Black Collar Queen (Black Collar Syndicate Book 2) (12 page)

Chapter 16.
Seth’s Apartment. New York City. November 7
^th
 

She
Knows She Shouldn’t Be Here
. Seth doesn't like people in his private space—not even her. But
she can't quiet the questions swirling in her mind and he is the only one who
might have answers.
 

Emma taps on the door
and waits, fidgeting. Is he even home? The door swings open and she takes a
half-second to take him in: shirtless, hair messy, sleep pants hanging low on
his hips, feet bare, a Glock in one hand. She arches an eyebrow at the gun and
Seth shrugs, a confused half-smile turning his lips. "What are you doing
here, Em?"

She pushes past him,
taking stock of the living room. The large flat screen is blank, a hidden
speaker pumping classic jazz. The low glass table is covered in files and what
she recognizes as her projections, a crystal ashtray bearing the remains of a
joint. A glass of wine sits next to it.
 

This is a side of him
that no one sees. The softer, relaxed man behind the throne.
  
"Want a drink?" he asks, after
eyeing for her a few seconds.
 

“Scotch, on the
rocks.”
 

Seth pauses, and his
gaze is searching and wild as it sweeps her again. Stupid—drinking Caleb’s
favorite is a sure way to raise questions. He knows she reaches for scotch when
she misses the golden prince.
 

Seth doesn’t push as he
drops two cubes of ice into the glass and splashes scotch in. He nods at the
corner of the couch and she curls there, rolling the highball glass between her
fingers restlessly.
 

“Tell me,” he says, and
there is a hint of command in his tone that stiffens her spine. She needs to
tell him the truth about the letter and what it means. She still can’t wrap her
mind around it. And it is still too private—something to be guarded and held
close, even against Seth.
 

“Why do I never see my
father’s family?”
 

Seth hesitates. “Your
mother wanted you raised in our family.”
 

“But the Marzetti have a
claim on me. They are my blood.”
 

Violence darkens his
eyes and then he shakes his head. “You are a Morgan. You’ve never been anything
less than that. Emilio knew when he married Beth that his children would be
raised with us. His family needed ours more, so he went along with it.”
 

“What do you know about
them?” she asks, sipping her drink.
 

Seth twists, staring at
her. “Why are you asking, Emma?”
 

This isn’t a question
from her favorite cousin. It’s a demand from the king, a hint of danger not
quite hidden in his tone. Something has him on edge. “My father was a Marzetti.
Is it so strange that I’d ask about his family? Mother never let me get to know
them—its like she hated them.”
 

“She did. She resented
that she was tied to them at all.”
 

“Then why did she marry
Daddy?”
 

Seth blinks, startled.
“Because Dad wanted her too. Emilio was his best friend and it forged an
alliance. Beth knew that she would have to marry for power. She never forgave
him though.”
 

A trickle of fear slips
down her spine. “Then why? If they’re our allies, why don’t I see them? Why is
there so little activity from them?”
 

“Because when they
killed my father, we destroyed them. From the top down—every member of the
Marzetti clan was killed. You know that,” he says, his tone brutal.

She knew Uncle Gabe died
in a hit. She knew Seth had been hurt, and that there had been retribution. She
didn’t know…“The Marzetti killed Uncle Gabe?
Why
?”
 

Seth shakes his head.
“We don’t know. After Emilio’s death, they withdrew from the alliance—they
seemed content with small time. The hit came from nowhere—we had no word or
warning. Just, one day the world blew up.”

She’s shaking, fear and
anger and unexpected grief coursing through her. Seth is watching her, and she
swallows the last of her scotch before standing. Tears burn in her eyes, but
she blinks them back.
 

No reason. None. Except
that Gabe had ordered the death of his best friend. The Italians wouldn’t be
pleased if that particular truth came to light. She wonders, inanely, if Caleb
pieced it together.
 

Of course he had.
 

She would have, if the
family bothered telling her anything. When Gabe was killed and Seth shot, she’d
been in the throes of their protection—they spoon-fed her half-truths and
soothing lies. With the brothers in mourning, there was no one to bring her the
truth. They had always been the ones to strip away the lies, and level with
her.
 
She didn’t want to hear this truth.
Not now.
 

“Emma?”
 

“You hate them, don’t
you?” She hears his sharp breath and twists to look at him. “They killed your
father. Of course you do. You killed the shooter.”
 

