Unbreakable: Unrequited Part Two (Fallen Aces MC Book 2) (9 page)

“She runs some sort of illegal operation—of course—but I don’t know what for. Drugs maybe? Gambling? Prostitution? I really don’t know. If Sully were here, he could tell you. I’m sorry.”

I place a hand to her arm as we take the top steps. “It’s okay. I’ll work it out I guess.” I let loose a short bitter laugh. “What choice do I have?”

We hurry the rest of the way down to the first floor and come to an abrupt halt before the doors that lead into the sitting room. I run a clammy hand over my hair, smoothing down any strays, and suck in a deep breath.

Maria melts into the corners of the hallway as I sweep through the open doors, the fakest and widest smile plastered to my face.

“Welcome.” I make my way across to where she sits on one of the lounges, her arm stretched across the back, and offer my hand.

Emile looks at it as though I’ve just held out a stick of maggot-ridden jerky.
Okay.

Her thick, bleached hair cascades over one shoulder, resting over her tailored jacket. The outfit is completed with a tight, pencil skirt and the pointiest high heels I’ve ever seen. My gaze lingers on the steel-tipped toes as I contemplate whether she actually uses them as weapons or not.

“I’m thirsty.”

Two fucking words is all I’m afforded from this woman who’s a guest in my house.

“I’ll ask Maria to bring you something. Do you have a preference?”

Emile swivels her long neck my way and scours me from head to toe with dark, contemptuous eyes. “Who on earth are you then, if not the help?”

The surface of the sun would sweat at the heat my face gives off. How dare she? “The lady of the house,” I snap. The title stretches the truth, but I’m hell-bent on putting this wench in her place.

The bitch laughs. “He said he’d got himself a plaything, but wow, so young and . . . uncultured.”

“I may be uncultured by your standards,” I snarl, “but I can assure you I’m already displaying a darn sight more manners and common courtesy than you.”

Her heeled feet lift as she swivels and reclines along the length of the seat. “How’s that drink coming along?”

I take quick steps toward her, calculating in my head where the best place to grab hold of her will be so I can haul her to her feet and send her off to get her own damn drink. My hands are flexed, my arms outstretched, when a booming voice from the doorway halts me in place, rage still fuming inside of me.

“Emile! You’re early.” Carlos’s eyebrows lift, but the fact that this bitch doesn’t pick up on the same underlying frustration in his tone as I do shows me she doesn’t know him as well as she’d have me believe.

“Carlos, darling.” With the sweeping grace of a ballerina, she turns and places both feet on the floor, rises to her full height, and damn near glides across to where he stands with his hands jammed in pockets.

He allows her to place her palms either side of his jaw and dot a pretentious kiss to each cheek, yet those dark grays stay trained on my reaction, assessing, analyzing.

I hold my ground, aware that the storm of my own is most likely clear as day across my frustrated features.

“I must say I was pleasantly surprised to get your invite. It’s been too long,” Emile gushes.

“If you’ll excuse us,” he says, backing away from her. “I need a moment alone with my wife.”

Her head snaps around and she narrows her eyes on me, her lips pursed. “Of course.”

Her huff is over-exaggerated as she drops back into the lounge, tossing her hair over one shoulder again.

“Elena?” Carlos tips his head to the side, effectively ordering me out of the room.

I lead the way into the wide, sterile hallway and wait.

“Why were you in there?” His tone is even yet strained. “I don’t want you associating with her yet.”

With my arms folded over my chest, I frown at him as he fidgets with his shirt cuffs. “You told me you had guests coming. She arrived while you weren’t here. I was simply trying to be the
good wife
.”

He flinches; his façade hardens with each word I throw his way.

“I applaud you for finally growing up and doing what you’ve been expected to fucking do since the start, but Jesus, Elena. Emile is a woman of stature. You don’t fucking argue with her, you just do as she asks.”

“Even when she’s insulting me in my own home?”

Our expressions turn to shock in unison; what the fuck did I just say? I’ve never thought of this as my home, and he knows that.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” I snap. “It was a Freudian slip.”

