Page 19 of Dangerous Games

“I know more than you think I do, now I need to know who is after me. Who in my organization wants to take me out and why?” I focus my glare on him, and he cowers in its laser precision. Jimmy isn’t a coward like I thought he was, but he hasn’t produced the results I need yet.

“I’m working on it. I have it down to a few people who have possible connections, and you just need to give me time.” He rubs his wrist where I gripped him and sniffles. The blood sucks back up into his nostril for the moment, but it will come back.

“Names, Jimmy, I need names. I need them before the hit is completed. You realize you don’t get paid if I am dead. And you realize that if they kill me, they will know I hired you. It’s all over my personal banking. Then what? Then who will protect Nan? Who will avenge her?” I lower my eyes to him again, pursing my lips. He doesn’t really realize what’s at stake here.

“What?” he stutters, rubbing his nose. He backs into the corner of the room where the leather armchair awaits him. It’s darker there, like he’s hiding in the shadows afraid of what I’m saying.

“You think you’ll just walk away from this if they kill me?” I scoff, laughing at him. “My brothers will hunt you down when this is all said and done. You can’t just walk away from this family. You are mine now, Jimmy, like it or not. So, you produce the results I need, or you and your sister are never going to make it out of this alive.”

That last part, as true as it may be for him, is never going to be true for Nanette. I’ve already set a contingency plan in place for her. She will walk away untouched if she is smart. Jimmy, however…

“You can’t do that. I was just supposed to get information and take out the mole.”

“Things change. Now, get the job done, or you know what happens.” I sit down as Jimmy wipes his nose again. He looks terrified now, which is exactly how I want him. “You get this job done, or it’s your neck and your sister’s too.”

“You can’t—”

Before he can even reply my pistol is out and I fire off a round above his head. It smashes into the plaster and showers dust across his head and shoulders. He jumps, scared of me, and I shake my head. “You’ll never learn, will you? Get out of my office.”

Jimmy jumps up and rushes out and I hear the front door slam. I glance at the monitor. Nanette doesn’t even stir. She lays there peaceful now, the night terrors gone for the moment, and I reach behind me to my old liquor cabinet and pour myself another glass of whiskey. I need to think, need time to process the anger coursing through me.

If Nanette was awake, I’d dump it into her, make her feel how powerful I am, that I can do things she only dreams of. But she needs rest, and I need revenge.

I wander out into the hallway, finding my way to my mother’s old room. The door is locked. I use the key hidden in my pocket to unlock it and let myself in. I’m so close to finding out who did this, who let that maniac into this house to hurt her. Who plans to murder me too, to silence me so I won’t let the public know what a monster they have creeping around them.

I walk up to the large portrait of her and stare at it, feeling rage thrumming through my veins. I’ve cried too many tears over this painting and stared at it for too many hours. No child should have to go through what I went through, and I’m not talking about the savage way the man almost gutted me. I’m talking about the way I walked in on him raping her, forcing himself inside of her while he covered her mouth with his hand.

Fury leaps up in my chest and I down the whiskey, throwing the glass against the wall in a huff. It smashes on the wall, remnants of whiskey and glass shards scattering to the ground beneath where it hits. My chest heaves with unspent emotion. I can’t think straight. Pictures flash through my head—Mom on the ground, the man assaulting her. I try for the millionth time to imagine the man’s face, to remember what I’ve blocked out for so long, but it’s no use. His face is a blur, and my memory is foggy.

“Ahhhhh!” I scream out, letting the anger take hold of me. I won’t hold back anymore. It’s killing me. I lash out, smashing first the lamp then the vase on the dresser. I lose control, destroying the room the way Nanette destroyed her room. Nothing is left untouched, nothing that is, except my mother’s portrait.

When the room is trashed and I am spent, leaning over with my hands on my knees, I look up into her eyes. She haunts me, begging me to find the man who hurt her and make him pay. Her gaze pleads with me; it has since the day I tried to stop him. I wound up in an ambulance bleeding out, gasping for air. The scar across my chest and side are proof of the justice that is due. And that man will pay.

He will pay for hurting her. He will pay for hurting me. For the days I wasn’t allowed to even enter this room. For the hours I cried at her door, asking her to let me come in—once I’d returned from the hospital. For the way my father changed—the darkness that still clouds his eyes to this day as he prepares to hand the family over to me. The man responsible for destroying my family will not go unpunished.

I straighten and see blood on my hands, likely from something I broke. I rub it on my slacks and feel the key still in my pocket. This room is sacred. No one comes in here but me. I don’t have energy to clean tonight, so I leave it, letting myself out of the room and locking up behind me. I never had to lock up until Nanette came to stay. Now I have to force myself to remember.

My hand shakes as I put the key in the lock, jingling against the doorknob. I need to relax, to sit and let my blood pressure come down. What I need is release, the kind only sex gives me, but Nanette is sleeping, and I can’t even think of another woman right now. Nan and I have too much, we’re too similar.

It’s dark as I slink back into my office, hiding away behind my desk. Mika has shut off the lights, probably assuming I’ve retired for the night. But the closed-circuit TV still plays in Nanette's room. She’s covered now, likely woke up to a chill and realized she had tossed her blanket in her restless sleep. She’s peaceful again, as if the night torments haven’t even affected her this evening at all.

She’s beautiful as she lays there, angelic even. She reminds me of my mother too, a tortured soul in her own right. I can’t let that happen to Nanette, what happened to my mom. My fists clench instinctively, and I feel protective. She is mine now, whether she likes it or not, and I protect my things. No one will touch her, and no one will harm her, not if I have anything to say about it.

And the sleazy way Gallagher looked at her, as if he’d tasted forbidden fruit, I could have slit his throat right there, but that pound of flesh is not mine to take. All I can do is make sure Nanette does not fall to the same fate that Mom did.

She stirs, tossing the covers off again, and I see her silken form stretched across the bed. Her hand trails to her mound, massaging it in her sleep. I wonder if she does this often, touching herself because of a dream. It arouses me to watch, though I can’t help but also wonder if she is thinking of me, or of someone else. Nanette has led a very colorful life since her time with Gallagher. I want to end that for her. She doesn’t need to give her body away to abusive rich men. Not when she has everything, she needs to be free of it forever—that compulsion to replay that event over and over in ways that make her feel powerful instead of powerless.

She doesn’t even see how she does it, but I do. I see how she uses her feminine wiles to try to twist my emotions, make herself feel like the seductress rather than the dominated. She tries to get back at Gallagher in her own way, but it will never work, and when she realizes this, blood will flow. I just pray it isn’t hers.

12

NANETTE

Iawake with a start to an empty room. I’m tired, too tired. I feel like the drug Mika put in my tea last night was too strong, but I accepted it with gladness. After what happened at the restaurant, I knew I would struggle to sleep, and I was right. I feel like I’ve been through the wars, body aches, headache, and grogginess.

I climb out of bed and dress in some shorts and a t-shirt. I don’t want to stay locked in this room all day. Dominic may have purposely triggered something horrible just to prove a point, but I’m not a victim. I refuse to allow him to control me like that. I am powerful, strong enough to push past what happened to me years ago, so why not this too?

My feet slide into the ballet flats, and I am out the door, headed toward the scent of bacon and eggs. Mika is ready for me as soon as I walk in, as if she is watching me sleep so she knows when to start my meal. I wonder how she does this, and if she does it for Dominic too, or if I’m special. I slouch on the seat and she slides breakfast in front of my eager eyes.

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