His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Damon is telling a different story than the one you told me. And I’m not the only one he’s telling it to. People know what really went down in the bank.”
“What people?” he asks immediately, his tone sharpening.
I notice he doesn’t ask what I mean, about what really went down in the bank. “So it’s true then.” I take a step closer to him, chin lifted. “You planned the whole heist.”
“Of course. You think an idiot like Damon could have put this together?” he scoffs.
“Not just that.” I shake my head. “You killed Eric Brown.”
“I didn’t pull the trigger, if that’s what you’re asking,” he snaps.
“But you ordered it done. Ordered one of your men to do it.”
“Ashley, it was nothing personal. A job is a job. I thought I raised you to understand that.”
“Oh, you did, Dad. But I need to hear you say it now. I need to understand just how far you’d go for your jobs. How badly you want this cash.” I stomp my foot on the floorboard I’m standing over for emphasis. It wiggles a little, still loose from when I pried it up earlier. Dad’s eyes flash to it, and I can see the hunger in his gaze sharpen.
“I ordered him killed. To protect us, Ashley, to protect this family. He’d seen my face, he knew my identity. He could have destroyed everything we have, everything we’ve worked so hard and so long to build together.”
“And his wife? His daughter?”
Dad waves a hand, dismissive. “I had some men follow them, told them to keep them quiet if they threatened to talk. But neither of them were anywhere to be found. I guess the wife is smarter than her man, and went to ground. That’s fine by me; I’ll leave them alone as long as they keep silent.”
“You told me they were dead. And you would have had them killed, too, if they hadn’t disappeared. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Why the sudden third degree, Ashley? Why the change of heart? We’ve always been in this together. You’ve been showing so much initiative, investigating Damon for me, taking on more responsibility at the company… This is part of that responsibility. You want to be the heir to this fortune, then you need to understand where it comes from.”
“From bloodshed, from the sound of it. I thought we didn’t kill people, Dad.”
“We don’t kill innocent people. Eric Brown was far from innocent.”
“What did he do beside own a bank that you wanted to plunder?” I snap.
“Nobody is innocent, Ashley,” he replies, face flushing. “Now, I’ve had just about enough of your games. Move aside and let me have the money. This has gone on long enough.”
“Oh, I agree, Dad. It has definitely gone on far too long.” I step aside. Dad bends down to reach for the loose board.
He’s got his fingers wrapped around the loose edge, kneeling on the floor, bent over it like a kid opening a present on Christmas morning, when the door slams against the wall, and booted feet storm into the room.
“Freeze!”
“Hands on your head!”
“Nobody move!”
Cops swarm into the room, at least five of them. I lose count in the blur, as one of them grabs me and whisks me aside to safety. I hear the clink of handcuffs being clamped over my father’s wrists, followed by the sound of one of the other officers reading him his rights.
Dad just stares right past him, right past all of them, directly at me. I’m standing off to one side, untouched, one of the officers at my side giving me a fond pat on the shoulder.
I smile, just for Dad’s benefit. Because I’m enjoying the shocked, gut-punched look on his face right now. “You’re right, Dad,” I say conversationally, just loud enough to be heard over the officer still reciting Dad’s rights. “You did teach me a lot. I’ve learned that a job is a job, all right. And I’ve learned what kind of jobs I want to take.” At that, I reach down and raise up the hem of my shirt. Just far enough to reveal the wire taped to my stomach, and the little speaker on my side that’s been transmitting our conversation to the police waiting outside the house.
“Excellent work, I might add, Ms. Marrón,” says the officer beside me. “Was that really your first time involved in a sting like this?”
Dad grits his teeth, lets out a growl through them. “You little traitor. You’d turn on your own kin? Your own blood?” Dad spits on the ground at my feet as the officers lift him to his feet, one on each side, and begin to haul him away toward the stairs. “You won’t get away with this,” he shouts after me. “There will be a reckoning.”
“There already has been,” I reply, grinning. “The reckoning is me.”
“Thank you again for everything,” the officer is saying. “If there’s anything more you need from us, any extra protection—”
“I won’t,” I answer, confident. “Dad can’t hurt me now. But thank you.”
