28 Seconds: A House of Valentine Novella (3 page)

“Who?”

“No games, Ariana.”

I sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s more a feeling than a memory. He just...I don’t want him near me.”

“Then that will be arranged.” His touch was light on my knee. “If you remember, though, I need to know. Immediately. Agreed?”

I nodded. “When you came in the house you checked my birthmark.”

“It’s a scar, not a birthmark.”

“No, my mom-”

“Told you many things to keep you safe. Not all were true.” He stretched out his arm and tugged up the edge of his sleeve. A white scar gleamed against his olive skin, buried in the flesh of his wrist. I sat my mug down, taking his hand in mine, and traced the rough mark with trembling fingers. Smaller than mine, only the size of a quarter, and yet almost identical in every other way. He pulled away and refilled my coffee before settling back in his chair.

“It’s a brand. It shows allegiance to the house of Valentine.”

“A brand? As in, burning into flesh? Tell me you are joking.”

“Afraid not. Your mother had one as well. At the nape of her neck.” He motioned to his own neck where it would be and then his voice lowered. “Why don’t you ask me the question you really want to know?”

Fear and frustration washed over me and I untucked my legs to move. Before my feet touched the floor, he had me locked back in the chair, power radiating off him. “No more running, Ariana.”

“Why are we running?”

He sat back, a quizzical look on his face. “That’s what you want to know most? Not about the Valentine family, your family?”

I bristled. “I’m not an idiot. A group of men sweeps in with lots of guns, manages to burn a house down with no worries of police interference, has a limitless supply of drugs, and then whisks me away to Atlantic City with no questions asked? The Valentine crime family makes the news even in small towns, Cole, so don’t patronize me.”

His hand went to his face, raking the stubble on his jawline. His eyes darkened and I could only imagine the thoughts and conclusions he was trying to draw in his head.

I couldn’t help the sarcastic bite to my words. “Does my intelligence shock you?”

“No,” he murmured, “not at all. Your mother was the most brilliant person I’ve ever known. What I don’t understand is why you remember any of that. You shouldn’t have anything except maybe foggy visions of deja vu.”

“You keep saying that,” I grumbled.

“Half a dose knocks grown men to their knees. They’re out for three to four days and, when they wake, they recall nothing. Not a single memory of the days they’ve lost.”

“So?”

“Ariana, you’ve had six full doses in less than 48 hours and you remember
everything
.”

I was quiet, considering. I wasn’t exactly innocent where drugs or alcohol were concerned. Small towns didn’t have much entertainment and getting stoned or drunk was the limit of weekend options. My mother was the free spirited sort and, as long as she knew I was safe, was content to let me experiment and find my own way. But I’d never gone too far into that world...it was a temporary diversion but never some great addiction that would have provided me a herculean tolerance level.

“How did you know what was in the mix? You guessed perfectly and only a handful of people know that recipe. It’s like the family’s trademark and is an extraordinarily well guarded secret.”

“Well guarded meaning they kill for it. Yeah, I get it.” I shook my head, tired of being talked to like a child. “I don’t know. My mom worked in a pharmacy and we talked about drugs all the time. Legal and illegal...it was just general conversation over the years.”

“That wouldn’t-”

“Cole, I said I don’t know!” I could see him retreating and I exhaled a long breath. “Sorry.”

“You’ve been through hell, Ariana. Don’t apologize when I’m the one being an ass.” He offered me a half smile. “You still love the ocean, right? I found the sea glass in your shorts”

I nodded, still stubbornly avoiding him.

“Grab the shot glasses and let’s take this tequila to the beach. Get out of this place for a while.” He extended his hand and I took it without thinking. Once I was on my feet, though, I hesitated. He tucked the glasses into my hands and pulled me behind him. “It’s safe. I promise.”

CHAPTER FOUR

We walked in silence, a half mile down the beach to where it was empty. Darkness was starting to fall and I realized I didn’t even know what day it was. Nor did I really care. “You’re sure it’s safe?”

“Yes. There’s not even teenage morons wielding video cameras.”

“Ugg.” I dropped into the sand and he followed suit, cracking open the tequila. “Tell me the Valentine family power made that disappear.”

He laughed. “Yes, it did.”

I drew circles in the sand. “It’s my fault, you know. If it hadn’t been for that video-”

“Hey.” His touch was light on my leg. “Don’t do that to yourself. You would have been found eventually. The internet has made the world a much smaller place. Teresa recognized that, prepared for that. So do
not
blame yourself.”

I nodded but didn’t respond. Instead, I inhaled deep, letting the scent and sound of the surf calm my senses.

“You know, you are technically not old enough to even have this,” he said, slipping a glass into my hand.

“Says the drug kingpin that sells his wares to school children?”

“Not my customer base. I do have some ethics,” he grunted then touched his glass to mine. “But touche.”

We downed the shots in unison and he was already pouring more as the numbing sting slid down my throat. “God, that was stupid. He was, like, sixteen, and such a dumbass.”

“Like them young, do you?”

The tequila steeled my nerves and I smiled at him. “Depends. How old are you?”

“A decade older than your kid and probably ten decades smarter.”

I smiled to myself...twenty-six. Still in my eligibility range then. Not that it had mattered earlier. I hadn’t even cared about his name. “I was in a string bikini right next to him and he was more excited that people were liking his fucking video. I wanted to strangle him.”

“Did you?” He laughed at the glare I sent him. “You
are
a Valentine, Ariana. It’s a fair question.”

“No, but I shoved him on his ass.”

