24. Elijah

We crawled along the back roads, heading toward the wetlands, as raindrops whipped against the windshield. Trees shook and shuddered as we rode past, sending branches hurtling through the air. There'd been conflicting reports of a tropical storm landing on the East Coast later today, but I'd dismissed it as overly cautious.

Now that we were finally on our way, I was adding ignored dangerous weather reports to the long list of mistakes I'd made this morning alone.

The most reprehensible being the fact that Foster would never have agreed to send out a high-value client like Luke to another town, the day after being attacked in public, with only a single protection agent.

It was reckless to the point of absurdity.

In fact, every single rule I'd broken for Luke was just as dangerous as the storm outside. Just as dangerous to Luke, to his family. To the career I'd spent a life creating.

That terrifying thought alone should have sent me careening the car in the opposite direction. Back toward safety, back toward the presence of protection agents who still had their wits about them.

My scar itched, and I wondered if I had more in common with my father than I realized. The thought of not being around Luke was enough to have my knuckles in a death grip on the steering wheel. Even though I knew it was irresponsible.

Even though I knew it was wrong.

"You know, what happened last night wasn't your fault, Elijah," Luke said softly. "I can feel you blaming yourself."

I checked the rearview mirror, but we were alone on the road. "It was my fault. I'm the lead agent, and a known threat was allowed into a party. Was allowed to speak with you, to get close enough to cause grave injury. You're my responsibility and I failed you."

A pause, then, "That's not at all how I?—"

"It's the job, Luke," I said, speaking over him. "All mistakes are inherently my fault. In my industry, fucking up is fatal. Literally."

Luke was silent, studying me. I hadn't anticipated the intimacy of his close presence. Or how badly I wanted to pull over and haul him into the back seat. Finish the kiss that we'd started until it became more. Until I had Luke's naked body under me, to explore, to tease, to taste. Until all that wit and good-natured charm became raw desperation.

I was already in too deep—there was no reason to pretend I wouldn't happily fuck Luke in this car then drive to the closest bed and do it again.

"I know what that feels like," Luke said. "The mistakes, all the pressure. My father considered my entire existence to be a mistake. He hadn't wanted a second kid, didn't see the need since it was assumed Preston would inherit the company. But my mom got pregnant and…well, here I am. He loved putting me under that shitty microscope, making me squirm."

"Criticizing your every move," I said, not even a question. I knew the rules of that playbook.

"I did used to think there was a way to breathe wrong," Luke said with a wry grin. "Depending on how many times I'd messed up that day, I used to hold my breath when he was nearby."

My dad whistling. Not whistling. The way his eyes would track Christopher's every sound and movement.

I cleared my throat. "I like the way you breathe." His smile appeared in my peripheral vision while I burned with embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I…I haven't…haven't flirted in a while. That was weird."

"I beg to differ."

"People flirt with you all the time. I'm sure they're experts at it."

"What people?" Luke leaned across the console and every one of my muscles went taut with anticipation. He brushed his lips across my ear. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm only flirting with you, Elijah. And I referred to myself as code red in the desperation department not thirty minutes ago. You're much better at this than you realize."

He sat back in his seat and I hated the sudden distance. But his expression remained open, friendly. And there was no one else around. So I said, "My dad left us. When I was fourteen."

Luke's brow creased. "Did he ever come back?"

"No, though Christopher and I worry about it a lot. What it would do to my mom, if he showed up, wanting some bullshit idea of family that he never believed in." My hands tightened on the wheel as rain drenched the road ahead. "My little brother, that's Christopher, he was bullied when he was in middle school. Pretty badly. But he told me once—" I hesitated. "He told me he knew how to deal with them because he grew up with one in the house."

I felt Luke's attention, steady on my profile. "He was charming though, too, right?"

"Very. Could always scam his way into getting what he wanted. Money, status, women. He's probably on his sixth wife somewhere, running some sleazy pyramid scheme."

