Betraying Beauty (Sons of Lucifer MC): Vegas Titans Series (10 page)

He
trusts
her? What the fuck.

Somehow, this statement makes me want to strangle him, as if
he’s not allowed to trust her. Like it’s my solitary right to trust or not
trust Harper Sinclair. Like he’s not allowed to think about her.

“You do, huh.” I kick the table. “Fuck. Fine. You’re right,
can’t hurt. Might as well ask Harper what she thinks.” Digging in my pocket for
my keys, I snatch up the envelope and I’m out the door, aware of Grindhouse’s
footsteps behind me.

“Who knows about this so far?” I ask over my shoulder.

“Me and Wheely and Pete,” Grindhouse says.

“Keep it that way,” I order. “No one leaves the clubhouse or
so much as makes a fucking phone call to anyone but me til I get back, ok? We
can’t afford any more drama.”

“Got it,” he agrees.

“I’ll keep you posted.” We’ve reached our fenced-in parking
lot and I wave at Wheely and Pete to unlock the barbed-wire gate. Hopping on my
Harley, I clasp arms with Grindhouse. “We’ll figure this out, man. Tate’s gonna
get his vengeance.”

“Yeah. Sure, Prez.”

His face is full of unspoken worry and respect. It makes me
wince as I turn away into the sunlight.

God, I can’t let my club down now. This is do or die. I rev
the engine and speed away, pointing my nose downtown.

All I can think of is Harper’s eyes, a clear blue spark of
hope in my stark mad troubles.

Chapter Eleven

Dominic

“Sir, I’ve already told you, Miss Sinclair is in a meeting,”
hisses the secretary, with a voice like an irritated jungle cat on Prozac. “You
don’t have an appointment. You can’t go in.”

My fist slams down on her desk, making her face twitch.
We’re up in one of those enormous, soulless skyscrapers in the downtown
business district. The place gives me the heeby-jeebies. Almost every person
I’ve seen so far is a square-shouldered white dude: no minorities, barely any
women—unless you can count this icicle I’m talking to right now. It’s bullshit;
classism central.

I’m probably the only person on the entire zip code with a
mixed bloodline, motorcycle, or t-shirt and I want to get the hell out of here
as fast as I can.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’s in the middle of giving a
Senator a blow-job,” I bark back. “I’ve got to talk to Harper Sinclair, and
I’ve got to talk to her now. I am a client and it’s an emergency. I’m getting
in there, end of story. Now, we can do this the way where you keep your job or
the way where I kick through that expensive-looking, locked frosted glass door
you’re guarding as if its your fucking carnal treasure. Which will it be?”

“You’re disgusting,” she gasps.

“You’re deciding,” I remind her. “Kicking? Or unlocking.”

Face frozen, she jolts out of her chair and walks like a
robot to the door, punches in a four-digit code, and jerks it open.

“Thank you,” I say with my most charming smile, giving her a
sardonic salute as I push through the door and leave the lobby behind me.

Harper’s office is even more intimidating than I had
imagined. It’s huge and white and nuanced, like the spaceship in Alien. It’s a
corner office. Massive. And I might as well be in deep space, because as soon
as I set my eyes on the two people standing and chatting at the window, I know
I’ve entered the fucking twilight zone.

Both of the people I am looking at could be in an ad for
Calvin Klein or the Nazis or something. They’re both tall, Caucasian, good-looking,
and oozing old money. Harper is on the right, staring at me in surprise and
consternation. Her face is fresh, well rested, and in the light spilling
through the window she looks like a god-damn angel.

Then there’s the dude.

The man that is her male equivalent, exactly what Harper
would look like if she were taking testosterone pills. I recognize him in an
instant because I never forget an enemy’s face. It’s her brother, the maniac
that tried to drown me at the lake ten years ago.

“Who the fuck are you,” the brother demands.

What is this guy, a robot? It’s the exact same thing he said
to me, back then, followed by:
“Get your dirty hands off my sister!”

It’s déjà-fucking-vu.

Harper’s graceful hand shoots out, resting lightly but
pleadingly on his lapel as if to restrain him. “Haden,” she says, “This is Dominic
Thorne: the client on the big case I was telling you about. The one I’ve been
out of town for, on location. Why I haven’t returned your calls. My biggest case
yet.”

“Client?” He sizes me up coldly. “Looks more like a
defendant to me.”

“Dominic Thorne,” I say, extending my hand. It’s a keep your
friends close and your enemies closer gesture.

