The Empire Read online

  “Do you ever talk to her now?”

  “She had a heart attack during one of our training sessions.”

  I blanch. “What?”

  He nods. “She smoked like a chimney and drank like the sailor she was. And she was no spring chicken.” He gives me a sad smile. “She grabbed my arm right before she died and made me recite a formula for her. Anyway, to her I wasn’t a freak. I really was gifted.”

  The freak he sees himself as even now, to this day. And there it is. His self-hate. The hate I want to reach inside him and yank away, never to be seen again. “You are gifted, Eric.”

  “I was in hell when my first cube was put in my hand,” he says, picking one of them up and looking at me. “There were times when the data that I had access to literally brought me to my knees. I couldn’t slow it down. That didn’t feel like a gift. It felt like a curse.”

  “Look at your success. Look at your life. You have to see that your curse is a gift now.”

  “I’m not like the rest of the world.”

  I reach out and cover the cube in his hand. “I like you just how you are.”

  His lashes lower, a shadow sliding over his face, and when I might press him to look at me, to talk to me, the doorbell rings, no doubt with our food order, and he immediately untangles our grip, sets the cube on the table and gets up. Shutting me out. Shutting me down. The doorbell was simply the vehicle he used to do it but I remind myself that every moment he dives into how he got to be the man he is now, requires him to remember who he was when he was younger, when he was living with his mother and then his father, after her death.

  He’s not shutting me out. He’s protecting himself. There’s a difference.

  My gaze lowers and lands on the two messages, and once I’m looking at them, I set aside my talk with Eric. They have my focus. I will them to mean something, but they just don’t. My cellphone buzzes on the coffee table and it’s my mother. I want to answer, but I don’t know what to say to her. I twist around to find Eric already walking back toward me, bags of food in his hand.

  “That’s my mother calling,” I say. “What do we want her to know?” My phone stops ringing.

  Eric sits down with me, placing our order on the table. “Your mother isn’t a part of this. She didn’t know my father was being attacked. She didn’t know why I was in Denver. I think the best thing we can do is to keep her out of this for as long as we can.”

  “I am my mother’s daughter. In other words, that won’t work for long. Your father is fighting for his life. He’s her husband.”

  “We’ll be as honest as we can be. She’s under protective custody until we locate this assassin.”

  “How are we going to locate an assassin? Well, aside from the fact that said assassin may be coming for us.”

  “I hope like hell he does come for us,” he says. “Then I don’t have to hunt the bastard down.”

  “Because we’ll be dead?”

  “You underestimate me, princess. Let’s hope he does, too.”

  I think of the man in the warehouse, and how easily Eric handled him. “I’m not underestimating you,” I say. “I saw what you can do, but that’s no surprise to anyone anymore. I’m assuming that after the warehouse incident, the assassin won’t either. He’ll have a plan.”

  “And it won’t work.” He motions to my food. “Eat, sweetheart. We’ve had a hell of a couple of days. We both need to take every chance we can get to eat and rest.”

  I nod and set my phone down, but I find it curious that my mother hasn’t called back. “Can you ask Adam what’s going on with my mother?”

  “Of course.” He snags his phone from his pocket. “Eat while we wait.”

  I nod and we both grab our forks, digging into our food. “I never got to tell you about my talk with Mia. She said she’d talk to Grayson and convince him to back off.”

  “And not long later, he showed up here,” Eric comments. “Obviously, she failed, but I have a plan B. Davis is going to get him out of town.”

  “Grayson isn’t going to go.”

  “He’ll go because he’ll think he’s handling the NFL deal on my behalf. He needs to feel like he’s helping me.”

  “He was right when he told you to be honest with me.” I put my fork down and turn to him. “I hate that he trusted me more than you trusted me.”

  “He had nothing to lose. I have you to lose. Which is an example of how one answer is not the only answer. It’s often different if you look at it from another perspective.” His fingers close on my knee. “What you just said about my skills no longer being a surprise. What if my father didn’t hire the man who attacked me in the alleyway? What if it was the assassin? What if he was testing my skills?”

  “But he told your father where you were.”

  “He could have been following me.”

  My cellphone buzzes with another call from my mother. “I think I need to take the call.”

  Eric tunes out this comment. Instead, he grabs the business card the bearded man gave me and stares at the message on the back. “What if it wasn’t about a secret I’m keeping from you?” He looks at me. “What if that was my guilt driving how I saw the message?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The SEALs consider ourselves brothers. What if this message was telling me that the root of our problems is my brother?”

  “That feels obvious. Doesn’t it?”

  “The man told you to look at what was right in front of you and this message,” he holds up the card, “ties me to Isaac. Fuck,” he says softly and then pulls his shirt off, tossing it to stare down at his arm. “Somewhere on my body is the link that ties those two messages together.”

  My phone buzzes with a text message. My mother has given up on calls, apparently, and I glance down to read: Does Eric know?

  My heart sinks. Oh God. His father must be dead.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Harper

  I stare up at Eric, still standing above me, his shirt off, the ink etched on his body highlighting taut skin and well-developed muscle. Ink that tells a million stories, one of which perhaps solves our puzzle, but right now I’m looking at the jaguar covering one shoulder. The black ink, the blue eyes. The symbol of everything Eric hates about his life, perhaps even about himself. But his father is a part of him. His father has been his only parent still living for more than a decade of his life.

