Finding Gary (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 4) (28 page)

He was thankful for her departure.

Because he’d been two seconds away from telling her the truth.

***

Hours later, Victor King curled up his nose.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a deep breath and couldn’t smell himself.  Every breath that left him swallowing his own stench served as a blood-boiling reminder of the cage he’d just been freed from.  How desperately he needed someone to pay. 

His driver, who’d been parked outside of the correctional facility all morning waiting for Victor to post his bail, had gone to great lengths to evade the media who’d been tailing them on the highway—switching cars in a secure location to ensure they wouldn’t be followed.

Still, Victor found himself searching their surroundings with his heart in his throat as the driver pulled the car to a stop a few feet away from the designated spot. 

Once the car was in park, Victor was finally able to inhale without cringing.  Soon, the vile stench that permeated off his skin would be well worth it. 

The Romanovskys may have succeeded in stealing his Presidency.  They may have succeeded in turning his own son against him.  They may have even succeeded in putting him in a temporary cage.  What they didn’t know was that Victor wouldn’t rest until he put them all in a permanent one.  A permanent cage.  A permanent prison.

An emotional prison for which there was no escape.  Where there wasn’t enough money in existence to bail themselves out.  A mental incarceration for which they would blame themselves forever. 

Even if Victor did eventually end up in jail for the rest of his life, he could rest easy knowing that miserable family would be right there with him, even if only spiritually.

He pulled a black baseball cap low on his forehead, followed by a pair of sunglasses.  He’d been a teenager the last time he’d worn jeans and a t-shirt, so he was sure no one would recognize him, or even throw him a second look.  If the neighborhood he’d chosen were any indication, it would be the exact opposite.  The Caucasian hippie transplants would clutch their baby’s strollers and cross to the other side of the street the moment they caught sight of him, desperate to get away from the towering black man who, unbeknownst to them, had been a Presidential hopeful just a week earlier.

His blood went back to a boil.  President.  It had almost been his.  At the tips of his fingers.  Real tears actually filled his eyes, but not enough to blur his vision as he looked out of the window and saw Taj appear, looking both ways down the street with a bundle in his arm.

Victor looked across the backseat of the car and met eyes with the woman next to him for the first time.  Her blue eyes widened at his sudden eye contact, which she probably hadn’t been expecting since he’d been ignoring her for the entire ride.  She shifted as best she could against her tied hands and ankles, her soft voice a mere mumble against the fabric gag that had been pressed between her teeth.  She kicked back at the floor of the car, pushing her body into the opposite door.

“Don’t be afraid,” Victor smiled.  “As long as your brother doesn’t try anything slick, you’ll be free within the hour.”

Her blue eyes doubled in size.

Already bored, Victor looked away and threw the door of the car open, stepping out onto the sunny Tribeca street.  The sun immediately latched on to his black baseball cap, making his bald head feel muggy, and within seconds, a string of sweat was racing down the side of his face.

He closed the door and circled the car to the sidewalk before looking back; making sure the girl wasn’t visible through the heavily tinted windows of the car.  She wasn’t. 

Victor faced Taj with a sigh of relief and made his way over.  When he was within a few feet, Taj caught sight of him too and straightened.

“Marcus?” Victor asked once they were face to face.

Taj’s jaw visibly tightened, and Victor could see the muscle moving under his skin. He tightened the wiggling bundle in his arms. “Yes.”

“Show me.”

Taj brought his fingers to an opening in the tightly wrapped, yellow swaddle, hesitated, and then peeled it open.

One look at the caramel face and glistening golden eyes was enough, and Victor nodded sharply.  That yellow swaddle was worth its weight in gold.

“Give me the child,” Victor said, eyes darting under his sunglasses, making sure none of the passerby on the sidewalk were watching either of them too closely, or for too long.

“Hailey,” Taj countered.

Victor nodded towards the black sedan behind him.  “Backseat.”

“Proof, or no swap.”

With a deep sigh, Victor produced a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

“Alfred,” Victor said, a moment later.  “When the street is clear, roll down the window.  Make sure she understands what’s at stake if she makes the mistake of screaming.”

Taj’s wide eyes were riveted to the tinted window of the sedan, and after a soccer mom and her two toddlers were a comfortable distance away from the car, smiling at Taj and Victor as she passed, Taj nearly leaped for the car when the backseat window rolled down—just a hair.

A pair of blue eyes appeared from the backseat and then filled with moisture when they landed on Taj. 

Hailey’s eyes nearly bolted from their sockets at the sight of Taj.  She jolted, then wiggled, fighting the restraints on her wrists and ankles, but she didn’t dare make a sound.  She didn’t need to.  The horror in her eyes did all the talking for her.

