Thomas (23 page)

“
Doubtful. I rarely regret
anything I do.” Nildale laughed and the room did as well. “He was
going to have Hannah committed until such time as her name could be
changed, which has been stopped. I’ve also taken the liberty of
stopping that nice woman who works for you. The cage you had put on
the plane to hold Hannah has been dismantled and is going to be
sold for scrap. He thought you to be some animal that he was going
to have put down if there were too many issues. And when I say put
down, that’s just what I mean.”

“
You really have fucked
with the wrong family there, Little.” Nildale laughed again. “Yes
sir, this is not a family to mess with. And as for your supposed
riches? They’re gone as well. I helped Carole here invest in some
very nice businesses, and you, my good man, are broke. Oh, and the
off-shore account has been moved. Carole thought a nice home for
young mothers to be would be a good use for that money. She’s
calling it Kelli’s Home. Nice ring to it, don’t you
think?”

“
You put it all back right
now. My wife is not in her right mind. I’ve been sheltering her for
years. It’s depression, and she’s…that money is mine.” Mr. Little
struggled against Linyah, who held him tighter. “Wait until you
release me. I’m going to own your ass.”

“
No, that would belong to
me.” Thomas helped Mr. Little stand and then sat him hard in a
chair. “Do you see the cats around the room? It occurred to me just
now that you’re not the least bit surprised by them. Not even a
little freaked out. So I took a little walk around your head. My
goodness, you are a sick son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

“
What do you mean, you
searched my head? That’s not possible. And so what if I know a few
shifters? I’m a man of the world. A very wealthy and powerful man.
You’d do well to remember that, young man.” Thomas sat down. “I
suppose this is the part where you tell me I’m going to leave here
and never return.”

“
No, I could care less if
you left or stayed, but you’re going to leave everyone in this room
alone.” Little snorted. “There are some things I’m going to tell
you, however. A man like you, seemingly obsessed with the need for
more money, isn’t going to walk away from this without a few
consequences. A worthless prick like you should know—and this is so
much fun for me—that all the other money you had hidden in that
house of yours has been found and is going to be distributed to
some very needy charities as well. But you want to know something
really funny? You are by far the poorest man in this room, even
before we stripped you clean of what you had. That man over there,
my brother Misha, is worth just over twenty-five million dollars.
My mother, just over fifteen million. She would have more, but she
just invested in a few companies recently and hasn’t seen the
return yet. My brother Rider…he’s very stingy with his money and
has just under fifty million. The others have about twenty million
each. Me? Now there’s a different story altogether. I married into
money.”

“
So you plan to live off
your wife and her family? I can admire you for that. Perhaps we
have more in common than you think.” Thomas only laughed. “You
think we’re not cut from the same cloth?”

“
I don’t. And I have my
own money, a great deal more than Rider. I’m more of a penny
pincher than even Rider. Not counting my wife’s money, I’m worth
nearly a billion dollars. Her money, coming from a long line of
kings and queens, is worth more than I can put zeros to.” Thomas
leaned back in his chair and winked at her before he spoke again to
Mr. Little. “I now own a controlling interest in your wife’s
company. Not that she needed it, but she knew that Daniel would
need some help, and since I’m going to be around for a long while,
she thought I could help keep it running for her.”

“
It’s mine.” Thomas hit
him in the face with his fist and his head snapped back. When
Thomas stood up and turned to Hannah, she stood as well. Hannah
walked to the still screaming man and sat down.

“
I’d like to tell you
something you might not get just yet. I’m Hannah Lanning. I’m going
to have a baby. I will continue to live with my husband and my new
family for as long as I have in this life. I’m going to help my
grandmother in any way she wants, keep her safe, and make sure she
knows how much I’m glad she’s in my family.” Mr. Little looked at
her, and she could almost see his mind working. “You, sir, are no
longer welcome here. Not in this state, not in my life.”

