Undeniable (Undeniable, #1)(47)

Something was up. Something he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like.

“Mick,” he hissed. “Find out who the f*ck that is.”

His VP’s eyes met his. Mick thought his relationship with Eva was f*cked-up, and he made no bones about telling him.

They stared at each other. Mick gave first. “On it, Prez,” he said quietly.

The pretty boy strolled arrogantly down the walk and slid inside a sleek silver Aston Martin DB9. When he pulled out into traffic, Mick’s Harley pulled out behind him, and they both disappeared into the mess of New York City traffic.

Eva sat down on the front steps, slumped forward, and buried her face in her hands.

Fuck him. Something was way off.

“Somethin’ goin’ down here, Prez,” Cox muttered. “Your girl’s not lookin’ too good.”

“I get that,” he growled. “And she’s not my girl. Not sure she ever f*ckin’ was.”

“Load of f*ckin’ crap,” Cox said. “Seen the way you two look at each other. Like no one else in the world exists.”

He cut his eyes at his RC. “You a f*ckin’ poet?”

Cox shrugged. “If that’s what it takes to get laid, then I’m a f*ckin’ poet. Other times, I’m a f*ckin’ accountant. Or a plumber. Sometime’s a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Cox pretending to be an accountant with all his piercings and tattoos was just about the funniest thing he had ever heard.

“Come on, Prez. Let’s go to Queens.” Cox slapped him on the back. “We came here for a reason. And that f*ckin’ reason is to keep that woman of yours breathin’.”

They went to Queens. They tortured and killed two independent gravediggers to get the information they needed. Then they crossed the Hudson and took out the hit. The * had a file on Eva as thick as a phone book—full of photos, addresses, and schedules. Despite not needing to bury her unless Frankie kicked it, the digger was thorough and ready at the drop of a hat to get his job done.

The digger had been paid to kill her; he didn’t know Eva from a hole in the wall, but Deuce knew her and he loved her. Because of this love, instead of giving the * a merciful death, he prolonged the pain and let him bleed for a good long time before finally stopping his heart. It didn’t make him feel any better about the pretty boy with his tongue shoved down Eva’s throat, but it relieved some pent-up aggression.

Until he found out who the pretty boy was. Then all that aggression came back tenfold.

So he followed her. He watched her run out of Kami’s building and hail a cab. He followed her to the Waldorf Astoria and watched her wave to the doormen like she f*cking knew them and disappeared inside. Not even ten minutes later, he watched Chase pull up in his DB9, toss his keys to the valet, and stride through the doors.

He wanted to kill something. No, he wanted to kill Chase.

Instead, he waited. He waited all day and all night and neither of them came out.

At dawn, when the sun was cresting, Eva came walking through the front doors looking half-asleep, pale, and disheveled. A doorman moved quickly, ready to hail her a cab, but he didn’t give her the option. His Harley roared to life; he gunned it straight across four lanes of traffic and came to a rubber-burning, tire-squealing stop directly in front of her.

Her mouth fell open.

“Get the f*ck on,” he growled. “I won’t tell you twice.”

Her mouth worked soundlessly for several moments, and just as he was getting really impatient and angry, she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms.

Fuck.

Flipping off the gaping doormen, he held her for a long time just breathing her in, knowing she’d just f*cked another guy, smelling him and the sex they had on her, and feeling like crushing skulls with his bare hands because of it. But he kept it reeled in because she was in his arms, she was seeking comfort from him, and she needed him, so whatever the f*ck she’d been doing while they’d been apart didn’t matter unless she started doing it again. And since he was going to put Chase to ground the minute he got a chance, he figured there was no chance of that happening anyway.

“Get on, Eva,” he said. “I’m taking you home, and then I’m taking you home with me.”

She surprised the f*ck out of him. She got on without a word, without an ounce of fight, and no attitude tossed his way. This scared him more than the tears and more than her selling her * to save Crazy Frankie. If his girl was broken, someone sure as f*ck was going to die for that.

Preacher met them in the hallway of the club; Cox and Mick were by his side. He took one look at his daughter’s red eyes and puffy, blotchy face, and lost it.

“What the f*ck?” Preacher shouted. “What happened?”

When her old man tried to touch her, she shrank away from him and buried her face in his armpit. Not his first choice of a hiding place seeing as he just spent twenty-four hours in the same clothing, but she didn’t seem to care, so he didn’t move her and just held her tight.

Preacher looked bewildered. The man really didn’t have a clue something was wrong with his daughter.

“What’s goin’ on?” Preacher demanded.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Where’s her f*ckin’ room?”

“You think I’m gonna let you take my daughter up to her f*ckin’ room? I haven’t f*ckin’ forgotten what you did when she was just a kid.”