Savage (5 page)

T
he house was crammed
full of people, all of them milling about with drinks and plates of food. Jenna stood against the wall, feeling like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. She’d stopped to check on Lily after the funeral, but she’d been fast asleep on Mrs. Hodges' couch. Jenna had let her be.

Now she wished she was back in Mrs. Hodges' flat, drinking tea and petting her cat, Duke. The air in the house was stale, and Jenna was beginning to feel claustrophobic from the press of bodies all around her. She was wondering if she could manage a walk around the block without being noticed when Kate turned the corner from the kitchen. She leaned next to Jenna with an exhausted sigh.

“This is unbearable,” Kate said.

“Which part?” Jenna asked.

“All the parts.”

Jenna laughed a little. “I see your point.” She turned to look at her sister. “How are you faring?”

Kate met her eyes. “I’m so bloody sad,” she said. “But I’ll be okay. How about you?”

“I’m fine,” Jenna said.

“It’s okay if you’re not, you know.”

“But I am,” Jenna said.

“But it’s okay if you’re not.”

Jenna sighed. “Kate. Please.”

“I’m just saying,” she said.

“Thank you. Now let’s leave it alone, shall we?” Jenna asked.

She didn’t want anyone digging around in her psyche, poking at the fresh wound of her father’s death asking, “Does it hurt here? How about there?” She would wait until it had healed a little, when answering wouldn’t loose the dam she’d built brick by brick to keep everything from spilling over.

“Want something to drink?” Kate leaned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I’ve got some blackberry vodka in my room.”

Jenna smiled. “I can’t believe you still drink that stuff.”

“It was good when I was fifteen, and it’s still good now,” Kate said.

“I’m fine,” Jenna said.

“More for me.” Kate pushed off the wall and disappeared up the stairs.

Jenna navigated her way through the crowd, stopping to talk to people along the way. When she finally made it to the kitchen, she poured a glass of wine and stepped onto the patio in the backyard. It was twilight, the yard marked by shadows cast by the setting sun. But the fresh air was clean and damp, and she drew in a deep breath and sat on the rock ledge before taking a long swallow of the wine.

It was like being in a time capsule. The lawn where she and Kate had lain on the rare clear night, looking up at the stars and making up stories about people far away. The fence Kate had tried to climb the first night she’d snuck out. Jenna had heard the commotion from the open window in her bedroom and had run outside to find her sister lying in a heap on the ground. She’d been afraid Kate had broken her arm, but they’d managed to clean it up amid hushed whispers in the bathroom, worried their mother would wake up from her bender and hit the roof. It hadn’t been a perfect childhood, but it was amazing how much easier acceptance was when your survival didn’t depend on whether someone was drinking or not.

She thought of her father and felt a wash of sadness. She’d been too young to offer him her support when she’d been living at home. Then he had seemed weak and beaten. Jenna had sometimes been scared by the force of her repugnance. Why couldn’t he do something? Make her mother get sober? Kick her out so at least Jenna and Kate wouldn’t have to clean up after her?

Now she knew the truth was painfully simple. He had loved her, and his love had been undimmed by her disease, even when all he could do was keep a roof over her head and food on the table.

Is that what love was? A fire you could never extinguish, even when there was proof that it was destructive? That’s how she felt about Farrell. Like he would haunt her always. Like nothing would change it. Not his chosen vocation or his dangerous lifestyle. Not the thousands of miles that had been between them the past few years or the enormous secret between them now.

She heard the kitchen door open behind her and turned, expecting to see Kate, probably with the bottle of horrid vodka in one hand and a joint in the other. But it wasn’t Kate.

It was him.

Farrell Black.

He stood in the shadow cast by the eaves, his face lost to the darkness. But she would know him anywhere.

Across a cemetery.

In the shadows.

Across the world.

She stood, but she couldn’t seem to do anything else. Everything faded into the periphery: the muffled sound of voices inside the house, the hum of traffic in the neighborhood, the five years that had separated them.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. She could feel his eyes boring into hers, and she had the sudden urge to run. To leave before he stepped into the light and she was lost to him all over again.

