Fade To Gray (Triad Series Book 1) Page 4

  "Won’t they know you’re in the system?"

  His grin widened. "Not a chance. I told you, I’m very good at what I do."

  "So how exactly did you guys wind up in the ‘fixing’ business?" The minute she asked the question she knew it was a mistake.

  The dark look was back in Ryder’s eyes. "Let’s just say that circumstances came together in such a way that we were presented an opportunity too good to pass up. As you’re more than aware, Gideon hit a rough patch a few years back. For a little while it looked like he was going away for a really long time. But then, thanks to a minor miracle, fortune turned and he was set free."

  Emily nodded. It had been her father who’d made things go away. At her behest. She might never forgive Gideon for what he’d done to her father, but she hadn’t been able to stand the idea of him spending his life in prison.

  "He didn’t do it, you know," Ryder said, his voice deceptively soft.

  "Of course he did," she replied automatically, flinching when she heard him growl. "My father had proof. I saw the evidence myself."

  "Evidence can be manufactured," Ryder said, his fingers tightening on the wheel. "Whatever your father told you, it was a lie."

  "Look, I understand your loyalty is with Gideon. I can even understand why. But I also know that my father would never lie to me. Gideon betrayed my father. And in so doing, he betrayed me."

  "Or maybe your father wanted you to think that. He didn’t like the idea of your having a relationship with someone like Gideon, did he?"

  "I’ll admit my father had concerns. But that doesn’t mean he lied to me. Have you considered that maybe Gideon isn’t sharing everything with you?"

  "Gideon is like a brother, Emily." He pronounced her name as if it were a curse. "You have no idea what your family did to him. What it cost him. And now, you’ve got the nerve to come back and ask for more?" He paused, openly trying to pull his anger under control.

  "I wasn’t thinking when I called him. I just saw his face on my phone and dialed."

  Ryder’s jaw worked for a moment as he continued to struggle for control, and then his hands relaxed on the steering wheel. "And now you’re our client. I shouldn’t have let my feelings about the past interfere in our business. I’m just asking that you leave him be. He’s been through enough. He doesn’t need you opening old wounds."

  Pain and anger seared through her. "He wasn’t the only one who was hurt. Remember that there are two sides to every story."

  "Perhaps. And if you’re right, maybe you’re missing the important half."

  "What are you trying to say?"

  "Nothing." He shook his head as he slowed the car and pulled into the drive-through for her family’s Sutton Place apartment building. "It isn’t my story to tell. It’s just that—"

  Dennis, the doorman, pulled open her door and whatever else Ryder had been going to say was lost in the moment. But as the car pulled away, Emily couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he was right and she’d accepted her father’s version of things too easily.

  And yet, she’d seen her father’s evidence. And Uncle Vincent had been there to confirm it. The two men who loved her most in the world. What possible reason would they have had to lie?

  *****

  VINCENT MASTERSON PUSHED open the door of his SoHo apartment, humming a little song. He hadn’t managed to find his niece, but everything else seemed to be going well. The meeting with his developer had gone better than expected actually. And a call to a key energy committee member had indicated that she at least was managing to swing votes toward the proposed legislation.

  So now all he had left to do was make certain that things had progressed as intended with regard to Tom Irwin. Vincent had already checked the news outlets and nothing there seemed to indicate that there’d been success in executing the plan, but it was still early in the day; there was time. And at least in this day and age, it was always a news cycle.

  With a contented sigh, Vincent dropped his keys into a Sevres bowl and hung his jacket on a sterling silver hook by the door. Everything in its place. Just the way he liked it.

  The world simply felt better when things were well ordered.

  Turning the corner, he strode into his living room feeling a burst of hope, then froze as a large figure detached itself from the shadows.

  "How the hell did you get in here?" Vincent managed to stutter, one hand rising to his throat. "I pay a lot of people very good money to be certain that my home is secured."

