Authors: Lisa Desrochers
When we were growing up, everyone in our small Catholic school was intimidated by Rob. Even the nuns. He was tough and he was fearless—a nasty combination. When he went to work for Papa, I discovered just how brutal my brother could be. There was never a challenge he’d back down from. Who knew roller coasters were his Achilles heel?
He comes back into the room and I hold the picture up. “A side of you I’ve never seen before.”
He glares and sprawls himself across his bed.
Little by little, the grin returns to Sherm’s face as he talks about their day. Here and there Rob interjects into Sherm’s stories, elaborating on how wet they got on Splash Mountain—soaked—or how long the line was for Pirates of the Caribbean—out the goddamn gates—and I can’t stop the smile. He had fun, though he’ll never admit it. At some point, Crash gives up the growling, but continues to stand vigil at my door. It’s nearly forty minutes later that Sherm’s eyelids start to sag.
“Time for bed, buddy,” I tell him as I stand. “But I can’t wait to see Adri’s pictures.” I turn off their light and grab Crash’s collar. “In you go,” I say, giving him a shove into the room. I close the door and wait. After a minute, when it seems Crash has resigned himself to his new sleeping arrangement, I head to the bathroom and get ready for bed.
When I step into my room, Oliver hasn’t moved. I lay on my side next to him and comb his sweaty hair off his forehead with my fingers.
Even now, sick and shaking, he’s beautiful.
The sudden, sharp pang in my heart surprises me when I realize I miss his laugh. I miss the way my heart raced when he gave me a secret smile from across a lecture hall. I miss the way his green eyes flashed whenever he dropped a subtle innuendo. I miss the way his touch, when he trailed his fingertips over my face, warmed places inside me I thought were forever frozen.
All along, I’ve thought I was becoming desperately lonely. But now, looking at him, I’m afraid maybe I’m just desperate.
For him.
***
The next morning, when Oliver still won’t wake up, I’m suddenly afraid I might have killed him after all. And that suddenly matters more than it should.
I get up and trudge downstairs. No one else is up, which shouldn’t surprise me. I grab a glass of orange juice and dump some ice into a bowl for cold compresses. I’ve got to get Oliver’s fever down.
Just as I’m collecting everything off the counter, Grant’s bike rumbles up the driveway. He drags in the door a minute later looking like he hasn’t slept in days.
“Hey, stranger,” I say.
He gives me a bored look and heads for the fridge. He pulls out the OJ bottle and tips it to his mouth, polishing off the rest.
“Thanks for sharing,” I say, lifting my glass.
“Anytime.”
He starts to put the empty container back in the fridge but I clear my throat and give him a nasty look.
He rolls his eyes and chucks it in the trash instead. “Happy?”
“Rarely.”
He grabs a banana out of the basket on the counter and hikes a hip onto one of the barstools at the island. “I’ve noticed that. What the fuck is up with you anyway?”
I hang my head at his profanity. “Please, Grant. I’m begging you.”
He rolls his eyes again as he peels the banana. “Sherm isn’t even here.”
“Then consider your poor sister’s feminine sensibilities.”
He barks a laugh and tears off half the banana in a single bite. “All I know about your feminine sensibilities is that all my friends in Chicago wanted to fuck you, but you terrified them. They were pissing themselves at the thought of even talking to you.”
My turn to roll my eyes. “Great.” I look him over again. “Not that it’s any of my business, but where do you go all night when you’re not here?”
He gives me a non-committal shrug. “Nowhere.”
“Is there . . . someone?” I probably shouldn’t pry, because I
really
don’t want him turning the question back on me.
“Naw,” he says, pulling the peel on the banana lower. “Even though Rob’s not following his own fucking rules doesn’t mean they’re bad rules. Trying to keep everything pretty anonymous so nothing comes back to bite me in the ass.”
“So, random sex?”
He takes another bite of banana. “Not too different than Chicago, except none of the chicks here know who they’re fucking.”
“Listen, Grant, I know it’s been a long time since you really needed me for anything, but things haven’t changed so much that we can’t talk, you know? If you ever need anything, I hope you know I’m here for . . . whatever.”
He gives me a long look before nodding.
When Mama died, Papa withdrew from his family and buried himself in his vendetta. Things Mama always took care of fell to Rob and me because there was no one else. We did the best we could with Ulie and Grant, but Sherm was so little that he took up a lot of our time and energy. When we weren’t dealing with him, we were dealing with our own stuff. We were still kids too, after all. I think all Grant’s sleeping around started because he was starving for attention. By the time he turned eighteen, he’d had more sexual partners than I’ve had to date.
