Page 20 of Heated Rivals
She hung up before he could finish the sentence, before he could say something that would give her the excuse she desperately wanted to curl up around her phone and cling to the lifeline of his rough voice. She couldn’t afford the weakness and, even more, she couldn’t afford for him to realize hewasa weakness. Though if he didn’t know that after this conversation, he was an idiot.
James Halloran might be many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
Damn it.
* * *
James stepped into the shower, his mind whirling. He didn’t make a habit of having phonesex—why go for a substitute when you could have the real thing?—but… fuck. With Carrigan that had been hot as hell. His nerve endings were still snapping with the strength of that orgasm, and he wanted more.
Now.
He ducked his head under the spray and scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d known she wanted him, but knowing in theory was one thing—hearing her coming as a result of what he was saying was totally another. Their having sex again had moved from the “if” category to the “when.”
She was spooked. He got that. He was feeling pretty goddamn spooked himself. So he’d give them both time. She had to come to him now. That was the only way this thing would play out with both of them satisfied. James washed his hair, pointedly ignoring the little voice inside him that muttered that he’d never be satisfied with a piece of Carrigan as a replacement forallof her. “All of her” wasn’t on the table. Even if it was, there were their families to consider.
The thought of his family was enough to wash away the last of the feel-good he had going. He needed to deal with Ricky, sooner rather than later. Right now his brother was cooling his heels in the room in the basement designed to hold people the Hallorans didn’t want walking off the property without permission.
Really, both Callista and Carrigan should have been in that room when they were here. It would have stopped their escape before it started. And one of them—if not both—would have died. Had he known as soon as he hauled Carrigan up to his room that she’d find a way to escape? What if he hadn’t given her the chance? What if he’d gone with thenormal protocol?
He shook his head. It was pointless to focus on the past and play the what-if game. He had plenty of problems in the here and now to focus on. So he forced himself to close out the part of his mind that wanted to revel in the recent conversation with Carrigan. That lighthearted feeling that he hadn’t been sure he was still capable of had no place here. Not now.
Ten minutes later, he was toweled off and dressed and heading downstairs. Michael met him at the landing on the main floor. “He’s asking for you, boss.” He made a face. “Demanding, more like.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Michael didn’t immediately move out of the way. “With all due respect, I’m going with you.” He hesitated, and then charged on. “That kid is a rabid dog. He’ll go for your throat without a thought and deal with the consequences later.”
James wanted to argue, to say he was wrong, that he and Ricky were family. But family wasn’t the loving and cozy heartwarming made-for-TV movie that so many people believed. It was the poison in his veins that he could never bleed out, and the weight around his neck, dragging him into the deep.
So he nodded and let Michael follow him into the basement. It felt darker here, danker, as if it really was a dungeon. It used to be his old man’s favorite part of the house before his arthritis made navigating the basement stairs impossible. After that, rather than admit weakness, he just burrowed into his office and, for all intents and purposes, never came back out again.
I wonder if he’s warm enough in prison.
James set the thought aside. If Victorhadn’t gone off the goddamn deep end and decided to declare war on the O’MalleysandSheridans over a stupid insult, he wouldn’t be behind bars right now. Discretion was the name of the game. Staying below the FBI’s notice. He snorted. Those bastards had too much time on their hands. They noticed everything. But up until four months ago, they hadn’t bothered to swat the fly that was the Halloran family. Victor was the reason that had all changed.
Now Ricky had taken it into his fool head to follow in their old man’s footsteps. James stopped outside the door and took a breath, steeling himself for what came next. He could scream to the moon that he didn’t want this—didn’t want to have to take these steps—but it changed nothing. Ricky was a threat—worse, he was a stupid threat.
Thatwas unforgivable.
James walked into the room, aware of Michael following him, and waited for the door to shut behind them. Ricky was zip-tied to a chair bolted down in the middle of the room. The boys had done a good job, and he didn’t have any bruises visible. He turned his head and spit on the ground at James’s feet. “Bastard.”
“You directly disobeyed an order.”
“It was a shitty order.” Ricky’s blue eyes, the one thing all the members of their family shared, glittered in hate. “Bringing in more girls is good for business.”
It didn’t matter if it was or not. That wasn’t the point. The point was his dumb-ass brother was putting himself and everyone around him in danger. And no matter how potentially profitable it was, they wereoutof the fucking slave trade—for good. “Except it’s not. If you bothered to do some fucking research before youcharged blindly ahead, you’d know that business is up since I disbanded the flesh trade.”
Ricky spit again. “Your stomach’s just too weak for what needs to be done.”
That wasn’t his problem and they both knew it. “What else have you been doing?”
“Nothing.”
Damn it, he should have played this better. James crossed his arms over his chest, hating how his brother flinched at the sudden movement. He’d tried with Ricky. He’d tried reasoning with him. He’d tried restricting him. He’d even gone so far as to take a page out of their father’s book and beat the shit out of him. Nothing worked. If there was some magical way to get through to his brother, he sure as hell didn’t know what it was. Hitting Ricky might feel satisfying in the moment, but it wouldn’t change anything—anything except pushing James closer to monster territory. “You’ll stay down here until I figure out what to do with you.”
Ricky’s head snapped up. “What the fuck?”
“You heard me.” He turned, giving his brother the insult of his back. “And if I hear about you taking a woman without permission again, I’ll kill you myself.” He walked out of the room to Ricky’s cursing and locked the door behind him. James passed the key to Michael. “He gets a meal a day. That’s it.”
