite. The chewing sensation is a mixture of taste buds rejoicing
and cocaine rebelling.
 

Just as he manages to
swallow, Havana continues, “I actually like your plan so much that I have
decided to send Aleja to New York with you so that we may have a more direct
input in the venture's development.”

Seth's fork clangs
against his plate, louder than he intends. Aleja smiles at the Morgans. Emma's
fork is poised before her mouth, her body very still. Havana watches Seth.

“Of course,” Seth
manages to say through the chaos in his gut, forcing a smile. “That would be
most helpful.”

Emma bites down on her
food, and Seth is sure he can hear her teeth hit metal. Havana makes his modest
smile, and says, “Good. She is familiar with all aspects of my empire, and I
feel it will be beneficial for you to have a more open channel to me. That is,
of course, if you’re allied syndicate will not have any problems with that.”

Seth denies the urge to
glance at Emma, to see how she reacts to the mention of the Ratchaphure. He
doesn't give her time to interrupt again either, not when it comes to Rama. He
says, “Our partners will respect our decision in the matter.”

“Good,” Havana says with
a rather more devilish smile. “Very good.”
 

Chapter 27
.
Havana's Villa. November 20
^th
 

Seth
Finds Her In A Small Room
that looks untouched. She’s sitting on the bed, her eyes on the
floor, unfocused. She's lost in thought.
 

What does she think
about when she’s like this, her mind wandering and her back unguarded?

He shakes the thought
and lets the door fall closed with a quick
snick
.
She doesn’t react, doesn’t even move, and his worry kicks up a notch. She’s
been distant all day, and quiet.
 

“Emma?” he says softly.
He moves to her side, crouching in front of her. Her palms are wet, catching
the tears that spill silently. She’s come out of her dress, her bandaged arm
bare in the room, showing a hint of red.
 

“What happened?” he
asks, forcing his tone to remain gentle and unthreatening.
 

“Rama,” she whispers. “I
fought with him.”

Some of the tension in
him eases. A lovers’ quarrel is easy enough to fix. Time. “I fought with Nic
all the time. Do you remember?”

She rips away from him
faster than he can stop her, an explosion of unexpected violence.

“
I don’t want to be that.”

The ferocity of her
declaration surprises him and he leans back on his heels, watching her. She’s
pacing, her entire body taut with anger. “I don’t want to be you and Nic, and
worried that the one I love will be the knife in my back. I don’t want what my
mother had. Every relationship in our world is fucked. Even you and Vera are
all about the power you can give each other. “

He bites down on his
sharp response. “We aren’t all dysfunctional, Emma. My parents loved each
other. We can find that.”

She laughs before she
can stop it, a noise so bitter and mocking it can’t be mistaken for anything
else. Seth goes still, staring at her before he rises from the crouch. He feels
like he’s walking on glass that is slowly shattering. There is something here,
something that he’s not sure he can follow without it changing everything.
 

“You’ve been keeping a
secret from me for a few weeks,” he says, hoarsely.
 

Emma stares at him, and
he doesn’t see a trace of the shy, pampered princess he grew up doting on,
protecting, coaxing smiles from. Somewhere along the way, she’s lost what remained
of that girl, and a woman stares back at him now. One with worried eyes and a
tired stoop to her shoulders.
 
“I haven’t
meant to keep it from you. I just haven’t been sure how to tell you.”

He sits on the bed so
that his back is to the wall, his legs propped up. She lets out a sigh and
comes to sit next to him. The satin sheets are cool under his fingers, her skin
warm where it brushes his arm. Red-gold curls hang over one shoulder, and he
resists the urge to smooth them down, to draw her against him and ignore
wherever this conversation is going.
 

“I look like
Caleb.”
 

It’s so out of left
field, he doesn’t quite comprehend what she’s said for a few seconds.

Then she twists her head
to look at him, with eyes that are a mirror of Caleb’s, but never that hard or
cynical. “Emma?”

“Haven’t you ever
wondered why?” she asks softly. He shrugs, and she faces him. “I have my
father’s eyes, Seth.”