Taj leaped for the car just as the window began rolling back up, but Victor caught him and shoved him backward.

“The child,” he spat, realizing for the first time that Taj and Hailey had the same eyes when he saw Taj’s orbs filling with tears as well.

Lips trembling along with his bones, undone at the sight of Hailey, Taj forced his pained eyes closed and handed Marcus to Victor.

Victor caught him and sheltered him against his chest, smiling.

Taj looked away from the grin on Victor’s face.

“In exactly sixty seconds,” Victor said.  “My driver will vacate the vehicle and move to the other side of the street.  The keys will remain in the ignition, and you’re to drive away the moment you take the wheel.  Plane tickets are tucked into the last page of the car manual in the glove compartment.  Your flight leaves in less than an hour, so I suggest you hop to it.”

The first tear spilled over Taj’s eyes.  “You’re a horrible person.”

Victor’s smile bloomed.  “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, as well.”

As promised, Victor’s driver stepped out of the car a minute later and crossed the street.

Without another word, Taj raced for the car, forced to brace his hand on the hood of the sedan in his rush to get to the driver’s side.  He leaped in and turned to the backseat, taking only a few seconds to undo the binds around his sister’s limbs before pulling her into the front seat with ease.

Victor gritted his teeth when their tear-filled embrace went on for a second too long, keeping a close eye on the passersby on the sidewalk to make sure none of them were taking notice of the impassioned exchange in the car.

“Let’s go,” Victor whispered. When Taj finally pulled back, waited for his sister to buckle her seatbelt, and started the car, Victor rolled his eyes.  Took him long enough.

Two pairs of disgusted blue eyes met his, for what he knew would be the last time, and a moment later, Taj had torn out onto the street and zoomed out of sight.

Victor watched the car go, waiting until it was around the corner.  He was beginning to regret releasing Taj from his clutches so easily.  His weakness for his sister would’ve allotted Victor a control that would be for life.  But Victor had been too desperate for Marcus to dwell on that control.  Hailey for Marcus, as far as he was concerned, was an uneven trade.  In
his
favor.

Car out of sight, Victor looked across the street, met eyes with his driver, and nodded.

A moment later, his driver climbed into the front seat of another car, one that had been waiting across the street, and Victor sucked in a breath, stepping onto the street after the driver circled around.

He threw open the back door and, adjusting Marcus in his arm, leaned down and climbed inside.

After he’d slammed the door closed, the car sped out of sight.

24

Zoey answered her phone with a smile, tapping away at her computer.  “Hey, I was just thinking about you.”

She heard his sigh on the other end of the line.  “I’m always thinking about you.”

She bit her bottom lip.  Before trying to kiss her the night before, he’d been saying things like that more and more often.  Little hints and innuendos that let her know how he really felt about her, even though she knew his job made it difficult for him to open up fully.

“I mean it, Zoey.”

The smile fell from her face because she could hear the somber tone to his voice.  She wondered if he was finally reaching a point where he couldn’t keep his feelings under control anymore.  She hoped he wasn’t at that point because she still didn’t feel ready.

And he still wasn’t Val.

“I care about you, very much,” Taj said.  “And I never stop thinking about you.  I’m sure I never will.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I can’t decide.”

She chuckled.  “I care about you, too, Taj.  Very much.”  She frowned.  “Is everything okay?”

A long silence.  “Yeah.”

Zoey stopped working on her project completely and sat tall, unconvinced.  “But you sound really strange.  Not like yourself.”

“I’m just getting old.  This playground is no joke.  Been bouncing all over it with Marcus for the last couple of hours.  I probably sound strange because I’m on the verge of a heart attack.”

She chortled.  “You’re in better shape than most guys half your age.  Better shape than I’ll ever be in.”

Another long silence.

Zoey frowned, crossing her arms over her chest.

“We’re having a lot of fun.  I wish you could be here with us.”

“I wish I was there, too.  This project is going to go well into tonight, though; I can already see it happening.  Hey, maybe we can all go for pizza and ice cream later.  Celebrate our newfound freedom from the clutches of Victor King.”

“That sounds nice,” he whispered.  “Really nice.”

“So then it’s a date.”  Zoey’s eyes searched the room, and then widened when he let another quiet moment sink in.  “Taj?”

“Did you see that double rainbow today?”

Zoey smiled and stood from her chair, moving to the window.  “I’ve never actually seen one in person.”  She yanked open the curtains excitedly, shuffling from foot to foot as she looked up into the sky.  When all she saw was the clear blue sky, she frowned.  “I can’t see it.  Guess that’s the price you pay living in a city lined with the tallest buildings in the world.  You know this apartment only gets about an hour of real sunlight action a day before it disappears behind these skyscrapers they’re throwing up all over the place.”  Zoey pushed a hand to her hip.  “Now that I think about it, we might be in real danger of suffering from that ailment that’s taken over Seattle.  What’s it called?”

