Freedom (18 page)

“Of course. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Except for your three bodyguards.” He smiles weakly.

I want to cry and scream and shake him at the same time. How could he do this? Even if it was a mistake, nothing done for his father can be considered an innocent slip. If he has been threatened or coerced in the way my father has been subjected to extortion for years, Robert won’t divulge it.

“They aren’t out to get you. They’re my friends. They want to make sure I’m safe, that’s all.”

Robert gives a deep, warm chuckle. “I love that about you. If you could see the look on your boyfriend’s face right now, you’d know he doesn’t think of you as his friend. The way he’s been watching me since we sat down… Well, let’s just say, he’s made his point.”

At those words, I want to turn around and see Dylan’s reassuring, composed expression. Knowing he is behind me fills my chest with a new sensation, stronger and different than what I used to feel with Robert.

“Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

“There are a lot of things I want to say to you, maybe things I wish I’d said sooner. It doesn’t matter now.”

He sounds so hopeless, like he is giving me an end-of-the-world send off. I will not accept that. We are intrinsically connected, defined by circumstances we never controlled, and ending our intimate relationship was not enough to sever my attachment to Robert. I am past the crush, the heart-stopping love, the lust, the hope, but I am very much connected to him by an undying fondness and concern. I can’t simply blot him from my memory, though it would make life easier if I could.

“Times up.” Dylan’s demand makes me pop my head up. “You saw her and now it’s time to leave,” he says to Robert.

“Yeah. It is.” Robert gazes at me as he throws cash on the table for the bill. He rises while Cooper and Carson come to stand behind Dylan.

I am flustered for a moment. I don’t have my answers. Robert came here to give me this horrific news, and I haven’t pledged any kind of help. I want to go back to my cozy makeshift home with Dylan, yet I don’t want to leave this unresolved. I haven’t done anything to help Robert, and now he faces a worse fate than I’ve previously thought.

As Dylan takes my hand again and leads us out of the restaurant, the others follow. Outside, Cooper is silent as he gives me a gentle tap across my chin with his fist. He then gets on his Harley and zooms out of the parking lot. Carson pats my shoulder before he gets in his truck. He waits for Robert to get back in his car and then follows him out onto the interstate.

Dylan opens the passenger door of the Jeep, and I climb in. I sit there for a moment, replaying the dialogue in my head while Dylan reaches across me and buckles my seat belt and then kisses me gently on the cheek. Sometimes people feed off each other’s sadness, and Dylan seems to be in tune with mine. His lips linger against my skin as if he knows that we can’t always release people who have been under our skin for so many years, and that escaping disappointment is next to impossible. I seek out his lips and kiss him back as he wraps his arms around me so tightly it triggers a faucet of tears until I am gushing.

I don’t know how long he stands there holding my sagging, crying body. By the time he gets in the Jeep to drive us home, it is dark and I wonder if I will ever see Robert again, if he even has a chance at living.

Seventeen

Dylan

It took all my will power not to drag that guy out to the parking lot and beat the shit out of him. I don’t know if I am feeling more anger than jealousy. I shouldn’t be angry about someone Emma was involved with before she knew me, but I can be pissed as hell that he is making her feel sorry for him. He’s a sleazy piece of shit, and Emma’s heart is too big. I could see the pain on her face. She can’t help a dangerous guy like that, and the sooner I get that through her head, the better.

When we get home, she goes upstairs and lies on her bed, fully dressed with her shoes on. I heat up some leftover vegetable stew and rip a chunk of bread off a baguette and then take up a tray to her. Her eyes are open, staring at the ceiling.

What is so special about this guy that he could leave her in this state? I pull off her shoes and then she sits up and leans back against the big decorative pillows while I set the dinner tray over her lap.

“Eat something, you’ll feel better,” I tell her.

I climb in on the other side of the bed and sidle up to her, putting a straw in the iced tea she loves. I brew it every day for her. Seriously, I am ready to spoon feed this girl until she comes out of this ex-boyfriend coma. He doesn’t get to do this to her, and she doesn’t get to mope and feel sorry for him.