I swallowed past the knot wedged in the back of my throat. "He was hard on my brother. Mean. Mean to me too, but in different ways. I was older, so he felt like he could confide in me. Teach me all his tricks, you know? How to flirt with women. How to lie to them. How to keep secrets from my mom so he could keep doing what he wanted to do."

"Jesus," Luke muttered. "Did you come out to him?"

"God, no." I scoffed. "He wasn't a safe person to tell. I'm sure he would have told me it wasn't…wasn't manly enough or something equally as horrible."

"Sounds like a complete asshole," Luke said. "Elijah, I'm sorry."

"He's not around anymore."

"Still," he said, "doesn't mean what he did was right. Did anyone help your mom out after he left?"

The knot in my throat grew.

"I did." Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by the low roll of thunder. "I always have. They haven't had it easy. Money's…it's always been tight, plus Christopher has kids. My mom has chronic health issues. The bills pile up." Another flash of lightning. "The director position would afford me much more financial stability."

I saw Luke react to those words out of the corner of my eye. "The contract. We broke all the rules, Elijah…I didn't even think."

"No," I said sternly. "I wanted to, Luke. Wanted you. Want you."

He sucked in a breath.

"I will continue to keep you safe. I am keeping you safe," I said.

"I'll go to bat for you, you know," he said. "If anyone says anything about your qualifications, the job. You deserve this."

Warmth flooded my chest. "Thank you."

The storm raged around us, and what was left of the tidal wetlands was already flooding as we drove past, heading for the tiny village of Rodanthe Hills. Fog rolled in off the bay, making it seem like we were the only people around, a single pair of headlights traveling through the downpour. Lightning forked through the sky ahead of us, and Luke jumped in his seat.

"I must have sounded like such a piece of shit when you first met me," Luke said suddenly. "You were right, you know."

"Be specific. I generally am when it comes to you."

He huffed out a laugh, and when I chanced a quick glance, he was tracing his lower lip with his thumb, eyes playful as he stared back. "Wow. Kiss a guy once and it's like all bets are off. It's just insults, left and right."

"All due respect, facts aren't insults."

A beat, then, "I like seeing you smile like that."

I hadn't realized I was. I touched my fingers to my lips and cut my gaze to Luke's again. His grin was impish, happy. "What was I right about?"

"Inheriting the company," he said. "It's complicated for me emotionally, but it's also a privilege, one of about a million I've gotten in this life. I shouldn't have been so cavalier about it with you. I must have sounded like a snotty rich kid."

I shook my head. "We grew up totally broke. It was worse, even, after my dad left. So yeah, it's not easy sometimes. Working with clients who treat me like nothing but furniture to move around as they see fit. You're not like that, Luke."

"I'm still sorry about it," he said.

The windshield wipers were starting to struggle against the deluge. I slowed the car down, creeping along a road that felt conspicuously empty. "I saw my brother the other day and asked him what he would do if our dad left him a company."

"What he'd say?"

"That he'd burn it to the ground."

Luke peered out the windshield. "That's relatable."

We were quiet for a minute, surrounded by the sound of the rain hammering against the roof. "Luke…" I started, "why weren't you on speaking terms with Lincoln? You said it'd been six years since you'd seen him?"

He shrugged, kicking his ankle up onto his knee. "I was furious with him. That's why. The expectation as a Beaumont was always that I'd graduate from a top-tier school, be gifted a large sum of money that I would then use to secure an advanced degree to feel vaguely superior over others. Then work with my father at TBG and help him expand his business and probably do a bunch of shady shit that's unethical at best and illegal at worst. But I didn't follow in Preston's footsteps. I took the money, used some to buy my house, and gave the rest to Harriet and my nieces."

I remembered seeing that picture of Luke with his nieces. The obvious comfort, the obvious affection, the tenderness in the way he held them. The sight had stirred something deep within my chest. A yearning for my own family, who I almost never saw. And a yearning for the man sitting next to me, who steadfastly refused to fit neatly into the boxes I wanted to place him in.