  Eric sits down and takes the phone from me, his gaze lowering to the message. He frowns and looks at me. “Does Eric know what, Harper?”

  I grab his arm. “Your father must be dead.”

  “I’d know before your mother. Walker is tapped into the hospital activity and law enforcement.”

  I’m afraid to let relief take over. “What else could it be?”

  “Call her.”

  “Call Adam. Please. Call him before I call her. I want to know what I’m getting myself into. And it’s weird that she hasn’t said anything else. No more calls. No more text messages.” My fist balls at my chest. “She might be falling apart right now. I need to go to her, Eric. I know it’s dangerous but—”

  He grabs my hand. “We’ll bring her to us if necessary. Okay?”

  “Yes, but—” I cup his face. “You. I’m worried about you.”

  He leans into the touch and then kisses my palm. “I have you. I’m just fine.” He reaches for his phone that’s sitting on the table and dials Adam on speaker.

  “Yo, man, what’s up?” Adam answers.

  “I’ve got you on speaker with Harper. And that’s the question we have for you. What the hell is going on?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Isaac is still holed up in his house. I went to check on him and he’s doing a lot of pacing and not much more. I’m watching him myself. Harper’s mother is loopy on the drugs but fine. I have Jesse, one of our best, with her.”

  “She sent me a text message,” I say. “It says, ‘Does Eric know?’”

  “What? That’s
odd. Hold on.” The line clicks as he obviously mutes it.

  “Should we call Blake?” I ask.

  “That’s what Adam’s doing right now, I promise you. He’s communicating with Jesse and Blake.”

  I nod and stand up. Eric pulls me back down. “Relax, baby. All is well.”

  The endearment does funny things to my stomach, perhaps because it’s new. Perhaps because there is such tenderness in his face and his voice when he says it. “Baby? You never call me baby.”

  “Would you prefer princess?”

  “It’s situational. I just—baby works.”

  Adam comes back on the line. “Your father is fine, Eric. No change. Your mother is awake for the first time in a few hours, but she’s struggling with the effects of the drug. She’s drunk on Xanax. He knew she was calling you. He has no idea what the message is about. We can take her phone.”

  “No,” I say. “Not yet. Let me call her.”

  “Just shoot me a text,” he says. “Let me know what you need and want on this.”

  “Will do,” Eric says, disconnecting the line. “Call her. Let’s find out what it is that she thinks I know or don’t know.”

  I have a horrible feeling this might be about the secrets I’ve kept from him. A really horrible feeling. My gut twists and I desperately want to tell him before I call her, but there isn’t time. There’s too much going on, too much danger in the air for me to delay. I dial my mother, but I don’t put it on speaker phone. She answers on the first ring. “Harper! Harper. God. Harper. What if he dies? What if he dies?” She starts to sob. “And they won’t even let me go to him.”

  I inhale and let it out. “They’re trying to keep you safe.”

  “I need to be there with my husband and my daughter. Are you safe?”

  “I’m safe.” It hits me that she knew I was here when I didn’t tell her I was here. “How did you know I was here, mom?”

  “Know? You told me.”

  I told her? I blink. What? She’s drugged. Obviously, she’s very drugged. “What was that text message you sent me about?” My eyes meet Eric. “Does Eric know? Does he know what?”

  “I—I don’t want him to know. He can’t know.”

  “Know what, mother? What are you talking about?”

  She starts to sob again. “It would be bad. Oh God. What if he knows? What if he’s the one who did this? What if it was him? What if—”

  I stand up, angry now, certain this is indeed about the dirty deeds this family has done to Eric. Certain I have to tell him. I walk toward the window, my voice low, but my fury palpable. “He didn’t do this, but my God, mother. He has every right to hate this family. Can you imagine if they’d done to me what they did to his mother and him? How can you not see what they are? How can you not understand what they’ve done is evil?”

  “It was all Isaac. Isaac did it all, not your father.”

  “He’s not my damn father and Isaac didn’t do half the shit this family did to Eric. It was Gigi and her damn son. Your husband. And you’re close to both of them. Please tell me that you didn’t have any part of any action against Eric. Because if you did—”

  “Why can you not see how much he can take? Why can you not see that he can take everything? Why? Don’t you know—”

  “He doesn’t want your money. He has his own. Far more than you will ever have. Tell me you didn’t—”

  “Does he know? Is that what this is about? Is he coming for us because he knows?”

  I frown. She keeps saying that. “What is it that you think he knows?”

  “You know what it is. You know. I told you.”

  “You weren’t sure when you told me. Then you said you were wrong.”

  “I am. I just—I didn’t want you to hate your father so I—I told you I was wrong. I know you knew it was true, though.”

  Bile rises in my throat. It’s true. I can’t believe it’s true and she’s still with that man.

  “Did you tell him?” she demands. “Did you tell him because you imagined yourself in love with him? He’s your stepbrother. He’s—”

  “Stop! Will you just stop. I don’t imagine myself in love with him. I am in love with him.” One of my hands press to the glass. “I love him.”

