“What?”
“The account’s empty.”
Confusion crossed his face. “That’s impossible. There’s enough money in that account for the next six months of her care.”
Hailey didn’t drop her hand. “I know. But I’m telling you it’s gone.”
His eyes narrowed, then widened with realization. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
Hailey tensed and moved fully in front of him. “Not right now you won’t. I didn’t tell you so you could rip his head off. I told you because she knows about it and thinks it’s a bank error.”
“Bank error, my ass.” Rafe’s jaw clenched. “Where the hell is the little weasel?”
“Inside. Regardless of what he did, he cares about her.”
“He doesn’t care about her. He never has. All he cares about his own selfish ass.” He pushed her hand away and stepped around her.
Hailey turned so her gaze could follow him. “Pull your head out of your butt, Sullivan. You lay into him in front of her and it’s just going to make things worse.”
“Oh, I won’t lay into Billy in front of her,” he said over his shoulder as he made his way down the hall. “I can wait five fucking minutes to kill the prick.”
Lisa watched the conversation with curious eyes. When Hailey glanced her way and frowned, Lisa stepped cautiously forward. Even though the woman wasn’t high on her list, she was possibly her only friend at this point. “Who’s Billy?” she asked quietly as they walked.
“His brother,” Hailey said under her breath. “Black sheep of the family. Rafe didn’t tell you about him, huh?”
Lisa shook her head.
Nice.
Oh, man, now she really didn’t want to be here. Rafe was already ticked at her, and this on top of everything else wasn’t going to help. She should have taken him up on his offer to hang in a hotel room for the afternoon.
The door was open when they reached his mother’s room. Lisa tried to blend into the shadows in the hall, but Hailey tugged on her sleeve. “He’s gonna need a distraction. Come on.”
The familiar scent of industrial cleaners stung Lisa’s nostrils
when she stepped into the room, bringing a wave of memories. Painful days in a hospital bed when her head and heart had been in a really bad place. She swallowed back the bile sliding up her throat.
A slim woman with sparse dark hair sat up in the bed. Her skin was pale, arms frail as she lifted them to hug her son. Wires and tubes stuck out of her hands, ran to machines at her bedside. She looked like a gentle breeze could take her out, but her eyes were wide and shining and very much alive when she looked up at Rafe.
Eyes, Lisa noticed, that were just as dark and mesmerizing as his.
The anger she’d seen flash in those gleaming obsidians before slipped away, replaced with gentleness as he looked at his mother. His broad shoulders seemed to engulf the small woman as he leaned down to hug her. “Hi,
Mamá.
”
“There’s my boy.” She kissed his cheek, ran bony hands over the day’s growth of beard on his jaw. “You didn’t have to rush down here. I’m fine.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. You know that.” His voice was soft and gentle, as if he were talking to a child. He slid his hand down to clasp hers tenderly, touching her like she was made of glass. Fragile. Special. Worth more to him than anything in the world.
And Lisa’s heart kicked over as she watched. In all the time she’d known him, he’d never once looked at her like that. Not in Chicago when he thought she’d been hurt. Not in Milan when he’d wanted her in his bed. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized just how much she wanted a man to look at her like that, like she was the center of his world.
Not any man. This man.
Oh, shit.
The tightness in her chest made it hard to breathe.
The man standing with his back to the room turned from the windows and scowled, shattering the serene image. “Nice of the prodigal son to finally show up.”
Rafe shot him a disinterested look and refocused on his mother. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,
m’ijo
. I had a little trouble, but I’m better now. Mostly just tired and worn out. But that’s normal.”
He squeezed her hand and pulled a chair alongside her bed so he could sit.
She glanced over his shoulder toward the door, her large dark eyes lighting with excitement. “You brought a friend.”
Lisa’s heart banged out an unnatural rhythm when Rafe turned, still holding his mother’s hand in his. But the flash of unease in his eyes said he’d forgotten she was there. Forgotten she even existed. Lisa’s heart dropped into her stomach, fast, swift, unexpected.
Better that way, she told herself. Definitely safer, all things considered.
“
Mamá
, this is Lisa Maxwell. We’re…business associates. We were working on a project together when Hailey called.”
The man near the window coughed several times and shifted quickly away. Lisa’s gaze darted his direction, and in the time span it took for him to turn, recognition flared.
