If the fucker didn’t get Ian and Sean first, there would be a war on his hands. But then again, a war with the syndicate would keep Taggart occupied and allow Nelson to work freely. Not such a bad thing.
Nelson held out a hand. “I’ll leave it all to you then.”
“I will take these people down. Anyone who is involved with Charlotte and her sister will die. This I will swear when I pray today.”
The Russian started talking about vengeance and God, but Nelson stared out into the city. Off in the distance were the high spires of the Church of the Spilled Blood. Nelson stared at them.
It was fitting since he was going to make Taggart bleed.
* * * *
Ian came awake to the smell of bacon frying. And promptly wanted to vomit. Oh, he joked about vomiting a lot, but today was the real thing. His stomach rolled and rumbled and threatened to blow.
How much fucking Scotch had he gone through last night? Enough to have had the craziest dream. Charlie had come back. She’d walked right up to his house and dropped to her knees and sucked his cock in that enthusiastic, crazy-hot way of hers.
And she’d had strawberry blonde hair and new scars.
And she’d punched him in the face.
He reached up and felt his nose. Yep. No dream.
“You might as well wake up. The sooner you give in, the quicker you can move through the hangover, brother.”
Sean. This wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare. He forced his eyes open and sure enough, his brother was sitting across from him, one leg negligently crossed over the other. The sun was streaming in through one of his bedroom windows. It must have been courtesy of Sean because he never opened those blackout drapes. He liked it dark, but the sun shone in and practically gave his younger brother a halo. “What the fuck are you doing here? Come to think of it, how did you get in?”
Everyone was getting through his security these days.
“You let me in, Ian. I showed up at the gates. You buzzed me in after making me promise I was the pizza man.”
It was worse than he thought. “I did not.”
Sean nodded, his eyes wide and an amused grin flashing on his face. “Oh, yes, you did. You got the munchies somewhere around midnight. It’s all right, man. You were very controlled and perfectly manly when you threatened to shoot me if I put anchovies on your pizza.”
His stomach rolled at the thought, but he made sure his face was perfectly clear. “All right, I’ll rephrase the question. Why are you here?”
“Because your wife said you needed me.”
He was going to kill her. He was going to wrap his hands around her pretty throat and squeeze. Except the minute he had the vision of killing his back-from-the-dead wife, she was suddenly naked and he wasn’t thinking about throttling her anymore. Maybe he could fuck her to death. That would be a better way to go.
“I was surprised to get that particular call,” Sean continued. “Since I wasn’t aware you had a wife.”
“I don’t.” He needed to get up. He needed to take a shower and get moving. He couldn’t lie around in bed. He had to figure out if Charlie was lying about Eli Nelson. She was too smart to completely fabricate a story, so he was sure there was a kernel of truth somewhere in it. It was his job to pull the truth from the bullshit, to beat her at her own game this time.
“She seemed really clear about it.” Sean leaned forward. “There’s water and ibuprofen on the bedside table. What’s with the Guns N’ Roses overload? Seriously, you listened to that song three hundred times last night. I wanted to blow my own ears off after an hour.”
He really hated her. How could she have brought Sean into this? “I like Axl Rose. Something about the hair just does it for me.”
He downed the pills. If anyone else had been sitting across from him, he wouldn’t have taken them. He would have assumed they were poison meant to horrifically liquefy his insides. Hell, he rarely drank a drink he didn’t pour himself, but he trusted Sean. Even though Sean rarely talked to him anymore. Come to think of it, this was the closest he’d been to Sean in a year.
He trusted his team—Alex and Eve and Li and Jake, and even that fucker Adam. He trusted Grace and Serena and Avery because they loved his brothers, but that was the extent of it. He hadn’t known Simon long enough, and he trusted Jesse as far as he could throw the little fucker.
Charlie was proof positive that he couldn’t trust anyone outside his circle.
“Come on, man. I’ve never seen you the way you were last night.”
He sent his brother a questioning look. “Did I behave in some way I shouldn’t have?”
Sean ran a frustrated hand through his hair and sat back. “No. You sat. You drank. You yelled at me when I tried to turn off the music. You were utterly stoic and refused to talk about anything except your pizza. Which I’m honestly surprised you managed to keep down. I had to make that crust from scratch, you know. If you’re going to force me to cook in the middle of the night, let’s talk about stocking your kitchen. I had to call Alex in with supplies. How do you survive on Fruity Pebbles and days-old Chinese food?”
He ate at the office more often than not. Grace smuggled whatever Sean had cooked the night before into the fridge at the office and everyone knew that if they took that food, Ian would murder them.
God, his life had become a pathetic circle of sleeping, eating at his desk, and forcing himself to work out. He’d been sleepwalking through life for years because of that woman. It had to stop. If her showing up on his doorstep had taught him one thing, it was that it was time to let her go.
“I need to take a sub. That’s my problem. I need someone to take care of the everyday shit and then I’ll be okay. I’ll tell Ryan I’m taking applications.” That would do it. He’d been a pussy about his own needs for years. He needed a full-time submissive who would take care of the house, deal with the inanities of life, make sure he was fed, and see to his sexual needs. In exchange, he would offer financial support and his own unique brand of discipline.
Yes, that was what he should do. Maybe he would take two subs. He had a lot of needs.
Sean’s eyes had gone wide again. “I think that would be a mistake.”
“I would think you would be thrilled. I rely on Grace far too much.”
Sean sighed a little, the same way he would when he was younger and admitting something he’d done wrong. “Grace loves you. She doesn’t mind. And I make extra. I know you think she’s risking my wrath, but I’ve always known she was feeding you. As mad as I’ve been at you, you’ve always been my brother. I won’t let you starve. God knows you didn’t let me.”