“Good for you.”

I swallowed my own shot and then his. “So what does that mean exactly? My mother had an affair with some mafia henchman? I know she had me when was was crazy young.”

“Fifteen,” he admitted. “But no, nothing so simple as that. The mafia isn’t involved in the drug trade. Legal or illegal, the drug trade is our sole source of income. Ariana, your father is Franco Valentine.”

I shrugged. The name meant nothing to me and I waited for him to explain the significance.

“He’s head of the family.”

“Your boss.”

“My employer,” he corrected.

“So saving me was simply doing his bidding?” It didn’t hurt as much as I thought to say the words out loud. Thank god for tequila.

“No. I work for him, and my allegiance is to the Valentine family. But my loyalty,” he paused to take another shot, “was and always has been to your mother.”

“You know I don’t understand that.”

“It’s a complicated tree. I’ll draw you a chart one day.”

“Soon.”

“Soon,” he acknowledged.

I stretched out in the sand, making half sand angels. “Nothing smells like a boardwalk. The salt, the grease, the sugary taffy, the leftover trash and seagull shit.”

“You told me I smell like seawater.”

“Did I? I don’t remember.”

“I think we’ve established
that’s
a lie.”

“And the sound. Happy kids, crying kids, stressed parents, and lovers with gunshots and sirens mixed in. It’s like the freedom of childhood with the awful reality of life thrown into a frozen margarita machine and blended until there’s no way to tell the difference.”

“Philosophy major?” he guessed.

“Not hardly. I’m a science nerd.”

“What branch?”

I grimaced. “Stupid Valentine genes.”

“Let me guess...biochem?” I gave him a scathing glare in response and his body rocked with laughter. He tried to speak but was laughing so hard it came out in broken gasps. “Oh my god, Ariana, that is fucking priceless.”

“Fuck you, Cole.”

His laugh was so earnest, so free, that I couldn’t help but smile at him. He pushed another drink my direction as a peace offering and I sat up just enough to down it before dropping down again. He took his own then stretched out his legs alongside me as he tried to calm his laughter. “Fucking priceless. You want another?”

“I’m good. This is a happy place.”

He took one of his own before capping the bottle. “You were raised here, you know.”

“The beach? That would make sense then.”

“No. This beach. This Boardwalk. Atlantic City. You were born here.”

I twisted to use his legs as a pillow, playing with the bottle he’d stuck in the sand. “Were it not for the tequila, I would be furious that you know so much about a life I can only imagine.”

“What else does the tequila tell you?”

“Nothing. And that’s what makes it so damn wonderful, and so much better than your useless drug.”

His touch was light on my head, brushing back loose tendrils of hair. “Are you forgetting?”

I shook my head. “But I’m going numb to everything and right now, that’s just as good.”

“Everything?” A single finger stroked down my throat, sending visible shivers down my body. He was grinning at me and I swatted his hand away.

“Okay, maybe not everything. But since you said that’s not an option-”

“Blame the tequila for my transgressions.”

I laughed. “Damned tequila.”

His hand was soft against my face, tracing around my eyes and down to my lips. “Your laugh is the most beautiful sound in the world.”

“I don’t do it often,” I admitted.

“I figured, and that,” he murmured, “is what makes hearing it so beautiful. The way you’ve handled everything, the way you’ve pulled yourself together is about the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I wasn’t given much of a choice, was I?”

“No,” he murmured, “I suppose not.”

“Cole, did I really kill him?” I asked, my words a broken whisper.

“Yes. I’m sorry I can’t take away that memory for you.”

I was silent a few minutes, listening to the waves and trying to block out all thought. “Cole?”

“Hm?”

“Will you tell me about my mom? Happy things.”

He smiled and kissed the palm of my hand before pressing it back to my stomach and interlacing our fingers. “Teresa was force like none other. Full of life and a rebellious little gypsy. Always a handful, your dad called her. God, did he love her. Would’ve given her the world...tried to, in fact.”

“He loved her?” I frowned. That made no sense. Why would she run from someone who loved her so completely?

“He’s never loved anyone else, Ariana. Your mother...she raised me, you know. Teresa was the only parental figure I ever knew. Until she left with you, my world revolved around the two of you.”

“But she left you behind?”

He gave me a patient look that was almost infuriating. “I helped her get away.”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember anything he was telling me. But no matter how hard I tried to paint the pictures of the scenes he was giving me, nothing would surface. And then I saw it: a man’s hand curling across a dress with tiny pink flowers, a woman’s hand knocking it away and shouting. So very much shouting. And pain...like little shocks of lightning coursing through my body. I jerked up from the sand, weaving from the tequila, but Cole was beside me fast, his strong arms encircling my waist to keep me from falling.

“What was that?”

I broke free from his touch, taking several steps away. “Nothing. Too much tequila.”

“That was
not
tequila.”

“Cole!” We both jerked at the shout, turning to face the group of men headed our way. “Company’s coming. Half an hour maybe.”

He nodded, nonplussed. “We’ll move to the house. Get everything from the hotel.”

“The house isn’t ready-”

“Make it ready. Any news on Franco?”

“No change.”

“We’re running?” My hands wrapped around my stomach, hugging myself. “Again?”

“No. Just moving a few blocks,” Cole assured me. “We were having your house cleaned. Unlike the hotel, it’s a fortress.”

“My house?” I frowned but backed away when he started for me. He hesitated at my skittish behavior and it was just long enough for Marco to appear in front of me. His fingers buried into my arms, yanking them apart and pulling me toward him.