Haden stares at my hand but doesn’t take it. “You’re
interrupting us,” is all he says.

Harper’s eyes widen, her Emily Post manners kicking into
emergency mode. “Dominic, my brother Haden Sinclair.”

Harper is clinging to propriety like a shield, but I catch
the nervous swallow and unspoken request in her eyes.
Play along,
she’s
begging.
Pretend you don’t know who he is. Bury the past.

Oh, I’ll play along.

I plant my feet and cross my arms. “Haden Sinclair,” I say.
“Haven’t I heard that name before?”

He cocks his head to the side and mirrors my alpha stance,
spreading his feet wide and hooking his hands on his hips. “Maybe.”

“Yeah! Haden Sinclair,” I repeat, snapping my fingers. “Aren’t
you the guy who can’t tell a Mohawk from a Mexican or his own ass from his
balls? Or, wait, were you maybe the guy who never figured out his own country’s
constitution, that bit about all men created equal?”

There’s a stunned silence. Harper visibly shudders.

Haden steps towards me. “Excuse me?”

“Haden, wait,” Harper interjects. Her voice is brittle but
calm. Forced. “Let me handle this. Dominic, please, will you wait outside? We
are almost finished and Haden was just leaving.”

Trying to get rid of me. Like she’s ashamed. Hot blood
rushes to my head.

“No thank you,” I purr, still smiling. “I’d rather stay here
and settle an old score.”

Haden’s eyes narrow. “Do I know you from somewhere? I’d
apologize for drawing a blank, but your face is forgettable.”

“I’m the dude you tried to kill ten years ago,” I shout.
“Now I’m offering you a second chance, motherfucker. Come on. I dare you.”

Haden’s face doesn’t change, just goes a few degrees whiter.
He turns to his sister, his voice calm, and grabs her by the upper arm, shoving
her roughly up against the window. Her face is contorted in fear.

“Haden, please, don’t,” she stammers. “Let go of me. Please
don’t hurt him.”

Something filters down through the sediment of my memory
about that day, the last day I saw Haden and thought I’d seen the last of
Harper. I remember hearing her voice pleading, just like that—rising to screams
when her maniac brother held me under water.

“Haden, stop, I’m sorry…stop, Haden, please… I’ll go with
you, I promise, just don’t hurt him.”

Now I’m righteously pissed. Harper should never have to beg,
definitely not on my account. I should be the one protecting her.

“That guy?” Haden whispers to her. His hand is grinding
tighter into her arm. “The janitor from your little summer camp? The rapist? I
thought I told you that if I caught you slumming it with him again I’d kill
both of you. Did you-”

But he doesn’t get much of a chance to elaborate his psycho
speech. There’s a ferocious chain reaction in my guts faster than lightning and
stronger than steel. I’m on him before even I know what I’m doing.

“Hey!” My hands have twisted the blazer of his suit down his
shoulders and around his elbows like an improvised fetter and I’m hold it tight,
my teeth snarling inches from his nose. “What’s your problem, asshole? Didn’t
your upper-class education teach you to keep your hands off women?”

Haden head-butts me and works his arms free until his hands
are around my throat.

“Haden! No!” Harper shouts, with a new authority in her
voice.

A force hits Haden from behind, knocking him into me, and we
all stumble over to the window. The momentum breaks Haden’s hold on me.

I’m confused for a second when I don’t feel Haden
immediately bounce back on top of me, and then I almost laugh when I realize
why: Harper has him penned up against the window and is smacking the shit out
of him as only a woman can: a fierce barrage of slaps around the face that has
the psycho dazed and confused.

“Leave him alone!” Harper is yelling. “You don’t get to
treat us this way!”

But in the end, Haden proves himself a total dickwipe.
Mounting impatience and total disregard for his own sister push him past the
point of forgiveness when he takes a sock Harper’s face.
            That’s it.

He manages to clip her chin a little but I’ve pulled her out
of harm’s way and slammed Haden on the desk before the bastard knows what’s
happening. Haden gives a good thrash, but I’ve got him pretty well immobilized.
Guess those years of free style boxing with the Sons of Lucifer have paid off.
I could take him with one arm tied behind my back.

Reality starts to sink in for Haden, and his face twists
with rage like a rabid dog. “How dare you!” He screeches, beside himself. “Harper,
call security!”

Suddenly I feel her presence beside me, like a cool breeze.
“Thankfully, it looks to me like Dominic’s managed the safety threat pretty
successfully, Haden. You are the problem here.”

