“Will you trust me, Kia?” He leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees as he watched her. “Will you trust me to keep my word? That you’ll be protected, not just in any retaliation against Drew, but from Drew as well?”
The bruise at the side of her face burned.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“There’s not enough makeup in the world to hide that mark on your face, or the fear in your eyes, Kia. I don’t want to add to that. No one is going to hurt you physically. Drew will never touch you again, period. When the time comes, he’ll pay for what he’s done to you, just as he’ll pay for using the club to attempt to threaten you into a relationship you didn’t want.”
She stared back at him in shock.
“Why would you do that?”
His expression hardened. “Kia, we’re not just a club filled with members who share an agreement on a lifestyle. That club, that power base and that protection, wasn’t created for its members alone. It was created for their women.”
She shook her head. That didn’t make sense. None of it did. “I’m divorcing him, though.”
Something flared in his eyes, something she didn’t dare delve into too closely. Something that had her tensing, reminding her of long dark nights and fantasies she didn’t dare think about.
“It doesn’t matter. He and another member hurt you. He bruised you, Kia, and he frightened you. And that isn’t tolerated. Trust me. Work with me, and before you know it, Drew, and the pain, will be behind you.”
It wasn’t such a large request, and she knew it. The gossip would truly never be squelched but it would never be considered more than an amusing tale without her backing.
She looked down, staring at the toes of her very stylish shoes that matched her very tasteful silk dress and wished she had worn her jeans instead.
Her world was exploding around her—what did this matter? And what did his request matter? It was for her benefit as well as that damned club’s.
“I’ll take care of it.” She lifted her chin and shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “I never should have lied about Drew. What he did was bad enough.” Humiliation flamed through her. “Perhaps I was just trying to excuse him.”
Anger flickered in his gaze with such a rush of intense light that it surprised her.
“Perhaps the friend so determined to tell the tales put her own lies to the story?” he suggested quietly, his voice hard.
To that, Kia shook her head. “No. I’ll take the blame. I trusted her. That was my mistake. I’ll deal with it.”
Chase watched her, so vulnerable, her hair covering her face, hiding the tears he knew must be filling her eyes. Coming here had been the hardest decision he had ever made. It was the only time he had regretted fulfilling this part of his job as Ian’s private investigator and the first defense against society’s knowledge of what the club actually was.
Wounding this woman’s pride made him feel like a damned animal.
“Kia.” He whispered her name gently, the urge to take her into his arms, to hold her against him, to shelter her from that pain almost impossible to resist.
When her head lifted, he saw her eyes. Bright blue, damp with tears, but fierce with pride and with anger.
“Why did he do it?” she suddenly asked. “Why try to get me drunk and rape me? Why not just ask me?”
He would beat that explanation out of the bastard.
All he could do now was shake his head. “I don’t know. But a divorce is the least of what he deserves from it. And demand a high settlement. I promise, you’ll get it.” He would make certain she received it for this blow to her pride.
“Why do you do it?” she asked him then, her expression vulnerable, a need for answers swirling in her eyes.
She made him feel like a bastard with that look.
He reached out to her, touched the hair that framed her face, and tried to smile back at her. “For the pleasure, Kia. For my lover’s pleasure. For my own. Only the pleasure. And there’s no pleasure in rape or in humiliation.” He dropped his hand from the soft, warm silk of her hair and rose to his feet, staring down at her.
“There was no pleasure in what they tried to do to me.” Her voice was choked with anger and with pain.
Chase nodded slowly, his expression tightening, anger pulling at him. “And he’ll find no pleasure in the consequences of it, Kia. I promise you that. Help me fix that, and I’ll make him pay, for you.”
He left then. He couldn’t stand there any longer and watch the tears fall from those sapphire eyes or see the evidence of that bruise on her face any longer.
He’d begin the process to take Carl Drew Stanton out of the club, and he’d do it as painfully for the other man as possible.
And one of these days, he swore, he’d show that son of a bitch how it felt to be backhanded across the face. And he’d add a punch just for the sheer pleasure of it. If he weren’t careful, once he got started on the spineless little bastard he might not stop.
Drew Stanton had backhanded his pretty, delicate wife, and Chase wanted to kill him for it. The club had rules against this. No club member abused his wife, period, neither sexually nor physically. Those women were the basis for their greatest pleasure, for their satisfaction. They were not to be harmed.
And Drew had dared to hit his wife.
His teeth clenched as anger surged inside him, dark and savage. An anger he fought to keep contained, simply because there were other emotions, just as intense, just as dark, that came with it.
As he left the penthouse he drew in a hard, savage breath and promised himself he was going to stay as far away from that woman as possible. Because she made him want, and what he wanted, he knew, she could never give him.
He watched, and he considered what he saw. Chase Falladay wasn’t a man known for his weaknesses, and he wasn’t a man known for his stupidity. He had proved that many times, over and over again. He was a man who would be very hard to destroy.
Destroying Chase was imperative. Bringing him to his knees, forcing him to suffer. That was all that mattered.
But where was the best place to strike?
At the brother, perhaps? The brother was no better. Cameron Falladay was as much a blight on the world as his brother Chase was. At least, at one time he had been. Cameron had stopped his depravity, though. Cameron no longer shared his woman with his brother—otherwise, Chase wouldn’t be keeping company with that half-Arabic bastard Khalid.
No, striking out at Cameron would be wrong. What Chase had done wasn’t Cameron’s fault. What Chase had done rested solely on his own shoulders and he was the one who would have to suffer for it. He had to suffer for it; there was no other option.
Chase wasn’t a man who knew remorse. He wasn’t a man who understood the suffering others had to deal with. Because he cared for no one but himself. If only, if only there was a weakness to be found. Then justice would be done. Then, Chase would understand the blight he was on this world.
Destroying Chase Falladay was the objective. Now, to find the tool.
1
It was snowing. Of course, it was December in Washington, D.C., and it was bound to snow eventually. The fat, fluffy flakes drifted like a wintry cape from the dark, cloud-laden sky. There was little wind, so it fell and piled, and in the time it took Kia Rutherford to escape from the hotel and the very boring party she had attended and to go to the little corner bar, it had covered the sidewalks.
The salt trucks were already running, their plows lifted for now. The heavily traveled streets of Alexandria would stay clear for a while yet. The sidewalks were another matter.
She stepped carefully in her three-inch heels. They were perfectly safe to wear in the hotel, but here, on the slick sidewalk, was another story. She held the skirt of her winter white velvet dress to her ankles and wished she had just tried to grab a cab and risk going home rather than attempting to hide for a while.