Chapter 40

“Atoast,” Thomas says, raising his glass of red wine, and we all follow suit. “To a growing circle of family.”

He looks around the dining room table, making eye contact with each of us, Mia first, followed by Charlotte, Bella, and lastly, me. Our fivesome has become rather tight-knit over the last couple of weeks.

Bella and I are both living in the guest room, but that’s going to end when our house is ready.

The contractor showed up with a big fucking crew, and they’ve been working their asses off to finish ahead of schedule and earn a nice bonus. With Thomas paying for the rebuild as an apology for getting Bella mixed up in all this, I put up the rush order bonus, and Bella has decided to be okay with that after I’d promised her we’d christen every room and surface in the house.

And I plan to keep my word.

“To a day well-lived, a night well-slept, and a life well-loved. Cheers!” We lean forward, clinking our glasses to one another’s and sipping.

After a few bites of delicious chicken and rice with asparagus, conversation begins again. The girls especially always have something to say, and Thomas and I have learned to have near-whole conversations with our eyes and eyebrows in response to their antics.

“But for real, I told my boss that I’d be happy to pick up his dry cleaning, but only for the next two weeks,” Charlotte says, her voice tapering off in excitement, begging us to ask for more.

Mia’s fork clangs to her plate as she realizes first what Charlotte is saying, “You quit your job!”

Charlotte nods, “I did. I’m so glad to be getting out of there, especially with all the nerves that every meeting was going to be a surprise firing squad of Blackwellian design. I’ve never been so happy to be the invisible girl at the front desk everyone ignores. But I got the business loan, put in an offer on the location I fell in love with, and I’m doing it. I’m opening my own bakery.” She looks to Thomas, “Thanks again, partner.

Thomas shakes his head. “Nope, read that contract again. I’m not a partner and don’t want to be involved in any way. I’m just a silent investor in a business owner I believe in. Especially if you add a delivery service for my orders. I’m seeing quarterly Bundt cake meetings at Goldstone, birthday cakes for the boys at Roseboro Boys’ House, and some cookies for the veterans’ monthly meetings.”

“Deal,” Charlotte says, and we all congratulate her.

Going by the few samples and trial runs of recipes she’s brought by The Gravy Train, she’s an awesome baker, and I’m looking forward to eating more of her creations. And being a taste tester.

She talks a bit about her plans for the space she’s found, a supplier of Belgian chocolate she discovered, and then she turns to Bella.

“And I need to hire you to create my logo, business cards, menu boards, and whatever else I haven’t even thought of yet.”

Bella beams. “Really? You want me to do that?”

Charlotte rolls her eyes, “Duh, of course. You’re the best graphic artist I know. You’re also the only graphic artist I know, but don’t let that dilute the compliment. More seriously, she says, “Just let me know the going rate, or maybe the friends and family discount rate?”

I lean over to whisper in Bella’s ear, and she turns to me, a smirk on her face. “You sure?”

I nod, and she looks back to Charlotte. “My security detail has advised me that my fee should be . . . a weekly muffin and coffee for each of us when we stop by to visit.”

Charlotte jumps out of her chair, throwing her hand at Bella and then me for a shake. “It’s a deal, no backsies.”

“I might be able to use the designs as a showcase for my final project too, if you don’t mind? Two birds, one stone,” Bella says thoughtfully.

Mia interrupts, sarcastically adding, “I’m sure your showing the bakery’s logo and menu to a big group of hungry college students and professors will be a huge inconvenience for a new business owner. Huge.” She holds her hands far apart and then moves toward her mouth like she’s devouring a whole cake by herself. Her grin is visible even behind her hands.

“How’s school going?” Thomas asks Bella, ignoring Mia’s weirdness as she talks to the imaginary cake she’s still pretending to eat.

“Good, turned in all the assignments I missed, even the ones Professor Daniels said I didnt need to.” She rolls her eyes and Thomas laughs. “Everyone seems adjusted to my shadow here, and I’ve scared off all the girls who tried to talk and flirt with him.”

The last part is growled, making me laugh as I remember Bella damn-near licking me to mark her territory when some blonde kept inviting me to her study group despite my telling her repeatedly that I’m not a student.

“Just maintaining surveillance on my most valuable possession. Where she goes, I go,” I say, resting my hand on the back of Bella’s neck and rubbing small circles with my thumb.

Mia’s accent appears again. “Newsflash—it’s 2019. She’s not your possession.”

Bella’s eyes lock on mine, and I can see the heat there mirroring my own. She doesn’t break our eye contact, but she tells Mia, “Shut up, Mia. He didn’t mean it in a bad way. And I’ve heard some of your stories, so you have zero room to talk.”

Thomas clears his throat uncomfortably. “Before you two run down the hall to have sex in my guest bedroom, I did have something I wanted to give you, Gabe.”