“That it was.” He closes the space between us and boxes me in with his left arm as my back finds the corner where the wall meets the arched doorway into the entrance. “Tell me, little fox: Does this mean you’re finally settling in?” His fingers toy with the straightened lengths of my hair. “That would be a shame.” I shudder when the back of his fingers brush against my nipple as he lays the strands over my chest. “Too little, too late.”

I sidestep and duck under his arm to cross to the other side of the hall, brushing the unwanted chill from my arms. “No, it doesn’t mean that at all. I could never feel settled here.”

He grumbles, quickly stalking me into anther corner.
Fuck it.

“What do you want?” I snap.

“I have another guest arriving in the next hour.
He
was the one I wanted you to entertain. You may find his kind to your liking.” Carlos’s lip curls up in a sneer as he grumbles out the last sentence.

His kind?
“How long for?” What if I’m stuck with this guest when I need to be upstairs for Maria to collect?

“Why?” His warm breath fans my face as he plays with the frills that cross over in a
V
at the neck of my dress. At least this close, he shouldn’t be able to see the swell of my stomach below.

“I’m feeling under the weather, which is unsurprising given your antics this morning, and that last run-in”—I jab my hand toward the sitting room—“has taken it out of me.”
I will not cry. I will not cry.

“It’ll take as long as it does—no more, no less. You’re here to do as I ask,
wifey,
so fucking well do as the Bible says and obey.”

With my palms flat to his chest, I shunt him back. “Fuck you.”

His lips curl up at one corner. “There it is.”

“There’s what?”

“That fire. He’s going to love it. Should work in my favor just nicely.” Carlos laughs, turning away to head back to Emile. “Go rest, because the minute he steps foot through that door, I want you back down here with a fucking smile on your face and some color in those cheeks. Keep yourself useful, Elena,” he calls out as he crosses through the open doors, “because I don’t hoard unnecessary things around here.”

King

I’ve barely walked through the door and kicked off my boots when the phone starts to ring. Sully’s number flashes at me from the display, and I damn near pull every muscle in my body in an attempt to get to it before the fucking thing clicks over to voicemail.

“About time.”

“Can’t rush the important stuff,” Sully replies. “I’ve got a plan.”

Finally.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m over the fucking moon to hear Sully utter those magic words, but the piece of me holding on to hope it was Elena calling again? Yeah, that bit’s sulking in the corner while I ask the obvious question.

“What’s the rundown?”

“Specifics aren’t necessary, but I need you at the crossroads before the estate at ten thirty p.m. sharp. Can you do that?”

“Does a brown bear shit in the woods?” It’s happening; I’m going to get her back. “What else do you need from me?”

“Assurances you have somewhere safe to keep her until the fallout blows over.”

Yeah, that.
“I do.” Maybe not right now, but one phone call should fix it.

“He has guests tonight, so he’ll be busy. I’m hoping you’ll get a good few hours’ head start on him before he notice’s she’s gone. With any luck he turns in and doesn’t realize until the morning.”

“I’ll take what I can get.” Doesn’t that line feel familiar?

“Any issues, you’ll hear from me. If we’re late, wait it out. Whatever you do,
don’t
come up to the house. If it fails and I have to cancel the plan, I’ll let you know.”

“It won’t fail.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

The line goes dead. Silence echoes in my ear. I toss the phone on the kitchen counter and then run the tap, splashing water over my face. It’s real, it’s the day I get Elena back, but it feels too easy.

Nothing is easy when tensions are this high.
Something isn’t right.
I snatch up my cell and punch in Mom’s number as I walk through to my room.

She answers as I loosen my belt. “I tried calling you yesterday. Did you see my missed call?”

“Yeah.” The mattress complains as I flop back onto it. “Been busy. Sorry, Mom.”

“That’s okay. I’m probably just fussing over nothing. You know how I like to worry about imaginary things, like you lying half-dead somewhere.” She laughs awkwardly.

I don’t even smile at her joke. “No need to worry, Mom. I’m fine.”
Lies, lies, all lies.
“I need a favor though.”

“Like I’d say no.”

This time I chuckle. “I know, but I still like to ask.”

“What do you need?”

“Can you set up the spare room?” I scrub a hand over my face while I wait for her to say something, anything.

“I guess your spare room isn’t furnished, so that’d be why you’re asking. Right?”

