Hard Rules (Page 61)

“I’ll get the door,” Emily says, already moving away, but I catch her arm, cup her head, and give her a deep, fast kiss. “Now you can get the door,” I say, releasing her to answer my call. “You’re up early this morning, Mother.”

“I don’t like it either, but it happens on occasion.”

“Well, since it happened and you called me, I hope this means you have information on Mike Rogers.”

“I’m working on it, but I thought we should talk about your father’s new assistant, Emily.”

It’s almost comical how fast my family works. “You offered her fifty thousand dollars to be a snitch and she declined,” I say, making it clear Emily is more than just in my bed. She’s in my ear. I’m claiming her with the intent of backing Derek the fuck off.

“While I commend your innovation, son, your brother knows she’s with you this morning. She’s no longer your secret source of information and he’s already planning to feed her a load of crap to repeat to you.”

Derek’s words from my dream come back to me. When something goes wrong, find a way to get something out of it. And I just did. I can assure Emily that Derek now sees her as a resource, not a target. “Does Father know?”

“You aren’t going to comment about Derek feeding you crap for information?”

“He’ll never hide everything,” I say, and again ask, “Unless Father knows?”

“I don’t know, but I assume he does. Derek seems more confident than usual about their alignment and his vote.”

“And you know this because he trusted you enough to tell you.” It’s not a question.

“I’m his mother. He’s my son.”

“Whom you’re betraying by telling me this right now.”

“I’m protecting our futures. And I’m protecting you or I wouldn’t be on the phone right now.”

And yet trusting her is becoming harder. “Protecting us all is about those stockholders. When will you get that information you promised me on Mike and the other stockholders?”

“Chemo tends to weaken your father and loosen his tongue.”

“You know his cancer has worsened.”

“Of course, I know,” she says. “He was a fool to try to keep it from me. Chemo starts Monday morning.”

“I know that. You’re seriously using his cancer to take advantage of him? Aren’t you the one who was worried I’d hurt him if I turned down the Bentley while he was weak from treatments?”

“That was before he used his cancer to pit my sons against each other. A mother’s wrath you do not want. And on that note, I’m going back to bed, but a word for the wise that I know you know, but might forget with Emily: Everyone is not who or what they seem, and once someone is in your bed, they’re dangerously close to you. Watch your back with that woman.”

She ends the call.

I can’t stand squealers …

—Albert Anastasia

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SHANE

I slide my phone into my pocket and wait for my mother’s warning about Emily to hit a nerve, my brother’s words replaying in my mind: I know who’s in my corner. I wonder if you do. He’d meant to make me question everyone around me but my distrust doesn’t go to Emily for one minute. My instincts are, and have always been, razor sharp, and I trust her. My mother is another story, and her hiring a mistress for my father, proves her to be conniving in ways, as a young man, I wasn’t willing to see. Whatever the case, Emily deserves to know what she’s in the middle of now, not later.

Exiting the kitchen into the foyer, I note she is absent, and I head toward the stairs to find her sitting on the bottom step, her long, brown hair disheveled, as if she’s had her hands in it, a collection of mixed-sized paper bags around her. “What are you doing?” I ask, going down on a knee in front of her.

“I can’t go with you to see that apartment. Someone could see us who shouldn’t and I can’t get fired until I have another job. As it is, I was worried your father would be back here with that woman and see me last night. I wasn’t thinking this morning, but that could have happened if I left and came back too.”

“That’s why I suggested I drive you, rather than walk.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?”

“It didn’t feel like the right time, but I was about to talk about this when the doorbell interrupted us.”

“The truth is, I am hiding from some things in my life, trying to start fresh, and I can’t hide from this too. A weekend here, with you, is an escape, but it can’t be the reason I lose a job I need. And I can’t do this anymore. We can’t do this anymore.”

My hands settle on the bare skin of her knees just beneath my shirt. “You’re not going to get fired.”

“If your father finds out—”

“He’ll be amused,” I say.

“Amused?” she asks, her brow furrowing.

“He’s intentionally pitted me and Derek against each other and now he sits back and watches, all but holding a bucket of popcorn. Bottom line, if he finds out, he’ll think I’m using you to feed me information about his activities and my brother’s. In other words, a point on the scoreboard for me. That’s what Derek has already assumed.”

Her eyes go wide. “Your brother knows?”

“Yes. I knew he would the minute you came here last night. That’s what my mother called to tell me.”