He doesn’t say anything
for a long moment, and when he does, his voice comes out edged in fury and
arrogance. “Say it, Emma. Don’t dance around it. Fucking say it.”

She pales, and then she
glares, because he’s lashing out and she isn’t the enemy. Furious, she slides
away from him.
 

“I didn’t do this. And
it wasn’t my idea to get a fucking letter from the dead. So maybe cut me a
little fucking slack.”
 

Emma slaps him on the
chest with the envelope, wrinkled now from being folded and worried by her
anxious fingers. But not so much so that he can’t read his brother’s scrawl
perfectly.
 

Seth hesitates once
more, a final time, before he slides the papers out and scans them.
 

She watches nervously,
taking in his face and the slow tightening of his shoulders as he reads.
 

His fingers tighten on
the paper, and she makes an involuntary noise, soft protest, before she reaches
for the letter. His eyes snap up to her, furious and disbelieving, but he
surrenders the papers. She smooths the wrinkles out and he stares into
nothing.
 

“This is why you asked
about the Marzetti,” he says. She doesn’t answer—doesn’t need to. “Jesus
Christ, he’s saying Dad had mom killed.”

Emma doesn’t say
anything—there is nothing to say that won’t set him off, nothing she hasn’t
struggled with herself. She waits as he stands, running a hand through his
hair. There is anger and agitation in his posture that makes her nervous, but
she sits quiet and still. “How long have you known?”
 

“Oleander came to see me
the week we got back from Santa Lucia.”
 

“That bastard kept a lot
of Caleb’s secrets,” Seth murmurs, staring into space.
 

“I went to the brownstone.
And the country house—she kept a lot of Daddy’s things in storage there.”

His eyes find hers,
darkening, and she shrugs. “Dom went with me.”

Seth sighs. Standing by
the window, he stares at the place that has been his home more than his own
syndicate for so long. “It makes sense, why he took care of me. Why he taught
me,” she says softly, her voice sad.

“He taught you because
you’re family, Emma. Even without this, he would have taught you. You are a
Morgan first and forever.”

She moves to where he
stands, leaning against the window. Seth stares at her for a moment, and the
echoes of Caleb are there, and heartbreaking.
 

“This changes
everything, Emma,” he says, and his voice is very tired.

Everything he knows
about his father and family. About the clan who killed his father.

About his brother and
his motivations, and Emma’s place in it all. His head aches, a reminder of the
night before and what drove him to Emma in the first place.
 

Emma, always aware of
the things that weigh on him, nudges his shoulder gently with her own. “This is
our secret for now. The only person who knows is my mother, and she would never
admit that my father was having an affair.”

She’s quiet, and then,
“Do you think Gabe ordered a hit on his best friend?”
 

Seth shakes his head,
but it’s less denial than it is refusal to consider it. “We have more pressing
concerns.”

Her eyebrows go up,
startled, and Seth grimaces. “Aleja.”

“You didn’t,” she
breathes, and Seth gives her a dour look. A laugh, ridiculous and inappropriate,
bubbles up and she covers her mouth. He looks so disgusted and put out.
 

“I thought she was one
of the house girls.”

Emma remembers the regal
woman who moved with the grace of a dancer and the hunting glide of a panther.
She disliked her on sight, but there is something undeniably intriguing about
her. She snorts. “You didn’t think at all.”
 

Seth gives her a dark
look, and she smiles sweetly. “How much of a problem will this be? Will
Papa
be angry?”

“That I fucked his
daughter like a whore?” Seth says, incredulous.
 

“Maybe don’t phrase it
like that,” she says dryly. “Will she tell him?”

“No. I don’t know what
she will do, but telling her father would destroy the alliance, and she can’t
want that. The family has too much invested in our syndicate to jeopardize it
over a meaningless fuck. Besides, she came on to me. You know how royals are,
always wanting their trophies.”

Emma stares for a long
time, and then nods. He's being overly casual, but she decides to let him have
it. He looks at her from the corner of one eye. “What did you and Rama fight
about?”