He stepped forward and shut the kitchen door, then stepped slowly toward her.

“Jenna.”

She tried to smile, but her face felt frozen. “Hello, Farrell.”

He was everything she remembered and more. The biggest man she’d ever met, tall and imposing with shoulders like a brick wall and biceps that bulged under his tailored suit jacket. His thighs strained against the expensive fabric of his trousers, and she had to push away the image of him naked, his body as chiseled as carved granite, dwarfing her own but somehow making her feel safe anyway. Dark ink reached up his neck, over the collar of his shirt, just enough to make her want to see if he’d added to the tattoos that had decorated his body all those years ago.

The scar on his left cheek had faded slightly, but it made him look even more menacing now that he was older. For a split second, she caught something like longing in his eyes. It disappeared a moment later behind a cold and impassive gaze. She recognized the expression, the rigid set of his jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes, the balled up fists at his side.

He was angry.

She couldn’t blame him, of course. But she’d imagined this moment a thousand times since booking her flight home, torturing herself with the idea that Farrell had someone new, that he would look at her with something like bland affection, the passion that had burned between them nothing but a dim memory. It had hurt to imagine it, but it had been nothing like this. Nothing like seeing the look of cold fury on his face and knowing that it hid the pain he would never let her see. He stepped closer, and she caught the scent of expensive cologne mixed with the soap he’d used for as long as she’d known him and his own musky scent.

Sex. Violence. Control.

It was a heady mix, and she reached out with one hand to steady herself on the porch railing.

He gave her a small, formal bow. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I always admired your father.”

It took her by surprise, that a man like Farrell would admire her father. “You did?”

He nodded. “He was a good man. A steady man.”

She nodded, feeling a twinge of disappointment. Farrell would admire steadiness. It was the one thing he didn’t have. The one thing he didn’t want. She scolded herself a moment later. It didn’t matter that Farrell wasn’t steady. He didn’t belong to her anymore.

“He was all of those things,” she said. “I can’t… I can’t quite believe he’s gone.”

He didn’t respond, just kept looking at her, his eyes like a piece of flint slowly sparking a fire in her belly. Every second she stayed was another chance for it to ignite. She needed to leave. Needed to get out of there before she did something stupid. Said something stupid.

“You left me a letter,” he finally said, his tone accusatory, his eyes as unyielding as stone.

She looked away. “It was for the best.”

She didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t what happened next. He advanced on her, reaching her position in two long strides. Then his hands were around her upper arms, and he was pushing her back against the house, into the shadows. Like everything Farrell did, his grip was precise. Strong enough to show her who was in charge without actually hurting her.

He stood close enough that she could feel his hips against hers, feel the press of his erection, an answering call to the moisture that had been building between her legs since their eyes first met.

He leaned down. When he spoke, she could smell the Scotch on his breath. “Don’t tell me what was best for me.”

She looked away, desperate to escape the siren’s call of his gaze. “It
was
for the best. For both of us. We didn’t want the same things.”

“You never gave me a chance to tell you what I wanted.” His voice was low and controlled.

She looked up at him, anger rushing her body. “Would you have quit the Syndicate?” she asked. “Gotten a steady job with a steady paycheck? Come home for dinner every night at six?”

His grip on her arms tightened, and he leaned in even closer, his hips grinding into hers. Her breath was coming in short and shallow gasps. It would be so easy to wrap her arms around his neck, to press her body against his, to let him lift her dress and plunge into her. To pretend like no time had passed. Like nothing had changed.

“That’s not what you wanted from me, Jenna.”

“Don’t tell me what I wanted,” she said through gritted teeth.

“You need someone to tell you, Jenna. Because I don’t think you have the first fucking clue what you wanted.”

“I wanted to feel safe!” she cried, wrenching her arms free of his grip. She tried to put distance between them but his body was a barricade she couldn’t escape. “I wanted to
be
safe.”