  "Where there is a will, there’s always a way, yes?" The big man spread his hands wide with a Slavic shrug, the gesture only serving to emphasize the gun in his hand. "And perhaps if you concentrated on paying them less and Mr. Patanko more, then I wouldn’t need to be here."

  Swallowing his fear, Vincent forced himself to walk nonchalantly into the room. Or at least without shaking. "I sent him partial payment last week." The man, Serge, moved slightly, angling the gun as Vincent crossed to the table that served as a bar and poured himself a drink. It took every ounce of self-control he had to keep from clanking the crystal stopper as he slid it back into the decanter of scotch. "Can I offer you something?"

  "The rest of Mr. Patanko’s money would be a start. He is beginning to question your sincerity."

  "I told him when I saw him that I didn’t have it all. But that doesn’t mean I won’t have it soon. And when I do, he’ll be paid. With interest. He’s just got to be patient." It had been a foolish, foolish move to borrow money from the likes of Yuri Patanko. But at the time he’d been out of options. Damn his brother to hell. It would serve Blake right if Vincent’s plan left his brother high and dry. Left all Blake’s attempts to move his family about like so many chess pieces upended with one fell swoop.

  But then Vincent had always been one to choose the high road. He tossed back the scotch, his eyes on the gun. "If you kill me, Yuri won’t get a thing. And that’d be disastrous for both of us. I’m thinking it’s better that you tell him to wait."

  Serge took a threatening step forward, a low growl coming from somewhere deep in his throat. Vincent fought a wave of fear. He simply couldn’t imagine dying like this. Here on his beautiful Persian carpet. Why, it was over a thousand years old.

  "Look here, I’ve got major political backing. DOD support. My developers are the best of the best. And thanks to your boss, I’ve now got the necessary funding. All that’s left is to take care of Tom Irwin. And I told Yuri those plans are in place." Actually he’d probably told the man too damn much, but it had been the only way to secure the money. "So now we simply wait for the pieces to fall into place. As I said, nothing good ever comes quickly. It takes time and finesse. But in the end you’ll see, we’ll all be drowning in money."

  "I’m afraid that isn’t good enough." The big man took another step forward, and Vincent stepped back, his knees hitting the edge of a seventeenth century baroque chair.

  "But I don’t know what else I can do." He held up his hand, as if that was going to do him any good, thinking that if Serge shot him here it was going to make a hell of a mess.

  "Move faster." As if to mimic the words, the man fired the gun, the bullet whizzing past Vincent’s ear and splintering an Etruscan vase on the mantel. Vincent turned toward the priceless artifact, his heart twisting as the ancient urn shattered.

  "My God, do you have any idea what you’ve done?" he asked, swinging back to face Serge, anger replacing fear. "There isn’t another one like that in the world."

  "If you don’t want to see the rest of your precious collection destroyed, you’ll make your scheme pay off sooner rather than later. Mr. Patanko is not a patient man." Without another word, the big man holstered his gun and lumbered out of the room.

  The door opened and then closed, and Vincent released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Putting his glass on the table, he knelt to carefully gather the shards of the pot, his anger causing tears to prick the backs of his eyes.

  Fucking Russian bastard.
>
  After placing the pieces in a carved rosewood box, Vincent poured himself another scotch and walked over to the window. Below him, Serge stepped out of the building’s front door and got into a waiting black BMW.

  Hands shaking now, Vincent pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. The resulting rings sounded hollow in his ears, and after what seemed like forever, voice mail finally picked up. "I’ve been calling you all night. Where the hell are you? I’m assuming everything went as planned, but I’ve seen nothing on the news. Call me when you get this message. There’s a hell of a lot riding on this. I’m counting on you." He clicked off the phone, watching as the BMW pulled out into traffic.

  At least he’d dodged a bullet. He snorted a laugh. Literally.

  When the hell had his life turned so dodgy? It was like living in a fucking Vince Flynn novel. And he didn’t like it one little bit. He took another sip of scotch. Damn his brother. If Blake wasn’t such a stingy bastard Vincent wouldn’t have needed to crawl into bed with the likes of Yuri Patanko.

