Page 27 of The Ties That Bind

8

here is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,

Doing more murder in this loathsome world,

Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.

ROMEO & JULIET

I wasn’t a superstitious person, but for the last 48 hours I’d had this feeling of dread sitting heavy in the pit of my stomach. And for every stolen moment I spent with Arabella, the feeling grew … like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

With what I was planning to do, it felt like it wasn’t a matter of if, but when … and suddenly I feared the time had come.

It didn’t help that I’d texted Arabella three hours ago and hadn’t heard back yet. The closer Jayce’s deadline loomed, the more stringent we’d become about making each other aware of our comings and goings at all times. I knew she’d gone to a meeting this afternoon that had the potential to run long, so I was trying not to freak the fuck out, but with each minute that ticked by, my alarm escalated. The meeting should have been over by now. Shit, she should have walked through the door of my loft over 20 minutes ago.

I picked up my phone to check the time again and to make sure I hadn’t missed an incoming message or call. Ridiculous, I knew, since I’d been gripping it tight for the last two hours, but I was a desperate man. And my desperation made me hope for things that weren’t there.

“I think we have to make our move,” I told Ben, who was sitting across the room with his laptop open in front of him. “The longer this goes on the more erratic Jayce becomes. He called my cell six times last night, wanting to know where I was and who I was with.”

I paced across the room and back, my fingers linked behind my head. “The most fucked up thing about all this though is that his paranoia isn’t misplaced this time. He’s not wrong: I don’t have his back but I can’t wait anymore. Arabella’s not safe.”

“It’s not just with you, man,” Ben informed me, looking up from the screen. “His paranoia is starting to show and others are worried what it means. There’s talk, and it’s not good.”

“Meaning?”

Ben shrugged. “I couldn’t say for sure, but I know a few of the guys are starting to question Jayce’s directives. He sent a few of them out the other night to get a feel for what was going on at Club 66. He’s convinced it’s a front for the Russians and there’s a war coming.”

That certainly got my attention. “That makes no fucking sense. Maksim is completely on the up and up now.”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying,” Ben answered, his eyes dropping to his screen again, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“What are you looking at?” I asked, crossing the room to sit next to him.

Ben handed me his computer and my eyes scanned the spreadsheet he’d been working on. “Shit,” I said once I realized what I was looking at. “Where’d you get this?”

“You ain’t the only one with skills my friend,” he smirked.

“You’re fucking Jayce’s secretary again, aren’t you?”

His lips hitched up in a devious grin. “What can I say? She’s got amazing tits and her pussy tastes fantastic.”

“And these extracurriculars have nothing to do with getting this info?” I asked, raising the laptop.

“Oh no,” he admitted. “They have everything to do with getting access to Jayce’s off-the-books activity. Camilla’s pussy is just a bonus.”

“If Jayce finds out she gave you this information, she’d dead.”

It was one thing to plan my brother’s execution; it was an entirely other thing to sign the death warrant for someone who was helping us.

“Ah, aren’t you cute. The assassin with a heart of gold,” he mocked. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Camilla doesn’t even know I have this. It’s amazing what a woman is willing to overlook when she’s getting a thorough tongue lashing.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at the double entendré.

I shook my head and smirked, looking back down at the information he’d gathered. Camilla wasn’t the first woman who’d had information stolen from her computer while Ben’s head was between her thighs. It was practically his signature move. His method of intelligence gathering was one reason St. John Enterprises had been able to take over as many companies as we had these past couple of years. He got in and then got out, leaving our competitors none the wiser how we’d gotten our hands on their private secrets. At this point, Ben’s tongue deserved a seat on our board for all it had done in service to the corporation.

“It’s obvious Jayce is planning something,” I said, scanning the lines of data. “Shit, he’s moving money around so quickly it’s hard to keep track of the trails. Am I reading this wrong, or has he pilfered millions from our legit businesses? And what the fuck is this here?” I moved the computer between us so we could both see it at the same time and pointed midway down the screen. “It looks like he recently made a huge payment to …” my voice trailed off.

Oh fuck.

I shoved the computer away from me and surged out of my seat. I was across the loft in seconds, throwing on a Kevlar vest and strapping various weapons to my body in record time.

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