Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 3 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers 7) (3 page)

“Yeah, yeah.” I bit back a smile and raked a hand through my hair, trying to look harried. “I’ve just been looking for this one file all morning and I think it got archived. I’ve got something super time-sensitive on my hands that can’t wait, but Mick won’t be back from lunch for a couple of hours.”

The filing system at the warehouse was archaic by design. Mick loved technology, but he didn’t trust it. Everything he had on a hard drive somewhere, he also had on paper. The only problem was, other than things from his legal ventures, all that paper was behind closed doors in his office, which he locked without fail. I’d never really needed the key before, but the Little Mermaid here had a copy in her desk in case of emergencies. All I had to do was get it from her.

“Can I use the spare key to his office so I can look through the inactive files real quick?” I offered her a pleading wince. “I’m desperate.”

She opened her mouth and closed it wordlessly before turning away. “I’m not sure. I’m not supposed to give it out. It’s for Mick if he loses his.” She shifted in her chair and fussed with a paper clip holder. “And emergencies…”

I cocked one hip and half-sat on the corner of her desk, leaning down until she was compelled to meet my gaze.

“Well, this definitely qualifies, if you ask me. And,” I shot a pointed glance to the monitor in front of her, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Her cheeks flushed and she cleared her throat, working up a trembling smile. “Yeah, um, sure. You’re his daughter, so I don’t think he’d mind anyways.” She lowered her voice, shooting a quick look at the entranceway over my shoulder. “Can you hurry though? I don’t want him to come back and yell at me, just in case I wasn’t supposed to.”

A jolt of adrenaline pumped through me in a rush, but I forced myself to stay calm. “No problem, I’ll be back in a jiff.”

Or, however long it took me to skulk out the back door, run to the Home Depot down the street and make a copy of the key.

She unlocked a drawer in her desk and fumbled around until she came up with a single, gold-hued key. She hesitated and for a second I thought she was going to back out.

“That…thing on my screen when you walked in?” She wet her lips nervously. “That wasn’t mine. A friend emailed it to me and I opened it without knowing what it was. You’re not going to tell my dad, right?”

I didn’t even remember which goon her dad was, so there was no chance of that, but I shook my head and playfully used the key she’d handed me to lock my lips before pretending to toss it aside.

She let out a long breath and her shoulders seemed to slump. The smile she gave me this time was genuine. “Thanks, Kayla.”

I stood and gave her a quick wave, ignoring the prickle of guilt at the exchange. Even if I got caught red-handed at some point with my copy, I’d tell Mick I had it made from his set. No way would this ever come back on Ariel. We’d made our little deal and as long as I hurried, it would be done before the lunch time was over. No harm, no foul.

I jogged down the hall to my office and grabbed my cell and my purse, taking a quick look at the clock. Plenty of time to get to the hardware store and back.

So far, a productive day. I’d gotten the key to the castle. Now I just had to figure out how to convince Matty that I needed to be the one to use it. Because if Mick found me there snooping, he might take pity on me and just break my legs. If he found Matty there alone?

He’d kill him on the spot.

Matty

“No.”

I could tell by the way her lids lowered to half-mast and her expression went chillier than Boston in February that I’d said the wrong thing, but I was too pissed off to care.

“That’s just not going to happen,” I added in a clipped tone.

She snorted and continued to shoot daggers at me from her eyes. “And exactly who died and made you boss, McDaniels?”

I pushed aside the ache at her use of my last name instead of “Matty”-- or even “Matthias” like she did sometimes when we were in bed. It wasn’t the time to sink back into “poor me” mode. Someone needed to straighten her ass out and there was nobody else in a position to do the job but me.

“I’m just telling it like it is. If you think I’m going to let you break into the warehouse in the middle of the night, you’re even crazier than you look.”

That last part was no joke, either. She’d obviously been sleeping about as well as I had, and purple half-moons smudged the ivory skin beneath her eyes. Her hair was in a sloppy knot on top of her head and she was wearing a threadbare T-shirt she’d apparently taken scissors to sometime in the eighth grade and had cut the neck out of. It hung off one narrow shoulder, calling attention to the weight she’d clearly lost in the past week.

“Are you eating?” I asked abruptly.

I must have caught her off guard with the sudden shift in conversation, and she rocked back on her heels. “I…some, I guess.” A frown furrowed her brow and she shook her head as if to clear it. “And don’t try to change the subject.”

I stared at her, crossing my arms over my chest, my gaze never leaving hers.

After a long moment, she blew out an exasperated sigh and stalked across her kitchen floor to tug open the refrigerator.

“I have bologna and cheese, but that’s about it.” She straightened and leveled me with another glare. “Will that do, doctor?”

I nodded, pulling out a chair at the two-person table. “That’ll do.”

She flitted around the kitchen, putting together a couple sandwiches and then setting one in front of me on a paper towel.

“
Bon appétit
.”

She lowered herself onto the opposite chair and took a giant bite, making a show of chewing it. Once she swallowed, she locked gazes with me again. “Now, back to the conversation at hand. I know you want to save the day here, and I appreciate it. But what part of ‘he will kill you’ don’t you understand? It’s like you’re being thick on purpose or something.”

I kept my anger in check, but barely. I knew she was just lashing out because she was hurting, and me doing the same would only make things worse. Instead, I slowed my roll, took a bite of my stale-ass sandwich and thought about how to explain my point of view in a way she would connect with.

She’d already taken an enormous risk making a copy of the key. The thought of her putting herself at even greater risk made me want to tear the whole fucking warehouse down and set a flame thrower to what was left. There was still a very real part of me that wished I could toss her in my trunk, drive to Mexico and convince her to stay there with me forever. She’d be safe, we’d be away from Mick. Together.

