One More Shameless Night (5 page)

I
t would normally have taken
fifteen minutes for Clay to get worried about Harley, but tonight wasn’t a normal night.

Tonight was a night with Stewart Mason missing in action. The longer Clay had to mull over the problem of the AWOL Senator, the more certain he became that Stewart’s vanishing act was no coincidence.

Jackson’s people were days, maybe hours, away from having everything they would need for Clay to get a warrant for Stewart’s arrest. A man didn’t become as powerful as Mason without having big ears in important places. There was a significant chance that someone had tipped Stewart off that it was time for him to run.

And if that were true, Stewart wouldn’t just be furious, he would be dangerous. A cornered monster is bad enough. A cornered monster on the verge of losing everything could be deadly.

Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

But what about when your freedom was threatened, too? That was when you truly had nothing. No more time, no more leverage, no way out except with your finger wrapped around the trigger of a gun.

Some people would choose to put that gun to their own head, but Clay wasn’t naïve enough to think that Stewart Mason would spare his family by choosing suicide. No, he would want to cause a little more suffering on his way out, and his estranged daughter was near the top of a short list of people Stewart loved to torment the most.

Clay pushed his chair back, preparing to go look for Harley and stay glued to her side until she finished her phone call.

But before he could stand, an older man in a blue-and-white flowered Aloha shirt, holding a swaddled baby, slipped by the hostess with a smile and a nod in Clay’s direction and started across the crowded restaurant toward him.

Clay’s mouth went dry and his brain squirmed in his skull, rejecting the information being telegraphed from his eyes. Monsters didn’t appear out of thin air simply because you were thinking too hard about them.

This couldn’t be happening. That couldn’t be Stewart Mason walking toward him holding a baby.

Oh God. A baby.
Will.

Clay vaulted from his seat, ready to snatch Will out of Stewart’s arms and ask questions about how the hell the man had gotten his hands on his son later. But as Stewart stopped across the table, Clay noticed two very important things—

One: the baby wasn’t Will. The infant had chubbier cheeks, darker eyebrows, and bow-shaped lips that made Clay think she was probably a girl, not a boy.

Two: Stewart had a gun in his left hand, pressed lightly to the baby’s chest. It was mostly concealed beneath the white blanket wrapped around the child. But as Stewart faced Clay down across the table, he allowed the barrel of the gun to emerge into the night air.

“Good evening, Agent Hart,” Stewart said, his blue eyes dancing with something a shade too manic to be victory. “I trust you’re enjoying your stay at the Malolo.”

“Put the baby down,” Clay said softly, scanning the crowd behind Stewart, willing someone to look up and notice what was going on in this dark corner of the restaurant. But the other patrons were too busy enjoying themselves to sense that a predator had slunk into the center of the herd.

“You’re not giving the orders, agent.” The wrinkles on Stewart’s lightly creased face deepened as he smiled. “This is what we’re going to do. You’re going to lead the way out of the restaurant, down the path past the pools, and through the gardens toward the lighthouse.”

“I’ll go with you, but you need to leave the baby here,” Clay said. “I’ll set her down by my chair. She’s asleep, so she won’t start crying right away. We’ll have plenty of time to get out of the restaurant before—”

“You will walk at a leisurely pace,” Stewart continued as if Clay hadn’t spoken. “You will smile at anyone we might pass by, but you will not stop to chat. Most importantly, you will give no impression that anything is wrong. If you fail to obey my orders at any time between now and the moment our business is concluded, I will put my gun under this beautiful little girl’s chin and pull the trigger.”

The words connected like a fist to the gut.

Clay didn’t know if it was the utter lack of human emotion in Stewart’s voice or the fact that Clay had a baby exactly the same age as the one in Stewart’s arms at home, but it was all he could do not to bend over and lose the bread he’d eaten all over the patio.

“Start moving,” Stewart added pleasantly. “Or I will end the child’s life right now. Thanks to you, Agent Hart, I no longer have any reason to pretend to be anything but what I am.”

“A monster?” Clay moved around the table, swallowing hard against the bile rising in his throat.

“A realist,” Stewart corrected, falling in behind Clay as he started for the exit. “And a pragmatist. Results are all that have ever mattered to me. Methodology should only come into question if the methods used have failed to deliver the desired results.”

