Sebring by Kristen Ashley
Hettie smiling. Laughing. Joking around. One of the guys but in a way that was all girl. Giving great head. Fucking up the eggs. Acting like she was having an orgasm the first bite she took every time he cooked for her.
Hettie. A happy memory.
But a memory.
And he stood there looking at her and her freckles and he did it for once not missing her fucked-up eggs.
He did it wishing he’d taken a fucking photo of Olivia.
“I’m an asshole,” he whispered to the picture.
You’re not an asshole, sweetheart. We both know oh-so-fucking-well you can’t control who you fall in love with, Hettie whispered into his brain, and his back went straight.
Fall in love?
“Jesus, shit, now I’m a lunatic,” he muttered.
With determination, he turned his attention to his whisky.
He downed it.
After he did that, he thought maybe he wasn’t a lunatic.
Maybe he needed to stop fucking drinking.
On that thought, he walked the picture to the chest but he didn’t put it on top where it used to be.
He slid it in the drawer where he’d hidden her when he’d had Olivia.
And he forced Hettie out of his mind as he moved to his bedroom.
The problem was, he tried to force Olivia out of his mind too.
He succeeded with Hettie.
But as she’d been doing since that night he decided to save her from him, Olivia kept him awake all night.
* * * * *
6:23 – Sunday Evening
“Okay, you want to tell me why it looks like you haven’t slept in a year and you’re all broody?”
Nick turned from his contemplation of the lights of Denver that he could see from his place staring out the floor to ceiling windows of Anya and Knight’s condo.
He saw Anya had sidled close.
He hadn’t felt her approach.
Fuck, he had to get his head together. Turner, Hettie and Deacon had taught him better than that.
He looked across the expanse of sunken living room to the other side of the space where the kitchen was. Knight and his two girls were there too, cooking. He saw Knight smiling, Kat giggling and Kasha in her own world, not helping her father and sister, but for some reason she was in the middle of the kitchen twirling.
There it was again. Knight was a natural at everything he touched.
Even being a dad.
There were parts of that that weren’t really a surprise. Their mother, back then fucked way the hell up, had had Knight and named him so he’d be her protector.
But not in a million years would Nick guess his brother would be comfortable in a kitchen with two little girls, letting one twirl happily in her own world while making the other one giggle.
And not in a million years would Nick guess he’d be happy seeing his brother had that, content in his place being a part of it, and not feeling less because of either.
He turned back to Anya.
And Anya, being his in a way he would also never guess he wanted, but in a way now he wasn’t sure he could live without, that being the sister he’d never had, he laid it out.
“I don’t think of Hettie anymore.”
She looked confused and spoke cautiously, “I…well, I can’t tell by the way you said that. Is that good?”
“I don’t know,” Nick replied. “Is it good not to think of someone you loved who you watched get shot in the head?”
Her face registered a minor wince and he wished he hadn’t laid it out so bluntly.
Before he could apologize, her eyes swept to the kitchen and she moved closer.
“Eventually, to heal and be able to move on, you have to stop thinking about her,” she told him softly.
Nick looked to the lights of Denver.
“I think it’s healthy, Nick,” she kept on and then assured, “And it’s not a betrayal. Honey, you know…” he felt her get even closer, “it’s been years.”
“There’s someone else,” he murmured.
“Good,” she replied.
He turned to her. “I can’t have her.”
Her mouth turned down. “Bad.”
Nick looked back to the night. “Maybe I should just get the fuck outta Denver and start over.”
“Well, although an option, I do think Kasha would pitch an unholy fit at the very thought. Kat wouldn’t be far from her sister in that, but she’d be quieter about it. And your brother would lose his mind.”
Nick loved that at the same time it felt heavy.
He also felt Anya’s fingers curl around his.
“But you have to take care of you,” she whispered.
He looked down at her and dipped his face close. “Could you fall in love after Knight?”
She was still whispering but it was fierce when she said, “Never.”
He felt that muscle in his jaw tick.
“But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t—” she tried to go on.
It was jacked as shit, but after their beginning and how Nick had acted out during it, now Nick couldn’t stomach even thinking about the idea of Anya with another man.
So Nick cut her off, “We should stop talking.”
“If you feel something for someone else, Nick, that doesn’t mean—”
“How about feeling everything for her?” Nick asked, definitely laying it out now. Laying it out for Anya and admitting shit out loud he hadn’t even admitted to himself. “When that was only supposed to be for Hettie. What does that mean?”
She looked confused again, and uneasy to the point of looking frightened. “It means I don’t understand why you can’t have her.”
“For her safety.”
“That makes no sense.”
He shook his head again. “Unfortunately, I can’t explain further.”
“No, Nick, what I mean is, there is no safer place on the planet for a woman than with the man she loves.”
