“Why?”
We’d reached the back porch steps and he sat down, then scooted over to make room for me. “To keep her safe,” he said. “There are risks to what I do. And sometimes the blowback is on your family.”
“You’re talking the criminal stuff,” I said boldly.
“I am,” he said. “And yes, I’ll tell you. But first I want to know how you found out about Ivy. Not Kevin?”
“No,” I said quickly, understanding his fear. “It was one of the girls at work. A blonde. She was working the front that first time I came.”
“Donna,” he said. “She’s something of a bitch, and she’s been trying to get into my bed for over a year.”
“I thought you didn’t sleep with the girls.”
“I don’t,” he said. “And neither do Cole or Tyler. Tyler had a thing once with one of the waitresses right after we bought the place. It didn’t end well.” He turned to face me. “Just so we’re crystal clear on this, I’ve gone out with a lot of women, and I’ve fucked a lot of women. But it never meant anything more than a good time and someone to have a meal with. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I licked my lips, trying to slow the rapid patter of my heartbeat. “I’m not sure. I don’t want to guess and be wrong.”
His smile was warm. “I mean that there’s never been another woman. It’s always been you, Lina. Even before I realized it, you were always there inside me.”
I closed my eyes and drew in a breath, realizing that I felt relaxed now for the first time since Cole had come into the pub and dragged Evan to the parking lot. “I’ve missed you,” I said. “You’ve been right beside me for hours now, but I’ve missed you all the same.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” He stood and then tugged me to my feet.
“Will you tell me what happened to her?”
“Yeah,” he said as he led me inside and upstairs. “I’ll tell you everything.”
The bedroom that he took me to was small, with a double bed, a desk, and very little else. “This was my room growing up,” he said. “I never bothered to do much to it, but I crash here when I visit.”
“Who has the master?”
“No one right now. My mother passed away about a year ago, and Ivy and I haven’t spent much time in there.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Thanks.” He stretched out on the bed, propped up on his elbow. I sat beside him, cross-legged, with my elbows propped on my knees. “The story starts and ends with Ivy, which is why I wanted you to meet her. You’ve read about the fire?”
“Sure. Every article talks about it. I’m sorry about your father.”
“You don’t need to be sorry for him,” Evan said harshly. “But Ivy …” He trailed off, then drew in a deep breath as if gathering his thoughts. Or maybe his courage.
“It’s okay,” I said. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
He reached out and put his hand on my knee, and that one simple touch felt as intimate as all the times we’d made love. “I want you to know,” he said. “She was six, and because she has an autoimmune disease, they were limited in the amount of reconstructive surgery they could do—her body kept rejecting it. She inhaled a lot of smoke, too. For that matter, she was clinically dead for well over a minute before they revived her. The result was brain damage, and the manifestation is that she’s going to stay six for a very long time. She may grow a little bit more mentally, but nine is about the best case scenario. To be honest, I’m not seeing it, and neither are her tutors. But I love her, and no matter what happens, I’ll take care of her.”
“It was an electrical fire, right?”
“That’s the story my mother and I spread.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that my fucking father decided to kill himself and almost took Ivy along with him.”
I stared at him, horrified.
He sat up, then scooted back so that he was leaning against the headboard. He was no longer touching me. One hand was above his head, clutching tight to one of the brass bars that made up the bed frame. The other was idly twisting the spread into a knot. I don’t think he was aware of either.
“He was in banking. Made a fortune and then when he lost it all he was too much of a coward to try to dig himself back out. So he killed himself. Went to the guesthouse and took a bottle of sleeping pills. But he had a cigarette and managed to set the bedspread on fire. Ivy used to sneak into the guesthouse to play, and she was in there.”
“My god.” I couldn’t even imagine how scared that poor little girl had been. “Does she remember?”
“Not much, thank god.”
“And your mother?”
“She was a mess. She’d never worked a day in her life, and it turned out that my brilliant father had borrowed against his life insurance so that we were left with absolutely nothing except a bunch of debt and a shit-ton of medical bills.”