He looked down at her, shook his head. “No one could have made you as safe as me, Jenna. No one.”

He stepped away, suddenly the picture of politeness. “I’m going to pay my respects to your mother and sister. Please let me know if there’s anything you need.”

She watched him walk to the door, his movements strangely easy and graceful for someone of his size. She could hardly breathe, and she had the sudden desire to tell him to stop. To beg his forgiveness. To tell him about Lily and how scared she’d been. How young and alone.

But then he opened the door, disappeared inside the house.

In the absence of his presence her head slowly cleared. She took a couple deep breaths, rubbed her arms against the chill in the air. It had gotten dark. She needed to pick up Lily. The reminder hit her full force, and she held a hand against her mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to tear loose from her throat.

Lily.

Farrell’s daughter.

They’d made something beautiful and perfect. And he could never, ever know.

F
arrell pressed
down on the accelerator of the black Lotus and navigated the car through the countryside. He didn’t usually mind the drive to Huntington Hills. It got him out of the city, allowed him to see something other than the streets of London, the endless traffic and concrete.

But today it gave him too much time to think. At first he tried to occupy his mind with the high-performance sports car, shifting smoothly around the twists and turns in the road, listening to the purr of the engine, adjusting his speed when necessary to work as one with the vehicle. The car was like a living thing, a wild animal that challenged him to tame it.

It didn’t work, and eventually he gave in and let his thoughts wander to the inevitable.

Jenna.

He’d known she’d be at the funeral, but he’d convinced himself he was over her. That seeing her would be like seeing any other woman from his past. Brief, unimportant.

Of course, it had been a lie.

But he’d realized that too late, after he’d already stepped onto the patio. She was as lovely as ever, her dark hair pulled into a loose knot at the back of her head, the black dress she wore revealing nothing but the elegant collarbone he’d once liked to lick on his way to her perfect breasts. For a split second, he’d wanted nothing more than to pull the pins out of her hair, slip the dress down her shapely shoulders, take one delicate pink nipple in his mouth while he fingered the other one to a stiff peak.

Then he remembered what she did to him and his lust for her was almost overtaken by his rage.

Almost.

Her excuse for leaving — that they wanted different things, that she would be safer without him — hit him where it hurt. Even now, anyone who wanted to harm Jenna would have to come through him.

And coming through him was no easy task.

He’d known she didn’t like his business, but he never dreamed it would drive her from him — from his bed and his life — so quickly and so completely.

He hit the steering wheel violently with his fist, then cursed under his breath. He was a masochist. He shouldn’t have gone to the funeral. He’d done this to himself. Now she was back in his blood, back in his thoughts and his dreams.

Fuck.

The first sign for Huntington Hills sat discreetly on the grass of a small turnoff. He made the turn and continued up a long, winding drive, then crested a small hill. The renovated manor house that came into view was large and imposing, with a stone facade that had been in place since the early 1700s and enough upgrades to make it as comfortable as any luxury home.

He should know. He’d paid for a lot of them.

The windows were big and wide, many of them running all the way to the interior’s high ceilings, almost all of them offering expansive views of the lush green lawn that surrounded the house, the old trees that stood guard around the perimeter. He took it all in dispassionately as he continued to the gravel car park at the front of the building.

Huntington Hills was the best. That was all that mattered.

He parked the car and grabbed the tin can from the passenger seat. Then he made his way up to the carved wooden doors and stepped inside.

The entry was spacious and filled with light. His shoes clicked on the pristine marble floor as he walked toward an antique desk and the nurse sitting behind it. The woman glanced at him, then jumped to her feet.

“Mr. Black. Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he said without stopping. “I’ll see myself in.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

He passed the desk and continued to a set of stairs on the left. He shouldn’t have been annoyed by her solicitousness. He’d paid a lot of money — donated a lot of money — to insure that the name Black meant the best kind of treatment. Here and everywhere.

But especially here.