Nick stared at his brother’s woman, unable to speak.
She jolted him out of his silence with just, “Nick—”
“I was right there and that place wasn’t safe for Hettie when they took her life,” he stated.
“Unfortunately Hettie isn’t here to confirm what I’m going to say but I figure she’d disagree,” she replied gently. “If her life had to be taken, you being there when it was was the only safe thing she had in her last moments.”
Anya was right. Hettie would confirm that. He knew it the way her eyes never left him. He knew, even unable to save her, he gave her something just by being there and her knowing he loved her and just how much as Harkin raised the gun to her head.
“Your new girl—” Anya went on.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen with her. It shouldn’t happen. It can’t,” he told her.
She glanced briefly toward the kitchen again before looking to Nick and declaring on a squeeze of his hand, “And those are the times when you know it’s real. When it shouldn’t be. When it wasn’t supposed to be. When you aren’t supposed to let it. And there’s nothing on this earth that can stop it.” Her tone went cautious. “Isn’t that what happened with Hettie?”
“This is different,” he shared.
“How?” she asked.
“As much as I love what you said, babe, I am the last thing that’s safe for this woman.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I love that you don’t,” Nick said, jerking his head to the kitchen. “That means he protects you from that, Anya. You don’t feel it. All you feel is what he gives you to make you safe. But there are women out there who are not as lucky as you and we’re talkin’ about one of them. Life is complicated and it’s ugly and that ugly can be extreme. I got a job to do and she’s in the middle of that. If she knew she had a choice, she’d have the choice of ugly or uglier. And I’m the latter.”
“I know life is complicated, Nick, but love isn’t.”
“And my brother gives that to you too.”
<
“What’s different with this girl is the same. I don’t handle shit just right, one, the other or both of us could get dead. I had that once, Anya. Not big on experiencing it again.”
She stared up at him.
Then she said, “Nick, honey, we really need to find you a girl who isn’t at risk of mortal danger.” She started to look comically desperate when she suggested, “Maybe we should all start going to church.”
Even in his mood, Nick couldn’t bite back the bark of laughter at the thought of Anya dragging him or his brother to a house of God.
Then again, she’d be doing it to try to find a woman to fix him up with but that made it no less funny.
“Mommy, what’s funny?” Kasha yelled across the living room, and when Nick looked that way, he saw she was already on her way to her mother and uncle to find out closer to the source.
“Grown-up stuff, baby,” Anya answered.
That made Kasha’s face set which meant they were going to have to make something up because she wasn’t going to let it go.
But as Anya turned her attention to her daughter, Nick turned his to his brother.
Knight didn’t hide his relief that his woman had made Nick laugh. Nick had tried to hide his mood but he knew he was shit at it.
Knight also didn’t hide his continuing concern when Nick caught his eyes.
However, Knight did eventually hide it when Kat got his attention.
It would be much later, when the girls were in bed and Anya was shuffling around in the kitchen on the phone with her friend Viv that it would be Knight’s turn.
The music playing low, both of them on the couch in the sunken living room, both of them with drinks, Knight murmured, “Somehow, she tied you up.”
“I’m untied,” Nick lied.
Knight appeared to be proceeding cautiously when he said low, “Seems you got a thing for the girl you can’t have.”
He didn’t proceed cautiously enough.
“Not a twenty-somethin’ asshole with my eye on a pretty girl who’d fall in love with my brother. And back then, when I first knew Anya, you didn’t exist for her. Until you did. Then it was all about you.”
Now Knight didn’t appear pleased. “We don’t have to go over this, Nick.”
“Then don’t talk shit you don’t know, Knight,” Nick returned.
“I don’t know, share with me,” Knight invited.
“Only got it in me to spew that once tonight, brother. Anya got it. She can give it to you.”
His older brother studied him before he repeated, “She’s tied you up.”
“I’m loose.”
“You didn’t get loose for you,” Knight observed.
“Nope. Not for me. Perfect world, she’d be here tonight so I could give Kasha a shot at makin’ her smile.”
“Kash is good at that.”
“She broke through with Olivia, I’d buy her a human-size Barbie car.”
Knight held his gaze and whispered, “Fuck, she tied you up.”
“She’ll never be happy, Knight, I know it. And yeah, that ties me up.”
“You wanna make her happy.”
“She’ll never be happy.”
“You wanna make her happy.”
“Yeah, in that perfect world that doesn’t exist, I’d wanna make her happy. But we don’t live in a perfect world, Knight.”
“I do, certain times a day, those bein’ when I walk over that threshold,” he stated, jerking his chin toward the front door.
He liked Knight had that. Nick had started his life after his father got their mother out of all her shit. Knight didn’t start his life like Nick did, his mother clean and sober and not whoring.
Yeah, he was glad Knight had that.