Seth doesn’t say
anything, and she drops the glass to the bar. She can’t breathe. Not when he’s
staring at her in shock, disgust on his features.
 

If he hates them, how
can he stand to look at her? She takes two stumbling steps toward the door and
Seth catches her arm, jerking her around. His eyes are furious, his hands
almost bruising on her arms. If he were anyone else, she would be
terrified.
 
But not Seth. Never
Seth.
 

“You are a Morgan,” he
snarls, shaking her. “Never less than that. Do you understand? You are not
them.” She stares at him and he sighs, the anger seeping from him. “Emma,
what’s wrong? Talk to me.”
 

It’s on the tip of her
tongue, to tell him everything—Oleander’s visit and Caleb’s letter and the trip
to Beth’s townhouse. But what she says is, “Would you ever do that to me?”

He steps back, looking
disconcerted and off balance. She’s glad he understands. “No. Dad should never
have forced Beth into a loveless marriage. She hated him for it—and me, because
I am his son. You are my equal, Emma. My partner. I wouldn’t force you into
another syndicate—it’s never proven a healthy avenue for our family.”
 

Neither mentions the
Thai prince or the Cubans—neither needs to. Seth steps closer, brushing her
hair back and tipping her chin up. “Besides—the idea of you married makes me
violent. Killing our allies is probably a bad idea.”
 

Seth stares at her,
standing too close, his gaze soft and full. It tugs at her, at every emotion
she’s fought so hard to ignore, and she stifles the shiver tracing down her
spine. Summons the ghost of a smile. He raises an eyebrow, reluctantly amused,
and she shrugs.
 

“Stay. Drink with me,”
he says, his voice coaxing and firm enough that she doesn’t consider
arguing.
 

Curled in her corner of
the couch, a beer in hand, Emma watches as Seth sifts through reports and
projections, listening while he talks. A few times, she offers input.

She needs to tell him.
Everything. As she lets her eyes close, the music and alcohol taking hold of
her, she promises herself that she will. Tomorrow.
 

Chapter 17.
Upstate New York, November 8
^th

The
Car Slows And For A Moment
, she stares out the window, and it doesn’t look right.
 

It doesn’t look like the
house she has spent so many summers in, where she learned to ride and swim. She
was in the garden the first time she got high, with a second or third cousin.

Caleb caught them, and
even though he didn’t yell, she didn’t see that cousin again, except for at the
required family functions, and even then, Caleb was close by or the cousin kept
his distance.
 

Whatever anger Caleb had
over the princess sampling the family product, he had settled it squarely on
the other boy’s shoulders.
 

“Emma?”

She blinks slowly,
coming out of her memories to stare at Dom. He’s watching her with worried,
alert eyes. “I haven’t been back here since last year. Before Caleb died, we
came up here for a weekend,” she says, her voice rusty from the long, silent
ride. “Beth hates this place.”
 

She falls quiet, and she
can feel Dom as he watches her. He’s been quietly concerned about his boss, and
she’s trying to reassure him. She puts on a good face when she’s with Rama or
Seth. Smiles and acts the part when the board is around. But in her private
moments—when there is just her and her thoughts, she falls quiet and troubled,
and he is seeing that more than she would like.

She wonders, vaguely, if
this is why Tinney was so close to Gabe. Guarding another, seeing the powerful
at their most vulnerable—it breeds a special sort of intimacy that she hadn’t
expected.
  

Seth has noticed her
mood. Of course he’s noticed—he notices everything about her, even when she
tries to shield him.
 

“My father loved it
here. When things got especially bad between him and Beth—after Isaac died—he
came here. I remember visiting him here, and listening to him and Uncle Gabe
talk horses in the stables, and business when they thought I was asleep on the
couch.” Her voice is wistful, and lonely.
 
“I felt closer to them here. Because my favorite memories of Daddy were
here. And I was so young when he died that I don’t have many memories.” Dom
watches her and she gives him a bleak smile. “If there are any answers, we’ll
find them here.”

“Is that what we’re
looking for? Answers?” he asks softly.

She doesn’t answer his
question, but instead pops open the door of the rusty red BMW.
 
It’s as far from the black Bentleys the
family uses as Dom could find, and he flatly refused to take her out of the
city in anything recognizable.
 

Even this is
dangerous—the Olivers are a threat no matter what peace Seth has negotiated,
and she is their target.
 

It’s a quiet, steady
thought in the back of his mind that if anything happens to her, his will be
the first life Seth demands as recompense.
 