“S.A.D.”

Zoey snapped her finger.  “That’s it.  It can’t be healthy for a person to be deprived of this much of the sky.”

“So go outside.  Right now,” Taj said.  “Marcus and I have to get back to the playground, but I want you to see it.”

“See what?” Zoey asked, already back at her desk, frowning at her project once more.

“The double rainbow,” Taj said.  “It’s really beautiful.”

“I will,” Zoey said, laughing.  “Give Marcus a kiss for me.  I’ll talk to you later, okay?”  Zoey ended the call once Taj gave her a whispered goodbye, shaking her head and clicking away.

It wasn’t until she was almost completely re-submerged in the throes of her project, biting her bottom lip in concentration, that it hit her.  And then, every drop of blood in her veins surged to her feet, sending a cold chill racing through her.  Her bottom lip fell from between her teeth, and her jaw went weak, making her mouth fall open as her wide eyes shot to the window of her apartment.  She gasped and snatched up her phone, redialing Taj’s number.

When her call went straight to voicemail, her gasps moved into pants as she leaped to her feet and raced for her front door.  She threw it open without closing or locking it behind her.  Her breaths bounced off the walls of the stairwell as she bounded down from the tenth floor, too distressed to wait for the elevator.  As she flew down the last flight of stairs to the lobby, Zoey had to hold onto both the stair railing and the wall to keep her wobbling legs from giving out from under her.

Once she made it to the lobby, she raced past the smiling doorman and toward the entryway doors of the building, flying out of those, as well.

She stumbled onto the sidewalk outside, and her hair immediately picked up with the wind as she looked up at the sky.  It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in sight, nothing but blue for miles.

But no double rainbow.

She jetted down the sidewalk, sidestepping curious passerby as she staggered to a gasping stop at the end of the block, at an intersection where the buildings weren’t quite as tall, and her view of the sky was completely unobstructed.

Staring up, she turned in a full circle, looking for the double rainbow, her heartbeat picking up more with every expanse of sky she saw.  When she was met with nothing but blue from every angle, tears came to her eyes, her stomach sank, and she was hardly able to get the cell phone to sit still on her ear after dialing Jessica Borgia’s number.

Jessica answered with her own voice hoarse and panting, but Zoey didn’t have the capacity to ask why she was breathing so hard, or what all the commotion was on Jessica’s end of the line.

“Something’s wrong,” Zoey said, only realizing she was crying when she heard the tears in her voice.  “Taj was talking about a double rainbow.”

“What?  Zoey, say that again.  I can hardly hear you.”

“He said there was a double rainbow today, but there isn’t,” Zoey cried.  “He said that it was beautiful.”

“Zoey, what in god’s name are you talking about? Hey!”  Jessica screamed to someone on her end of the line, where the noise seemed to be getting louder with each second.

Zoey’s voice rose.  “Taj told me a story about his sister.  He said, when she was five years old, she was abducted and forced into sex trafficking.  He said the day she was found and brought home there was a double rainbow in the sky.  He told me that he couldn’t look at a double rainbow and think of anything but that day.  He said double rainbows would never be beautiful to him because they would always take him back to that time when he almost lost his sister.  But he said it was beautiful
today
,” Zoey screamed, eyes frantic.  “Jessica, something’s wrong, and he has Marcus.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessica said.  “Zoey, do not call the police.  Do you hear me?  Do not call the police.  Stay at your apartment.  Lock the doors.  I’m coming right now, and I’m bringing the guys.”

Zoey hung up without another word, racing back into her building and taking the elevator back to her apartment.  Once inside her unit with the doors locked behind her, she pressed her fist over her mouth and fell back against the front door.  Her mind told her that she was probably being ridiculous, paranoid, and she waited for the rest of her body to catch up.  She waited for the sinking feeling in her gut to finally float to the surface and stabilize.  For the tears in her eyes to stop coming.  For the shake in her core to calm down. 

None of them did.

She dialed Taj’s number again.

Straight to voicemail.

When bile rose to her throat, Zoey covered her mouth to stop it from spilling out of her lips.

***

“How are you holding up?” Across town in Westchester, fifteen minutes earlier, Gary’s eyes shone across the doorway outside his family’s estate, eyes falling to the bow tie he was adjusting between his fingers.  “You gonna be okay?”

