Page 39 of Broken Promises
Was there really no threat against me, or was he guessing, hoping to ease my concern?
One thing I’d learned over the last few months was there’s no way to know what deal was made with the devil, or when he would be coming for his payment. The only thing I could hope for was that my payment had been made and there weren’t any additional enemies wanting to take Sergey’s place.
Little did I know, it wasn’t Sergey’s place we needed to worry about.
Chapter 17
Rhys
Two weeks later
The last two weeks had been a learning lesson in change. I was used to setting my own hours and working whenever I was needed. Since Hannah came into my life, we’d started to develop a new routine, and I had to admit I liked it.
She put in two weeks’ notice with her company last week and was pulling long hours to finish the last assignments they’d given her. I hated to see her working such lengthy days, but I knew there was an end date, so I supported her however she let me. To be with a woman so independent and secure in her abilities was both refreshing and a challenge at the same time.
I wanted to take all the worry and exhaustion from her, but she refused. What she allowed me to do was come by every evening after she got home, so I could kiss her good night. This past weekend, I’d picked her up on Saturday morning after she slept in a little and brought her back to my house. She, Regan, and I spent the whole weekend watching movies, playing games, and laughing more than I ever had. When it was bedtime, I’d tucked Hannah into bed and held her in my arms until she fell asleep. Once I knew she was knocked out, I’d silently left her to rest.
We still hadn’t gone past the hot make-out session on the couch a few weeks ago, and I was okay with that. When she wanted more, I would give her everything she could handle, but until then, I was letting her set the pace.
The offer James made Hannah was too good to pass up, and even Samuel encouraged her to take the job. She would be testing different areas of Callahan’s system, trying to crack its security, and in exchange, she’d be making nearly triple her current salary. Plus, she could work from anywhere, which meant no more commuting to the office.
The company she worked for hired a new trainee to take her position, and she agreed to spend this week training them. I didn’t like that she would be working so close with another man, but I knew Samuel would be watching from the next cubicle. And it was just this week, so there was only so much jealousy I had to experience.
I wasn’t worried about Hannah—it was men I didn’t trust.
Every day while she worked, I was on video conference calls with James, Devlin, Lucian, Skid, and occasionally Stella and Hailey. They offered to help, since Stella had spent years inside the Syndicate as the wife of a vile bastard and Hailey was raised—and practically tortured—by a member’s sister. It was possible they saw something, heard something, or remembered something that would dig us out of the hole we were stuck in. The longer we looked, the shorter our tempers became, and I feared we were going to have a blowup soon.
It was about an hour after Hannah left her house for work, and I was in my home office, waiting for the video conference link to appear. I was searching my records from the beginning, hoping I’d missed something. The paper copies of everything were stored in a secure room behind a false wall in my closet, and I was going through each box, page by page, reading every word, looking for anything to move our search forward.
Truthfully, I was getting tired of rehashing the same shit every day. If we agreed to check in every few days, it would make things easier, but Devlin wanted to make sure everyone was communicating and nothing slipped through the cracks. Hereminded us that it was the secrets that got us here, so we needed transparency.
My computer pinged, so I glanced up from another page and pressed the icon to join the meeting. Sending the image to the large screen on the wall, I kept reading as I waited for everyone to join.
“Good morning,” James said, and I looked up and half-smiled, half-grimaced.
“Morning. How’s the baby? Is she feeling any better?” I asked.
“Fever broke late last night, so she and Amaya are resting.”
James and I were trying to find new ground to build a relationship on, and being concerned about his family was a good way for me to engage with him. Or at least that’s what Regan thinks. I admit that I was distant from most people, so I was trusting her opinion and Hannah’s encouragement to become more involved.
I nodded and finished the page in my hand before placing it in a new box, keeping the unchecked documents separate. Lifting my gaze again, I saw James’s fingers moving on his keyboard, but Devlin’s and Lucian’s screens were still dark.
“Where are they?” I asked.
James lifted his eyes to me. “I don’t know, but I’ll call Skid. He was driving Lucian over this morning while his car is being repaired.”
I could hear a phone ringing through the computer and listened as Skid answered. “Hey, I was just about to call you. Rylee went into labor about thirty minutes ago, so Lucian is out for the foreseeable future.”
“I guess Devlin is on his way to the hospital,” James remarked, then a voice filtering through the computer sounded into my office.
“I’m here,” Devlin explained and leaned his head behind James to let me see him. “Sorry. The baby didn’t want to settle last night, so DJ wanted to sleep with him. Elise told him no, and then we had two crying kids on our hands.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I remarked, and Devlin cast a devious smile at me.
“You’ll find out one day, and then I can be Uncle Devlin to your kids too.”
He laughed, James laughed, and I muttered, “Oh, fuck,” which made them laugh louder.