When she stood up, she felt rather
than heard him move. Her hand morphed as she turned, and she sliced
across his throat before she could think. The gun in his hand
clattered to the floor as the report of it going off echoed around
the room. As she watched, in horror at what she’d done, his head
rolled forward and bounced twice before coming to rest at her feet.
The darkness swallowed her whole.

~~~

Carole wasn’t sure what she was
supposed to be doing. Grieving? Not likely. Should she be saddened
about the death of her husband? She wasn’t, and even thinking about
it made her sick to her stomach. She had hated him for more years
than she ever liked him, which wasn’t all that long to begin
with.

The police officer that had sat with
her while the rest of them were questioned asked her if she was all
right. Was she? She might be more all right than she’d ever been,
but didn’t say that to him.

“
May I have a glass of
something?” He stood up. “I know that it’s still early, but I could
use a glass of wine.”

He nodded and left her. As she sat
there trying her best to figure out what the heck she was going to
do now, Linyah touched her mind.

They’re saying that he had
a massive heart attack. Anyone who knows him knows that he can be a
stubborn man and he refused to acknowledge that he was dealing with
a great deal of outside stress.
She asked
about his head not being attached to his body.
It was when they got here.

They haven’t arrested poor
Hannah, have they? She’s been through quite enough already.
Linyah told her she wasn’t being charged with
anything.
Because of his heart attack. I
see. What will the others say when questioned? Will they…what does
Daniel say?

He wanted me to ask you if
you’d stay with him and Wanda for a time. He said that you have to
deal with things when you return home, but for now, he’d like to
visit with you. Hannah wants to get to know you as well.

Carole thought about it. She wanted to
but…well, she wasn’t even sure what to do when she got back to the
big house. It had been in her family for more years than she could
remember. She told her she’d think about it.

Her husband was dead. And she wasn’t
even sure what she should be feeling. Relief was at the forefront
of her emotions, along with sadness at the way things had ended for
him, and she was terrified. How would she function now? What would
she do if someone asked her to join something again? There were
times, a long time ago, when she’d been as social as any member of
their friends. Then Kelli had left her, and she felt as if her
world had become so small that she didn’t want to move out of her
corner for a long while. And while she’d been there, deep into her
depression, her husband, already a monster, had become more of one,
and then the abuse had become daily.

When someone sat next to her, she
looked at Thomas and smiled. He was a good man, and she loved his
wife as well. He handed her the glass of white wine, and she took a
small sip before she spoke.

“
I don’t know what to do.”
He nodded, and she fought tears for a second before she continued.
“He kept me locked away, away from people. He did so many…so very
many horrible things to me that I don’t know what to do
now.”

“
You live.” She nodded,
knowing that it was easy for him to say. “It’s not really. Easy for
me. I have a mate that I’m much younger than…thousands of years
younger. I have magic that seems to ooze from me that I have no
idea how to control. I’m overwhelmed to the point of wanting to
shift to my cat and run for hours, and maybe not returning, ever.
Not as bad as losing a spouse, no, but still I can relate to
feeling out of my element.”

“
I guess you can.
Thousands of years?” Laughing, he told her yes. “I’ve never met
anyone who looks so good to be that old. I’m assuming her
parents…good heavens. They must be thousands older than
that.”

“
Yes. They’ve been around
for a very long time.” He watched her for several seconds before he
spoke again. “I would like to help you. I think—and this is only
advice—I think you should move into the house that Hannah has
purchased for you. Not forever, but long enough that the house out
where you lived can be stripped of everything that was his and
fresh paint put on the rooms. Your room should be made into
something different…perhaps you could put a gym in there. Something
that would not be what it was.”

“
I don’t want to ever go
back.” Thomas smiled at her. “I know that I have to. There are
things there, many things there that need to be dealt with. I have
a business that I need to figure out what to do with. There is the
money too. We had a great deal when we married, and I know that
Howard was obsessed with having more. For all I know the entire
company could be broke.”

“
It’s not. You’re very
wealthy.” She nodded. “And then there’s the insurance money. You
could live off that and never have to worry.”

“
I would like to provide
for my family. I know that she doesn’t need it, but I’d like to
make sure that Hannah has everything she didn’t have when growing
up. To think that man knew where she was all this time. Do you
suppose he knew how she’d suffered by that woman?” Thomas told her
he more than likely did. “I do hate the man. I did before, but
now…now I just want to go in there and shoot him. What a horrible
thing to do to one of our children.”

Thomas sat with her for a long while.
He never yelled or screamed at her, never raised his fist to her or
did any of the kind of things that Howard had done to her. Instead
he answered her questions, advised when asked, and did something
that no one had done for her in a very long time. He was her
friend. When she felt as if she could deal with things again, she
asked him if she could stay at the house that her granddaughter
built her for a few nights.

“
Just until I get my feet
back under me. I know it’s a great burden, but I’m not sure I want
to be in a hotel.” He stood up and when he left her, she thought
for sure she was going to be arrested or something. Instead, both
Daniel and Hannah came in. Carole pulled them both her and cried
like a small child. She was so happy to have them that it took her
a long time before she could speak to them.

“
I just don’t know how to
tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t know everything, but I should
have guessed.” Daniel told her about his wife, and she again had
the urge to go find her dead husband and kill him again. The nerve
of the man. Hannah simply held her hand and smiled a great
deal.

After a little while, Daniel said he
needed to take Wanda home, she wasn’t feeling well. Hannah got up
to pace and Carole’s heart suffered for her. So while she worked
out whatever it was she was walking off, Carole talked about
Kelli.

“
She was so very smart, my
Kelli girl was. Top of her class in every subject. But she was
stubborn too. I think you’re a great deal like her in that
respect.” Hannah stopped moving and stared. “She dated this young
man. His name was Pitmen. James Pitmen I think. He’s dead now, I’m
afraid. He’d been so depressed when he couldn’t contact her, and
when he’d come to the house asking about his Kelli, I had to turn
him away. Sadly, he was killed in a robbery attempt. Not him as the
robber, but as a person who just happened to be at the wrong place
at the wrong time. He was smart too. James told me that he wanted
to marry Kelli, but of course she’d been thrown out by her father
and we never saw her again.”

“
Do you think your husband
had anything to do with his death?” Carole had wondered the same
thing over the years and had no idea. Telling Hanna that now seemed
so wrong that she told her the only lie she promised herself she
ever would.

“
No. It was a robbery gone
wrong.” Hannah nodded and paced again. “You look a great deal like
her. My Kelli. When I go back to the mansion, I’ll send you some of
her things. I had…there was a time when I had people in the house
that would help me. I’ve hidden away some things that meant a great
deal to me. And those were things of your mom’s.”

They talked until they were told they
could leave. Misha came to get them and lead them out the back of
the hotel instead of through the room where the body had been. When
they were seated in the limo, Hannah finally asked her what had
been bothering her.

“
Will you forgive me for
killing him?” Carole was shocked by the question and could only
stare at Hannah with her mouth opened. “If I could do it over
again, I’d take it back.”

“
You’ve done me the
biggest favor in the world, child. I’m free. Free to love you the
way I want and to get to know you. I’m very happy that he’s gone
from our lives. And you need to be as well.” Hannah nodded and
leaned against her husband. Carole smiled. “I think I’d very much
like to take you up on the house, if you don’t mind. I think I’d
like to stay here until you’re tired of me.”