“What’s the matter with you,” Haden spits. “You’re my
sister! This Neanderthal is out of line.”

I’ve got to admit, I enjoy smashing his face harder into a
pointy paperweight on the desk at this particular moment. Harper’s lips
tighten, and she punches a button on the bottom of her desk.

“Haden,” she says, with a deep breath, “I have put up with
your mind games and rules and bullshit my entire life because I was so afraid
of you, so afraid of your violent temper and complete and utter lack of empathy
for human feeling. I felt like I owed you that, because of your condition. I
thought it was my duty.”

“It is!” Haden growls.

Harper straightens. “Now you’re in my place of business
trying to bully me, and insulting a man who is not just a client but someone I
love. And you know what? I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore about your rules and
your temper and your fucking inability to empathize. Who I choose to spend my
time with, what I choose to do with my life, is none of your goddamn concern.
You don’t own me or my choices. If I want to help Dominic with a lawsuit, I
will. If I want to live at his clubhouse, I will. If I want to love him, I
will.”

“You’re my sister,” Haden shouts. “You are not a common
whore and you don’t belong around people like him. You’re a Sinclair!”

“People like him?” Harper shouts. “You don’t know a thing
about him! Or people! You’re missing a chromosome. You may be technically my
brother, but you’ve never acted remotely like a brother is supposed to act. I
don’t owe you a goddamn thing. Not an explanation. Not loyalty. Not my time. I
have called security: they will be here in about twenty seconds, and they will
escort you from the premises. I suggest you never come back, either here, or to
any other part of my life. I choose my family from now on. Dominic’s in, and
you’re out.”

Her words do strange things to the atmosphere of the room.
Haden’s struggling intensifies, as does my strength. Something like renewed
faith in humanity gives me enough of a boost to deal with the motherfucker with
ease.

“You’ve gone insane Harper,” Haden squeals. “You’ve
forgotten what it means to be a Sinclair. I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you both.”

It’s a familiar tune, but now I’ve got the upper hand. A
wicked grin curls around my lips. “I don’t think you will, Haden,” I say. “I
think you’ll respect your sister’s wishes and stay the fuck out of her business
from now on. Unless you want that paperweight stuck into a different part of
your anatomy.”

The door bursts open and three beefy security guards muscle
through, stun guns raised and pointed at me.

“Down on the ground!” They shout.
            “Wait,” Harper orders, stepping between us with her hand raised.
“You’ve got it backward. My client was protecting me. My brother, the idiot on
the desk, attacked me. Please escort him from the building and ban him from
future re-entry.” She turns to us. “Dominic, they’ll take it from here. Haden,
I suggest you cooperate. Lay hands on me or Dominic or hire anybody else to do
so, and I will smack a lawsuit on your ass so large and so cumbersome and so
relentless and so fucking public, even Mom and Dad will wish they were not
Sinclairs. Understand?”

Haden has gone still, his pupils dilated in rage.

I give him a little shake. “Answer, asshole.”

“Fine,” he grunts. “I understand.”

Harper nods at the security guards and me. “Ok, Dominic, let
them take him out.”

Reluctantly, I step away from Haden. He shifts and stands,
straightens his jacket, and then whips around on me with the paperweight
clutched like a club in his fist.

There’s a clicking-buzzing sound as a security guard fires
the stun gun, and Haden twitches and falls on the floor groaning.

I shake my head, amused. “Dumb.”

It’s hard not to chuckle as the security guards drag my
vanquished enemy out, but then I turn and see Harper. She’s shaking like a
leaf, her enormous blue eyes beaming with bewilderment, shock, and elation. She’s
rubbing the spot on her arm where Haden had grabbed her.

I know how she must feel, something like the way I felt when
I moved my stuff out of the reservation and into my own apartment in New York
City before I found the Sons of Lucifer and moved west: displaced, free, and
buzzing with adrenaline. I know what it’s like to feel your identity ripping
you in half. I know what it’s like when the ground you stand on changes shape.

I am Dominic Thorne. I am Mohawk. I am white. I am two
worlds and two people in one.

“Hey,” I say, stepping towards her, “Let me see that chin.”

But she whips her body out of reach, eyes flashing. “What
the hell is wrong with you?” she shouts.

“Me?” I ask, confused.

“You barge in here unannounced in the middle of a very busy
day, insulting people and driving them to violence. I’m trying to get shit
done. I’m trying to cover up the fact that I’ve been a kidnapped for like a
month, and you are not making it easier by beating up my crazy brother!”