“The articles hinted that your mom had a trust fund, and that helped keep you guys afloat.” I looked at his face. “Oh, crap. You made that part up, too.”
“He didn’t leave us shit, but I needed a story. I didn’t want people looking too hard at what I was doing.”
“So what
were
you doing?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I could guess. Maybe not the specifics, but enough to know he wasn’t working minimum wage in fast food.
“My sister pretty much lived in the hospital, and my mom fell into an alcoholic haze. I was fifteen, and I’d been your typical, spoiled, rich kid asshole. I had too much money, bought alcohol illegally, and smoked pot behind the school with my friends. I could either stay a disconnected asshole or I could get my shit together and become the man of the family. I chose the second.”
“But most fifteen-year-olds work at McDonalds. And that wasn’t going to pay the bills.”
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”
“And since the universe doesn’t play fair,” I began, remembering what he’d told me.
“I didn’t have to play fair, either.”
“Go on.” I scooted closer to him and rested my palm gently on his leg. “I want to know how you survived.”
“Need and adrenaline,” he said, then grinned. “And every time I did something dangerous and came out okay on the other side, I felt like I’d put one over on the universe and was that much stronger for it. I started taking chances to get a thrill and to get money. I did everything imaginable. Jacking cars, dealing drugs. Hell, I even got a bit of a reputation as a cat burglar—not that anyone ever found out it was me doing the sneaking around.”
“It didn’t scare you?”
“Just the opposite.” His grin was boyish. “I like the rush, too.”
He told me more and more. About how high school turned out to be the best possible place, because he could research anything and everything and taught himself how to boost cars and disable alarm systems. He even dabbled in counterfeiting. And all the while he was keeping detailed records, figuring out which endeavors brought in the most money so that he could most efficiently take care of his mom and sister.
“I screwed up senior year, though. I got hooked up with the wrong crowd—folks who weren’t nearly as careful as I was.”
“Did you get arrested?”
“And convicted.”
“Really?” I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to my chest. Heart was pounding against my rib cage in memory of my own arrest, and I couldn’t believe he was talking so calmly about a conviction. “You weren’t scared to death?”
“It wasn’t a pleasure ride if that’s what you mean. But it did change my life.”
He had ended up in a juvenile pilot program and was shipped off to a scared straight camp where he met Cole and Tyler. “The lessons of the camp didn’t really stick,” he said. “But the friendship did.”
“In other words, three of the most upstanding businessmen in Chicago aren’t that upstanding, after all.”
“I’d say that was accurate,” he acknowledged with a grin. “Not as much for me anymore. I’ve been selling off my share of our more shady enterprises to Cole and Tyler. And I’ve been legitimizing my own operations. To be honest, I’ve reached the point where I get just as much of a rush from negotiating a hard bargain with a competitor as I do from stealing his assets when he’s not looking. Maybe more.”
“Why?”
“Why is there a rush?”
“Why are you going straight?”
“You met her,” he said. “Ivy.”
I nodded, but I still didn’t understand. “Why now?”
“Because my mother died. When she was alive, I knew that Ivy would always have family. But now that she’s gone, I want to guarantee that I’m not going to be serving time in a minimum security cell when she needs me.”
“But even if you get clean, they can still arrest you.”
He laughed. “Thanks for the reality check.”
I cringed. “Sorry. It’s just that I remember what it was like when they put me in that cell. And the idea of having you arrested—freaks me out.”
He reached for my hand. “It freaks me out, too. That’s the point. That’s why I want out.”
“Evan—” His name felt delicious. The world felt delicious. And, yeah, I was still a little bit scared for him, but so long as he was really getting out …
“What are you thinking?” he asked, and I realized my brow was furrowed.
“Just that if you’re getting out, then you probably are safe. I mean, if everything you’ve done was white collar, they probably don’t care about stuff that’s old news, right? And eventually the statute of limitations will run out. Won’t it? I mean that’s all we’re talking about, right? White collar stuff?”
He nodded.
“So what do you do? Or, I guess I should ask, what
did
you do?”
