Boston Avant-Garde 4: Encore (21 page)

Felix glowered at the ancient door separating them from Wilhelm’s cell. “You sure you want me to leave you with him? The bastard’s been whining all night.”

If Felix needed to stay, it was to keep Jericho from taking advantage of an opportunity to squash the little bug beneath his heel. “I’m good. You go on.”

He watched Felix’s broad shoulders disappear into the gloomy corridor. Alone in the near darkness, Jericho took a moment to collect his thoughts. He and Dante had been running Asylum for nearly eleven years. Few people realized that Jericho didn’t actually work for Dante. They were partners. Dante had been groomed his whole life to present a public face. It was a skill he possessed that the club needed for survival. In bitter contrast, Jericho moved in the background.

“Hey! You can’t keep me in here.” Wilhelm’s voice would have sounded fierce had it not wavered like an adolescent boy’s. “My lawyer will have a field day with this!”

“Interesting that you should mention a lawyer.” Jericho carefully worked the conversation. “You’re already having a bit of a legal…issue, aren’t you?”

There was a pause and the sound of someone moving behind the door, trying to see out the tiny grate set in the center of the ancient wood. “Did that cunt try to sell you on some story about me refusing to grant her a divorce?”

“If she’s a cunt, why not just divorce her?” Jericho stayed flush against the wall and out of sight.

“I’m not paying that kind of penalty when I didn’t get shit out of the deal.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “And if you didn’t have to pay?”

Another pause. Jericho could sense the waffling going on in the cell. Though he hated it, this kind of stalking was something he excelled at. Dante was an overt manipulator who worked on a canvas so large that Jericho was often at a loss as to exactly how many angles there were.

Jericho preferred the short-term mind fuck.

“There are a lot of business benefits to marrying an Aasen.” The waffling had ended, landing the prey in a predictable position.

“So it isn’t the money? It’s the prestige?” Jericho crossed his arms. People were so predictable. The only ones who ever surprised him were Dante and Suri.

“Maybe if the bitch offers me a seat on the board of directors at Aasen International, I’ll let her walk away.” Wilhelm obviously thought he held the upper hand. The idiot.

“Do you remember anything significant about the conditions of your acceptance into the Level Four players’ club?”

The abrupt silence in the cell was a tip-off that, yes, Wilhelm very much remembered how he’d managed to become one of Asylum’s high rollers.

“Tell me, Mr. Wilhelm, does it make you nervous to know that Torres has the ability to leak a video that makes your need for Viagra public knowledge?” Jericho waited two breaths. “Does it make you feel like less of a man?”

“Fuck you. I don’t need that shit.”

Since Wilhelm couldn’t see it, Jericho didn’t bother to suppress his grin. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you prefer Cialis so you don’t have to pop the pills right in front of your conquests?”

The door shivered as Wilhelm smashed it. “If I wasn’t locked in here, I’d show you what a real man does. I’ve seen the way you look at that pretty piece of ass that dances downstairs. She and I are well acquainted. Did she tell you how much she loved my hands all over her? Did she tell you that she begged for me to bend her over and fuck her?”

Instant rage descended like a red haze. Jericho struggled not to open the door, not to give Wilhelm his chance to prove his manhood. Right then and there, Jericho would have ripped him to shreds for his abuse of Suri.

Breathing deeply, Jericho faced the bare wall and placed his palms against the cool surface. He counted slowly to ten. Images of Suri’s sweet smile danced in his mind. Why anyone would seek to destroy something so utterly beguiling was baffling. He recalled her touch, the scent of her skin, the way she kissed him, and the way she bridged the gap between him and Dante.

This piece of shit would never touch her again.

Fully in control, Jericho moved in for the kill. “Idle threats are a coward’s defense. How about I give you an opportunity to get control of that damning evidence?”

“I’m listening.”

“You sign papers and divorce Selena Aasen, and the file is yours.” Jericho didn’t worry about the lack of immediate response. Wilhelm was playing his role in typical fashion. Shit negotiators always pretended to have the upper hand.

“I agree.” Wilhelm couldn’t quite disguise the eagerness in his tone. “So let me out of here, and I’ll contact my lawyer first thing Monday morning.”