His eyes lower to the bowl of melting ice on the counter in front of me. “What’s that for?”
“I think I might have a fever,” I answer too fast.
“How’s that gonna help?”
I shrug, scooping the bowl up. “Don’t know if it’s going to.”
He bites off the rest of the banana and tosses the peel to the counter.
“Seriously?” I say, exasperated.
“Whatever,” he grumbles, picking it up and tossing it on top of the OJ bottle in the trash.
I start up the stairs. “I’ve got tons to do. I’m going to work in my room today so I don’t spread whatever I have.”
He follows me up and I dampen a facecloth in the sink while he waits outside the bathroom door. He pushes past me on my way out and slams the door, and I hear the shower start.
When I slip back into my room, Oliver still isn’t awake. I fold some ice into the facecloth and lay it across his forehead.
His breathing hitches, and I think maybe he’s coming to, but then he sinks into his comatose state again.
“Why are you here?” I whisper. “What were you thinking?”
That’s always the key question with Oliver, because his wheels are always turning. He does nothing on a whim. There’s always a grand scheme.
I check the bandages and see they need changing again. I notice some redness around the edges of his wounds, and they feel warm. I’m not sure if that’s just healing, or the beginning of an infection, so I decide to wait to stitch him until I know. When he’s cleaned and bandaged, I grab Polly’s box from the floor and carry it to the armchair in the corner. I’ve got stuff spread in my lap and I’m just starting to accomplish something when I hear the scrape of dog nails skidding across the wooden floor. A second later, Sherm’s bedroom door opens.
I’m just launching myself off the chair when I hear the bathroom door tick open.
“Don’t bug her, dude,” Grant says. “She’s sick.”
“What’s she got?” Sherm says, just on the other side of my door.
“Nothing you want,” Grant answers. “You need to work on that left hook. Come on.”
I hear a cascade of human and canine feet on the stairs, then the front door whines open.
I watch out the window as the boys head to the beach with the dogs and wonder again about Grant. Rob asked Grant to teach Sherm to fight so he could defend himself from the bullies at school, but Grant has really stepped up in the big-brother department. He’s often out all night, but when he’s home, he’s with Sherm, just hanging out playing Nintendo or wrestling on the beach.
I just wish I knew he was okay. Getting information out of him is harder than prying it out of Rob.
I settle into my chair again and get to work. Despite the stack of papers in front of me, my eyes keep migrating toward the bed, watching for the rise and fall of Oliver’s chest. Hours later, when he still hasn’t moved, I stand and walk toward him. Just as I lay a hand on his chest a knock sends me flying.
The door opens and Ulie’s head pops through. I gasp and lunge for the door, reaching it just before she steps through. She backs into the hall and I pull the door closed behind me.
“Sherm said you were sick,” she says, holding up a bowl. “Homemade soup. It’s not chicken, but it might still help.”
“Wow, Ulie. Thanks.” I take the bowl. “I don’t know what I have, though, so I think everyone should stay away today.”
Her nose crinkles. “Yeah, okay. Do you want some ginger ale or something?”
“I’ll come down for something later, okay?”
She nods and backs toward the stairs. “Okay, but just text me if you change your mind.”
“Thanks.”
I retreat into the bedroom as she heads down. I go to Oliver and check his pulse again. He still has one.
“Oliver,” I whisper, shaking his arm.
He shivers harder, and that’s all I get.
***
By nighttime, his fever seems worse instead of better. I lay in bed in the quiet of a sleeping house, feeling him shaking next to me, and for the first time seriously consider telling someone about him. Ulie, maybe. She’d be the most help and the least likely to shoot him on sight.
But she wouldn’t keep my secret. Ulie’s not good at that kind of thing.
Still, I decide if things aren’t better by morning, it’s a chance I have to take.
I curl against Oliver’s right side. He’s burning up, but his shaking fills me with the irrational need to warm him.
