“Do you need a doctor?” Thane demanded.
She smiled, ignoring Hatcher’s piercing stare and the fact that he was all but peeling back the layers of her skin. “No, of course not. I just need to lie down. Maybe take a short nap.”
“Let’s go. Call the car around, Thane,” Zander said after pulling off several bills and tossing them onto the table.
Thane and Hatcher went ahead while Zander put his arm around Evangeline’s shoulders and herded her toward the entrance as well. A few minutes later, they were in the car and whizzing back to Drake’s apartment.
The men studied her during the ride home, but she ignored their scrutiny, instead focusing her attention on the passing scenery through her window. When they arrived at the apartment, she touched Zander on the arm.
“Will you walk me up? There’s no need for everyone to come. After all, I’m just going up to bed.”
Zander’s brow furrowed as if that were the last thing he was expecting her to ask. “Of course. You two go on ahead. I’ll call for a car when I’m ready to leave,” he said to Thane and Hatcher.
He helped Evangeline from the car and escorted her inside the building. She looked back to make sure the car drove away and as soon as they were inside, she turned to face Zander, her expression one of urgency.
“Zander, I need you to take me to wherever Drake is. Now.”
His eyes widened with shock. “What the fuck? What’s going on, Evangeline? And swear to God, if you tell me nothing, I’ll throttle you.”
“I’m not going to say nothing,” she said in a quiet voice. “What I am going to say is that it is very important I see Drake immediately. And you can’t tell him I’m coming. I don’t care how busy he is, what he’s doing, who he’s meeting with. You take me straight to him so I can talk to him immediately.”
The urgency in her voice registered because grim worry set like stone into his features. He picked up his cell and made a phone call to his driver or Drake’s, presumably. His directive was short and to the point. Come pick him up at Drake’s apartment and be here as fast as possible.
• • •
Drake disconnected the call from Hatcher, his features rigid. Some cop had approached Evangeline at the restaurant where his men had taken her to lunch. They’d spoken in the hall for a period of time before she’d gone back to the others.
Ice invaded his veins at the idea of Evangeline betraying him. Could he have been so wrong about her?
He paced the interior of his office and then stared out over the Manhattan skyline, his thoughts dark and brooding. Should he plant false information and then see what happened? Feed her just enough evidence that he’d know if the cops came sniffing around that she was the only person who could have given it to them?
Nausea swirled in his gut. She’d said she loved him and he’d been too gobsmacked, too . . . humbled by her fervent and tender words and the love he’d seen plainly etched in her eyes to do anything more than hold her tightly to him, so afraid that if he let go, even for a moment, it would have all been a dream. The most wonderful dream of his life, but a dream nonetheless.
He let loose a savage torrent of curses that would blister the hide of anyone in earshot. Fuck me. What the hell was he supposed to do with the knowledge that Evangeline, his angel, had spoken to a cop?
She’d probed him for answers that night, seemingly a lifetime ago, when she’d asked him what it was he really did and he’d asked her to let it go, that it would never affect her, never touch her. He’d thought and had been relieved that she had let it go, but had she? Had he only heightened her suspicions, enough for her to go to the police?
He turned and threw his phone across the room. It shattered on impact and he left it there in unrecoverable pieces.
He should be pissed. He should even now be plotting his revenge. But the only thing he could process was . . . pain. Endless, unending, overwhelming . . . pain.
Closing his eyes, he cupped his nape and rubbed up and down as weariness assailed him. God help him, but he couldn’t bring himself to punish her, to throw her out. Could he blame her for what she might think when he’d never offered to trust her? To tell her anything of his life apart from her? He knew enough about women to know there weren’t many who’d be as accepting as Evangeline had appeared to be.
His thoughts turned bleak, because he didn’t know what to do. But he couldn’t be with a woman who intended to sell him and his brothers out to the fucking cops.