Thirty

Oakley

Thatcher went over everything with me, just like he’d promised, during our flight on a private jet that was owned by Garrett Hughes—Blaise’s father and the former boss of the family. Wilder, on the other hand, remained silent and rigid the entire flight. He stared out the window, and the only movement he made was the clenching of his jaw. I wanted to go reassure him that this was okay and I wasn’t in danger, but I didn’t think it would help.

Sebastian and King hadn’t come with us. They were staying back home. I’d heard them talking and I now knew that Wells was at the Shephard house with Storm. I had prepared myself to face Wells or attempted to mentally go over how to greet him. It had been years but there was so much bad water under that bridge. Thankfully I never had to face him. He’d made sure of that.

My main focus was on what I had to do. Wells was the past and the day would come that I had to face him and get over that awkwardness but I had bigger issues right now. We all did. The threat had been laid down, and just because Maxon had been caught, Thatcher said it only meant they had something to hold the Carda back. Not stop them completely.

During our ride to the Hughes Farm, where I was told we would be going, Wilder sat beside me but continued to remain silent. Thatcher wasn’t much of a talker after he was done giving me the details. I glanced up at Wilder a few times, but he remained tense and detached. Once we drove through the arched entrance of Hughes Farm, my mouth fell open in awe. I’d thought the Shephards were rich, but this … this was insane.

The stables were three times the size of my dad’s house and as elaborate as the mansion up ahead. The SUV came to a stop, and the driver—who Thatcher had spoken to some on the ride over—opened his door and got out. He had blond hair, tattoos, and looked younger than me. He didn’t fit what I’d expected in this Mafia family thing.

Thatcher turned back to me. “I’ll go down with you,” he said.

“Am I allowed in the fucking underground?” Wilder asked in a tight voice. “Or am I supposed to hide from Presley?”

Thatcher shrugged, as if he didn’t care. “Gage is in Madison still. He was left there on purpose. Until you’re out of sight. As for going underground, it depends on if you can stay out of the room. Carda doesn’t need to know you’re there.”

“I can,” he clipped out.

“Then, let’s go,” Thatcher replied. “Boss is waiting.”

Wilder opened the door and climbed out, and then his eyes finally met mine. He held out his hand for me, and I quickly took it, thankful for any connection with him. I slid over and got down. Wilder’s hand squeezed mine before letting it go.

I wanted to go back to last night, but we couldn’t do that. We had to keep going, not reliving the same moment over and over. But if we could …

“This way,” Thatcher told me, and I fell into step behind him.

We walked to a door that looked like it led into a building. Once inside, the blond man walked over and pressed something, and the wall began to open.

“You first,” he said with a smirk.

Thatcher went inside, and I followed. There were stairs leading down. Wilder was close behind me. Having him there made this entrance into hell less terrifying. When they’d said underground, I hadn’t actually pictured walking into tunnels under the ground of a wealthy ranch.

A man stood at the bottom of the stairs. He was tall with wide shoulders, dark hair cut very short, tattoos, and a scowl on his face that made me pause. He was huge, and I wasn’t sure he wanted us down here.

“Huck,” Thatcher said as we reached the bottom.

“Levi’s in there with him,” the man he called Huck said. “Boss is handling an issue we are dealing with here at the moment. We are to start without him.”

He turned his attention to me and gave me an unimpressed glance before looking back at Wilder.

“She’s yours then,” Huck said. “Might make it easier with Gage in the future.”

Although Wilder didn’t clarify anything, I saw a hint of a smile tug on the corner of the giant’s mouth.

“Wilder, you come with me. Thatcher, third room on the left.”

Thatcher led the way, and I started to follow when Wilder’s hand wrapped around my wrist. I quickly turned to look at him, but he pulled me in and covered my mouth with his in a hard, possessive kiss. When he let me go, I felt lightheaded and blinked several times, trying to focus.

“Jesus,” I heard Thatcher grumble.

Wilder nodded his head at me, and I turned to continue following Thatcher down the tunnel, passing different rooms before we stopped.

He glanced back at me. “Ready?” he whispered.

I simply nodded. This was Hamilton. The sweet, nice underwear model. If I told myself that, then I wouldn’t be terrified. I could do this and get it over with. Thinking of him as something more, as someone who had watched me, controlled me, possibly sought me out to hire me in order to use me against Wilder—I couldn’t go there in my head.

Thatcher opened the door, and I followed him inside. However, my hand flew to my mouth, and I let out a shocked gasp at the sight of Hamilton—I mean, Maxon—tied up by his wrists, his toes barely grazing the ground beneath him.

His eyes swung to me, and a slow smile slid across his face.

“Oakley,” he said, as if seeing me had brightened his day.

“Hamilton,” I replied. Thatcher had told me not to call him Maxon. To let him tell me who he really was. “What is going on?” I asked, careful to say exactly what I’d been coached to say.

