SHANE
I head through the lobby, the scent of Emily’s perfume on my skin, which is exactly what I wanted. Now every decision I make today will be made with that scent reminding me of her. Reminding me that one wrong move and I could lose her, be it by way of my enemies or my own choices. But at least if it’s from my own choices, she leaves me alive. As I reach the end of the hallway leading to my office and Derek’s, I glance to his closed door, his secretary giving me a snide glower. I wink at her, enjoying the confused look on her face and wondering how she’d feel knowing my brother probably fucks her after he’s been inside Teresa. And the minute Teresa finds out, Derek is dead. I wonder who’s fucking who in that meeting with Mike and Derek, and I’m betting on Mike. That’s not a good thing. This company is Brandon to the core, and it will stay that way.
Cutting left, I head toward my office, finding Jessica’s desk empty but my door open. I pass her workspace and enter mine right as she is about to exit. I stop and do a double take at her hair. “Who are you and what have you done with my secretary?”
“What were you thinking, Shane?! In your father’s office.”
“There’s the Jessica I know. There’s a designer purse with an unlimited price tag on it if you stop talking about this and keep my coffee cup filled today.” I walk around her and head to my desk, stepping behind it as she faces me. “And get ready. The entire board is going to call me today.”
“I don’t need to be bribed to do my job, Shane.”
“Consider it a reward for doing it well.”
“Oh God. How bad is this day going to be?”
“Bad. The board, remember?”
“Why exactly are they calling?”
“My father’s been accepted into a cancer trial. He’s leaving for Germany.”
“How effective is the trial?”
“He’s terminal. This is his last chance. That’s the stat that matters.”
“I’ll read into that the way you’d assume I will. And why are the board members calling you, so I can be prepared? Are we giving them dates he’ll be gone, or—”
“I’ll be acting as CEO until he’s at full capacity again.”
She gapes at me and closes the space between herself and my desk. “And if he doesn’t return to full capacity?”
“I’ll have six months until a vote will be required to keep me in the role.”
“And your father picked you over Derek?”
“I picked me over Derek. I wrote the amendment that made this mandatory.”
“Of course you did. How’s Derek taking it?”
“He’s at breakfast with Mike Rogers and most likely plotting my undoing.”
“That will be interesting to see. Are you sure you don’t want whiskey instead of coffee? I do.”
“Coffee. Lots of it. I didn’t sleep last night.”
“I won’t ask—now. Later I will.” She turns and starts walking.
“Jessica,” I call out.
She rotates. “Yes.”
“I like the hair.”
She doesn’t beam or glow. She just says, “Me too,” and turns again, disappearing into the hallway.
I haven’t even had time to sit down when Seth appears, and since he now has on a blue suit, tie and jacket in place, I assume he too managed to shower. He’s followed by a tall, muscular man in a simple white T-shirt, tat sleeves lining his arms, who I assume to be Cody.
“I hope like hell you don’t bring bad news about Ted,” I say as Seth shuts the door and walks toward me.
“No news on our end,” Seth says while the two of them cross to the front of my desk.
“Cody Rodriguez,” the newcomer says, extending his hand.
“Shane Brandon,” I say, sliding my palm to his and giving it a firm grip. “I understand you met Emily this morning.”
“Indeed,” he confirms, his hands settling on his hips. “I met her, and I have to say, she knows how to make a lasting impression.”
I arch a brow and claim my seat, motioning for them to sit, which they do. “How so?” I ask, assessing Cody, who at this point reads as strong and confident to me.
“I took a call from one of Nick’s men at the wrong time,” Seth interjects.
“In other words,” Cody says, “he didn’t warn her I was about to introduce myself. So here I am. Mexican, in a hoodie, and approaching her in a hallway by a bathroom the night after Martina showed up at your apartment.”
“She thought you were with him,” I assume.
“One would assume that was her assessment,” Cody confirms. “Bottom line, I spooked her and she was pissed. And she didn’t mind letting me know.”
“Or me,” Seth inserts dryly.
“She’s tough,” Cody says, “but more so, she was alert and aware of her surroundings. That’s good, but it’s not enough. I’m going to tell you what I told her. I know the cartels and how they operate. I know how to protect her, but I need to be given the freedom to do so.”
“I’m listening,” I say. “What do you need me to do?”
“For starters,” Seth interjects again, “you and Emily need to decide if he’s going to openly watch over her or operate in the shadows.”
“Which is the safest answer?” I ask.
“Openly shadowing her is going to make Emily and everyone around her nervous,” Cody says, “which can become complicated and stir up questions you might not want to answer from your staff and board of directors. But hiding in the shadows slightly decreases my response time if she gets into trouble. I’ll feel better about that if she carries a gun and knows how to use it. Does she and can she?”
“If she doesn’t, we can remedy that,” I say, eyeing Seth, who answers without me asking.
“I’ll get her an appropriate firearm this afternoon.”