  “He doesn’t love you. He loves power. He’s using you to take everything. He’s taking the love of my life and now he’s taking you and all we’ve worked for.”

  The love of her life. Suddenly that isn’t my father. Emotions well inside me. Anger. Pain. More anger. “I don’t even know who you are right now,” I say, my voice low, taut, when I want to scream at her. “Take your Xanax, mother, and go to bed.” I disconnect and swallow hard. I don’t know how I tell Eric what I know. I think I reasoned away telling him because I didn’t know for sure if it was valid. But now I do. Now, I know. I can’t tell him. I have to tell him.

  Eric’s hand settles on my waist, warm, strong, and perfect. I don’t want to tell him. I don’t even know if it’s safe to tell him. I rotate to face him taking in the handsome lines of his face. His firm jaw. His full mouth that can be both brutal and gentle, sometimes within the same few minutes. My gaze lands back on that jaguar tattoo and my hands settle on top of it. “I wanted to protect you.”

  His eyes narrow, the blue sharpening with sparks of amber. The air sharpening with his sudden shift in mood. He doesn’t touch me, a charge crackling off of him. “What does that mean, Harper?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Harper

  I try to catch my breath but I can’t. I’m almost wheezing with the effort. I think I might be hyperventilating and I’ve never hyperventilated in my life. Eric’s hands come down on my arms and he turns me, pressing me against the beam dividing the window. “What is bad enough to make you react like you are right now? And what happened to no more secrets?”

  “I wasn’t sure it was real. I said that, didn’t I? I’m not sure if I did or didn’t but that’s the case. My mother told years ago and then she played it off like she was wrong about it. Now, she thinks that I told you and that you tried to kill your father because of it.”

  “Harper,” he warns, his expression stormy, intense, dark.

  “I need to tell you. I do, but I need a plan first.” My eyes go wide with the only solution possible. “I tie you to the bed to tell you and let you calm down before you take action. Or not tie you down. I think you need your cubes. Lots of cubes. Like a dozen and to be locked in a room. Can we do that? Can we do those things?” Tears start to burn in my eyes. My fingers flatten on his chest. “Please. I’m begging you. I need you. We need each other, remember?”

  “Yes. I remember, Harper, but whatever this is, I probably already know. Just tell me and let’s deal with this.”

  “No. No, you don’t know this or your father would be dead right now. You wouldn’t have saved him. God. He didn’t deserve to be saved. I convinced myself this wasn’t real. I convinced myself he didn’t do this because if he did, that means my mother accepts what he did. It almost makes her guilty. I knew I’d lose her. I knew—”

  “Harper,” Eric says firmly, his hands settling on my face, tilting my gaze to his, and only then do I realize that tears are streaming down my cheeks. “You need to take a deep breath, baby. It’s going to be okay. I promise you, I know more than you think I know.” His thumbs stroke the tears from my cheeks.

  “Not this.” I grab his hand. “Not this. I can’t tell you this without you letting me lock you in a room or something first.”

  “Trust me—”

  “I do. And I want you to trust me, which is why I knew I ultimately had to tell you this but when you hear what it is, you’ll know why I didn’t want to. You’ll know why I thought it’s unchangeable but painful, so why cut you that way?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Let’s go get naked upstairs.” I wrap my arms around him. “Let’s just go fuck and fuck some more. Forget this. You can’t change it. I can’t change it.”

  “Harper, I need you to
just tell me.”

  “No.” I laugh and it’s not with humor. I sound a little crazy. “No. This isn’t a good idea. I was smart to not tell you. I was holding it back to protect you.”

  His jaw sets and voice firms. “You’re going to tell me.”

  Panic rises inside me. “Let me off the window.” He doesn’t move and I push on his chest. “Let me off the window!”

  “Harper—”

  “Eric. Damn it. I’m suffocating. Let me off the damn window.”

  He stares at me, his eyes glinting with steel and storm clouds. He wants to push me. Oh God, he’s going to push me. I reacted emotionally. I opened my mouth. There are so many prices that will be paid for this. “It’s nothing I did. It’s nothing I did. I would never—let me off the window. Please.”

  His jaw flexes and the next thing I know I’m over his shoulder and he’s carrying me across the living room. I don’t even yelp. I can’t seem to process anything for the ache in my chest and the blood rushing to my head. By the time he lowers me onto the bed and then comes down on top of me, my head is thundering, throbbing painfully.

  “Tell me.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You will.”

  I cup his face, tenderness filling me for this man. “This is a motive for you to kill your father. Right now, if you get accused of killing him, if he dies, I can say under oath you didn’t know this. Wait until we know if you’ll be blamed.”

  “Harper, princess—”

  “I hate that name. I hate that name right now because it implies I’m a part of that family. I don’t want to be a part of that family. I want out of the Kingston operation. I want out.”

  “And you are. You’re coming to work with me, but, baby, I need you to tell me. I promise you, I will not leave this apartment after finding out. I’ll stay right here with you.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  “It’s all I have. My word. My word to you, and a vow to make that mean something to you now and forever.”