It’s less disturbing
then it probably should be.
 

He flanks Emma as she
hurries across the wide drive and up the porch steps. The house has an
understated plantation feel to it that is more appropriate in the Deep South,
or a Kentucky farm. The quiet stables in the back, the long lines of black
fence, all do their best to support that feel.
 

“Do you still keep
horses?”
 

Emma tosses a look over
her shoulder. “Where do you think our racers come from?”
 

Her smile fades when
they step into the house. It’s quiet and dusty, clearly undisturbed for a long
time. She beelines for the office—if anything else in this empty house
intrigues her, she’s willing to wait for the moment.
 

“Emma, I need to check
the house,” Dom says quietly.
 

She sits at the desk,
impossibly small in the desk chair—or maybe that is just the feeling of being
in her childhood haunt—and tugs her gun out of the side holster. She’s taken to
wearing it that way, under her coat, now that the weather has changed. “I’m
fine,” she says quietly, and turns her attention to the desk.
 

Emma barely registers
Dom leaving. There is a slight smudge on the desk, a mess of wax and a crumpled
pack of Marlboro Reds.
 

Caleb was here before
his death.
 

Sometimes, she feels
like she will never quite lose the ghost of the golden prince. And when she
thinks that, she immediately feels guilty.
 

She is one step behind
him, always, chasing what he knew. She wonders if this is how Seth felt,
uncovering Caleb’s secrets.
 

The desk is empty. No
papers or receipts, nothing that will tell her anything about her father or the
affair. Nothing that says where the friendship with Uncle Gabe soured so much
that it ended with two dead bodies.
 

She doesn’t know why she
expected something. A pointing sign, or a brightly lit corner containing the
entire sordid story.
 

Dom comes back and leans
against the wall, watching her.
 

She shifts out of the
seat and paces the length of the room. There is nowhere else to search. No
other home or family of her father’s to ask. There is only this and the wild
hope.
 

She drifts out of the office,
and down the hall, to the library. How many times has she curled in the big
window seat with a puzzle or a doll, as Gabe and Emilio talked in the corner?
Or lain drawing on the floor while he wrote in—— Emma goes still. “The
journals,” she breathes.
 

Dom bumps into her, and
Emma clutches his arm. “Daddy wrote in journals. He didn’t do it a lot—and
never where other people could see him. But he did. They have to be here.”
 

“Check the
bookshelves?”
 

“No. Mother would have
searched them when he first died. Somewhere else.”
 

There is a quiet pause.
Dom’s eyes scan the room, skimming over the picture frames. She shakes her
head. “He wouldn’t hide it there—it’s too obvious.”

She sits in the window
seat, curling her legs up and shifting the musty old pillows until they cushion
her perfectly. It’s odd, behind here, in this window of her childhood. It feels
familiar and too tight, like a favorite shoe she has outgrown.

Her heel hits the wood
paneling. Emma frowns, and kicks it again. The same noise echoes back emptily.
Dom straightens out of his slouch, but she’s already moving.
 

The seat lifts away, and
Dom catches it as it wobbles. Emma stares down. How did she forget this—the
hidey-hole where she kept all her treasures, where Emilio hid toys for her to
find when she arrived. It’s empty, but once upon a time, it was full to
bursting with toys and the things a small girl would love.
 

Now, there is only a
small picture, and an envelope.
 

She lifts them out with
trembling fingers. Brushes the dust away. She flushes, staring at the picture.
Because there is no doubt that the affair happened, that everything Caleb said
is true.

Not with this. She
closes her eyes, not able to look at it.
 

Instead, she opens the
old envelope. It crinkles and rattles. A key falls out, and a business
card.
 

New York Bank and Trust
.
 

There is a number on the
back, and nothing else. Someone left this for her, someone who knew her father
well enough to have a key to his security box. Someone who knew where to put it
so she would find it.
 

Fear squeezes her chest,
and she pockets the card and the key. Folds the picture in half and shoves it
into the envelope before passing it to Dom. “Burn that.”
 

She tugs her coat
straight, the cool weight of her gun on her side comforting.
 

Dom pauses on the
driveway as she slides into the beater. She flips her sunglasses down, and
stares into nothing as he burns the picture.
 

She isn’t chasing
Caleb’s ghost. Not anymore. Whoever left this clue, it wasn’t Caleb.
 

He would never have left
a picture of his mother behind. She can feel the key pressing into her leg. And
wonders what secrets her father will reveal next.