Jericho’s chuckle reverberated around the dingy corridor. “It doesn’t work that way. This will be resolved before close tonight, or the deal expires.” He reached over and slipped the old-fashioned dead bolt on the door. It swung open on creaky hinges. “Let’s go chat with Overton and Breckenridge, shall we?”

Wilhelm emerged like a rat from his hole. “How? Are they—are they here?”

“They’re all waiting for you, limpdick.” Jericho grabbed the back of Wilhelm’s shirt and began frog-marching him down the corridor. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he and Dante could join Suri in their bed.

* * * *

Dante watched Seth Overton and Joshua Breckenridge with more than polite interest. Overton still stood near the windows, though his partner had joined him once Jericho left to retrieve Wilhelm from holding.

“You keep staring like that, and we’re going to start thinking you’re interested.” Breckenridge braced his shoulder casually against the window frame. “And honestly, we don’t swing that direction.”

The last thing Dante wanted was to see this whole deal go south because of one misplaced comment. Yet, his curiosity was burning. “You don’t swing in that direction, yet you must since the two of you share a woman.”

Overton stirred from his silent contemplation. “Our sex lives are not part of this negotiation.”

Breckenridge nudged his partner. “I don’t think this has anything to do with the negotiation.”

Dante wondered what Leslie had shared with them. He’d not discussed it with Suri, but he had the feeling there had been no understanding from that quarter. As Leslie should have been the first one to accept Suri’s lifestyle choice, Dante wondered what her lovers thought.

The two men were polar opposites. Breckenridge was fair, Overton dark, and their personalities matched their coloring. Though they were handsome men, Dante felt no interest toward either of them.

“Leslie thinks you’re taking advantage of her friend.” Overton’s quiet voice let Dante know he was simply stating what he’d been told.

Dante tried to read into their expressions, but both men were adept at keeping a poker face. “I think Suri would take issue with the idea that any mere man could take advantage of her.”

“You’re not what we expected,” Breckenridge finally admitted. “Your reputation is on the harsh side.”

“Consider it an occupational necessity.”

“And Jericho?” Overton seamlessly picked up his partner’s thought. “Is he also an occupational necessity?”

Having candid conversations with men he could not predict or influence to his advantage was uncomfortable. But this wasn’t a typical situation. “Jericho is a necessity period, regardless of the situation. Our history is so convoluted it’s best left alone.”

Understanding touched Overton’s dark eyes. “And Jen—Suri—is the tie that binds.”

Dante nodded, trying to decide where to go with this conversation.

“Communication,” Breckenridge interjected. “And honesty.”

Being blindsided by someone else’s intuition was a new experience.

Blue eyes dancing, Breckenridge offered a grin that had probably broken hearts all over Boston. “You were going to ask how we make it work.”

“When he says honesty, he means full disclosure,” Overton added. “That was the hardest in the beginning. Three people bring three sets of baggage to the relationship.”

“Although it means three to carry the load too.” Breckenridge gazed affectionately at his partner. “Which is why it works so well.”

Dante thought about their viewpoint. They were right that having three different perspectives could strengthen. He still had to wonder what the end result would be. It seemed so simple, until you looked at the daunting possibility of finding yourself left so vulnerable.

* * * *

Suri rolled over in the massive bed. She was so tired, but something kept nagging her awake. The three-note trill sounded again, and she realized it was the phone tucked into the side pocket of her bag that was making the racket. Her belly tightened with fear. If her mother had gotten worse, she needed to know. It was her job to know, even if she was secretly afraid the knowledge would break her.

She scrambled out of the bed. Her legs tangled in the soft Egyptian cotton sheets, and she nearly tumbled to the floor. Reaching for the bag, Suri dug frantically for her phone.

“Hello?”

“Jen?” Kim’s watery voice could mean only one thing.

“Where are you?”

“Atlanta.”

Stretching out on Dante’s plush floor, Suri wished once again that she hadn’t been right about Kim’s choice in men. “Where’s Frankie?”

“He won his division.” Kim paused and Suri waited, not even bothering to offer congratulations for Frankie’s surprising success. “But some circuit bimbo started coming on to him, you know? And now he’s shacking up with her down here, and I got no place to stay.”