“You.”

His eyebrows go up. He
turns to look at her, and she meets his gaze head on, honest. Not hiding. “You
come first, Seth. The family does. It always will. He’s jealous.”

The phantom of that
kiss, fueled by alcohol and weed, rises between them, and she waits for him to
address it, but he doesn’t. Maybe they have had enough confessions for one
day.
 

“Do you know that Caleb
took our mark?” Seth says softly.
 

She nods. It was a badly
kept secret—something that had enraged Gabe—that the golden prince had taken
the mark, and she had seen her cousin shirtless enough to know that the snake
had been inked on his chest. Emma stares at him, a quiet question in her eyes.
Seth smiles, tugs lightly on one lock of her hair. “That’s something you have
in common with your brother, Emma. Your loyalty to the family.”

Chapter 28.
Morgan Commerce Building. New York City. November 22
^nd

Tinney
Clears His Throat
. When he does, Seth realizes he is staring at one of the huge,
leafy plants that surround them. How long has he been gazing off like that? He
shakes himself from the direction his thoughts have taken. He was thinking of
Cuba again.

Isn't that why he
requested that he and Tinney meet here, in the glassed-in, rooftop garden of
the Commerce Building? Outside, New York is a gray churning sky and bitter
cold. In here, the temperature is in the high seventies, the humidity is a
gentle kiss against his skin, and the sub-tropical plants are so vibrant.
 

The last time he was
here, it was for a board meeting, the one in which he made the stand that led
to the toppling of his uncle's regime. Even so, those memories don't have his
thoughts. No, he's thinking about the constant comfort of the waves, the warmth
of Latin hospitality, and the heat.
 

He focuses his attention
back to his head of security. Of course Tinney would notice that far-away
feeling that creeps into Seth's eyes. Seth says, “I'm sorry.”

They are situated near
the edge of the garden, close to the windows, a table between them bearing
folders and reports, and all the pieces of the world Seth is trying so
valiantly to keep afloat. A bottle of scotch sits beside them, untouched.
 

Tinney closes the folder
in his hands with a closed-lipped smile. He is dressed down in a black sweater
and jeans, far more casual than most have ever seen him. He did at Seth's
request that his post-Cuba briefing be as informal as possible. Seth has chosen
to wear a cotton button-up with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of dark
jeans. Tinney sets the folder aside and says, “Sometimes you look so much like
Gabe that I have to remind myself this isn't twenty years ago.”

Seth stills. The eye
contact is already established, so he knows he can't save himself by looking away.
His brown eyes drop wide, and Tinney's words are like needles in his brain. How
could he think of Cuba at a time like this? Because it's the only part of his
world that isn't a mystery. Sprawling beaches and keys of blow aren't
complicated. Morgan family history and current Morgan enterprise——that's a maze
of locked doors and skeletons. Then, the two worlds collide in his mind with
thoughts of that last conversation with Emma, before they came home.

What a mess, indeed.

He ignores the paperwork
between them and looks to the most solid link to the past he knows. Sure,
Tinney would know; he would know everything. All the secrets and the
motivations and the truth about the past for which Seth has been desperately
searching. Yet not until now does Seth realize that the answers he's been
looking for have been in front of him the whole time. Now he realizes that he
doesn't know jack-shit about the man his father trusted.
 

The Morgan son snatches
the scotch off the table. This, something as simple as a drink between men, and
Seth has never shared one with Tinney. He pours two drinks and sets one in
front of Tinney. His head of security eyes the glass, his expression unreadable
in the wake of a faded smile. Surely a man as highly trained as he is has
already read the signs: Seth's rebellion against meeting in an office, his
wistful eyes wandering to the small-scale jungle around them, his father's—and
his brother's—drink of choice.
 
Seth
says, “I'm sure you used to drink with him.”

He nods, says, “I did.”

Tinney is as motionless
as the greenery, so that if it weren't just the two of them, he could fade into
the background. Yet, he is suddenly a main player on the stage.
 