Clay nodded to the hostess as he passed by but didn’t stop to explain where he was going. He had dealt with enough hostage situations to know when someone was bluffing. Stewart wasn’t. If Clay stopped to speak to anyone between here and the lighthouse, Stewart would put a bullet through an innocent child.

And if he didn’t try to signal for help or fight back, Stewart was going to kill him. If Clay let his mind flip and tumble, he could come up with other logical reasons for Stewart to have come all the way to Samoa to threaten him at gunpoint, but in his gut, he knew this wasn’t about Stewart wanting to cut a deal or avoid extradition to the U.S.

This was Stewart finishing what he’d failed to do last January.

“If your desired results are reconciliation with Harley, this sure as hell isn’t the way to do it.” Clay slipped his hands into his pockets, keeping his gait relaxed even as he scanned the clusters of people around him for his wife. If she saw him walking anywhere with Stewart, she would know to go for help.

But so far there was no sign of her. She wasn’t near the entrance to the restaurant or the path leading to the adult pool, where several other people were taking advantage of the relative silence to place a call.

“My daughter is a more complicated creature than you give her credit for,” Stewart said. “Did she ever tell you about our hunting trips when she was small? She wasn’t much of a shot, of course, at that age, but she loved it when it came time to skin the animals. Loved to get up to her elbows in the blood and gore and see what was hiding beneath the surface.”

“No, she didn’t mention that,” Clay said. “But she has mentioned the times you made her stand in a corner until she wet her pants in order to humiliate her for crying when you thought she shouldn’t. What was she, five years old when you started that shit?”

Stewart laughed softly. “She needed that kind of discipline. She’s my child, that one. Always has been, from the moment she was born. And once I explain to her that you’ve ruined our family name and destroyed the empire I built for her and her sister, she’ll see that you’re an acceptable loss.”

“You’re wrong,” Clay said though he knew there was no point trying to use logic with someone who found it acceptable to threaten an infant’s life. “She loves our family. And me. When she learns what you’ve done, it will tear her apart. She will never be the same, and she won’t let you anywhere near her or the kids again.”

“She won’t have a choice,” Stewart said, a smug note in his voice Clay didn’t understand until he added, “I’ve got enough evidence to prove she framed Jackson Hawke and tampered with evidence in a felony case, which carries a sizeable prison sentence on its own without lying under oath and all the rest of it.”

“Bullshit,” Clay said, fighting to keep his volume low. “I destroyed anything that could lead to a conviction in that case.”

“You can’t destroy what you don’t know is there, agent. I’ve had everything I needed to prove my daughter was lying about her rape since the summer you both went over the guardrail in that car. I knew there would come a time when I would need leverage to keep my wild child in line.”

Clay bit down hard on his bottom lip, silently cursing the sick bastard.

“If she doesn’t agree to my demands,” Stewart continued, “she won’t see her children until they’re too old to care about the woman who used to be their mother. She will spend the next fifteen to twenty years behind bars and the children will go to your parents.”

Stewart fell silent as they passed two men talking too loudly about a woman in a white bikini they both apparently considered “theirs” for the night. Even if the men hadn’t been wasted, they were too caught up in their own pointless drama to pay attention to anyone else’s, and Harley was still nowhere in sight.

“They seem like such trusting people,” Stewart added as Clay took the turn toward the lighthouse, moving through the gardens where there were even fewer people to observe his abduction. “They’ll be unprepared for a visitor in the dead of night, come to pull Jasper and Will from their beds.”

“You’re never going to touch my kids. You’re going to jail.” Clay’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “There’s already a warrant out for your arrest.”

“Not yet, but there will be soon enough,” Stewart said. “Why do you think I’m here? On the lovely island of Samoa, where there is no extradition treaty in place with the United States. That’s why Ian Hawke’s son chose the location, isn’t it? Because of his troubles with the law?”

“The extradition treaty won’t mean shit if you commit murder on the island.” Clay searched the darkness on either side of the trail for anything he could use as a weapon. But the grounds were meticulously maintained. “They have their own justice system here and they prosecute killers the same way we do in the U.S.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to hope I’m clever enough not to get caught,” Stewart said, before adding in a softer voice. “I meant what I said, agent. If you don’t keep walking straight toward that lighthouse, where you will kneel down and take a bullet to your head like a man, I will kill this child. This baby whose only crime was having a mother who fell asleep in the hammock outside her hotel room, leaving the door open for me to duck inside.”