His all-business tone wakes me from the spell Bella is weaving around me. Reluctantly, I turn to him, one eyebrow raised and my other hand on Bella’s thigh.

“Mia finished going through the information on the data card,” he says quietly. “I know you asked that we ignore it, but we thought you’d like to know anyway.”

I swallow, and Bella lays her hand over mine, squeezing it supportively. “And?” I ask both Mia and Thomas.

“There were two main names on the card you gave me. One, Joe Ulrich, you don’t need to worry about. He’s dead. But there was a full life history and background check if you want to see it.”

“Dead?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow. “How?”

“Auto accident. His Harley hit an ice patch in Colorado and his head bounced off a Winnebago, with no helmet. The report includes pictures and the autopsy, if you’re curious. Also shows there was a false bottom in his gas tank, and he was riding with two kilos of crystal meth, so nobody was really crying over his death.”

I nod. “What about the other?”

“Steven Valentine,” Thomas says, more cautiously than before. “He’s still around, changed his name though. Now he goes by Simon Bulger. You might have heard of him?”

I shake my head, and Thomas continues. “Butcher Bulger?”

I blink, surprised. “Yeah... head of the Devil’s Forgotten Demons.”

Thomas looks to Mia, who likely read the data card information first but is letting Thomas be the bearer of the bad news. “It looks like both were bikers before the incident with your brother. The intel says they might have been probies for the hit.”

I scrub at my mouth, the five o’clock shadow rough under my palm as I think. “I don’t work with bikers. They usually handle their own shit and don’t have a need to outsource, but I’ve dealt with them a time or two. Before they allow a probie to get patched, they have you do a crime and turn the evidence over to the club to hold over you. So Jeremy’s death...”

“I don’t know,” Thomas says with a shrug. “But Bulger’s still around. The file included his last known whereabouts, but he’s in the wind right now, hiding out with his motorcycle brothers as security to distance himself from recent club shit. The FBI wants him on a list of warrants longer than my arm.”

“Thank you,” I tell him honestly.

Thomas’s head tilts and his face is carefully blank. “What will you do with this information?”

I pause, thinking how to say this even as everyone at the table holds their breath impatiently. “Before, my answer would have been easy,” I finally answer. “I would have gone to war with all involved and left a river of blood behind me, retribution and revenge mixed with savage bloodlust, my reputation for preciseness be damned.”

And still, no one breathes. “And now?”

“Right now, my only concern is making sure that Bella’s safe and that Blackwell doesn’t go fucking around in her life anymore. I have to believe Jeremy would understand that.”

Bella’s smile is sad but understanding. “He’d want you to live, not be dragged further into the dark. You’ve spent long enough there.”

I give her a kiss, sweet with emotion and salty with the few tears she can’t hold back, knowing that I’m choosing her over everything I’ve lived for over the past years. It’s one thing to say I’ll do that when the opportunity to make my brother’s killers pay is a hazy, indecipherable possibility. It’s quite another to choose a life with her when the other option is so readily laid out before me.

But still, I choose her, and I’d do it time after time.

Mia and Char croon in sync, “Aww, he loves her.”

And I can’t help but smile at the blush that washes over Bella’s face. She’s not used to being the center of attention, even with her friends. I think she’s been hiding, to some degree, most of her life. She says she’s been ‘asleep at the wheel’, just going through the motions like a hamster on a wheel because she had to keep on keepin’ on or risk the house of cards she lived in falling to pieces.

But she’s slowly relaxing into our new reality, where there’s food in the refrigerator, the bills are comfortably paid, and she doesn’t have to work herself to the bone just to keep her head above water.

I appreciate all the things her friends have done for my princess before I met her, sneakily helping when they could, checking in on her, and just generally being her best friends.

“You guys are second on my list because Bella cares deeply about all of you. Bulger’s dropping down on the list to at least third.”

It’s a hard thing to say, but I’m a hard man. I have made decisions to end others’ lives multiple times, but this time, I’m deciding to live mine.

I do think Bella is right. Jeremy would want this for me, would be happy I’ve found someone, and I daresay, I think he’d like Bella and the way she keeps me panting after her like a horndog.

Never thought I’d see the day, Jeremy says in my mind, miming a whip. Pussy whipped fucker.

I grin, mentally talking back. Oh, but what a pussy it is.

Even saved, I’m still no Prince Charming with sweet words, but Bella never seems to mind my dirty thoughts, especially when I share them with her.

Before I get a chubby at the dinner table, though, and sweep her off her feet to run to the guest bedroom, I try to focus back on the conversation around me.

I ask Thomas, “I’m doing my part to keep Bella safe, but you said you wanted some time on the Blackwell issue. Any updates or anything I can do to help?”

I’d truly wanted to kill Blackwell myself, rush into his fancy tower and take him out. Or wait for him to come out and kill him in the streets of the town he thinks he owns.