  But then again, if Vincent didn’t have such expensive tastes, he probably wouldn’t have needed so much money in the first place. A vicious circle if ever there was one. With a sigh, he turned back to his apartment and let the opulence soothe him.

  Just as it always did.

  And then he picked up the remote and switched on his TV.

  CHAPTER 4

  EMILY NODDED AT Sean, the lobby man on duty. She might not live here anymore, but she was still well known in the building. Her father’s apartment, which actually spanned the top two floors, had originally belonged to her mother, her family having been an original occupant when the building had been erected in the 1920s.

  Technically, the apartment had passed to Emily when her mother had died, but there were too many memories here. Most of them good, but some of them not. And all of them claustrophobic. So five years ago, Emily and her father had struck an agreement. He’d bought the apartment from her, and she’d used the proceeds to buy her brownstone on the Upper West Side, closer to the art gallery she and Sylvie Jensen owned.

  A fellow art major and trust fund kid, Sylvie had been Emily’s friend since prep school. Along with Jules Clarke, they’d been a force to reckon with. And so, after Gideon’s defection, when Emily had decided she needed to make her own mark in the world, Sylvie had been the perfect partner in crime. Trading on their shared connections, they’d made the gallery a smashing success. Much to her father’s chagrin. It wasn’t exactly the life he’d envisioned for her, but Emily was happy—or she had been until she’d woken up in Tom Irwin’s hotel room.

  She shivered and entered the code allowing her access to her father’s floors. Tom Irwin had been single-mindedly pursuing her for months now. To the point of actually making her uneasy. There were rumors about the senator. Predilections. Things she hadn’t wanted to believe. But now, considering everything that had happened, she couldn’t help but wonder if the rumors were true.

  The elevator lurched upwards as she considered the fact that, had her father had his way, she’d probably be married to the man. The idea was more nauseating now somehow, with Irwin dead, than it had been when he was alive.

  The door slid open with a ding and Emily stepped out into the black and white marble-floored foyer. A window off to the left boasted original Tiffany stained glass. Art Deco at its sumptuous best. Between her mother’s and her uncle’s love for all things old, it wasn’t any wonder that Emily had majored in eighteenth century European art, a degree from Barnard that her father still gave her grief about.

  If only her mother had managed to give her father a son, Emily’s life would no doubt have been much easier. As she walked across the grand foyer she immediately regretted the thought. Her father loved her. And if he was a little over-protective, it was understandable, considering his prominence and their wealth. The truth was it simply came with the territory. And the meddling in her life? Well, that was just her father. And as long as he allowed her to say no, then she’d just have to find a way to put up with it.

  Unless of course all of it came to a screeching halt when the authorities figured out she’d been with Tom Irwin in the last moments before he died. Steeling herself and forcing a smile, she pushed away all thoughts of Tom Irwin. One thing she and Gideon were in perfect agreement about—telling her father the truth about what happened would be disastrous. So all she had to do was keep smiling and have faith in the one man who’d betrayed her beyond all others.

  Piece of cake.

  She pushed open the front door, surprised to hear raised voices. Jules’ and her father’s.

  "I did what I needed to do," Jules was saying, waving a hand in front of her in anger. As an assistant district attorney, she’d long ago perfected the art of using her hands to punctuate her speeches.

  "That isn’t the point, and you know it," her father returned, his eyes narrowed as the two of them squared off. It wasn’t the first time, and no doubt it wouldn’t be the last. Her best friend of twenty-odd years was a fixture. Family really. And as such Jules rarely held back with her opinions. Which was just as well, as Emily’s father preferred women who could hold their own.

  "It is as far as I’m concerned," Jules snapped. "So back off."

  "So I see it’s business as usual around here?" Emily walked into the living room, fighting to keep a casual smile in place. It was important that she act normally, but she had no clue how the hell one was supposed to do that in light of the events of the past twelve hours.