Clay swallowed hard, his thoughts racing. But for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t see any way out. He couldn’t be responsible for the death of an infant. He couldn’t choose his own life over that baby’s, no matter how loudly a voice in his head insisted that he couldn’t give up without a fight.

But sometimes fighting isn’t an option.

Sometimes there is nothing left to do but make what peace you can in the time you have left.

A moment later, the lighthouse came into view in the bright blue moonlight, a lonely relic of another age, slowly decomposing on a cliff above the ocean. A cliff where the waves smashed against the jagged shore beneath, creating enough noise to cover the sound of a gunshot and ensure a body left there might not be found for weeks, long after Stewart Mason and his gun were gone.

I
t was
the perfect ending to a perfect night.

Hannah was snuggled on the cushy outdoor couch watching the last fifteen minutes of her favorite cartoon of all time projected on the stucco wall of her home, her beautiful, brilliant nephew was asleep on what was left of her lap, and the girls had finally stopped cartwheeling around in her belly and settled in for a nap of their own. Her entire pregnancy had passed in a warm, foggy haze of well-being and tonight she had more reason than ever to be feeling blessed and grateful.

So when the bottom dropped out of her stomach at a few minutes after ten o’clock and anxiety began to dance across her skin on little razor feet, it hit her hard. She reached for her phone and shot a quick text to Jackson upstairs, not wanting to shout and risk waking one or both of the kids.

Is Will okay?

After only a few seconds, Jackson replied,
Yes. Still sleeping, but I got the bottle out of the fridge to warm up for the ten p.m. feeding. I’ll be ready when the time comes.

Everything okay out there?

I checked on you a few minutes ago. Looks like Jasper’s down for the count. Want me to come carry him up to bed or are you enjoying snuggle time?

Despite the dread spreading through her chest, Hannah smiled. She was used to Jackson checking up on her. It was part of his natural rhythm to be protective and a little paranoid, but the warming bottles and carrying little boys up to bed Jackson was new. She had never worried that her husband would be an amazing father—he had the biggest heart she’d ever known—but it was still wonderful to see him slipping so naturally into the role of daddy figure. Seeing him hold Will earlier this evening had been enough to bring tears to her eyes.

Happy tears, of course, because she was a happy pregnant woman, one of those annoyingly cheerful gestaters her sister had assured her drove the pregnant women who felt like their bodies had been possessed by foul-tempered aliens absolutely crazy.

But despite the sweet text and her sweeter thoughts about her husband, the nervous feeling pricking at her skin only got worse.
Yes, come down, would you? Something feels wrong.

“What’s up, sunshine?” Jackson’s concerned voice came from the deck above her. “You and the girls all right?”

She tilted her head back and smiled to reassure him before she whispered, “We’re all fine. It’s nothing like that. Just need to talk.”

“I’ll grab the monitor from my office and be right down.”

As Jackson’s silhouette faded back into the shadows, Hannah punched out another quick text. This time to Harley.
Text or call as soon as you can, okay? Nothing’s wrong, the boys are fine, I’m just having a worry wart moment. Want to make sure you’re okay and having a good time.

Her thumb hovered over the send button, debating whether she should interrupt her sister’s first date night in a year to soothe her own frayed nerves, but then she pressed the green dot and sent the message swooping out into the world. She loved Harley and she was happy for her and wanted to do nice things for the sister she’d reconnected with last August. But Harley had also been a long-standing pain in her ass. She owed Hannah a few “get out of worry” free passes.

And once Hannah explained that her anxiety was growing more focused on Harley with every passing minute, her sister would understand why she felt compelled to reach out.

When they were younger, their twin telepathy had been eerily strong. They’d always seemed to know when the other was in trouble, whether it was Harley having a knockdown, drag out fight with her man of the moment, or Hannah having a nervous breakdown in science class because she’d studied the wrong chapter and was in the middle of failing a test.

On that particular day, Harley had been so concerned that she’d gotten a hall pass and walked by Hannah’s classroom. She’d paused at the door, catching Hannah’s gaze and rolling her eyes when she realized what was giving her twin an anxiety-fueled heart attack.

Harley clearly hadn’t thought failing a test was worth all the angst, but she’d still pulled the fire alarm on her way to the bathroom. The entire school had filed outside. By the time they were allowed back into the classroom, it was time for the final bell to ring. Hannah’s science teacher had gathered up the test papers and announced they would finish the test the next day, giving Hannah a night to study the correct chapter.