“We started out with petty stuff, but we expanded into everything from smuggling to money laundering to backroom gambling. No drugs—that’s our line in the sand. And, once we hooked up with your uncle, we went a bit more high class. He introduced us to the world of art. Including the underworld of art.”
“Wait. Wait, back up. What? Uncle Jahn?” I couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “Uncle Jahn was tied up with you three?”
“The other way around, baby. Your uncle was our mentor, and pretty much the smartest man I know. That class he taught? He used it as a front. It was a legit class, but if he was working with someone, he’d slide them into the class to establish a reason to be seen together. It worked beautifully, and no one was ever the wiser.”
“How long was he doing it?” I asked. I realized that I’d slid off the bed and was pacing the length of the small room.
“About eight years on the classes, but decades with the smuggling and forgeries and everything else. From what he told us, he started dabbling in art theft when he was about thirteen.”
“Holy shit.” There was a chair tucked in under a small desk. I pulled it out and flopped down onto it.
How could I have not known this man that I’d loved so well? Then I remembered what he’d said about his wives leaving him.
Secrets.
“Holy shit,” I repeated. My uncle had lived a shadow life that even the people who were seemingly the closest to him knew nothing about. The thought made me sad. Especially since I’d kept so many secrets, too.
“So how close are you to getting out from under all this?” I asked. I wanted him out. I wanted him done. And I’m not sure if it made me a bad person, but I didn’t want him out because of any moral qualms against his criminal past. No, I wanted him out because I knew that Kevin had painted a bull’s-eye on him, and I wanted to deflect that attention.
“Close,” he said, and I breathed a little easier. “You’ve already heard a bit about the problems at Destiny.”
“Larry,” I said, then shivered. “But I don’t know the details. Just that it’s something to do with the girls, right?”
He nodded. “Some used to be prostitutes—don’t worry, we don’t run that shit. And Destiny’s a legit operation, though we do use the facility to launder money.”
I lifted a brow. “In that case, I have to question your definition of legit.”
“Point taken. At any rate, that’s stopping. I don’t want to give up my ownership interest and Cole and Tyler don’t want to go completely clean. So the money laundering operation is moving.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “And I intend to make certain they know better than to ever tell me.”
“You are serious.”
“I am.” He looked hard at me. “I’m highly motivated.”
“I believe you. And I’m glad.” I would still worry about Cole and Tyler, but there was no denying that my primary concern was Evan.
“Anyway, none of the girls turn tricks anymore, and part of their compensation is tuition if they want to go back to school. That has a tendency to piss off their former pimps.” He held up his hand, where the raw knuckles had now completely healed. “We have bouncers and security staff, but sometimes it’s easier to deal with a problem yourself. That was part of our little crisis the other day, too. When Cole pulled me out of the pub.”
I just shook my head, still trying to process it all.
“What?” he said, reaching for me. “What are you thinking?”
“What am I thinking?” I leaned forward and took his hand, then let him pull me out of the chair and back onto the bed. “I’m thinking that I’m worried about you because the FBI is watching. And I’m thinking that not many men could plant the seeds of an empire at fifteen. And not many would break that empire down in order to make sure that somebody else is safe.” I stroked his face. “You’re an amazing man, Evan Black.”
He began to trace the outline of my collar with his finger. “There’s another reason that I’m breaking that empire down.”
“You mean other than Ivy.”
“I do,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A beautiful woman,” he said, with so much heat in his eyes I thought it might burn right through me.
“Really? Tell me about her.”
“She’s exceptional, and she makes me want to be a better man.” I wore a thin cotton button down, and now he started to work on those buttons. “I once said that I was a bad bet. She makes me want to change that. She makes me want a future.” He slipped the shirt off my shoulders. “She makes me want,” he whispered.
I trembled as his fingers unfastened the front clasp of my bra. “Want what?”
“Everything,” he said, and then bent to close his mouth over my breast. I arched up to meet him, relishing his touches. But I wanted more—I wanted him, and I reached down, fumbling with his fly, then shoving his jeans down over his hips.