Buttons and Shame (Buttons 4)

“Taking her from Cane isn’t the problem. She’s on loan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her eyes leapt with fire, and I knew she wanted to throw that book right at my head.

“It means Tristan wants her back. She’s obviously valuable to him if he offered her as collateral.”

“So what?” She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up.

I tried to stay focused. “We can’t just interfere and send her home. Tristan would see that as an act of war. I know him, Button. He’s not an enemy I want to have. He’s a much better ally.”

“We can’t just abandon her either.”

I didn’t want to sound like a jackass, but my indifference was clear. “Button, this isn’t our problem.”

Her jaw nearly dropped.

“The practice is more disgusting than any other type of organized crime. I’m not saying I agree with it—at all. But we can’t save everyone. We can’t change our lives and interfere with business. She should have been smart and never put herself in a vulnerable position in the first place.”

Now Pearl really looked like she wanted to kill me. “Wow…”

I knew exactly what she was thinking. Her old boyfriend took her on vacation and sold her into trafficking. Her stupidity wasn’t the reason she got involved at all. She was the victim of a despicable crime. “I’m not trying to be an ass. I’m just being objective here.”

She shook her head, the disappointment heavy in her eyes. “After everything I’ve been through…” She broke eye contact with me altogether and stared at the fire.

When she turned away, I knew she was closing me off. “Button, I’m sorry. But I still stand by what I said. There’s nothing I can do for this woman. I can’t go to war with every man on the planet. I already did it once—and it was because I couldn’t live without you.”

She got off the couch and headed to the patio. “Get out.”

This was worse than I’d anticipated. “Button—”

“I said get out.” She shut the door behind her, only the glass separating us from each other. She leaned over the wooden railing and stared into the darkness across the fields. With her back turned to me, I couldn’t see her face. But when her shoulders stiffened and her back slightly heaved, I knew she was crying.

God-fucking-dammit.

I assumed Cane wouldn’t answer, so I was surprised when he did. “I’ll wire the money in the morning. You know I keep my word.”

“That’s not why I’m calling.”

“Oh?”

“We need to talk about this loan of yours.” The interest rate was through the roof and was wreaking havoc on my marriage.

“Pearl?” Cane knew Pearl wouldn’t go down easily.

“Yeah. She’s pretty upset.”

“I know. My face is still red.”

He’d get no sympathy from me. “She’s not gonna let this go. We both know that.”

“She’s gonna have to. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Well, something needs to be done.” I didn’t care if Button got mad at me or threw a hissy fit. But watching her cry…I wasn’t into it. It made me feel lower than dirt, worse than taking her as property and making her work for her freedom. “Couldn’t we just pay Tristan to keep her?”

“No.”

“How do you know that? Did you ask?”

“No.” He sighed into the phone. “But I know how he feels about her. He’s psychotically possessive, worse than You-Know-Who ever was. He specifically told me he wants her back and reminded me she’s just a loan. I don’t think there’s enough money in the world for Tristan to let her go.”

Men were ferocious when it came to their possessions. I offered Bones twenty million dollars for Button because I wanted her so much. That was an insane offer, and even then, he wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t have taken the offer either if the positions had been reversed.

She was priceless.

“We should try anyway. He did loan her out to you. She can’t be that valuable to him.” No way I ever would have let any man have a go with my woman.

“She’s still his, so it’s different.”

“Just talk to him, alright?” I snapped.

Cane sighed again. “I’m not going to do it. It’s gonna make things tense if I say something like that to him. If we really have to, I’d rather wait until I have the other half of the money.”

That was probably the smart thing to do. “Or you could have just gotten the money to begin with…”

Cane didn’t respond because there was nothing he could say to that. “I heard you the first time.”

“What if we hire someone to steal her back? He’d never figure out it was us.”

“Are you insane?” he snarled. “Tristan may be a psychopath, but he’s not stupid. He’d put two and two together pretty quickly. And we just got rid of You-Know-Who. I’m not looking to have any more enemies, especially when a new overlord is on the rise.”