Reggie craned his neck under Gary’s adjustments, his eyes bolting every which way.  “Let’s just say; I probably won’t be doing much eating during this dinner for fear I’ll promptly puke it right back up, all over your mother’s dining room table, thus sealing your family’s eternal hatred of me for good.”

Gary plopped his hands on Reggie’s shoulders.  “You’ve been on my ass about telling my family… for how long?  Now that the time has finally come to take the plunge, you’re getting cold feet?”

“Maybe we should just move to a remote island; somewhere we can love each other and fuck each other without worrying about what everyone else thinks.  I hear Figi’s nice.”

“My family has finally made it to a place where they can be around each other without the entire place going up in flames.  My parents can look each other in the eye again without gripping steak knives they secretly want to take to each other’s hearts.  Victor King is in a cage where he belongs.  The world is righting itself.  The only thing missing is… you.  Once they see how much I love you, they’ll eventually love you too.”

“Seems extremely ambitious.”

“Maybe it is, but we have to at least try, right?” Gary reached into his pocket, and when the jangle of keys rang out, the frown on Reggie’s face deepened.

“Do you think I should’ve gone with the violet vest instead?” Reggie asked as Gary unlocked the front door.  He shifted the vest he had on.  “Gray is all of a sudden feeling too casual.  Like I’m expecting to just strut in here like I own the place.”

Gary stopped unlocking the door, faced Reggie, took his vest and yanked him.  He caught Reggie’s lips as he stumbled forward, moaning when the kiss deepened in an instant.  Their tongues met, and Gary became semi-hard in seconds, his hands traveling from where they’d been cradled against Reggie’s chest and around to his backside, taking his ass in a firm grip. 

Their lips parted softly, just as a cool breeze swept in a surrounded them.  They drank in the fresh gust, re-energized.

“I love you,” Gary whispered.

“I love you, too, Gary.”

“They’re going to accept you, because they love me, and there is no me without you.”

Reggie licked his lips, and he must’ve tasted Gary there because his shoulders relaxed.  He nodded.

Gary turned back to the door and opened it as quickly as he could, fearing that Reggie would get cold feet again.  He felt Reggie's fingers clutching the back of his button-down shirt in a tight fist as they stepped into the foyer.  That grip got tighter the closer they moved to the dining room.  It was so snug by the time the voices from the dining room floated toward them and hit their ears that Gary was sure Reggie was on the verge of ripping it straight from his chest.  He could feel the buttons relenting against the stress, and turned to give Reggie a look.

“Let me go in first.”  Gary watched the lump move down Reggie’s throat and pecked his lips before making his way into the dining room entryway.

His entire family sat at the dining table, including Angie Colt.  Only two seats remained empty.  His, and Zoey’s.  It had been months since she’d occupied that seat, but it would always belong to her, on the off chance she decided to come home.  Val still sat next to that seat with his arm slung over it, as if she was still there.  Gary knew his older brother would never stop looking at that seat with longing.  He knew Val would never fill the empty space in that chair, or the empty space in his heart, with any other woman but Zoey.

Gary’s heart hurt at the thought, and for the first time, he wondered if Reggie had been right.

Maybe it was too soon.

Gary cleared his throat as he stopped in the dining room entry, causing the conversation around the table to slow to a stop. All eyes flew to him.  Smiles hit him from every direction, and he couldn’t help but ponder that he’d never felt so close to complete.  Reggie had been right all along.  The love of his family had never felt as real to him as it did at that moment.  Now that they knew who he was, who he really was, and still had smiles for him every Sunday without hesitation; he couldn’t deny that it was the greatest feeling in the world.

All that was missing was their acceptance of the only man he’d ever wanted to share it with.  The one person he’d spent his entire life waiting for.

“Sorry I’m late,” Gary said, wringing his hands.

“You look nice,” Jessica said from her place next to Leo.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tie around your neck.  What’s the occasion?”

Always straight to the point, Gary found himself blushing.  “You just can’t help but interrogate people, can you?”

She shrugged.  “It’s a sickness.”

Running the beds of his fingers along his tie, Gary raised his eyebrows.  “I actually have someone with me.”

Every back at the table straightened, causing Gary to straighten too.  He wasn’t surprised by his family’s surprise.  The only member of that family who’d brought fewer women home than Val was Gary.  Gary was sure his mother had called secret family meetings about his lack of a dating life, the same way she had with Val, and when her eyes lit up from the head of the table, that suspicion was all but confirmed.

“Someone?” Tony asked, bringing his clasped hands to his mouth.  “A special someone?”

Gary’s eyes fell.  “Really special.  Someone who’s had my heart for a long time.”

Bette nearly climbed out of her seat.  “Well for goodness sake, bring him in.”  She danced around in her seat.  “This is so exciting.”