Blue Jacket. From the bar in Chicago.
No way.
Words choked in Lisa’s throat. She looked from Rafe to his brother and back again, unsure what to say or do. She’d been thrown for a loop from the moment she’d stepped into the hospital, and it was getting worse. “Um…”
His mother smiled. “Call me Teresa. It’s so nice to meet you.” She gestured for Lisa to come closer. “I never get to meet any of Rafael’s friends. The last woman he brought home he ended up marrying. And then divorcing.”
Lisa didn’t miss the disapproval in Teresa’s voice. Beside Lisa, Hailey snickered and pushed her forward as if she’d heard it a hundred times and was glad someone else was in the hot seat.
“
Mamá
,” Rafe warned.
“What?” Teresa asked, solemn eyes set on her son. “It’s true.” She glanced at Lisa and smiled.
“
Mamá
, Lisa and I are only professional colleagues.”
Lisa’s gaze swept toward Rafe. He was no longer zoned in on his mother. No, he was watching her with that dark, mysterious look that made her heart rebound from the depths of her abdomen and trip a beat to the tune of Al Green’s “Here I Am (Come and Take Me).”
“Let me get a look at you.”
She thanked God for the distraction, for the chance to claw her way out of the sticky web this thief was spinning around her. Lisa tore her gaze from Rafe and looked back at his mother.
A smile brightened Teresa’s face, bringing a warmth to her eyes that made them sparkle. “My, she is pretty. All that red hair. You’re Irish aren’t you?”
Oh, great. This was a helluva lot better. Now she felt like a piece of meat. A very uncomfortable piece of meat, trapped between a rock and a sheer drop-off. Lisa nodded, wishing she were anywhere else but in this room right now. “Yes. I am.”
Teresa’s smile widened, enveloping her whole face. “My husband was from Galway. Have you been there?”
“No. I’m afraid not.”
She waved her free hand, a wistful look in her eyes, and rested her head against the pillows. “Neither have I, but he used to talk about it often. Billy takes after his father, all light skin and hair.”
Beside her, Rafe’s jaw clenched as he glanced at his brother, a reaction Lisa knew his mother didn’t notice.
She looked between her boys. “You’d never guess they were siblings.”
Lisa’s gaze shifted to Billy again. With his back to the room, he was doing a good job at avoiding her and the whole conversation in general. “No, you never would.” She glanced back at Rafe. “It’s definitely a surprise.”
“Well, you know,” Billy said, turning quickly, keeping his eyes down. “I gotta go.
Mamá
, I’ll be back later.”
Rafe was on his feet in a flash. “I need to talk to you before you leave.” His tone was even and calm, but danger brewed in his eyes. “Why don’t I walk you out? Make sure you don’t trip or anything on the way.”
Panic and a hint of fear crossed Billy’s pale features, and he tried to shrug in a nonchalant way that looked anything but casual. “Yeah. Sure. What ever.” His gaze moved past Rafe to his mother, skipping over Lisa as if she weren’t even in the room. “I’ll see you later,
Mamá.
” He moved to the side of her bed and kissed her cheek.
“Te quiero.”
“Te quiero, m’ijo.”
Billy stepped toward the door, and Rafe slapped a hand on his shoulder in what appeared to be brotherly affection. But the way Rafe’s fingers dug into Billy’s muscles, Lisa knew the gesture was anything but friendly.
She darted a worried look at Hailey, who quickly dropped her arms and stepped toward the bed to keep Rafe’s mother from seeing too much. “Teresa, Lisa is an archaeologist.”
Teresa’s tired eyes brightened. “You are? Tell me, how did you meet my Rafael?”
Oh, geez. That wasn’t a story Lisa wanted to tell. Tearing her gaze from the door, she looked at Hailey who only smiled and lifted a shoulder as if to say
You’re on your own.
Shit, shit, shit.
Lisa glanced back at Rafe’s mother. What she needed to do was talk to Rafe before he seriously injured his brother. She didn’t put it past him, considering the fire she’d seen brewing in his eyes.
And if her hunch was right, he didn’t know his little brother was tangled up in this mess with the Furies. Her stomach clenched at the thought of telling him. Billy might just be their best link to finding out who was after them.