"You're close with her," I said, more statement than question.

"She's my best friend," he said with a smile. "She's funny and smart and brave. And my nieces are just like her. When her mom told my dad that she was pregnant, he abandoned her completely. He had more money than he knew what to do with while Harriet said they could barely make rent every month. Her mother had served her purpose as his mistress, and the consequences were of no use to him."

Luke shook his head, his expression darkening. "Anyway, he didn't like how I used the money he gave me, especially because he found out that Harriet was in my life. I went there, to his offices that day, to stand up for her. To make him see how much he'd lost, never having her in his life. To tell him that he was a lying, cheating bastard. To say…" He took a breath. "Well, it doesn't really matter now, because I didn't say a damn thing. Chickened out, completely. Instead, he told me I'd been a disappointment all along. That was the last time I spoke with him."

Five years I'd stood next to Lincoln Beaumont, had protected his life with my own, and here I was wishing I could go back in time and put my fist through his face.

"He never apologized?"

Luke shook his head.

"Do you miss him?"

I watched his throat bob. Saw him wipe quickly at his eyes. We were in a car so I couldn't fall to my knees in front of him again. But the urge thrummed beneath my skin and I would have held him till it passed.

"I miss my mom," Luke finally said. "Every day, I miss her. And I miss the idea of having a living parent who loved me unconditionally. I don't miss him though, and I'm worried that makes me a bad person."

"It's not that black and white," I said—and would have said more. Like, you said I was right about you but I'm realizing now how wrong I was. But that was too dangerous, too intimate, and the car was now crawling up toward the gated entrance of TBG's luxury housing community. It stuck out like a sore thumb in the midst of the surrounding nature. Mini mansions with manicured lawns and a fountain in the middle, although it was hard to see much with the weather.

"Wow," Luke said bitterly, staring out the window. "He really went and built all this on top of protected tidal wetlands. What a fucking mess."

I kept driving, heading toward Clarence Craven's home, which was less than three miles from here.

"This was where the money came from," Luke murmured. "The money to buy my house."

"It is," I said. "You could still change that legacy though. The company's yours, isn't it?"

Luke sighed. "I don't know. Feels like the whole thing is composed of just lies and blackmail. It's a lost cause at this point."

That wasn't the first time I'd heard Luke express something like that about TBG. It was the first time I heard a tremble of doubt in the words.

"It's up here, I think," Luke said, so I turned to the right and down a long, muddy road. The wind rattled a sign that read Welcome to the South Shore Wetlands Project. Past that was a small cabin with no car out front.

I came to a stop, and we sat, taking in the scene. The windows were dark and grimy, though the garden in front appeared well-cared for.

"No wonder Clarence was so furious, is still so furious," Luke said. "My dad came in here and destroyed the place he'd pledged to protect. He's still getting arrested at environmental protests throughout the state. Still shows up at city hall to talk about the ecology of this area. What I don't know is why he didn't identify himself as my father's long-standing nemesis when we met at Sunrise Village."

I shifted in my seat. "Given his rage, I would have thought him a likely candidate for a car bomb. But if that was actually Vincent Maura, then maybe Clarence is mad for more than just the wetlands. Maybe your dad had a flash drive full of his secrets that he wants back."

Luke sent me a look. "Maybe not only my dad. Maybe my dad and Senator Wallace."

I raised an eyebrow in question. Luke twisted to face me.

"Last night, what she said in the drawing room about working together, about how she and my dad helped each other…" He shook his head. "Made me wonder if they blackmailed together. A local politician and a property developer would both benefit from having leverage over people. Threatening them for votes, for funding, for permits. For all kinds of special access."