But the reality is, since I sent him Jericho’s head, he’s gone hermit, virtually living 24/7 in his tower, rotating between his office and his apartment there. And always with a full army of security. It wouldn’t be the most difficult assignment I’ve ever taken on, but I don’t trust Blackwell to not have some type of plan to sell me out if he were to disappear or die. He’s a smart man, knows I’m here and gunning for him, so it would behoove him to plan accordingly.

So I’ve had to back off and wait in the wings while Thomas wages war in a very different style from my own.

Mia answers, “Definitely making progress. I’ve been doing a full analysis of Blackwell holdings and investments, evaluating which legs of his business hierarchy are most vulnerable, either financially or personally. I found several options for strategic takeover or flat-out destruction.”

She begins talking in facts and figures, and I lose the train of her thought process around the fourth decimal point of a percentage of some company’s quarterly profit-loss report.

Thomas smiles at her like she’s reciting romantic prose or filthy sex talk, neither of which makes any sense to me because math is basically the ninth ring of hell to me.

Finally, he takes over and I understand what he’s saying. “Long story short, I made a successful hostile takeover bid for Danver’s Aluminum this morning. They’re now under the Goldstone umbrella.”

“And that matters why?” I ask.

Thomas takes his turn then, launching into some story about how his company had bid on the contract for Danver’s years ago but had lost out to a Chinese consortium, effectively making Danver’s go commercial instead of keeping their military contracts.

Mia found out that Blackwell has a considerable share in the company, likely directed their decision away from Goldstone, and was in fact double-dipping in profits by also holding a voting percentage of the corporation in China that buys the airplane parts. It’s like a complicated version of a shell game, shifting monies in and out of the country and companies to maximize the profit margin.

“But now, I own the majority of Danver’s, and the first order of business is to cut all ties with foreign entities and reapply for the military deal,” Thomas wraps up.

“Other than the contracts, this doesn’t sound like you’re waging war on Blackwell, but rather like business as usual for you,” I argue. “We need to act quickly to keep us all safe.”

Thomas‘s lips press together in a thin line. “I disagree. Blackwell has waged a years-long war on me and my company, going so far as sending in spies and trying to kill my family.” He looks at Bella, who jolts at the label before her eyes soften.

He tells me, “Your style is swift, decisive, and that’s warranted in certain situations. Hell, if you get the chance, take him out, for fuck’s sake. But in the meantime, I need to play this smart, be methodical. Taking back a company that he actively worked to keep from me is a strategic first move, a sign of what’s to come.”

Thomas’s voice has gone cold. “Blackwell will be destroyed one way or another, but his legacy, the thing he covets most, will also be decimated. That’s what I want.”

Char raises her hand like we’re in elementary school, telling Thomas, “You realize you sound just as maniacal as he does, right?”

Mia defends Thomas. “But he’s doing it for the greater good, not because he’s an asshat in a tower with a narcissistic God complex. Like some Evil King of Roseboro.”

Char laughs. “Fair point.”

Thomas looks at Mia, and she sighs. “There is something though, Charlotte. We think you need security. Thomas and I already have it here in the tower, and take guards with us when we go out. Izzy has her own personal protection in Lover Boy over there who follows her everywhere she goes. Gabe is right that we don’t know what Blackwell is plotting next, and the last thing we need is him coming after you the way he did Izzy.”

Charlotte shakes her head, and though I already agreed with the plan to get her a guard of some sort, I let Mia and Thomas talk her into it.

Thomas adds, “The bakery building will have a top-notch security system, including cameras. But that won’t keep you safe in the moment if something happens, won’t protect you on the way to work and home, or anywhere else you go.”

Though the rest of our dinner conversation has flipped between lighter and heavier subjects, this moment is what truly sets the tone. Acknowledging the elephant in the room with us, the very real risk looming over each and every one of us, but none more than Thomas. The pressure that responsibility adds to his shoulders must be back-breaking, but he withstands it like Atlas, only fighting to keep those around him safe from an unpredictable adversary he never saw coming and that will stop at nothing in his plan for destruction.

“I’ll think about it,” Charlotte yields. But looking at Thomas’ eyes, I can see that whether Charlotte agrees or not, she’ll have a protective detail. I make a note to give him a short list of possible options, good men that will blend into her daily life without notice, but can be deadly and decisive when needed.

Changing the subject, she adds, “And on that note, can I suggest we revisit the taste testing of my recipes? I have a Kahlua-infused chocolate cake with coffee frosting and shaved coffee bean garnish I’m dying for everyone to try.”

Bella holds her belly. “Good lord, Char. I will never sleep again if I eat that.”

But I tease, “I’ll stay up with you and keep you busy, Princess.”

The blush on her pale cheeks and the way she bites her full bottom lip tell me she likes that idea almost as much as I do.