He was glad his dad found his mom and cleaned her ass up and he was glad his dad gave that to Knight.
And he was glad Anya gave him everything else.
But that was for Knight.
“Some people don’t get that, Knight.”
Knight again studied him before he said, “Get this done. Just take these guys out.”
“They need to hurt.”
“Just take them out.”
“Four and a half years, Hettie’s just a memory. I promised she wouldn’t become that. I failed. I had no choice. I’m human and that happens so I can survive, not be the walking dead, stuck in the past. Deacon taught me that and I learned it. Too good. But I have to finish the job she started. I promised that too. And that’s a promise I gotta keep.”
“Brother, do you have any clue how all the shit you’re sayin’ does not jive? Olivia Shade is wound up in that mess. You take those guys down instead of takin’ ’em out, she goes too. She might not be happy now. But I’ve seen the woman in her tight skirts and heels. She’ll be a lot less happy wearing an orange jumpsuit being someone’s bitch.”
“I’ll figure it out,” Nick muttered.
“Fuck,” Knight muttered in return. “Do not get your shit jacked trying to save hers.”
“There is no way to take care of my shit without jacking hers. I just gotta jack it so she ends up just hating me and not doing it wearing a fucking orange jumpsuit.”
“Fuck, maybe I’ll take these fuckers out,” Knight irately told his drink.
Nick watched him take a sip.
When he was done, he got his brother’s attention when he said, “Maybe this is penance for me bein’ an asshole. Havin’ it good growin’ up, unlike you, unlike Ma, and still givin’ her shit. Dad shit. You shit. Actin’ like a motherfucking twat. Maybe that’s it. Why it was the way it was with Hettie. Why shit went down the way it went down with Olivia. I don’t know. I could think on that for millennia and never know. I just gotta keep movin’ through it and hope I find a life where I walk over some threshold into my version of the perfect world.”
Knight opened his mouth to speak but he didn’t get in there because Nick didn’t stop.
“What I do know is, I might have been an asshole twat, but I learned not to be that. I also learned other things. From you. From Hettie. From Dad, Mom, Anya. And something Hettie gave me was how to read people. And I know to my balls, brother, that Olivia Shade deserves a lot more than just being saved from an orange jumpsuit. Her father being responsible for Hettie’s death, my mission to make him pay, to finish her job, bring him to justice, it can’t be me who gives her more. But to my balls, Knight, I know she deserves it.”
Knight heard him. Knight always listened. It was just in the last four and a half years Nick noticed he did.
And this time when his brother heard him, Knight offered, “You want anything from me?”
“I want this done so Olivia can be free to find herself some motherfucking happy. But you can’t help with that so you’re doin’ what I need you to do. Just bein’ the big brother I never let you be.”
“Not a hard job, Nick,” Knight said.
“Not anymore,” Nick replied.
Knight gave him another look then took another drink.
After that, thankfully, they dropped the subject.
Nick went home.
He did not sleep.
* * * * *
Knight
8:23 – The Next Morning
After making love to his woman and with her curled close, Knight had slept soundly.
But he woke with things on his mind.
So he made the call.
And he gave the order.
“Find everything. Do it invi
“You got it,” Sylvie Creed, one of his closest friends and an ex member of his team, being ex because she now lived in Phoenix with her husband and kids, replied.
Knight hung up feeling better.
Sylvie and her man Tucker, both PIs, two of the best in the business, would get him what he needed.
Which meant they’d get what Nick needed.
Nick wanted to do this on his own.
He could do that.
He didn’t need to know until it was time to know he had help.
Chapter Fifteen
An Eye
Nick
10:12 – Tuesday Morning, Two Weeks Later
“Nick, that Ralphie guy is on the phone again.”
Nick looked from his desk to Bernadette, his assistant who was hanging from both hands on the doorjamb, her torso swinging inside his office while her lower body remained out of it.
He gave her the same answer he gave her the last three times over the last week and a half that this Ralphie guy had called.
“I’m hopin’ I’m makin’ this clearer than the last three times I said it, Bernie. That bein’ I do not want to take a sales call from an art gallery, any art gallery or any sales call.”
“I told you,” she stated irritably. “He’s not sellin’ you something. He says someone bought something for you and he needs to make an appointment with you to install it.”
“Bullshit, Bernie, it’s a gimmick to get me on the phone.”
“I thought that but the reason he keeps calling back after I tell him we’re not interested and we don’t want to be on their call list is that he insists someone bought some painting for you.”
Nick looked back to his desk, ordering, “Find out who supposedly bought me some fuckin’ art so I can call them and tell them I don’t need any fuckin’ art.”
“Righty ho, jefe,” Bernadette replied.
Jefe.
Jesus.
She called her husband Dante that too.
Why he hired a smartass assistant, he had no idea. She’d even been smartass during the interview.