Anyone else would have seen the obvious solution. “Do you still have your ticket?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I guess you can come home.”

There was sniffling on the other end of the line. “But he lied to me, Jen. Why would he do that? He said he loved me, and he
lied
.”

Shame slammed Suri like an anvil dropped on her heart. Lying wasn’t an act of love. Lying was what the asshole-of-the-month club did to her sister. “Just come home, Kim.”

“You don’t even care.” As always, Kim’s fallback emotion was anger. “You’re probably living high and mighty with your big important dad.”

Suri didn’t even bother responding to that ridiculous accusation. “The landlord will let you stay a couple of days in the apartment, but the lease is up at the end of the month, so you have to be gone.”

“What? Where are you staying?”

She was drowning in a sea of guilt. “With friends.”

“Well, where are you? I’ll just come there.”

The instinct to rattle off Asylum’s address and tell her sister to go ahead and show up was strong, but Suri had already worn out that welcome. Dante and Jericho just didn’t know it yet. She had no right to invite her mooch of a sister to stay too. Not to mention it was time for Kim to stand on her own two feet.

“Stay in the apartment until the end of the month. Get a job, and maybe the landlord will let you renew the lease in your name.”

“A job?”

“Yeah, a job. So you can pay your own bills. I can’t take care of you anymore.” Suri struggled to keep her voice from cracking. “Sometimes I don’t even do a good job of taking care of myself.”

“Fuck you, Jen!” Kim launched into a string of epithets, and Suri ended the call to stem the tide.

She lay on the floor and stared up at Dante’s artwork on the ceiling. It was so beautiful, the colors ebbing and flowing as they formed fanciful renditions of Scheherazade’s tales. Startling beauty from a man who seemed so harsh and yet wasn’t at all what he appeared to be.

Her phone trilled again. She really, really didn’t want to talk to Kim again. But it wasn’t in her to ignore a call from her sister, even when it promised to go nowhere. “Hello?”

“Suri O’Callaghan?”

Suri sat bolt upright, her chest tightly constricted with apprehension. “This is she.”

“I got the business card you gave to my associate.” The oily voice could belong to only one man. “I’d like to make you an offer.”

Kim’s tearful ramblings about love and lies tied Suri’s heart in a knot. How could she have ever thought Flaherty would provide a long-term solution to her problems? A deal with him would never be worth the loss of what was blossoming between her, Jericho, and Dante. Her lovers had already found another solution to her financial issues. Now she could tell Flaherty to shove it. Her throat was so dry she had to swallow in order to speak. “I’ve changed my mind.”

“Come again?”

She gathered her courage, feeling empowered that she was free to make the right choice. All she had to do was wiggle out of this awkward phone call without making a powerful enemy, and no one would ever even know she’d considered this last-ditch effort to solve her financial problem. “Sorry, but my schedule is booked.” That excuse was better than the truth. She’d been the one to approach him, after all.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you since we were so rudely interrupted the other night.” The congressman continued as though she hadn’t turned him down. “See, I’m almost certain you’ll find an opening in your schedule if I provide some…motivation.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re quite fond of your boss.” Flaherty’s voice grew harsh. “Inappropriately fond, I might add, though I suppose what you do on your own time is your own business.”

“Exactly. So I think I’d better go.” Suri could feel the conversation slipping down a dark path.

“By all means, go fuck Dante. After the next phone call I make, it’ll be the last time you do.”

“Threatening Dante is ridiculous with Jericho at his back.”

Flaherty’s laugh made her cringe. “Oh, I don’t have to tangle with either of them on my own. One phone call and Dante’s—or should I say Darios’s—political enemies will pick them both off in one night.”

Terror for her lovers sent a shot of pure adrenaline straight into Suri’s blood. “You’re bluffing.”

“You want to take a chance I’m not?”

She closed her eyes, feeling trapped and foolish. If she’d never contacted him, this might have never happened. It was all her fault. Now it was up to her to fix it, no matter the cost. Losing Dante and Jericho was better than having them dead. “What do you want?”

He’d stopped the maniacal laughing. The congressman’s menacing silence was worse. “You. Tomorrow night. Club Triptych. You know the place?”