Hard Rules (Dirty Money #1)(72)

Nothing personal, it’s just business.



—Otto Berman





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


SHANE


I spend the rest of Sunday making good on my promise to keep Emily naked and saying “please,” a remarkable feat, considering I now know I’m not just in bed with her. I’m in bed with the Martina cartel. They’re running drugs through our trucking division, and getting them out will be no easy feat. They have the control, not my brother, who foolishly thinks he does. My desire to find Derek and beat the shit out of him is an action outside my normal calculated response.

Come Monday morning, I let Emily sleep while I shower, and adrenaline, not coffee, is fueling my thoughts. Brandon Enterprises will not become the Martina cartel’s bitch and today I will come up with a plan to get them the hell out of our business. And while beating my brother’s ass won’t solve anything, when this is all over, I plan to give him the ass beating he deserves, purely for pleasure.

By the time I’ve texted my mother to find out what time my father starts his chemo, shaved, wrapped a towel around my hips, and entered the bedroom, Emily seems to be stirring. I cross to the closet and choose a dark gray suit. I’m dressed aside from my jacket and tie when Emily appears in the doorway wearing one of my T-shirts, her hair a wild, sexy mess.

“You didn’t wake me.”

“It’s still early and you’re dressing at home anyway.” I pull open one of six built-in drawers, this one with a selection of ties. “Not to mention I kept you up late.”

“Let me choose,” she says, joining me at the drawer to inspect the options. “This one,” she declares, reaching for a blue and gray striped Burberry tie. “One of my favorite brands,” she adds, handing it to me.

“Expensive taste,” I observe, fitting the tie under my collar and gently prodding her to fill me in on her past.

“Says the man with a fifty-thousand -dollar wardrobe,” she says, reaching for my tie. “I’ll do it.”

I give her a quick nod and she starts working the knot like an expert. “You seem to have done this often,” I comment, and I’m stunned to realize that I don’t want her doing this for another man. Ever.

“My mother taught me,” she says. “She used to do this for my father, and I wanted to help. One thing led to another and I took over doing it for him every morning.”

When she was a kid. “You were close to him.”

“Yes,” she says, her voice softening ever so slightly. “Which was why him killing himself just didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t fit.” She finishes off the knot and runs her hand down the tie. “All done. Actually,” she says, reaching into the drawer again, removing a tiepin, and fitting it into place, “now you’re done.”

“Didn’t make sense?” I ask, pulling my jacket off the hanger and shrug into it.

“He loved life,” she says. “There were no indicators he was suicidal. He didn’t even drink.”

“Do you think it was foul play?”

She hugs herself. “No.” She hesitates. “I mean. Not anymore.”

I arch a brow. “Not anymore?”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Shane.” The doorbell rings with the coffee order I placed, and I silently curse the timing. “I’m going to get dressed,” she says, turning away.

I let her go for the moment, but she just told me that at some point she thought her father was murdered. I have a fleeting moment when I wonder if that has something to do with why she moved to Denver, but as I exit the closet and head downstairs, I deem that hypothesis unlikely, considering he’d died when she was a teen.

The doorbell rings again right as I reach the door and open it, accepting the Starbucks order from one of the hotel staff members. Hands full, I kick the door shut and turn to find Emily standing close, fully dressed in an all-black sweat suit, her purse over her shoulder. “I’m ready,” she says, closing the distance between us, her skin pale perfection, and her hair not as wild as it was before. “Which one is mine?”

I offer her a cup and it hits me that she might be ashamed of something, and the minute she takes her drink, I flatten my hand on her lower back and pull her close. “You can tell me anything. Whatever you think I can’t handle, believe me, sweetheart, I can.” I don’t wait for a reply or push her, releasing her and opening the door.

She stands there looking at me a moment, appearing a bit shell-shocked, but her eyes slowly soften. She reaches out, flattens her palm on my chest, holding it there a moment before she looks up at me. “Not yet,” she says. “It’s too soon.” Her hand falls away as she steps into the hallway.

Pleased with an answer that wasn’t “never” or “no,” I join her in the hallway and we travel to the elevator. Stepping inside, I punch the lobby level. “You know my father has chemo today, right?”

“Yes. I’ve never been around anyone going through this. Will he be in, do you think?”

“He’s proven stubborn enough to work through it in the past, but I know nothing about how aggressive this flare-up is, or how intense the treatments are. I’m going to the hospital this morning to get a better picture of where he stands.”