Released (Caged #3)(24)

“You said you had to speak,” I reminded him.

“I could use an excuse to get out of it,” he informed me. “I hate those things.”

“Uh…yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

“Are you at your apartment?”

“Uh…no.” I ran my hand over my head and down my face. “I’m, um…I’ve…shit.”

“What is it?” Michael asked. He sounded even more alarmed now. “Do I need to bring bail money?”

“No…I just…well, I don’t have the apartment anymore.”

“I see,” Michael said with a bit of a sigh. “Where are you now?”

“A phone booth,” I said. “Um…near Central and Ninth.”

“Did I hear that right?”

“Yeah, probably.” When it came to the bad sections of town, this area pretty much took the prize.

“Shit,” Michael muttered. “Liam, are you…are you using again?”

“Trying not to,” I answered, and my voice broke. “I was for a while.”

“Damon—exit here, head south,” Michael’s muted voice called out. “Liam, head to…”

He paused for a moment, and he must have had his hand over the receiver, because I could hear his voice but not make out the words. He quickly came back.

“There’s a shoe repair shop about two blocks down,” he told me. “They should still be open. Go there. I’ll be there in…twenty-two minutes, if this GPS is to be believed.”

“Okay.” I glanced down at the last four dollars I had in my wallet. “Um…Michael?”

“Yes, Liam?”

“You said…um…you always said if I needed something…” I let my voice trail off, hoping he’d just remember and I wouldn’t have to say it. When the pause got to be too long, I spit it out. “You always said if I needed something, I could come to you.”

“I have always said that,” Michael agreed. “So what do you need from me, Liam?”

“I need a job,” I said.

I was never one to swallow my pride, but it was the only choice I had.





Chapter 7—Swallow the Pride


“Jesus, Liam, you’re a mess.”

Michael hauled me into the back of the car with Damon’s help. The rain had turned bitterly cold, and I was shivering in my lightweight jacket. Damon took the gym bag I had over my shoulder and tossed it in the trunk of the Rolls Royce.

“Is there a blanket back there?” Michael called out the open window.

“Of course, sir,” Damon replied. A moment later, he wrapped one of those plaid stadium blankets around my shoulders.

Very little was said as Damon drove us to Michael’s mansion on the far north side of the city. I stared out the window and watched streetlights and cars go by, trying to keep any and all thoughts out of my head at the same time. Thinking just…hurt.

Michael must have called ahead to let his wife know I had contacted him because she was waiting for us on the porch when the car drove around the driveway. She even held the door open as I stumbled into the foyer and tried not to slip on the marble floors with my wet shoes.

I kicked them off, and Michael’s butler hauled my shoes off with a look of distaste. I ignored him and the looks he gave me. Chelsea came over and smiled up at me cautiously.

“Come with me,” she said softly.

She took my hand and led me up the stairs as if I had forgotten where the bathroom was. I didn’t have the strength to do anything but follow her lead, so I just watched passively as she sat me down on a stool near the tub and drew me a bath.

“Bubbles?” she asked.

I had just enough strength to raise an eyebrow at her, which made her laugh.

“Don’t tell him I told you,” she said, “but Ryan loves bubble baths. He says they’re just so relaxing when you’ve had a long day or things aren’t going well. You look like you could use some of that.”

Without waiting for me to respond, she dumped some purple liquid right under the spout and bubbles began to form. A mental image of Ryan—all six feet four inches of him—in the same tub covered in fluffy bubbles made me snicker a little.

“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Chelsea said with a smile.

She fussed around with the tub a bit more—smoothing out the bubbles so they weren’t all at one end and adjusting the water’s temperature. She pulled large, fluffy white towels out of the linen closet and placed them on the counter.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “I mean, I f*cked up your son’s wedding, and I don’t think we’ve said ten words to each other in ten years.”

Chelsea’s brow furrowed.

“You’re Michael’s nephew,” she explained simply. “I’ve been waiting to do this for you since you went away all those years ago. We’ve even talked about it.”

“Talked about it?” It was my turn to be confused. “What do you mean? Who’s talked about it?”

“Michael and I have,” she told me. “When he would worry about you, we’d talk about how someday you would come back to the family. Michael thought you might come back here first, and we knew you had been in such a bad way…well, we figured you would need a little TLC when you decided to ask for it. It was so hard for him to stop asking you to come home, but it made you so angry when he brought it up. Michael was afraid you would get really hurt out there, and it made him feel better when we’d talk and plan for this day.”