The stairwell was the most private place Rafe could find in a pinch. He yanked Billy through the door and tossed him
against the cement wall. The door clanged shut behind them.
“Hey. Watch it.” In a defiant show of attitude he’d perfected over the years, Billy straightened, more shocked than hurt, shook his hair back from his face and scowled.
Yeah, like Rafe had never seen that look before. He set his hands on his hips and did his best to smother his bubbling temper. It didn’t work.
“Where’s the money?”
Billy’s eyes darted to the floor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit. Don’t play games with me.”
Billy clenched his jaw, shifted his feet, but didn’t look up. Rafe could see he was contemplating his choices, that he knew he was cornered.
“I was just borrowing it,” he said after a long pause. “Like a loan.”
“Jodienda.”
Rafe ran both hands over his face. It didn’t matter that Billy wasn’t even listed on the account. The kid was smart. He knew how to pull a scam of his own. And hell, who better to hit than your own brother, the one you’ve always despised? He had access to account info, social security numbers, knew Rafe’s signature and had a photographic memory. Piece of cake. The fact he hadn’t pulled something like this sooner was what should have surprised Rafe more.
Shit, he wasn’t even a kid anymore. He was a grown man who always managed to get himself into more trouble than he was worth. He might have a genius IQ of 165, but when it came to common sense, he was seriously lacking.
Hailey’s frequent reminder popped into his head. The one she’d uttered whenever Billy had gotten into trouble over the years—which had been a lot:
You can’t kill family members. They put you in jail for that kind of thing, and I don’t think even I could get you out of that one.
“Where the hell is it?” Rafe asked.
“I used it to pay off a debt.”
“A what?” Rafe’s temper skyrocketed.
“Look, I’ll get it back, okay?” A hint of panic laced through Billy’s words. “I did a job for this guy, and it didn’t work out the way I planned. He’d already given me an advance, and I had to pay it back. But I’ve got other work lined up. It’ll be a bit, but I’ll pay it back.”
Rafe’s hands curled into fists at his side. If Billy hadn’t been his brother, he’d have beat the crap out of him. As it was, he loved the punk, even if he was a royal fuckup.
“When?”
Billy lifted one shoulder, dropped it. “I don’t know. A couple months.”
“Fuck that.”
“I swear.” When Billy glanced up, fear flashed in his eyes. “These guys were serious, Rafe. Said they’d break my legs if I didn’t pay up. I was out of options. I’m good for it, though. You know I love
Mamá.
”
He’d heard it all before. Rafe blew out a calming breath, pressed fingers against his tired eyes. This was messing up all his plans. Now not only was he on a time crunch because of his mother’s health, he had cash-flow problems to worry about.
He dropped his hands. “This is the last time, Billy. I’m tired of bailing your ass out when you get in a fix. Use those brilliant brains of yours and figure out a way to replenish
Mamá’s
account now, not in a few months. Even if you have to sell everything you own, you do it. I don’t have time to deal with this shit right now. And I swear to God if you cross me again, it’ll be the last time. Family ties only go so far.”
“Okay, I will.” Billy inched toward the door.
Rafe’s gaze followed. “Stay the fuck out of trouble.”
“I will. Are we done here?”
Not by a long shot, but Rafe didn’t have the energy to deal with the rest of it. And he knew where to find Billy when he was ready. “Don’t even think of upsetting
Mamá
with all this.”
“I won’t.” Billy slipped out the door before Rafe could stop him.
The corridor was empty by the time Rafe reached it. He ran a hand over his hair and headed back toward his mother’s room.
Lisa was sitting in the chair at his mother’s side, talking about God only knows what. Tired and in need of one moment of peace, he leaned against the doorjamb and listened to the sound of her husky voice, remembering the first time he’d heard it in that lecture hall, the way it had wrapped around him like a gentle caress, mesmerized him from the very start. Rich and thick with just a hint of sass. Like velvet and sandpaper at the same time.
Damn, he could get lost in that voice.
Who was he kidding? He already had. He wanted her in the worst possible way, with a frenzy that at times left him raw and exposed. But the overwhelming fact, the one that scared him the most, was the knowledge that this need burning up his insides wasn’t just a physical one. It was something more, something that left him totally off-balance in a way he’d never been before.