Seth makes a rueful
smirk, and leans back against the chair. The lust for inebriation that he might
have shown in his youth is not to be found. No, he leaves his liquor untouched,
has ignored it until now. At that board meeting, in this place, Mikie accused
Seth of an inability to balance his work and his play. Yet now, just as then,
he is sober, and it doesn't change anything. Mikie is dead, and Seth's emotions
still possess him, just as his demons do. The tightrope routine grows ever more
intricate.
 

He says, “Will you drink
with me?”

He is staring at a man
who may know him better than anyone else left alive. He's face-to-face with a
man who was childhood friends with his dad. In everything he thought he
learned, he still knows so little.
 

Tinney's deadpan
features soften, and he retrieves his smile, a smile Seth has seldom seen.
Tinney says, “I will.”

Seth raises his tumbler.
Tinney lifts his glass, all smooth grace, a habit older than the king he
serves, and they drink. The scotch is a hot accent to the winter outside, and
it burns all the way down Seth's esophagus. He only manages not to grimace
because he's shot a man in the head. Such a pale comparison to the things
Tinney has seen.
 

Tinney lets the smallest
grimace play across his face. Perhaps scotch is not his drink of choice either.
Or maybe the past is as heavy to him as it is for Seth. Maybe it's heavier.
Maybe not.
 

The brat prince preens,
kicks dirt at whoever is behind him. He says, “I guess protocol demands that
you do.”

It's not really a jab at
Tinney; they both know as much. But it's rude, and it's childish. It's
everything Seth has come from, everything he has worked to rise above—just a
ghost haunting him, along with his family and his idea of love. It's just a
defense mechanism that Tinney is not obliged to accept.
 

The family assassin lets
his glass thud on the wooden table, and he leans forward, one forearm resting
on the table edge. He levels a dark glare at the boy-king, and says, “You would
presume so.”

Seth's stomach flops,
sends the scotch sloshing, and he is suddenly a child again. His limbs freeze.
He feels the instant guilt of childhood, the knowledge that he has broken so
many rules, but he doesn't know for which he's been caught. His mouth goes dry,
and the feeling is so vivid, he expects his brother to sweep in at any moment
and save the day. He expects his dad to come ground him. He blinks. Damn.
 

He looks away, at the
windows. Doing so won't help him get out of his insolence, but the monochrome
world of cloud cover and skyscrapers is a perfect scale of his internal
conflict. The silence ticks by, and Tinney is content to let his words linger
on. Seth is content to suffer them. And just like some strange windfall, the
sky begins to spit fat snowflakes onto the city. It comes in a flurry, and Seth
is enrapt as it splats against the glass and starts to melt.

He takes a sip of
scotch, and his eyes glaze with that familiar distance. His voice is quiet but
steady when he says, “Who made the call to murder my mother?”

The temperature has
remained a steady seventy-three, but the warmth drains from the room in one fell
rush. The childlike fear has dissolved, and the scotch teases his empty
stomach. He doesn't look at Tinney, doesn't want to see any of the emotion that
passes there, if any does at all. He doesn't want to know what it's like to
relive it from any other perspective than his own— —so young and oblivious.
Yet, isn't that what he's asking? What was it like to know that three children
were about to lose so much?

Tinney takes a thick
drink and his gaze drifts from Gabe's favorite child and spitting image to the
mesmerizing dance of nature outside. Their world, like a snow globe, perfect
and untouched, protected by a glass case; a lie.
 

He says, “Gabe was
overridden by his siblings.”

Seth's eyes slip closed.
He doesn't care just now that his reaction shows. He has no mask against this
man. Some part of him breathes a righteous sigh of relief. This one small
detail is a monumental truth, that his dad really was the man Seth always
believed—that his dad would never sign a death warrant that would deprive his sons
of their mother.
Son
. Gabe only had
one son by blood. Yet he always gave Caleb every privilege Seth had. All but
one, the crown—the empire he gave to Seth.
 

“But he was the king.
How could they move against him?” Seth asks. His voice cracks, but his eyes are
dry.

Gabe wouldn't make that
heartless move, but Mikie and Bethania did.
 