  "Oh my God, Em," Jules exclaimed, turning to face her, her concern evident. "We’ve been so worried."

  "Where the hell have you been?" her father demanded, cutting Jules off as he strode across the room to envelop Emily in a bear hug.

  "Asleep?"

  "It’s afternoon. And we’ve been looking everywhere," her father said, leaning back to search her face.

  "And calling your cell phone," Jules added.

  "I’m sorry. I had it turned off."

  "But you weren’t at the brownstone. I went over there to look for you," Jules said. "Bailey was half-crazed."

  "Bailey was fine, I’m sure." Emily struggled with the panicked thought that if Jules had been at her place, she could have run into Gideon. She shot a surreptitious look at her friend, but there was no indication that she was hiding anything. So Emily forced herself to breathe.

  "He was." Jules smiled. "Honestly, Bailey is always a little nuts." There was truth in that. Part lab and part border collie, Bailey wasn’t big on lounging about when there was something more exciting to do—like destroying shoes or chewing furniture or shredding pillows.

  "Too damn big for a city dog," her father grumbled. Actually any dog was too big as far as Blake Masterson was concerned. He had no time for pets. Which meant there’d been none in Emily’s house growing up, something she’d rectified practically the moment she’d set foot in her new home on the west side.

  "So what were the two of you arguing about?" she asked, hoping to delay further inquisition.

  Her father’s expression shuttered, and Jules sucked in a sharp breath. "About you actually." Her friend shrugged. "Your father was angry at me for leaving you alone at the club last night."

  "That’s ridiculous," Emily said, although considering the circumstances, he actually had a valid point for once. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself." She shot a meaningful look at her father. "And anyway, Jules had a migraine. Which meant that she needed to get home and to bed. She had an early meeting this morning. With potential donors." Jules was running for city council, and, as with any race, getting the right support was crucial. Emily smiled at her friend. "So how did it go?"

  "Better than I expected. I managed to get a commitment from the arts league and NYPD, of all things."

  "Not so surprising. As an ADA you’re practically a member of the force. Anyway, congrats."

  "Thanks." Jules’ smile slipped into a frown. "But your father is right, you know. You should h
ave told one of us where you were. We’ve all been so worried."

  "Vincent was even here earlier," her father said, as if underscoring the point. "He said you missed a meeting. Which isn’t like you at all."

  A hot flush rose across her cheeks, and she blew out a breath, striving for a calm she didn’t feel. "I’m so sorry. I should have been more thoughtful. I just had a bit too much to drink last night, and figured I was better off staying the night with a friend."

  "Who did you stay with?" her father demanded, as usual thinking it his right to know her every move.

  "None of your business," she replied, not having to fake her outrage at all. "I’m not the sort to kiss and tell." She fought against the urge to grimace as she uttered Gideon’s words.

  "You were with someone?" Jules asked, the surprise in her voice almost insulting.

  "Well, it’s not as if I’m repulsive or something."

  "I didn’t mean it like that; it’s just that I didn’t think we were hanging out with anyone you were interested in."

  "Even if I wasn’t, there was still a club full of men, Jules." Emily grinned, starting to enjoy her imaginary one-night stand.

  "You’re telling me you spent the night with a stranger?" Her father’s face was turning red as he considered the idea of his little girl out on the prowl.

  But Jules clearly had moved on. "Oh my God. Tom Irwin was there. You didn’t hook up with him, did you?"

  Emily’s high spirits plummeted. "Of course not. Why in the world would you think that?"

  "I don’t know," Jules said apologetically, her gaze moving between Emily and her father. "I guess because the two of you were talking when I left. And you looked kind of cozy."

  Emily tried to remember talking to the senator, but came up blank. She remembered seeing him there. And she remembered Jules telling her she was leaving. But everything after that was hazy at best. She’d been heading to get a drink when Jules had intercepted her. Maybe she’d talked to the senator at the bar. God, had she gone with him willingly? She shook her head, focusing on her friend and the need to clarify the situation.