Buttons and Blame (Buttons 5)

“It’s not about my pride. I have a wife, in case you’ve forgotten. They know the best way to get me to cooperate is by taking her—unless you forgot what happened to our sister.”

“This business is ours. Our family left it to us.”

“Regimes rise and fall every single day,” Crow countered. “We have more than enough money for the rest of our lives.”

“But nothing to do with our time. You have a winery. This is all I have.”

“Then find a hobby,” Crow snapped. “Find a woman.”

I already had a woman.

“I’m not going to war with Constantine. If Pearl weren’t around, it would be different.”

“She can handle herself.”

He squeezed his glass like he was about to throw it at my face. “Don’t tell me what’s best for her. I’m her husband. I’ll make that decision.”

I couldn’t reason with Crow when he was like this. “You know me. I don’t bow to anyone. I’ll die fighting—always.”

“I’m the same way—if it’s worth dying for. You and Pearl are the only two things I would ever make that sacrifice for.”

I knew he would do anything for me, but I was touched to hear the confession anyway. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves here. For all we know, Constantine just wants Bones’s old business—and nothing more. We ended on good terms. He shouldn’t have any anger toward me.”

“That’s what you think. But you piss off a lot of people, Cane.”

“That’s just you, asshole.”

“No,” he said coldly. “It’s everyone.”

The door cracked open, and Pearl stepped inside. She was dressed in Crow’s clothes, an oversized black t-shirt that reached her knees and gray sweatpants that also belonged to him. They were at least five sizes too big. “I could hear your voices across the hall.” Her hair was tangled from the way Crow must have gripped it earlier. She moved to the couch beside Crow and sat next to him. “What are you talking about?”

Crow shook his head, signaling to me more than to his wife. “Business.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“Not unless you know how to construct weapons,” I said. “We got a shipment in, but everything is defective.”

Crow’s eyes shone in surprise at how easily I lied. But he shouldn’t be surprised. I was a criminal, after all. I lied for a living. I’d even killed people for a living at one point.

“Then why are you here?” she asked. “That sounds like something that could be handled over the phone.”

Despite Crow’s annoyance, he slightly smiled at her intuition.

“Don’t be a brat,” I snapped. “Crow and I have private things to discuss. You don’t need to know everything.” I drank from my glass then set it down.

“I’m a Barsetti. So your discussion includes me.” She poured her own glass and took a long drink, proving she could down liquor like the two of us. “So spit it out.”

“I just did,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes in an infuriating way, but it was a pathetic attempt to intimidate me. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Pretty stupid.”

She didn’t hesitate before she grabbed the glass and prepared to chuck it at my head.

“Whoa, Button.” Crow snatched the glass away and put it at the other end of the table. “What Cane and I were discussing doesn’t concern you, so drop it.”

Now she flashed her look of hatred on him. “You want me to throw that glass at your head instead?”

“I’d like to see you try.” He said it with a straight face, daring her to defy him.

Pearl was smart and didn’t make a move. She dropped the subject, probably deciding to interrogate him when they were alone. “You seem to like Adelina a lot.”

“She gives me sex,” I said dryly. “Of course I like her.”

Pearl leaned forward with her elbows resting on her knees, giving me a straight look that I couldn’t shy away from. “She said you made her breakfast in bed this morning.”

Crow’s accusatory look was back on me.

“Yeah, so?” I demanded. “I made food and brought her the leftovers.”

“You made her pancakes, potatoes, bacon, eggs, coffee, and freshly squeezed orange juice,” Pearl snapped. “You made all of that for yourself? Bullshit. You don’t even eat breakfast usually.”

I wanted to snap that slender neck of hers. “I fucked her in the ass last night. I was just trying to make it up to her.”

Pearl didn’t buy that either. “She said you made love in front of the fireplace all night.”

Crow’s eyes narrowed even further.

Fuck. This didn’t make me look good.

“There was no ass-fucking mentioned,” Pearl said. “And that’s because there wasn’t any.”

I’d love to fuck Adelina in the ass, but knowing all the horrible things Tristan did to her made me second-guess all my darker fantasies. She was a virgin before she was raped, and I wanted to show her sex could be good. It could be the most amazing feeling in the world. To use her for my own sick pleasures…was wrong. But if I admitted any of that, I would sound like a fucking pussy. Crow was already suspicious I wouldn’t return her to Tristan. I didn’t want to give him any reason to pressure me.