“Kind of. I have a friend who needs somewhere to lay low.” With my eyes closed, I grimace through gritted teeth, waiting on her response.

“Lloyd . . .”

“Mom . . .”

“Am I going to be doing anything illegal by letting them stay here?”

“No.” At least to begin with, she won’t be. “She won’t be any trouble.”
More lies.
“Can I talk to Dad, please?”

“I guess. When are we expecting her?”

“Tonight.”

Mom lets out a long, low breath, pausing before she speaks. “I suppose I’ll ask questions when you get here with her.”

“Probably.” Unease washes through me in lazy waves. I hate involving Mom and Dad like this, but they’re the best and safest option for now. If Carlos gets hold of anyone at the club and pressures them for information, then this is the first address that’ll be given up. My brothers know my parents live close by, but that’s it. I don’t even think half the bastards at the clubhouse know my last name, let alone my birth name.

“What’s happening, Son?” Dad greets. “Your mother says you want to talk to me, too.”

“Have you still got that shotgun at the house?” Dad’s always had one racked in his truck and a rifle in the pump house at the dairy shed in case any of the cows got injured, but the firearm at the house hasn’t been on display for a while.

“Yeah. It’s under the bed. Why?”

“I might need you to make sure it’s clean and working.”

Silence hangs heavy. “Why, Lloyd?”

“I’m bringing her home.” His lack of response is heavier than the sternest dressing down the man I’ve admired and revered my whole could give. “I can’t leave her there.”

“What about the clubhouse? Can’t you take her there?”

“It’d be the first place he’d look.”

Dad sighs. “How dangerous is this? Can I keep your mom in the dark so she’s not worrying about nothing? Or do I need to make sure she has weapons in reach at all times, too?”

“All depends if he finds her, Dad. I won’t lie—the guy’s a nutcase.”

“Fuck me.” I can make out the sound of Dad pacing on the back porch. The loose board by the back door creaks each time he passes over it. “I wish you could keep us out of this. We didn’t agree with you joining up with that crowd, but we stood back and let you make your own decisions. But now . . . you’re bringing the trouble you invited in onto our doorstep, kid.”

“I know.”
And I’ve never felt so low
. “But you’ve always told me to do what’s right, to stand up for those who need help and protection, and to never compromise on what I believe in.”

“And what do you believe right now?”

“That I’m meant to do this. That bringing her home is only the start of setting things right with her and the club.”

“Still a hostile takeover?”

“I’ve narrowly avoided exile.”

He grumbles at my answer. “She can stay, but I want daily updates from you on what you know. You bring our home into this mess, then the least you can do is keep me informed of what’s going down. Fuck your club rules, boy. You owe us that much.”

“Deal.”

“Your mom wants a word again. We’ll talk when you get here.”

“Sure thing.” Relief is infinitesimal, but at least it’s there.

Static fills the line as Dad passes the phone back over to Mom.

“You still there?” she asks.

“Yeah, Mom. I’m here.”

“I need to know one thing.”

I scrub a hand down my beard, tugging on the lengths. “What’s that?”

“Will she need dinner?”

Elena

He wants me to rest. Is he kidding? My nails are chewed to the quick by the time our second guest arrives. I waited on the top step of the grand staircase and watched Maria come and go as she pandered to Emile’s every need. The poor woman flies past on a continual circuit with drinks, snacks, fresh napkins, a bucket of ice, and once what looked like a bottle of moisturizer. Seems our madam is making herself quite at home.

Carlos doesn’t show his face at all, which I don’t mind. I really don’t want to know what they’re doing in there. I’m almost surprised Maria hasn’t scooted past with a couple of bathrobes and a box of cigars for the post-coitus rituals.

My kitten heels sit beside my feet on the second step down as I inspect the mess I’ve made of my manicured nails. The nerves have all but subdued over the past hour, but any ease I’ve found at this evening’s upcoming festivities are shot to hell when I hear my apparent companion pull up . . . on a motorbike.

What the actual . . .?

Sully emerges from the servant’s side of the staircase and heads for the entrance. He swings the heavy doors open to reveal the dying dusk. Faint peach and orange hues smear the horizon behind the distant fence. My stomach grumbles as though only just realizing how late it is.