“A Taser as well,” Cody adds, “and Mace.”
Unease slides down my spine. “You think the visit from Ramon is more than Martina trying to get in my head?”
“When you visited Teresa,” Cody says, “you decided to play Russian roulette with a Mexican who doesn’t mind pulling the trigger and really wants the bullet to end up in your head.”
“I might not know cartels, Cody,” I say, “but I read people really damn well. He needed to know he couldn’t cow me. He needed to question what I really might do.”
“And what are you willing to do?” Seth asks.
I cut him a look, not sure either of us is ready to hear me answer that out loud just yet. And I don’t need to right now anyway. “It doesn’t matter what I’m willing to do,” I say. “It matters what he thinks I’ll do. I evened the playing field again.”
“And you got Ramon’s attention in the process,” Cody says. “A man who has a known interest in Teresa and a hell of a lot of anger that, because he can’t have her, he takes out on everyone around him and her.”
“Martina wants this partnership with me,” I say. “Any wrong move by Ramon will destroy that and put Ramon in Martina’s hot seat.”
“That sounds logical to you and me,” Cody says. “But my studies show him to be a wild card who’s gone rogue more than once.”
“Then I need you both to find a way to get him out of the picture,” I say.
“Out of the picture?” Seth asks. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t care if you send him back to Mexico in a wooden box. Get him out of the picture before it’s my family who ends up dead.” My office phone buzzes and I grimace, punching the button long enough to say, “Take a message from whoever it is,” before releasing it.
“Even Mike Rogers?” she asks
I grimace. “No. Not Mike Rogers. Put him through.” The line buzzes again and I pick it up, speaking before Mike has the chance. “If it isn’t the ghost of the man called Mike Rogers himself,” I say. “What did I do to finally merit communication?”
“From what I hear, you took over a company I’m vested in.”
“You heard wrong then,” I say. “My father is still very much in control as the document sent out this morning states. I’m simply on standby to fill in should he need a little recuperation time.”
“You really think he’s going to live?”
“Are you really hoping he’s going to die?”
“Friends don’t wish friends dead, but stockholders need straight answers.”
Rarely do I have to bite back my choice words, but I do now. “What do you want, Mike?”
“Let’s meet.”
A chance to look into this man’s eyes has appeal. “When?”
“Tonight at six for drinks.”
Not about to do this on his terms and with sleep deprivation weighing on me, I counter. “Seven in the morning,” I say, testing his loyalty to my father by adding, “the coffee shop here and my father can sit in.”
“Caribou on Sixteenth Street and just you.”
“My father can reassure you his health is on the mend.”
“I want to talk about what happens if it’s not, and that’s not a conversation that feels appropriate with him present and on his way to treatment.”
“All right then,” I say, unsurprised the bastard doesn’t want to face my father. “Us alone.” I disconnect the line and look between Seth and Cody. “He met with Derek this morning and Derek is aligned with Martina. I need to know if Mike is as well.”
“We’ve found nothing that tells us he is,” Seth says. “And meetings with Derek do not compute to alignment but rather Derek’s attempt to earn his vote.”
“A vote that isn’t happening for at least six months,” I say, “if it happens at all. No. There’s more to this.”
“If I might interject,” Cody says, drawing our attention. “I know the cartels. I know Martina, but he doesn’t know me.”
“And the takeaway?”
“Adrian Martina is one of the shrewdest, most dangerous men I’ve ever studied. If he wants your company, and he does, he would not ignore a key stockholder such as Mike. But that said, he’s calculating. He might not have made contact, but he damn sure has a plan to control Mike and use him if necessary. And let’s just face it. Drugs and basketball equal a variety of scandals he could create for Mike.”
All things I’ve already considered. “He claims he wants to go legitimate.”
“And yet, Ted is missing,” Cody says.
“Point made,” I say, his assessment confirming mine. “Emily’s smart with good common sense. We need her to be part of deciding how we address her protection.” I look at Cody. “Follow your existing protocols for now. I’ll talk to her tonight and arrange a sit-down.”
“I’m in the hotel room around the clock when she’s home,” Cody says. “Just say the word and I’ll be there.”
I look at Seth and he reads my mind before I speak. “Mike. I know.”
We all stand, but when Seth is about to leave, Cody isn’t moving, his gaze locked on me. “In the old-school Mexican culture, brothers are possessive of their sisters,” he says. “Teresa can protect Derek to some degree, but the minute Adrian feels he’s locked you down, your brother becomes disposable. If Derek makes one wrong move with Teresa, Ramon will kill him.”
The impact of his assessment hits me with the force of a hundred accurate blows. He’s right, as Adrian already believes Derek used Teresa to get to him. “Since you’re sharing your opinions,” I say, “what will motivate Adrian to get out of our operation?”
“I might have more to offer once I get my feet wet, but for now … cartels know three things: money, trouble, and blood, but they always follow the money.”