“Emma, stop it.”

She glances at her food and then meets my insistent gaze.

“I’m sorry. Thank you for dinner. I don’t know if I have an appetite, though.” Her mouth turns down into a pouty frown, and she looks like she’s about twelve.

“He’s got serious problems, and you can’t fix them for him. You know his family and their line of work.” I scoff for referring to it as work. “He wanted to meet. You met him. It’s done.”

I rip off a smaller piece of bread and hand it to her. She holds it tentatively over the stew.

“Why was Cooper there? And Carson? I didn’t see you call them before we left the office.”

“We had an understanding, that if this guy… if Robert showed up, they’d watch out for you, too.”

“Cooper seemed different, like he’s done this before,” she says in a soft, tired voice.

“I don’t know about that. I just know Carson had mentioned that he would be watching out for Robert, so he must have enlisted Cooper.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t frisk Robert first.” She dips the bread into the stew.

“Believe me, I thought about it. Then I saw his face. He wasn’t there to hurt you. Whatever he needed from you—to see you one last time—”

“Why do you say that?” she asks, suddenly alert. “Do you know something I don’t? Even Robert was fairly cryptic.”

“I only know what your friend Sean told us. I assume he’s in a situation that will bury him deep.”

“If you believe he’s guilty, why didn’t you and Carson call the Feds yourself?”

She begins eating the stew, and I’m relieved to have that at least.

“I don’t know if he’s guilty of anything. I don’t have any facts, so I’m not about to get us, or him, entangled with law enforcement when I don’t have the information in front of me. What did he say to you?”

“His father is probably going to be able to pin a huge drug bust on him. Robert thinks he’s being set-up by his father. He was involved in a transaction that he had no idea was associated with a major heroin bust two years ago.”

“Ah, Emma. You believe that he couldn’t know what he was doing? Babe, this is all he knows. His father is running the show. How is it possible for him to not be aware of what he was doing?”

She puts her spoon down. Shit, I just turned her off from eating. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut?

“He’s not naïve, but he did believe his father loved him. I don’t think he ever anticipated that this could happen. Neither did I, for that matter.”

She moves the tray to the floor. “Thanks for dinner. I’m just not hungry.”

She then stretches out on the bed and I pull her close to me. She leans against my body, and I take in long, slow, deep breaths to calm my overly-excited nerves at having her so close.

“Why are you so worried about him? You were pretty upset that he was trying to see you, so what’s changed your tune?”

I try to mask my frustration and anger over this guy with a softer tone. I kiss her temple, tempted to take it further. I want to fuck her until she’s coming and moaning my name, wiping any trace of this guy along with any residual feelings she has for him.

“When Robert left that note at my house, I thought he was coming back to get me, to push me back into our old relationship. Today, I saw a different Robert. He’s scared and sad… and, I guess it brought back memories—some good, some not.”

“You don’t have any power to help him. Besides, he can call it a mistake, but he has to pay the price like the rest of us.”

“Like the rest of us?” she asks, pulling back from my chest so she can see my face.

“A lot of us have had tough breaks and we have to live with it.”

“Most kids don’t grow up with mobsters. His life is a bit tougher, I’d say.”

“For the most part, I grew up without parents, and my brother and I were dirt poor. It screwed me up along with whatever problems I was born with. It was a bad mix and it made Carson’s life hell. He had to feed us, keep us sheltered, keep us together, and deal with my violent behavior. I made a lot of mistakes as an adult, Emma. I’m responsible for them, just like Robert is responsible for what he’s done. Having a bad childhood or a fucked up family doesn’t give you a free pass as an adult.”

“I know that.” She pushes farther away from me and huffs out an exasperated breath.

“So why does it look like you’re coddling this guy?” I prop myself up on one arm as she folds her arms and looks up at the ceiling with teary eyes.

“I don’t coddle Robert. You don’t understand. He was very important to me, and I hate to see him being framed like this. He deserves better from his father.”

The fury builds in my chest and moves up to my face like gasoline being ignited with a single dropped match.