“Remember our business law project?” I whisper in his ear. “How we disagreed over every little thing? It was all because you’re so ridiculously cautious. Even Professor Emory said we’d taken the safe route and hadn’t dug deep enough into the ethical questions.” I brush my lips against his shoulder as I continue. “You drove me crazy. I wanted to kill you half the time. Now, look, I might have actually done it.” I prop up onto my elbow and press a kiss to his mouth, then trail my lips to his ear. “Remember the last night . . . right before the presentation? We were the last ones in the library, I’m pretty sure. What was it, three in the morning, maybe? I don’t even remember what you said to break my defenses down . . . something poetic, I’m sure. The next thing I know, my panties are in a bunch on the floor and you’re . . .”
I trail off as a lump of emotion clogs my throat.
“No one else has ever made me feel like that.” I lay my ear against his chest and a tear rolls from the corner of my eye onto his skin. I trace my finger along the edge of the bandage and whisper, “Please don’t die.”
Oliver
Lee is laid out on the faux-wood table on the fifth floor of the Northwestern University library. Her scarf is still tied neatly around her neck, but the top buttons of her blouse are open and her bra is undone. The bead of one perfect pink nipple pebbles in my mouth as I suck. Her face is flushed and her lips parted as she arches into my mouth. I slip my fingers under her skirt and find her panties already soaked through with her desire.
This one has been a long time coming. This entire semester, from the second day in business law when I asked if she wanted to partner, I was talking about more than our presentation.
Fucking information out of women is one of the most efficient business strategies I know. So I’ve spent the semester gaining Lee’s trust with one goal in mind. My endgame is information on her family—our biggest rivals for control of Chicago. I want to know all their business dealings, both legal and otherwise, so I can crush them.
My innuendo’s been subtle. I’ve always found it works best when it simmers just below the surface for a while. But weeks passed, then months, and she never bit.
Until tonight.
She lifts her hips without me having to ask, and as I divest her of her delicate lace thong, she reaches into her bag on the corner of the table and comes out with a condom.
I free my throbbing hard-on from the constraints of my slacks and boxer-briefs. I don’t remember an erection ever being so hard it was painful, but this one is bordering on it. As I fix the condom in place, she lays back and lifts her legs, resting the arches of her feet on my shoulders and presenting me with that hot, wet pussy.
I sink my cock deep, seating it to the root in all the molten heat at her core. She moans and her pussy contracts hard around me, refusing to let go. I find the sweet spot at the apex of her thighs with my thumb and match the pressure to the rhythm of my movements, slowly out to the tip, then stroking hard to the root.
Her fingers slip under her blouse and she rolls her nipple under her thumb as she rocks against me. It’s a total fucking turn-on.
I don’t last nearly as long as I usually do. I tell myself it’s because I haven’t been with a woman in over a month. In the deepest recesses of my mind, I know that’s a lie. As I drop my head back and come harder than I ever have, I know it’s because this woman just blew my mind. Any concept that sex is purely business explodes out of me with my release and I’m left with an empty, aching need for more.
Please don’t die
.
The last remnants of the dissolving dream whisper through my brain as a bead of sweat trickles from my upper lip to my ear, dragging my consciousness back to the present. When I attempt to brush it off, I find my hand won’t move. I open my eyes and try to focus. It’s bright, but the light is natural, so it’s the middle of the day. The ceiling is white, but the rest of the walls are the velvet blue of the midnight sky.
It takes me a few minutes, but everything comes back in a rush—ducking into Lee’s closet, her peeling off her wet leggings and feeling herself up on the bed, swearing at some poor bastard that I hoped in the worst way was me.
The gun.
As my eyes slowly focus to the bright light, I find Lee in a chair in the corner, watching me. She’s barefoot, in white cotton shorts and a tight black tank top, sitting with one leg folded under her and the other bent so her chin is propped on her knee. Her long waves are damp around her shoulders and her skin is pink, as if she’s fresh from the shower. The thought makes me suddenly conscious of how rank I smell.
“Who knows you’re here?” Her voice is low, but potent.
I try to press up onto my elbows, but searing pain, like someone lighting a match on my skin, flares across my chest with the movement. I suck in a sharp breath, at the same instant realizing that trying to move is pointless. She’s tied my arms to my sides.
“Are you here to finish the contract?” she tries again. “Is anyone else coming?”
I shake my head as the pain subsides to a dull ache; more an ice pick than a match. “When Victor finds out what you did, it’s
me
he’ll want dead.”
There’s a flash of confused horror in her eyes that is so fleeting I might have imagined it. “He doesn’t know?”