His gaze shifted to Thatcher, then to another person in the room. I turned my head to see who it was. An attractive man with a black cowboy hat on his head and dark brown hair, pulled back in a man bun, peeking out from underneath it. He smiled at Thatcher but ignored me.

“You know what’s going on. They didn’t bring you down here without filling you in,” Maxon said, bringing my attention back to him.

“Yes, but I still don’t understand this. I thought … I thought you liked me.”

His expression softened briefly, but he covered it up almost immediately. “I do like you. Our relationship has nothing to do with the issue.”

I swallowed hard. “But you put a bomb in my car, Hamilton. You were going to kill me.” I managed to put the emotion in it that Thatcher had requested. I even bit my lip, like it was hard for me to think about.

He shook his head, his brows drawing together. “No. I didn’t put a bomb in your car. I was protecting you. I asked you not to leave the house, remember? I told you I would come get you. Take you to get groceries. I was on my way to you, but I was three hours out.”

I wanted to glance at Thatcher to check on how I was doing, but he had made it clear that I wasn’t to look at them. It would give me away. Make it seem as if I trusted them.

“You didn’t put the bomb in my car, but you knew it was there?”

He looked torn. As if he was actually upset about this. “There is a lot you don’t know.” He glanced at the other men. “Things they’ve not told you. Or have they?” His focus was back on me.

I blinked, as if fighting off tears. “They told me about the bomb and then made me call you, but that’s it. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a room they had me locked in, telling me that they had you. I wanted to see you. I didn’t believe you could do this.”

He glared at the other side of the room, but I didn’t dare look in their direction. I kept my eyes on Maxon. He had to think I was here for him.

“Why are you chained up? Did you hurt someone?” I asked.

He looked back at me. “They’re the fucking Mafia. This is what they do. You needed to keep your distance from them, but he didn’t tell you. He lied to you. Kept it from you. He let you keep his kid and never once told you whose house you were staying in. The danger you were in, just being there. It was driving me fucking insane with worry.”

“Sarah is my niece. She needs me,” I told him.

He winced as he tried to adjust his hands. “I know, but he will keep her safe. He won’t keep you safe though. He made you drive home, alone, in the middle of the goddamn night. Five hours on the road. If I hadn’t been watching you, then no one would have been there to make sure you made it home safe. He doesn’t appreciate all you do to help him with his kid. The least he could do was keep you safe too. But he didn’t.”

Not true. He saved me from you.

He had been watching me? The cold ice that settled over me made me shiver, and I hoped like hell I hid that from him.

“It’s me you need to trust. Not them,” he urged. “Whatever lies they’ve told you, I swear I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you.”

But the bomb. You keep forgetting you had a bomb put in my car.

“I want to believe you,” I told him. “But I don’t understand the bomb or any of it. They used my phone, Hamilton. They traced you and all the other stuff because of your number in my phone. When they made me call you.”

“You could have never gotten in your car, Oakley. I had the keys taken. I made sure it was locked. That there were no extra keys. I did it to force his hand. They took Tanner.” He shot a furious glare in their direction. “I was trying to save my friend. They kill people. I did what I had to do.”

“Do you have Tanner?” I asked them as if this were a shock to me.

Thatcher shrugged and ran his hand over the blade of a knife he was holding. “Not anymore.”

“Where is he? Tanner is my friend! He’s my friend Daphne’s boyfriend!” I really hoped I’d sold that.

Thatcher barely glanced at me, then turned his threatening gaze to Maxon. “When Maxon here tells us what we want to know, then we can tell him what he wants to know. Really, Oak, you need to calm down. Considering we normally hang men from the ceiling so we can torture what we want to know out of them, we’re being nice to this guy.”

“You mean, Hamilton,” I corrected him, thinking that was what I was supposed to do. We hadn’t covered this, but if I was supposed to think he was Hamilton, I would have responded this way, I thought.

“No, I mean, Maxon. Maxon Carda,” he drawled.

Okay, he had dropped the last name. I had to play along. He was going off script, but here we go. Hopefully, I was doing the right thing.

I stared at Maxon with confusion on my face. “Carda? As in Carda Global?”

He looked angry as he met my gaze. He hadn’t wanted me to find that out while he was hanging there. “It’s not what you think, Oakley.”

“He’s right,” the other guy said, speaking for the first time. “You probably aren’t thinking the guy you’re dating is the heir to the company that hired you just after you and Sebastian started dating.”

I let my jaw drop. “Heir?”

He took a deep breath and gave me a pleading look. “Yes.”

“You … hired me because of Sebastian? But then we broke up. What,” I shook my head trying to appear hurt. Confused. Not sure if I was pulling it off or not. “Did you start dating me because my niece was the daughter of a member? I was just a tool to you?”