Tinney's scotch is in
his hand, but he leaves it anchored to the table. Seth doesn't have to look at
the other man, the weight of the subject crouches on them both. At length,
Tinney says,

“When marriage is
involved, the rules get a little sticky. Gabe wasn't the only one invested, and
so a majority rule was needed.”

Seth's fingers tighten
around his highball.
Mikie, that rat
bastard piece of fucking scum.

Disgrace
to the name Morgan. A curse on his grave.
Otherwise, he is
motionless. Until he says, “How did they do it?”

Tinney's pause is
palpable, too thick to breathe, and finally Seth's gaze swivels from the
near-peaceful scene outside to the now. As he might expect, Tinney is a fine
portrait of collectivity, a straight face and guarded eyes. Seth's anger rises
to his cheeks with unabashed ferocity, and his brow sets in a hard line.

He adds, “Did you pull
the trigger?”

Tinney holds the
connection, poker face unerring, and he kills his scotch. This time there's no
grimace, and this time, the glass doesn't make a sound when he sets it down.
Seth can almost feel the fire in Tinney's breath when he says, “It's the only
order I ever refused.”

Seth's resolve is
nothing in comparison, and his expression withers to something bitter and
angry. “Then tell me how.”

Tinney's brow furrows
and the lines around his eyes deepen. Maybe for the first time ever, Seth can
see the pain his words cause in the older man. The occasion in itself is nearly
enough to reduce him to a raging, blubbering waste of space. He bites down on
his bottom lip, and he waits.

He's not sure how much
time passes in silence, the hush of falling snow kissing them, even inside. For
once, the quiet doesn't taunt him, doesn't make him want to demolish it like
he's done to so many other settings. No, this is an anguish of truth, a
deep-rending misery with a light at the end of it, for in truth there is an
unfamiliar freedom.
 

Now, it's Tinney whose
eyes close. He says, “They did it just like what was done to Caleb. Beth and
Mikie sent some thugs to collect Miriam and Emilio, put them on their knees
beside each other, and they died together.”

“Jesus,” Seth
hisses.
 

He has to look away,
anywhere but at Tinney's creased and broken expression. Seth pits himself
forward so that his elbows jam into his knees. The pain that spreads through
his nervous system by chain reaction is almost enough to distract him. The
active throb in his shoulder is almost enough to bring back the vision of his
uncle's last moments, but it’s overshadowed by the image of his mother and
Emma’s father, and Caleb—so many dead bodies. His head falls into his
hands.
 

Tinney's voice remains
the same steady tone that it's been Seth's whole life. He says,

“Your dad loved your
mother more than the game, and the fame, or money. And though she betrayed him
by cheating on him—Emilio betrayed their friendship—he never imagined a world
without her.”

Seth's voice wells from
within him, resonates from his throat as a half-choked sob. He knows that exact
fucking feeling. Somehow he never expected to relate to his dad so perfectly.
He couldn't pull the trigger against the love of his life, either. Just as he
couldn't kill his brother. He has walked in his father's shoes. It was all he
ever wanted, and now, now that he knows what that means, he would give it all
back to have his family close to him. This is the conclusion his dad came to,
the reason he pressed his ideal above any other: family is the most important
thing.
 

His tears are hot,
brutal, and fast. They slip through his fingers, run down his tired hands, drip
into the false warmth around him. Despite all the history stacked up against
him, other people’s
whys
hold no
meaning for him. He's at the end of a long chain of motivations that have
shaped his life with no regard to him. All he can do from here is try to make
it better, try to honor what his father taught him. He chokes on his heaving
breath and the snot that threatens to run down his face.
 

A large, hard hand falls
on his shoulder, squeezes just the slightest bit. He sucks in a breath through
his nose, tries his damnedest to slow his heart. He limbs have begun to buzz.
If he continues, he'll lose to the panic attack that presses close to him. Tinney
squeezes again, harder this time, and keeps the pressure steady. The point of
contact pierces Seth's shattered thoughts, calls him back to stable ground, and
the sobs recede.