Family. What a weird fucking word. When I was little, I thought it meant blood and birth and genealogical shit. DNA and genes.
But that’s bullshit. Blood isn’t family. Not the kind of family that counts.
“Our father was planning to sell us,” I tell him, surprised that the furious noise in my head translated to a whisper in the dark.
I see the pain cross his face, but there’s no surprise. I already know that Eliza has told him our story. And while she never knew that particular vile plan of daddy dearest, I guess it’s not a shock when you know about the rest of the evil that clung to that man.
“I never told Eliza, but I’ll understand if you tell her now. I know you two don’t like having secrets, and I probably should have told her long ago.”
He shakes his head. “She didn’t need to know, and you were doing what you’ve done your whole life. Taking care of her.” He reaches out and casually brushes my hand. “It doesn’t change a thing, but I want you to know it matters to me.”
I nod, then realize I’m looking down because there are tears in my eyes, which makes no sense whatsoever. Or maybe it does. Because he loves who I love, and that’s a good thing.
“So Cane was the buyer?”
I shake my head. “No, that was someone else. An entitled prick with fingers in industries both legitimate and not. But he’s dead.”
“And Cane was the next best thing.”
I nod. “He brokered the deal. He brokered a lot of deals. Still does.”
He nods slowly. “You should have told me before.”
“Would you have come with me?”
“Of course.”
I shrug. “Then what’s the difference?”
He rubs his temples. “Emma…” He trails off, then rubs his temples again. “Of course I would have helped. You know what I’ve done. Who I’ve worked for.”
I nod. He was with MI6 and with Deliverance, a vigilante group that was formed to take out men just like Cane and rescue kidnapping victims.
“You don’t have to always work alone,” he says.
“I don’t. There’s Lorenzo. There’ve been others.” When I worked as a PI, I partnered with an ex-cop. Lorenzo had helped get me and Eliza off the streets. But the truth is, even when we worked together on cases, we had our own separate threads to follow. Most of the time, like Quince said, I work alone. I like it that way.
“You know this could get messy. I would have helped. But you should have kept me in the loop. When cops get involved … if this somehow comes back to us…”
“It won’t.”
His brow furrows.
“The site will be clean by morning. And if the body’s discovered before then, it’ll be covered up. There won’t be blowback.”
He’s silent for a moment. He knows who I used to work for, the kind of connections I have. “You wanted to take out Cane. And the government wanted to know who he was laundering money for.”
“You’re a smart guy, Mr. Bond.”
He waits for me to say more, but I stay silent. He knows the score. I think he even understands what drives me.
I didn’t change the past by killing Cane, but I think I did get justice. At least a little.
Eliza deserves that. And so, I think, do I.
Chapter Three
I sit on the edge of the infinity pool, looking out over the hills of Malibu and the Pacific Ocean beyond. This isn’t my first time in Damien Stark’s backyard, but I never get tired of this view.
Why would I? It’s everything I didn’t have as a kid. I’d grown up in a shithole of a house, nothing like this. I’d shared a windowless basement room with my little sister, courtesy of our prick of a father. A man we’d escaped when I was fifteen and Eliza was eight. A man who didn’t care about pretty views or his children or anything other than himself, his pervy urges, and the cheap whiskey he guzzled by the gallon.
Bastard.
Abusive, rank, lowlife, dead bastard.
I’ve done a lot of things in my life. Some pretty damn dicey. But they all led to this. To a life that’s clean and, for the most part, safe. For myself, sure, but mostly for Eliza.
I glance around out of habit to find her. Even though she’s grown, and even though we’re often physically apart, I can’t seem to stop looking out for her. I see her with Quince, her gleaming mahogany hair falling around her shoulders and the hem of a sundress fluttering in the wind around her knees.
At her side, Quince is decked out in a faded blue tee and threadbare jeans. He looks nothing like the black clad partner who saved my ass from dropping twenty-four floors to the concrete two nights ago. And not just his clothes. No, on our mission he’d been all business. Now, he looks like a man in love.
And despite all my years of being the most important person in Eliza’s life, I’m not only okay with that, I’m genuinely happy for her.
For me, too, actually. Eliza and I never had a family. Hell, we never had close friends. There’s Lorenzo, the partner in the private investigation firm I own. Or, rather, owned. Past tense now that I’ve sold him my interest. But that’s about it.
Now Eliza has Quince and all of the folks at Stark Security and all of the folks in their circle. And now I get the benefit of the overflow, too.
Which is why I’m here at a party celebrating Dallas and Jane Sykes and their new baby. A couple I don’t really know, though I’ve read enough about them online and in the papers over the years. Hard to avoid news about a playboy heir who ends up marrying his sister.
“Hey.”
I jump at the sound of the voice behind me, then silently curse. Not because I don’t want to talk to Cass, but because I’d been so damn relaxed that I’d let down my guard. And I never let down my guard.
So that’s my first lesson—be a team player, sure. But don’t stop checking my six.
I paste on a smile, then turn around to face my ex. Or sort of ex. The truth is, there’d never been anything more between us than a good time. Cass had been coming off of a bad breakup. And as for me…?
Well, I am who I am. I like Cass. I like sex. As far as I’d been concerned there wasn’t much more to be said.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Cass says, stealing my line. Although honestly, I should have expected that Cass would be here in billionaire Damien Stark’s backyard.
For one thing, his sister-in-law Sylvia is Cassidy Cunningham’s best friend. And since this isn’t a work party, it makes sense that Sylvia’s here—with Cass in tow. Even if the party were an official work function for Stark Security, Cass might come as a guest. She and Denny had become good friends in the years that Denny’s husband, Mason, had been gone. Denny’s one of the first agents recruited for Stark Security, and damn good, too. She’s also got a baby bump, and I wonder how the SSA will get along without her when she takes her leave.
A shudder runs through me as I think about all she endured. I have no desire to settle down, but that doesn’t mean I can’t empathize with the nightmare of having her husband go missing. And then came the cherry on that horrible sundae when he returned with absolutely no idea who she was.