He shook his head and cursed angrily. “NO! That was not it! I love you, Oakley. I’ve fucking loved you since I met you at the fundraiser the first week you were hired. But you barely acknowledged me. You smiled and pretended to want to be there. Pretended to like Sebastian Shepherd, but it was in your eyes that you just wanted to leave. You intrigued me. I wanted to get to know you, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t supposed to want you. You and I aren’t about business. This is real. What I feel is real.”

I didn’t have to fake my shock this time. I’d had no idea I’d met him years before or that he had been keeping track of me. This was all getting uncomfortable. What happened if he walked free? Would he continue stalking me? Was that what he’d been doing? Panic started slowly unraveling in my chest.

I had to get away. He had to talk. Tell them what they wanted so I could leave.

“Then, please,” I begged him, “tell them what they want to know so you can be freed. We can leave. Talk about this. Figure it out.” I swallowed hard. “I’m scared, Hami—Maxon.” And that wasn’t a lie. I was scared of him. I wanted to get away from him.

His expression hardened, and he tore his eyes off me to look at the other men. “I tell you what you want, and you tell me where Tanner is?”

“That’s the deal,” the other guy said.

“If this gets out, if they know that I told you, we are all dead. You understand that, right? You’ve stuck your fucking noses in something you should have stayed away from. You’re not the only Mafia in the world, and the one you are fucking with will end you.”

My heart slammed hard against my chest as I listened to him. Wilder. This meant Wilder was in danger. I wanted to go run to him and hide him. Keep him away from all of this. Safe. Sarah needed him.

I couldn’t live without him.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” the other guy drawled. He didn’t seem surprised. “I want to know why Carda is involved and how deep. Because there will be a stop put to it, and we need to know who all we have to end to do that.”

Maxon let out a laugh and shook his head. “You’re all fucking insane.”

“Yes. And it makes us more lethal,” the man told him.

“Carda Global owes them money. A lot of money.”

“That’s a start but I need a name.” Thatcher replied.

Maxon kept his gaze locked on me. I could see the pleading in them. He wanted me to believe him. For what purpose? I didn’t love him. I would never love him.

“The Fotilas,” Maxon’s words came out in a raspy strained voice. As if he struggled to even say the name.

Thatcher walked over to me. “Your part is done,” he said to me. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t look at Maxon as I turned to walk out.

“Wait! Where are you taking her?” Maxon shouted.

“Not your business,” the other man informed him just before the door closed behind us. The shouting instantly silenced.

We went back toward the entrance but stopped at the door closest to the stairs. Thatcher turned and went inside.

“Here she is. Unharmed,” he announced, and Wilder ignored him as he made his way across the room to me.

His eyes searched my face for any sign of trauma. When he reached me, his eyes narrowed. “What happened? You’re scared.”

“She’s fine. She’s shook up because the idiot has been stalking her for years, and that piece of information almost gave her away. It messed with her head but she was bloody brilliant handing it. We got what we needed, and it’s what we originally thought. It’s the Fotilas. Carda is in deep with them financially.”

The massive man nodded his head with a grim expression. “Then, we kill them all.”

“First, we make a statement with the one we have tied up. The Cardas can put their trust in us, or they can go down with the Fotilas.” A deep voice with a smooth Southern accent filled the room.

I turned to see a man with dark blond hair, long enough to be tucked behind his ears. A worn cowboy hat sat on his head, and he had the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. I moved to Wilder’s side, feeling the change in the room at his presence. He wasn’t as big as the other man, but the threat in his chiseled face, which commanded power—or rather fear—was more intimidating.

His steely glaze locked on Wilder. “Go back home. Take her with you. Keep her there. She’s not safe. I have two of my men camped outside your house now, and they will rotate. Send your mom and stepfather on a trip. Away. Less people to protect, the better.”

“Yes, sir,” Wilder replied.

I realized then who the man was. Blaise Hughes, the boss.

“Thatcher, you remain with Levi until Gage returns. Then, you need to get back to Madison.”

Thatcher nodded and headed toward the door.

“Don’t let Levi lose his shit and hurt him—yet,” Blaise called out to a retreating Thatcher.

He paused and smirked, looking back at his boss. “I can control my cousin.”

Blaise nodded once, then turned back to the room. “Kye, give them a ride home.”

The tattooed blond guy stepped forward and saluted Blaise. “On it,” he said with a cocky grin.

Wilder placed his hand on my lower back. “Let’s go,” he told me.

I started to follow the man named Kye.

“You did good in there,” Blaise said as I passed him.

I paused and glanced at him. He tilted the front of his hat at me like a cowboy, not a Mafia boss.

“Uh, thanks,” I replied in a shaky voice.

“I’d remind you of the importance of keeping her close, but from your current body language, I can see that’s unnecessary. You’ll be hearing from me soon, Jones.”

Wilder nodded his head and nudged me to start walking. Every step I took away from the room where Maxon was bound, the more relief I felt. It wasn’t until we climbed into the back of the SUV that I curled into Wilder’s side and cried.