one, honey.”
“Shut it, douche bag.”
“Just help me up, sweet pea.”
And I am unable to hold back the fresh sting behind my eyes, as I watch Cassian reach out to his brother…
and hold on tight.
*
Cassian
Okay, so this isn’t the craziest day of my life.
Who the hell am I kidding?
It’s the craziest fucking day of my life.
I shake my head while finally letting myself sit again. Ella remains pressed to my side, where she’s been every second since I decided to hear Damon out instead of killing him, and I gratefully tug her close. Right now, she’s the only thing resonating as real in all this. Maybe I really am going to wake up next to her any second, watching the sunlight play through her curls before I rouse her with a soft kiss, a hard fuck, then the insane details of this dream…
So get this, armeau. I dreamed Damon was alive, and told me he faked his own death to protect Mom and me from a drug cartel, before taking a new name to work for the CIA. He came out of hiding because he discovered a new threat—to Arcadia. Terrorists were posing as contractors for the new infrastructure projects for Court Enterprises, and he needed to warn me, so…
“So what happens next?” She asks it with her head against a pillow—just not the right one. Doesn’t stop the sight of her from sucking the breath from my lungs, as her hair fans over the tapestry pattern of the hotel’s decorative bolster. With one hand wrapped around my knee and the other assisting in her question of Damon, it’s almost as if we’re sitting in the den at Temptation, and Damon’s just relaying the plot of a good spy movie.
The only thing missing now…is Mom.
And a completely different set of circumstances.
Not so goddamn dangerous ones.
Damon plants his stance on both long legs. I’m struck anew by how little he’s changed, but how everything has changed. He’s just a couple of inches taller than he was at sixteen, though now buffed-out as hell. His skin glows with health, instead of the pasty paleness that once broadcasted his drug addiction. And he’s still an arrogant sonofabitch, despite the bruises from the blows I inflicted.
I’m not sorry for them either.
I’m also not sorry that I didn’t kill him.
I was prepared to, though. I couldn’t see past the rage, or through fourteen years of accumulated loneliness and heartbreak. Seeing him in the flesh had triggered shock, betrayal, and insult topped only by the moment Lily committed suicide before my eyes. I’d wanted Damon to pay. Parts of me still do, even after hearing his story about what happened at the hands of Santiago Noriega, who remains a key nemesis in the global drug wars even now. Doing business across the globe means having to be aware of that kind of filth too.
Which leads back to the present issue.
The projects on Arcadia.
And the fact that two-thirds of my vendor list has to be tossed out.
“What does happen now?” I echo Ella’s question, unnerved that I don’t have even the beginnings of an answer myself. “I’ve already got materials ordered…project managers working with locals on the island…” How many of them can be trusted now? Who among them is really a puppet for Rune Kavill, and what kind of violence might he be planning as we speak, not only for Arcadia but the whole Mediterranean region?
Damon slants a determined stare. “Crazy as this sounds, you remain at business-as-usual, brother.”
“What?” Ella pushes up, gaze glittering. “That monster’s minions might be running around on Arcadia as we speak—”
“In disguise,” Damon prompts, spreading both hands. “They have to lay low too. They’re not going to just storm the Palais—”
“Like they did less than six months ago?” she retorts. “Breaking in on Queen Camellia in her private chambers—before they took Brooke Cimarron hostage? That kind of laying low?”
“Which means they won’t get so bold again. Not right away.”
“Damon’s right.” I endure her—and Damon’s—stunned stares while leaning forward, squaring my posture into the all-business he’s asking for. “I’m sorry, armeau.” I reach for her hand, encouraged when she lets me hang on. “But he is. If I start pulling contracts right and left, that’ll throw up red flags. They’ll know we’re onto their game.”
Her nose crunches. “And puts you right into their path.”
I stroke across her knuckles before lifting them to my lips. For a respite of a moment, I let myself swim in the azure seas of her eyes. “Now I’m