She smiled at the memory. In the not too distant past, when she was still busy unpacking all the pain and regret her sister had brought into her life, it had been easy to forget the times when Harley had been her hero.

“What’s on your mind, beautiful?” Jackson’s hands landed gently on her shoulders, his thumbs pressing into the knots on either side of her spine. “You’re tense.”

She glanced down to make sure Jasper was still asleep. “I’m worried about Harley. I just sent her a text, but she hasn’t replied.”

Jackson circled around the couch, setting the baby monitor on the snack-laden table before settling beside her. “Maybe she and Clay are…indisposed.”

Hannah wrinkled her nose at him. “That’s a stuffy way to put it.”

“I’m stuffy, what can I say?” he said, wrapping an arm around her as she leaned against his chest. “You don’t think they noticed the locked room downstairs, do you?”

Hannah snorted softly. “You better believe they did. Nothing gets past Harley, and Clay used to be a spy. I’m sure they noticed, hypothesized, and drew conclusions. Probably accurate conclusions, knowing my sister.”

“Good,” Jackson said. “Then they’ll have some idea what we’re giving up in order to host them for a month.”

“Oh hush.” Hannah nudged him in the side. “You know we aren’t giving up much. I’m too big to have any real fun.”

Jackson kissed the top of her head. “You’re always real fun.”

Hannah nibbled her bottom lip. “What will we tell the kids if they ask about the mysterious locked door?”

“Well, Will is too little to be asking much and Jasper is a good kid. We’ll just tell him that’s a room where we keep grown-up things that aren’t appropriate for children.”

Hannah pulled away from his chest, glancing up at him in the glow of the projector screen. “No, I mean
our
kids. What do we tell them? I know it won’t be a big deal at first, but eventually, there will come a time when they’ll realize that not everyone’s parents have a locked room where they aren’t allowed to go.”

Jackson stood, pulling one of the footstools over and sitting down facing her before drawing her feet into his lap. “Our kids will feel loved and safe,” he said, his thumbs circling her swollen ankles, drawing a soft sigh from her lips. “And kids who feel loved and safe don’t ask as many questions. And even kids who grow up the way we did assume their lives are normal. When was the first time you realized that not everyone had a nanny, lived in a mansion, or had a psychopath for a father?”

“Point taken.” She rested a gentle hand on Jasper’s head, loving the silky soft feel of his hair, and loving that her sister had raised such a completely normal, happy little boy even more.

If Harley could do it, surely Hannah could, too, no matter how poor her parenting role models had been.

“But if it becomes an issue, we can rent a space somewhere nearby,” Jackson continued, his touch sending waves of pleasure coursing through her, a sharp contrast to the worry still making her tongue tap behind her teeth. “We’ll hire someone we trust to watch the girls and you and I will go have our time somewhere else. It will be the best of both worlds.”

She hummed noncommittally as she flipped her phone over on the cushion.

Still no text from Harley.

Jackson squeezed her ankle. “It will be. I won’t settle for anything less. And if you need convincing of that, I’ll rent a space while your sister and Clay are here and show you exactly how serious I am about making sure you get what you need from me. Everything you need. No matter what else is going on with our lives or how things change.”

Hannah shivered as the memory of last night danced through her mind. She’d needed pillows to make kneeling at Jackson’s feet comfortable, but that hadn’t stopped her. Or him. His touch had been gentle, respectful of the new limitations of her body, but his dominance of her had been as complete as always. He had claimed her, body and soul, leaving her a trembling, whimpering wreck on the floor of their playroom.

And then he’d carried her up to their bedroom and drawn her a bath, sliding the soap over her body until her soul and skin made peace with each other. Afterward, they’d made love again, this time in their bedroom, the place where they were just Jackson and Hannah, not master and submissive. Jackson had spooned her on the bed, lifting her leg over his thigh and sliding his cock inside her from behind, inch by careful inch, until she was filled with the man she loved, surrounded by his scent, his warmth, and the safety of his body shielding her from the world.

She shivered. “No, sir. I don’t need a reminder, but thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Jackson murmured. “Always my pleasure, sunshine.”

“But I would like to call the resort,” she said, tapping the screen on her phone with one finger. “I’ve got a bad feeling that something’s wrong with Harley. My twin sense is tingling.”

Jackson arched a brow. “Your twin sense?”