A whisper of unease tickled down my spine. "I certainly got a bad feeling from her, even though she didn't initially strike me as violent. But that's the thing about violence. It's unpredictable. It can hide, change shape easily. Look at who attacked you last night. Pleasant smile, polite manners, completely out in the open. A dangerous person like Senator Wallace wouldn't keep to the dark. With all that power, she wouldn't have to."

I reached for my phone, which had no service. "Also, I really don't like how isolated we are out here."

I glanced down and saw that I had two missed calls from Foster.

My stomach plummeted, twisting with guilt. I started to say something to Luke, but he was throwing open his door and pulling his raincoat on. He jogged up to Clarence's cabin like he had not a care in the world. As usual.

"Goddammit, Luke," I muttered, jumping out of the car and doing the same. "Wait for me."

He either didn't hear or chose to ignore me. The branches in the nearby trees whipped fast, drawing my attention to the back of the house. It butted up against the ocean, which flowed into the tidal wetlands. The back of my neck started to itch, like we were being watched. Between the roar of the storm and the dim visibility, my heart rate picked up.

I jumped the rickety stairs and landed next to Luke, hooking an arm around his chest and shoving him behind me.

I scowled over my shoulder. "This is what you have a bodyguard for."

"How many times are you gonna save my life?"

"The quantity isn't the issue. Getting hurt on your behalf is part of the job."

He tried to push past me but I stood my ground, turning back and knocking on the door.

"Elijah," he said, exasperated. "I want you to be safe as much as you want me to be safe."

I knocked again. Still no answer. "If that's the case, let's get the hell out of here. I've got a bad feeling again."

Luke slid to the side and cupped his hands around the window. "No lights. No movement. It's a Sunday and there's a storm. I thought it at least likely he'd be here."

The rain dumped down in buckets now, obscuring my field of vision. We were getting soaked to the skin even standing under the roof. Luke checked the other window, then peered around to the back of the house. He shoved the wet hair back from his face, frustration pulling his lips into a frown.

"He's not here. I don't know what I was thinking, having us drive here for no fucking reason."

"You have a reason," I said. "A good one. And the person doing all this is avoiding capture on purpose. They want you agitated and upset. That's the goal."

He tore his gaze away and stared out into the storm. "It's only getting worse. They could hurt Harriet. My nieces. You've been right about so many things, Elijah, and you were right about this too. All I've done is piss them off and make them more reckless."

"No, Luke, I…I don't think that anymore," I started to say, taking a step toward him. And that's when a second set of headlights appeared, barely visible through the rain. It had us both turning on instinct to where the car lingered, to the left of the driveway. It didn't move, though I could hear the engine revving.

That whisper of unease ratcheted up.

"You think that's him?" Luke asked eagerly.

It was impossible to see through the windshield. "I don't know. But we need to get back in the car."

Luke shot me a look. "What's wrong?"

I hooked a hand around his elbow and pulled him close. "It's probably nothing. But get in the car, buckle your seat belt. Do you have service out here?"

"No, why?"

I was almost certainly overreacting. Except I was trained to listen to my instincts and something was screaming run.

"I don't like any of this," I said gruffly, then ran us through the rain with every nerve ending on alert. I wrenched open the door and shoved Luke inside before rounding the car and doing the same.

The car still idled. A gust of wind whipped past and I had to muscle the door shut. We were both drenched and shivering, but there wasn't time for comfort.

"Elijah, what's going on?" Luke asked urgently.

I started the car and pulled back onto the narrow road, already starting to flood. All of it was wrong, every fucking thing, and I only had myself to blame.

"Bad feeling," I repeated, eyes on the rearview mirror. "Are you buckled in?"

"Yes."

We winced as headlights bounced off the mirror. And my heart stopped at what I saw—the car was directly behind me, practically on my bumper. So close that I was forced to speed up in dangerous conditions.

Precisely what they wanted me to do.

We came up onto a curve, heavy with fog, and I slowed the car on instinct, not wanting to skid out.

And that's when we were struck hard from behind.