“I’ve been able to cover the funds through other sources to keep the cash flow solvent and the business running. But I need you to give me the pass code and fix the program.” I lock her in my gaze. “Unless you really
did
intend to kill me.”
Her expression hardens to stone. “Not much question
you
intended to kill
me
.”
Of course she’d think that. Even
I
believed it was us at first. A little of the anger runs out of my veins. “I told your brother we don’t hold your contract.”
She gives me a suspicious tip of her head. “When did you talk to Rob?”
I start to take a deep breath, but stop myself with the grind in my ribs. “When Rob came back to Chicago in March, I went to his apartment to talk to him.”
She releases the strand of hair tightly coiled around her finger. “He didn’t tell me that.”
“I told him I wanted a truce. He thought I was trying to kill him. It didn’t go well.”
She starts twirling again as she tries to work what I’m saying out. “Why would you want a truce? What’s in it for you?”
I’ve spent so long rehearsing the argument I have prepared for Rob in the event I’d need him to lead me to Lee, that when I open my mouth, I expect to hear the spiel. I think I’m more surprised than she is when what comes out instead is,
“You, Lee.
You
are what’s in it for me.”
Her hand stops twirling and her jaw actually drops. For a split second, there’s only total, utter shock frozen on her features. But then she gains back her composure. “There’s no way, Oliver. Rob’s not going to believe you want a truce, and he’ll never believe the reason you want it is for me.” Her expression hardens. “I don’t even believe it. Not after what I did to you. We’re in this mess because you took out a contract on us.” She shakes her head slowly. “The only reason you’re alive right now is because Rob doesn’t know you’re here.”
“The only reason I’m alive right now is because you’re a lousy shot.”
She shakes her head again. “I’m a perfect shot.”
I rally all my strength and lift my head and look down at myself, ignoring the sudden sharp pain in my chest. The sheet is draped loosely over my lower half, but a black scarf is secured around my waist and tied to each wrist, tethering my arms to my sides. Covering most of my left pec, directly over my heart, is white gauze and tape.
Christ.
“I’ve told you, the hit wasn’t me,” I say, dropping my head back to the pillow.
“I don’t believe you.”
Lee is stubborn. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. “Hell, it could have been anyone, Lee. Maybe Jimmy D or Tommy Fingers wanted to challenge your father for the family mantle and they needed Rob and the rest of you out of the way. There’s the other marquis families, the Taglionis and the Bazanos. There’s the fucking Irish. Half of everyone in Chicago stands to gain by taking out the Delgados, and you decide it’s
me
?”
Her only answer is a scornful gaze.
I loll my head on the pillow and try to think, but my mind is so full of the pain in my chest and the smell of Lee on the sheets all around me that I can’t focus on anything else. If I can clear my head, maybe I can sort some things out, like a way to convince her.
“I need a smoke.”
She fixes me in a scowl. “I thought you were quitting,” she says, but it’s totally drowned out by the thunder of a bike starting in the driveway outside.
She moves to her window and leans her hands on the sill. I take the moment to admire the view.
“I was,” I say as the noise dies down. “Didn’t work out.”
I’ve been smoking since I was eleven. Nobody thought anything of it. Matter of fact, it was my uncle who gave me my first cigarette. He’d rolled it himself. No filter. Smoking is the thing that’s showed me how dangerous addiction is. It’s the only thing other than my old man that’s ever had control over my life.
Until Lee.
She turns and rests that fine ass on the windowsill, giving me a measured look. After a minute, she goes to her closet and I see my slacks hanging there. She’s as anal as I am.
“There are no cigarettes,” she says, feeling the pockets.
“They’re in the car. It’s a silver Chevy parked up the main road.”
“I know,” she says, folding her arms across her chest. “I found your key and moved it.”
I nudge my chin toward the closet. “My phone in there? I need to check in.”
She huffs out a derisive laugh. “Nice try.”
“I’m serious, Lee. I don’t call in, there are guys who will come looking for me.”
Her eyes narrow as suspicion clouds her expression. “You
did
tell them where you are.”
I shake my head. “No one knows. I got loose from my guys and came on a bogus ID.”
“How did you find us?”
I take a deep breath and instantly regret it when bone grinds painfully in my chest. I grimace against it, holding my breath until I can breathe without gasping. “I’ll tell you everything when you undo what you did.”
“Why would I do that?”
I hold her in my gaze for several beats of my hammering heart before saying, “Because if you really wanted me dead, you’d have finished the job yourself.”