“I haven’t felt it in years, but we haven’t been in the same time zone for years, either. Back when we were kids, I always knew when Harley was in trouble. I would get this ugly, black feeling in my chest.” Hannah picked up the phone, silently willing her sister to respond. “And I’ve got it bad right now.”

“Call her,” Jackson said, surprising her.

“But I can’t, can I,” Hannah said even as she swiped the arrow to the right, preparing to make the call. “That would be even more disruptive than texting.”

“You’re afraid for her. Call her and let her know your twin sense is tingling. She’ll understand.” He shrugged. “Or she won’t and you’ll know she hasn’t changed as much as Clay seems to think she has.”

Hannah frowned, bringing her hand to cover Jasper’s ear. “Stop,” she whispered. “Not in front of Jasper. Even if he’s asleep. Be good.”

“Good isn’t my strong suit,” Jackson said, his hand sliding up her calf, sending a different breed of tingles dancing across her skin.

“Behave,” she said, smiling as she hit the call button. But the smile didn’t last long. By the time the phone had rung six times with no answer and the line clicked over to voicemail, her worry had reached a new high.

Her voice shook as she left her message. “Harley, call me. I’m worried. I’m afraid something bad has happened. It’s a twin tingle moment if you know what I mean. So call me and promise me you’re okay or I’m going to worry all night.” She sighed before signing off with a soft, “Never ever.”

It was what they had said to each other since they were small, something deeper than “I love you.” She hadn’t felt compelled to say it for a long time, but now, sitting here feeling helpless to protect her twin from whatever bad thing was happening to her, the words meant something.

For years, she’d believed her sister was dead. She never ever wanted to wake up to another morning like that again.

“I’ll call Clay,” Jackson said, pulling his phone from his back pocket. “He contacted me earlier. Maybe he has his phone with him, and they left Harley’s in the room.”

“Thanks, babe.” Hannah wiggled her toes nervously in his lap while his call connected and the phone rang and rang.

“Voicemail,” Jackson said with a frown before leaving his message. “Clay. Call me. It’s urgent.”

“Don’t say that!” Hannah said as he hung up. “He might think there’s something wrong with the kids.”

“Good. Then he’ll call back faster.” Jackson stood and leaned over to scoop Jasper into his arms. “I’ll tuck this one in. You want to go feed Will his bottle?”

“Yes, oh man, I didn’t ever hear him.” She leveraged herself to her feet, grabbing the monitor, which was emitting snuffly, grunty, baby sounds, the fussy precursor to a full-fledged hunger wail. “Help him brush his teeth, Jackson,” she called after her husband. “He shouldn’t go to bed with all that sugar on his teeth.”

“On it,” Jackson said, evidently meaning more than brushing Jasper’s teeth.

By the time Hannah finished feeding and burping Will, changed his diaper, and rocked him back to sleep, Jackson was standing in the living room with one of his friends from work. One of his very big, very scary-looking friends, who divided their time between bulking up at the gym and serving as bodyguards for visiting dignitaries. But she knew from experience that Neville was a gentle giant. The only thing truly scary about the six foot five Polynesian was how good he was at cards. He took her for her entire jar of pennies every time the security firm boys came over for poker night.

“Hello, Neville. Good to see you,” Hannah said, running a hand through her wild hair as she shifted her gaze to Jackson. “What’s going on?”

“Neville is going to stay here with you and the kids while I go check on Harley and Clay.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to do that,” Hannah said, even as relief and gratitude spread through her chest. “I’m sure they’re fine. We can just keep trying to call.”

“You’re not sure they’re fine,” Jackson said. “And neither am I. Clay and I have been working on something behind the scenes and it’s been coming to a head the past few days. There’s a chance it could have put him and Harley in danger.”

“Working on something.” Hannah propped her hands on her hips. “What kind of something, Jackson?”

Jackson exchanged a loaded look with Neville, before crossing the room and drawing her into the kitchen. “The kind of something I don’t have time to tell you about right now,” he said once they were alone.

“You’ve had plenty of time before,” she insisted, folding her arms across her chest. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of this secret project? Which I’m sure is dangerous and probably illegal?”

“It’s not illegal,” Jackson said, meeting her challenging gaze with an unflappable one. “And it’s the first you’re hearing of it because keeping you safe is my number one priority. And that includes keeping your blood pressure down and your worry level low while you’re carrying our children.”