“We need to be the trouble and the blood,” Seth says, eyeing a text message and then glancing at Cody. “Shane and I need to speak alone.”
“Understood,” Cody says, giving me a mock salute and heading for the door as Seth’s phone now begins to ring.
“Nick,” Seth tells me, taking the call while Cody exits and shuts the door.
I turn and face the window, hands sliding under my jacket to my hips, Cody’s words in my mind: The minute Adrian feels he’s locked you down, your brother becomes disposable.… Ramon will kill him. Even if I were to pull Derek to our side, which is unlikely, that relationship with Teresa is a thorn-covered rose.
Seth steps to my side. “Still no Ted. Still no leads. I don’t think I have to tell you where my head is going on this.”
He thinks Ted is dead. So do I. “No,” I say. “You do not.”
We stand there for several beats, heaviness in the air, and then I turn to him. “What’s on your mind?”
He faces me. “Send him back to Mexico in a wooden box,” he says, repeating my words. “You understand that might be what this comes down to, right?”
“I understand completely,” I say, expecting regret or guilt that doesn’t come. These people will kill everyone who has ever spoken to me, and they won’t blink.
“‘See something, say something’ is what Cody told Emily. All I want to hear from you is ‘see something, do something,’ and I’ll protect you from the details.”
“I don’t want to be protected. See something, we’ll do something.”
He studies me for several beats, his stare probing, assessing, looking for a sign that this is my hesitation or weakness, but it is not. It’s my full willingness to do what I have to do. He sees it too. It’s in the shift of his eyes and the slow nod of his head before he walks toward the door. I face the window again, inhaling on the promise that I have never been more of a Brandon than I am in this moment.
EMILY
For two hours, I dodge and weave through one call after another as Brandon Senior shouts orders at me, but one good piece of news manages to find its way into the fold. The analyst Shane had me contact sometime back about our options for an acquisition in the fashion industry followed up with me. We now have a recommendation to bid on a company we can get at a steal of a price.
I’m about to sneak to Shane’s office and talk to him about it when my intercom buzzes. “My office, Ms. Stevens.”
I stand to do as ordered when Maggie appears in a wave of sweet-smelling perfume, stretching her normally all-black wardrobe by wearing a pale pink pantsuit, her eyes bloodshot and her skin washed out. She stops at my desk and punches the intercom. “Emily is taking a thirty-minute break from her desk.” She eyes me. “Go.”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” she shocks me by saying. “I’m not okay. Please go.”
I nod and step around my desk, hurrying through the lobby and down the hall. And while I do not think good things are going on in Brandon Senior’s office right now, Maggie is here. They are together, and that is step one toward making peace. Or war. God. I hope it’s peace they find, I think, reaching the end of the hallway leading to the alcove that houses Derek’s and Shane’s offices. I start to turn left toward Shane’s, but Derek’s secretary passes me and I stop dead when I realize his door is open. Maggie might be making peace at this very moment. Maybe I can at least open a door to some myself.
Steeling myself for probable failure and certain confrontation, I step forward and, decision made, charge in Derek’s direction. Never pausing, I enter his office, shut the door, and turn to face him. He glances up from his desk, a look of surprise on his face before he tosses his pencil onto the desk and leans back. “Did you finally figure out I’m the right brother?”
“Shane’s not your enemy.”
“Says the woman banging him.”
“Why do you have to be so crude?” I ask.
“My father taught me that skill with admirable insistence. I never put skills to waste.”
“Shane’s not your enemy,” I repeat. “He had an amazing career in New York. He’s only here, doing all he’s doing, to save the company you seem to love.”
“Take off the rose-colored glasses, Emily. Shane is not as admirable as you seem to think.”
“Shane is not trying to take over the company, Derek. You’re his brother—”
“Why are you here?”
“Wake up before it’s too late. Martina will destroy you all, and he’s not even the only person with his eyes on a takeover.”
“What does that mean? Who else has eyes on the company?”
“Not just the company,” I say, thinking of the combination of heartache in Maggie and anger in Brandon Senior that I’ve seen today. “Your family is falling apart now, but they could all be dead later.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Martina’s right-hand man followed me today, Derek, and of course that was a threat. I’m a target. I could end up dead. And you know what? You might not care, but just so you know, I don’t want you to die, but you might. We all might before this is over.” I turn to leave, but before I can even open the door, he’s behind me, his hand on the wooden surface above me.
“No one is going to die,” he says. “Who else has eyes on my company?”
“You mean Martina’s company? Talk to Shane. Before it’s too late.” I tug on the door, and to my surprise, he allows me to leave, which I do. And at the exact moment I exit into the hallway, Shane steps out of his office, his eyes meeting mine, concern and a hundred questions in his gray eyes. I take a step toward him, and him me, but Derek overtakes me, outpacing me and charging toward Shane. And just that easily, I’ve forced a conversation between the brothers, but this one, I fear, will not end in peace.