“Do you hear yourself? Your ex-boyfriend admitted to participating in a crime and you think he’s being treated unfairly?” My face is directly above hers.

“I think, if he committed a crime, he has to pay the price, but that subjects him to death—a hit by his own father. I don’t know what price he has to pay, but it shouldn’t be death.” She looks unbearably sad as she closes her eyes and her long, dark lashes plaster themselves with tears against her cheeks.

“You don’t know that he’s going to be a target. I think he’s exaggerating his circumstances to get you on his side. Did he ask you to leave with him?” I can barely maintain a civil tone. I want to scream some sense into her.

When I met her, I knew she had street smarts and a tough, wise-ass mouth. What happened to that strong girl?

She doesn’t respond, which pretty much answers my question.

“Emma,” I demand, “did he give you a sob story and tell you he needs you?”

“Yes,” she hisses, “but not in the way you’re implying. He was trying to explain what was going on and why he wanted to see me. We have a history together—we’ve seen a lot of the same stuff. There’s an understanding between us that other people don’t get.”

“Like me? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Sean is right; Robert is scared. He’s in a bad place and he thought seeing me would help.”

“Did it?” I am too loud. I plant my left arm on the other side of her, trapping her.

“Maybe it helped him, but it sure freaked me out. I never expected to see him like this. It… it’s hard for me to see him falling apart and in danger. I broke up with him because I saw a change in him over that last year. It all had to do with the business, and I didn’t want to have my future infected with his father’s seedy organization. Robert and I both thought he could separate himself from it and we’d get to move on and have our own life. We were falling apart. He was acting weird, and I couldn’t take it anymore. The bad stuff is just following him and me.”

“You still love him, don’t you?”

“No, not like that. I care about him, though. And I never thought it would ever come to this. There are things he’s not telling me, and it’s frightening to think that what he’s hiding may be worse than what he’s already told me.”

“You’re sure that this isn’t that you’re not thinking clearly because you’re still in love with him?” I hate asking the question. I want her to sound more positive about her long, stowed-away emotions for this guy. That they have disintegrated to the point of being dead. I want any feelings she has for him now to be insignificant compared to what she may feel for me.

The urge to run my fingers through her long hair and take her body with every part of me brings out my more brutal side.

“You seem to have conveniently forgotten that this dreamy fuckhead of yours is also part of an organization that has threatened and shaken down your father for years. Why you’d ever get involved with him in the first place escapes me, and I have to question why you’re here with me. Maybe I should ask myself why we’re… together.”

I sound like an ass. I figure it’s my last chance to make her come to her senses or at least acknowledge that she can’t keep seeing this guy or letting herself get emotionally strung out over him.

“Are we together?” she asks defensively. “Haven’t we concocted a convenient arrangement to sleep together and pretend to play house? And another thing, my father was also given protection. He’s gotten something out of it. It’s not ideal, but it’s what we have.”

“First of all, we’re not playing house, otherwise you’d be doing your share of work around here, princess.” I am in her face, but she looks so angry and pretty I just want to kiss her and erase this argument. “Personally, I don’t think your circumstances are very convenient for me—you letting an ex-boyfriend hang on. You think that works for me? And stop trying to rationalize this whole screwed up place you come from. It’s not working for me.” I now have her slender body and limbs pinned to the bed, and her lips are an inch from mine.

“I sound like I’m more trouble than I’m worth,” she responds, her breath heating my face.

“You’re worth it. It’s already been established that I like you a lot.” I soften my tone. I am not the most patient guy; I want her to cave in to her feelings and desire for me. I refuse to let her eyes leave mine.

“I like you, too.”

Emma glances down at my mouth, which is all it takes for me to swoop in and take her bottom lip before parting her mouth with my tongue. My mind retreats to that pleasant place where I get lost in her touch. She tastes and smells like sugar as I take her mouth more aggressively. As my hand slides under her shirt, pushing her bra up so I can run my thumb across a hard nipple, she moans and strokes my back with both of her hands and slides them under the waist of my jeans. She then inches under my briefs, running her nails against my skin before she squeezes my ass. My cock responds in kind and swells eagerly against her.