“Maybe I should have.” Her words hang heavy in the air between us for what feels like an eternity before she pushes off the sill. “But since I risked everything to save you, it would be sort of stupid to let you die of starvation. Are you hungry?”
My stomach rumbles with the thought of food and I nod.
She plucks her Beretta up from the nightstand, tucking it into the back waistband of her shorts, and turns for the door. “I’ll be right back.”
I tug at my restraints while she’s gone and find two things. One, she knows her knots. Two, my ankles are secured too.
I hear the clanking of dishes and utensils downstairs followed by the beep of a microwave. A few minutes later, she’s back.
“Ulie’s gotten really good in the kitchen.” She holds up a bowl in her hand. “Leftover summer squash and leek soup.”
She sets it and a bottle of water on the nightstand and unties my hands. “Be good,” she says, giving me a look. She helps me to sit and props pillows behind my back. It’s everything I can do not to scream with the motion.
She hands me the water bottle and two pills. “Amoxicillin.”
I take the pills with half the water and it feels good going down my parched throat. I guzzle down the rest of the water and hand her back the bottle.
She holds out the bowl. “How did you find us?”
At first I think she’s trying to bribe me with food. As hungry as I am, it might just work. But when I reach for the bowl, she lets me take it from her. I tip it to my mouth. She’s right, it’s really good.
“Rob left a trail of bread crumbs,” I say, throwing her a bone. If she thinks I’m cooperating, she’s more likely to give me what I need.
“Who else has followed it?”
“No one. I was able to put some pieces together that are highly unlikely anyone else would even know to look for.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” I tip the bowl to my mouth again and polish off the soup while I think of the best way to play this. Finally, I decide to just tell her. “I don’t want anyone from Chicago to find you either.”
She takes the bowl from me, setting it on the nightstand, then tips her head and bunches her hand into her hair. As she separates a strand and twirls the tips, my dick stiffens with the familiar gesture.
“Why not?” she asks suspiciously.
“I have my reasons.”
All of which are you
. “How long have I been here?”
“Two days,” she says. “You’ve been feverish for most of it. You seem better today. I think your fever finally broke last night.”
“Two days,” I repeat. That means I’ve been gone almost a week. I was supposed to be on my way home by now. “Where is my phone, Cheetah?”
At my use of her nickname, she freezes. Because no one else knew about us, the only time I used it was in private, which usually meant in bed.
“Probably somewhere in Texas by now.”
My eyes widen as the bottom drops out of my stomach. “How the fuck is it in Texas?”
“I pulled out the SIM card and battery, then smashed what was left and put it in an envelope to some made up address in Dallas. No return address. The SIM card’s on its way to Manhattan.”
I drop my head back onto the pillow. “Jesus fucking Christ.” All the frustration and anger that have consumed me since she left rises up like a tsunami inside me, drowning out all other thoughts. “You left without a fucking word,” I grind out between clenched teeth.
“Because you tried to kill me!” she shouts, her eyes wide and her expression incredulous.
“You tried to kill
me
!” I spit back. My anger dissolves with the words and I hang my head. “And I never tried to kill you,” I add, lower, defeated.
Doubt and regret darken her hazel eyes as her face crumples. “Your father killed Mama. I wanted to make him pay.” She drops her face into her hand. “I didn’t think about him blaming you.”
I lay my head back and close my eyes. “Can you fix it?”
She hauls a shaky breath. “If I want to.”
“That time in my office when I showed you the program . . . I forgot your undergrad degree was computer science . . .” I find her eyes and hold them in my gaze. “You’re better than I ever gave you credit for.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “I know.”
“How did you do it?”
She stands and moves to the chair in the corner, lowering herself into it and folding one leg underneath her. “You always used to say the way to really hurt a person was financially. I wanted to hurt your family, so I took your cue. I broke into your book program and pulled the spread out of the payout ratios. I knew it would send your payouts through the roof.”
“But that program was encrypted.”
She lowers her gaze to the cuticle she’s picking at, which I now notice is raw. That’s new. “I watched you for almost a year, plugging numbers into your phone. I videoed you a few times when you thought I was texting. Once I had the password to unlock your phone, it was all right there—pass codes into the rest of your accounts, encryption codes.” She shrugs. “You store them all in your password manager.” Her eyes finally lift to mine. “I had access to everything. And you’re a sound sleeper.”