But now that we both knew at least some of what Mick was capable of, there was no shot of her walking away. I knew her well enough to know that she needed to close this chapter of her life if she ever had a chance in hell of starting a new one. So I was in it for the duration. Whatever it took.

I set down my sandwich and shook my head slowly. “I know you think he wouldn’t hurt you, Kayla, but I need you to trust me that you’re wrong about that.”

“Don’t you think I realize that now?” Her lower lip trembled and that gutted me. “I know he would hurt me. But he won’t kill me. Don’t ask me how I know it. I just do.”

The mulish expression on her face and the tilt of her head told me she was digging in her heels, and I opted for another tact.

“Fine. But can you at least accept that I need more than just a feeling? It’s not enough for me to put you in a potentially volatile situation and cross my fingers.” I sat back in my chair and rubbed at my now-pounding temples. “I really just need you to give me the key and let me handle it from here.”

She dropped her mostly-uneaten sandwich onto the paper towel in front of her and shoved it aside. “That’s never going to happen, so stop wasting your breath.”

We were at an impasse, and I was out of ideas.

“So let’s compromise, then,” she said slowly. “What if we do it together?”

I opened my mouth to shut her down again, but she cut me off before I could.

“Either we do it together, or this partnership is over. I stop taking your calls, I stop telling you what I know, and I go it alone. The key is in my possession, Matty. Take it or leave it.” All the annoyance, all the bluster and irritation was gone from her voice. She was tired, she was resolved and she was spitting the truth.

If I didn’t go along here, she was cutting me out.

The weight of that tore at my guts. It was nothing new. Since the day we’d met, it had been an exercise in awful/amazing compromises. I would work with the daughter of my enemy, but we’d get to fuck sometimes. She’d land great fights for me and I’d be allowed to win some of them, but I’d have to lose some on purpose. We could finally be in a relationship, but we had to keep it a secret from her father.

And just like always, I was stuck.

Stuck on her, stuck in love. Stuck, because, even though Mick was to blame for killing her mother, I was the one who’d brought this demon to her door. She could’ve gone on not knowing. It was only my fear for her long-term safety being tied to a person like Mick that made me tell her in the first place.

That didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

I hadn’t been the guy who sentenced her, but I was the one holding the noose. I was pretty sure she’d never forgive me for that, and I knew for damn sure I’d never forgive myself.

It was decision time. I could go along with her. Do my best to protect her. Be there for her. Or I could walk. Odds were, she wouldn’t get caught. And just maybe she’d get something big on Mick and he’d go to prison. My contract with him would be void and I could go on my merry way. But even if everything went off without a hitch, that still left Kayla to face this nightmare alone.

That I couldn’t do.

“Okay. Together, then. When do we make our move?”

***

Kayla

I nearly went limp with relief at his words.

Did I want him at risk? Not even a little bit. But the fact was, if I got caught, Matty was going to be on the hook too, whether he was there or not. To Mick's mind, he would think I was just mad at him because he’d wanted to fix the fight. That Matty had gotten under my skin and was turning me against him.

Mick had no clue that I knew the truth about what he'd done to my mother.

At least this way, we were in it together. Of all the possible ways to handle the situation, none of them were perfect, but something deep inside me had clicked when I'd suggested it. Like this was the only right decision.

We still had an uphill battle. Finding a time to sneak in, deal with security, and then hoping that, once we were in, we'd find what we were looking for. It was a long shot at best, and we were unlikely to get a second crack at it, so we'd better make it good.

"Okay." I stood to chuck my sandwich in the garbage and eyed Matty's questioningly. "I didn't realize how old that bread was. What do you say we order some takeout, get a pad and a pen, and figure this all out? The sooner, the better, as far as I'm concerned."

I didn't tell him the rest of it. That I could barely look at Mickey, never mind pretend everything was normal. That, if I had to go into the warehouse day after day like my whole life hadn't been turned upside down, I was just as likely to shoot him dead as I was to wish him good morning.

As cathartic as it might be to voice those feelings, like lancing a wound and letting the infection run out, I wasn't about to go there. Matty and I had called a truce, but baring my soul right now when I was still feeling so battered just wasn't on the menu.

"Sounds good to me. What are we eating?"

We decided on Mexican, and I called the order in. A few minutes later, we'd set up shop in my living room. I had already drawn up a quick sketch of the warehouse layout and marked off the security points with an X, tossing it on the table between us.

"Good start," Matty said with a curt nod as he lowered himself onto the ottoman across from me.

Seeing him there, golden skin, short, tousled curls and that T-shirt clinging to his shoulders-- it brought me straight back to the last time he'd been in my apartment.

It was the night before the Martin fight. He'd been exactly where he was now, sitting on the ottoman, legs slightly spread, feet planted on the ground. I'd walked into the room with a glass of iced tea and just looking at him there made my pulse start to pound. I'd walked over to stand in front of him and, without hesitation, his arms had slid around my waist. He lifted the bottom of my shirt and pressed soft, sucking kisses to my abdomen and then lower...

I cleared my suddenly dry throat and tried to will away the sudden heat in my cheeks. "I'm not a very good artist, but this should do the job."

He was slow to respond, and when I met his gaze, the recognition there was plain to see. It was like he'd read my mind, because his green eyes went dark and his nostrils flared as if he was trying to breathe me in. My stomach bottomed out and a low, insistent ache started to build between my thighs.

Jesus. I'd thought of the pros and cons of doing this job with him. About him being in danger because of me, and the odds of us getting caught. What I hadn't weighed out was how we were going to focus on the task at hand with all the far-too-fresh-memories between us. It was bad enough that I remembered climbing onto his lap and grinding against him until we both almost came before stripping buck naked and screwing each other's brains out. Even worse than that was wanting desperately to do exactly the same thing right now.