It’s only later, after I’ve taken off the wire and given the my statement to the police, a statement as to my father’s character, the way he constantly threatened and abused the people around him to get them to do his bidding, and the way he’d threatened me with violence at times, his own daughter, that one of the cops thinks to ask.
“The money…” he starts.
I shake my head, biting the inside of my lip to maintain the straight, sorrowful face. “I looked everywhere. Damon guessed at where he thought my father’s other men would have hidden it, but…”
“That’s all right, Ms. Marrón. You’ve given us enough. Suppose we can’t look to you to do all of our jobs,” he replies with a chuckle.
I flash another broad smile and sign a few more statements, and then, just like that, by late afternoon, I’m free to go. And not a moment too soon. Because I’ve got a meeting to make.
“How,” is all he says as he walks out of the main gate of the prison.
The smile on my face is so wide it actually hurts my cheeks. “Don’t underestimate me, Damon,” I reply.
“Never again,” he swears. And then he’s at my side, sweeping me up into his arms, his mouth colliding with mine, claiming mine, and I lose myself in his kiss. His familiar scent fills my senses, and I wrap my arms around his neck, tilt my head and part my lips to let his tongue slide between my lips, tangle with mine. I lose track of time, of space. I don’t even think about where we are until someone in the distance clears his throat sharply.
“Might I suggest you get a room? A private one, perhaps?”
We turn to find one of the prison guards watching us, a single brow raised, and we both burst into laughter.
“Don’t worry,” Damon answers, one hand looping through mine as he speaks to the guard. “We’re out of your hair now.”
“Thank God,” we hear him mutter as we turn toward my car—the only one I managed to save from Dad’s garage before the cops came and seized everything as part of his arrest warrant.
Me, I got off easy. Made a deal for a complete pardon as long as I told them everything I knew about my father and his business, which at this point, I was more than happy to do. Every inch deeper the cops dug into his files, they uncovered new depths of depravity. There are more murders hidden in there, more cover-ups, more despicable things than I could have possibly imagined. I can’t believe I went along with it for so long, naively believing that I knew my father, that he would never sink so low.
Until Damon opened my eyes. Until I finally took a long hard look at the life I was signing up for.
As for Damon… “I don’t understand,” he says under his breath as we climb into my car. “How did you get me out of here? Even without the murder charge, I should be in for at least a decade for armed robbery.”
> “Dad took the blame for that too,” I say, a sly smile curling my lips.
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I… shall we say, persuaded him that it would be in his best interest to claim he blackmailed you into participating in that robbery.”
Damon tries to keep frowning, but his expression gets the best of him. A little smile starts to tick at the corner of his lips. “You’ve gotten better at bargaining since we first met, I take it.”
“I prefer to call it negotiating,” I reply with a flip of my hair, as I reach down for the keys. “And it wasn’t difficult. All I had to do was remind him of the men I have at my fingertips. His men, who would be very displeased with my father if I were to, say, call and tell them my father went to the cops and named names…”
Damon laughs softly. “Beating Marrón at his own game.”
“I’m a Marrón too,” I point out. “What can I say? I learned from the worst.” I grin, hard and pointed.
Damon leans across to cup my chin in his palm. His calloused fingers are rough against my soft skin, and it sends a shiver of delight up my spine. “Just promise me you’ll use your newfound negotiating powers for good,” he whispers.
“Always,” I murmur. Then he leans forward, and this time, when our lips meet, it’s soft and sweet. I close my eyes, let myself sink into him. And then, engine still idling, I let him wrap his hands around my waist and draw me up out of my seat. I slide across to the passenger side and straddle him, both hands buried in his thick hair. He runs his hands down my sides and slides them under the hem of my tight sheath dress. With a naughty grin, he starts to inch the dress higher on my hips.
“We’re in public,” I point out, glancing through the windows at the other cars in the parking lot. Most are empty, but there’s still the prison guard in the distance, standing outside the back gate where they released Damon.
In response, Damon leans over to turn up the heater, so the windows begin to fog. “Your point?” he asks, grinning wider.
“You’re dangerous,” I whisper, leaning back down to nip at his neck as I reach between my legs to grab the buckle of his jeans and start to undo them slowly. I can already feel the hard press of his cock straining beneath me.