Page 22 of Tamed

Isabel shifted restlessly and then turned around to face me. Her cheeks were still pink, and she directed her gaze very carefully at a point over my shoulder. “So now you’ve beaten me into submission, what’s the next step?”

She has no idea, does she?

No. She did not. And it was probably best for her never to know. Submission was a word you should never use lightly and certainly never with me.

“Nothing much will change,” I said. “You’ll have your security detail as usual, but you’ll stay here at night until we’ve figured out what the Hamiltons are doing.” I paused. “You will tell us if anyone contacts you, won’t you?”

Her gaze remained fixed to the point over my shoulder. “Of course.”

I did not trust that ‘of course’. Not one little bit.

There were things I could do to check up on her, such as monitoring her calls and any electronic communications she might make, but I didn’t want to do that. Invading her privacy to such an extent was hardly conducive to building trust and for all of this to work, she had to trust me.

Then again, I’d break that trust in an instant if it meant keeping her safe. Trust was something that could be rebuilt, but there were other things that couldn’t.

For a second, she remained silent then moved over to the cabinet where I kept my most expensive booze. I didn’t stop her as she pulled it open and reached for the bottle of Glenfiddich — distilled in 1937 and only sixty-one bottles were ever produced, so it was rare. She took the top off and grabbed a glass. “Look,” she said a little hesitantly as she poured herself a nip. “I’m sorry for being so…weird about all of this. I really do get what you and Dad are trying to do and I…. Well, I appreciate it.” She lifted the bottle and gave me a questioning look.

“Yes,” I said dryly. “I think I will have a nip of my hundred- and twenty-thousand-dollar bottle of scotch.”

Isabel blinked, glanced down at the bottle then shrugged. “If you didn’t want anyone to drink it, you shouldn’t have put it in the drinks cabinet.” She poured a tumbler for me then put down the bottle. Picking up both glasses, she came over to where I stood and held one out to me. “I am sorry, Cal,” she said. “I’m not actively trying to be difficult.”

Isabel had never been good at lying. I’d always been able to tell when she was, and she wasn’t lying now. She meant this. Yet… All that fire inside her, all her frustration and stubborn anger didn’t just disappear. It had to go somewhere.

When she’d been a kid and I’d been promoted to ‘manager’ at Old Nick’s club AKA being his right-hand man, she’d been desperate to see inside the club itself, because I’d never allowed it. It was Old Nick’s ‘office’, crime central in other words, and I didn’t want her anywhere near it. She’d been pissy with me for days after I’d told her no, glaring and refusing to speak to me. At the time, it had been cute, though it had taken her a week to let go of her shitty mood.

She sometimes held on to stuff, did Isabel, so I was suspicious of this sudden apology. But since it was going to make my life easier and I had a shitload of work to do, I took the glass from her and nodded. “Okay. I get this is difficult and you’re angry, but I promise it won’t be for long. And maybe I can talk to Ten about him being less of a protective asshole.”

Her mouth curved into a full-on Isabel smile, the one she’d always had, even as a kid, genuine and full of warmth and affection. That smile used to wrap itself around the void where my heart had been, making me feel as if I was walking in sunlight.

It felt that way now.

“Thanks, Cal. That means a lot to me.” She lifted her tumbler. “Slainte.”

For a man who’d given himself to the darkness long ago, that smile of hers was a heady drug, and I hadn’t seen it in far too long. Things had been…difficult between us lately. And looking at her, with her smile like summer sunlight, I regretted it. Because while her rages were intense, they blew themselves out quickly. She was also fiercely loyal, funny, empathetic, and when she tried, she could coax a smile from a stone.

But that was why I had to be so hard with her. She was precious to Ten and she was precious to me, and I couldn’t allow any empathy to undermine what I needed to do to keep her safe.

I raised my tumbler in response. “Slainte,” I said.

But I didn’t smile back.

7

Isabel

Iknew Caleb wasn’t convinced, not for a second. He was a suspicious bastard and, in this instance, he had every right to be. I’d been straight with him. I’d told him that I was grateful he’d given me a place to stay and that I appreciated him, and Dad being concerned for my safety. And Iwasappreciative. I’d meant every word of that.

But nothing could change the fact that they were being overprotective assholes and I didn’t like it.

I stayed Thursday night in his ridiculously luxurious penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park, and I couldn’t say I didn’t like all the dark, charcoal carpeting and low-slung white leather sectional sofas. The white walls with the horrifically expensive abstracts on them and the ridiculously amazing sound system. The industrial-esque kitchen gleaming so brightly it looked as if no one had ever cooked in it before. And the master bedroom with the biggest bed in creation and white sheets of a thread count so high it must have been in the millions.

Annoyingly, I slept like a log.

Friday, I woke to zero texts or calls from the mysterious person who’d contacted me before, which was frustrating. What was even more frustrating was that I couldn’t get out of my head what Caleb had told me the night before about the Hamiltons enemies, most especially that story about the man who’d turned the gas on and killed his family.

It had sounded horrific, and I might have dismissed it as Caleb trying to scare me if he hadn’t said it all in a in such a matter-of-fact tone. And the look on his face…. Hard. Set. You didn't make something like that up, surely. Not even to scare someone.

He’d never told me about his past before he’d met and become friends with Dad, though of course I was desperate to know more. I’d asked him once or twice, but he hadn’t answered, and trying to get information out of Dad had been as successful as you might expect. Which was not at all.

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