He knew how the world worked. It was nice to believe that everyone was good. That people did the right thing simply because it was right. That everyone was treated equitably. But it was a lie, and Farrell intended to see that the people closest to him had the best of everything.

He stepped onto the second floor landing and turned left, continuing down another long hall, past a couple offices and a small dining room. A small, smartly dressed woman came around the corner and smiled when she saw him.

“He’s in the piano room.”

“Thank you,” Farrell said. “How is he today?”

“Better. He’ll be happy to see you.”

Farrell didn't know if it was true, but it didn’t matter. His brother needed him, and as long as that was true, Farrell would be here.

He heard the music well before he reached the room. Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto rolled through the corridors, the ponderous, melancholy chords echoing across the floors and off the walls. Farrell reached the music room and stopped in the doorway, watching his brother’s face as he played.

Evan was three years younger than Farrell, and so autistic it had been impossible for his parents to keep him at home, though god knows they tried. He was a musical savant, could play twelve instruments by ear, although he’d never had lessons. But he hardly ever spoke. He didn’t like the color blue — would kick and scream and pull at his own hair if he saw it — and he only ate white food. He didn’t like noise unless it was music, didn’t make eye contact, not even when Farrell had told him about the death of their father. He wore only one kind of shirt, could sense the slightest difference in fabric or cut even if it was outwardly the same as the other ones in his closet. They were only some of the things that had to be kept in check to maintain Evan’s sense of calm. Farrell had been in second grade the day they moved him to his first home, a clean but purely mediocre facility. He’d visited whenever his parents would allow it, slowly learning about his little brother.

As soon as he had enough money, he moved Evan to Huntington Hills. It was the best in the country, although Farrell knew better than to expect any kind of improvement in his brother’s behavior. It wasn’t about that. It was about Evan’s comfort. About the piano room with the big windows and the soft southern light, the bedroom that was more like a suite in an exclusive hotel, the staff who ensured Evan was made comfortable, his agitation kept to a minimum. Farrell had bequeathed over five million dollars to the hospital over the last eight years for various improvements. He knew every member of the medical staff on a first name basis and could recite Evan’s daily schedule by memory.

He didn’t feel burdened by the responsibility. His parents were gone. Evan was his brother. His blood. He would do anything to protect him. To see that he had the best of everything. His business made that possible, and he’d set aside a significant sum in Evan’s name to be used for his care should anything happen to Farrell. He didn’t know if Evan would notice if he stopped coming one day, but he would notice if his routine was disrupted, and Farrell had insured that he would live in comfort the rest of his life.

He listened to the increasingly magnanimous sounds of the concerto as it wound toward its end, then waited for the notes to finish echoing through the room to step inside. He moved slowly, not wanting to startle his brother.

“Hey, buddy,” he said.

Evan looked past him without a word, but Farrell knew Evan was registering his presence. He could feel it in the subtle shift in Evan’s energy, the stiff set of his shoulders, so different from when he played music, the only time he seemed completely at ease.

“I hear you had a rough time of it yesterday,” he said, moving slowly toward the piano. “I brought you these.”

He set the tin can on the top of the piano. Evan wouldn’t look at its contents now. He would wait for Farrell to leave. But Farrell knew that he would remove the coins one by one, arranging them into piles that only he seemed to understand. Farrell had been collecting them for Evan since they were kids. It was second nature to pick them up off the ground, to feel a thrill of victory when he came across something unusual even though he had no idea if Evan recognized such details.

He sat on the bench next to his brother and touched his back gently. Evan flinched, but Farrell didn’t take it personally.

“How have you been?” he asked, leaning down to look in his brother’s eyes, blue like their mother’s. He wasn’t surprised when Evan didn’t answer. He rarely did. “I thought we could play some music. Is that okay?”

When Evan didn’t protest, Farrell lifted his hands to the keys, waited another second, then slowly began playing the melody of Debussy’s Petite Suite. Thirty seconds in Evan joined him on the left, contributing the chords and rhythm that gave shape to the music.

Farrell closed his eyes while they played.