Mine To Take (Nine Circles) Read online

  But Gabriel knew. Despite the lack of any hard evidence, his gut was certain of the truth.

  That money was from his father. His not-so-nameless-any-longer father.

  Eva looked up from the fire and sent Gabriel a narrow look. “You’re broodier than normal, Gabe. Anything up?”

  Mercifully, Alex answered for him. “Corrine died a few days ago.”

  “Oh, hell.” Eva’s brow wrinkled, smoky-gray eyes concerned. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said gruffly. “The cancer was getting to the torture stage so I’m glad it’s over. And glad she doesn’t have to deal with it anymore.”

  “You should have let us—”

  “No, I shouldn’t.” He reached for the decanter again, taking the little scotch that was left. Something had to cool the fire inside him since the first few glasses hadn’t done the trick.

  Another silence fell and he knew Alex and Eva were exchanging glances. Probably meaningful ones. Well, he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to talk about it now.

  Eva turned away and stuck her hands out to the fire. She wore black fingerless gloves, her nails tipped with chipped silver nail polish. Alex had wandered over to the sofa, throwing himself down on it, sprawling like a lazy house cat.

  “You said something in your e-mail about an investment opportunity, Eva,” Alex said, sipping at his scotch. “Care to share?”

  “Not yet.” She rubbed her hands together. “You’ll like it though.”

  “Why does that sound like a threat?”

  “I don’t know. Why does it?”

  Gabriel watched them bicker from his armchair.

  The Nine Circles weren’t ones for heart-to-heart chats, but they looked out for each other, watched each other’s backs. All of them knew what it was to be a misfit, a loner. To have nothing and no one. No support, no family to call on. No one they trusted.

  That’s why the original nine had formed their own little family one night after a poker game. Their own support network. Because, God knew, they had no one else. And sometimes, even that wasn’t enough.

  A couple of minutes later, Zac finally arrived. The fourth member of their club. Ex-SAS, ex-merc, Zac was now the head of a multimillion-dollar security company. And he looked like the consummate CEO.

  Especially in the dark suit with his tats covered up by pristine black cotton and charcoal-gray wool. It didn’t take much, however, to realize that Zac’s exquisitely tailored façade was just that—a thin veneer of civilization over a man with the heart of a predator.

  A quality Gabriel always respected since he was mostly predator himself.

  “You’re late,” Eva said to him as Zac shut the door. “Fifteen minutes to be exact.”

  “Chill, angel,” Zac said calmly, his cultured English accent at odds with the scars on his face and the casual slang terminology. “I always get here eventually. And besides, the snow was a bastard.”

  Only Zac could call Eva angel. Mainly because he was the only one who could get away with it. He’d been the one to discover her when she’d tried to hack into his company’s client database, and he’d been the one to hire her to make sure no one could ever hack into it again.

  Eva rolled her eyes. “Okay, whatever.”

  Gabriel nodded to Zac from his chair but made no effort to move.

  “I heard about Corrine,” Zac said to him as he shrugged off his overcoat and slung it over a nearby chair. “My condolences.”

  “Thank you.” It didn’t surprise Gabriel that Zac already knew. The guy knew lots of things, especially things he wasn’t supposed to know.

  “How did you find out?” Alex asked from the sofa. He sounded annoyed.

  “I read the obituaries. Like anyone else.”

  Alex sighed. “I don’t read the obituaries.”

  Zac came over to the fire, reached for a tumbler, then looked around for the decanter. “Maybe you should.” He frowned in Gabriel’s direction. “Have you finished all that bloody scotch, Woolf?”

  Gabriel shrugged, unrepentant. “My mother is dead. I think I deserve it, don’t you?”

  “Guys, please,” Eva interrupted, looking impatient. “Could we forget about the booze for a second? We can get some more in a minute. I want to talk about the opportunity I e-mailed you about.”

  The last shot of whisky had settled comfortably in Gabriel’s stomach, making his limbs feel loose. But the anger inside him still boiled away like a saucepan of water on an open fire. Wasn’t confessing one’s sins supposed to help? At least that’s what his mother had always said. But not today it hadn’t. If anything, confessing had only made his anger burn hotter.

  “‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,’” his mother had always told him. “Not ours, Gabriel. Ours is to forgive.”

  Maybe his mother had forgiven the man who raped her. But Gabriel couldn’t and never would.

  What had the Reverend said to him once? “Keep it cold, Church. Don’t let emotion get in the way of what you have to do.” The Reverend had been the old president of the Angels and had known what he was talking about. Emotion clouded your judgment. Made you weak. And he couldn’t afford to be weak.

  This anger had to be cold. Clean. So he could deliver justice for his mother with a steady hand.

  “Honor St. James,” Eva was saying. “That’s who.”

  Gabriel blinked as the name permeated suddenly through the whisky haze.

  Alex was still sprawled on the sofa but his posture was now not so much lazy cat as a lion about to pounce. “Honor?” His voice was soft and deadly.

  Eva, standing with her back to the fire, smiled. “Yeah, Alex. Honor. Your sister.”

  Everything inside Gabriel paused.

  He and Alex had been sixteen, both of them laborers on the same building site. Alex had just left home—or rather deserted it—yet Gabriel still remembered the woman who’d turned up at the site one day looking for her son, a beautiful woman with black hair and Alex’s blue eyes. She’d had a serious-looking eight-year-old girl in tow. A girl who’d stared at Gabriel and Alex as they were summoned by the site foreman. Saying nothing. Just staring. Accusing.

  Honor.

  Alex never spoke of her, just like he never spoke about any of his family.

  “What about her?” Gabriel demanded, instinct suddenly gripping him tight. He could feel Zac staring at him from across the room, golden eyes unnervingly direct.

  Understandable really, since two days ago Gabriel had asked him to do some digging into a man called Guy Tremain. The name of the man on his mother’s check.

  Zac’s contacts had turned up all kinds of interesting facts.

  Such as Guy Tremain’s marriage to Alex’s mother nineteen years earlier. His role as doting father figure to Alex’s sister, Honor. His successful hotel chain. His reputation as a veritable pillar of the community.

  All the while no one knew the most important fact of all: that he was a rapist.

  Eva gave Gabriel another one of her narrow, suspicious looks. She didn’t trust easily and hated men who took advantage of women. “Why are you so interested?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Eva,” Gabriel said shortly. “You know me better than that. I’m not going to screw with her in that way.”

  “Then what way? You’ve been zoning out for the past ten minutes and at the mention of her name you’re suddenly all ears?”

  Alex was shaking his head. “No,” he said. “No and no. Keep out of it, Eva.”

  “Get a grip, Alex,” she said. “She’s got one of the best investment firms in the city and I’m not going to ignore her just because she’s your damn sister. If you’ve got a problem with her then perhaps you need to work it out? Have you ever thought of that?”

  Alex went even more still, if that was possible, and the temperature in the room plunged.

  “Eva, that was insensitive,” Zac said mildly enough, though the reprimand was unmistakable. “And also Alex’s business.”

  There was never any pressure t
o speak of the things they didn’t want to talk about. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was one of their first rules. Every single one of them had wounds that remained hidden. Eva especially, from what he’d heard.

  She didn’t look at Zac but her intense gray gaze flickered. “When I need a father, Zac, I’ll ask for it, okay?”

  Zac opened his mouth to say something but Alex held up his hand. “It’s fine. I accept your apology, Eva,” he said, even though Eva hadn’t offered him one, “but for future reference, can we keep my family out of any of these ‘great investment’ deals?”

  “Tell me about the deal,” Gabriel said, ignoring the flare of blue as Alex turned to look at him.

  Eva lifted her chin. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s with the sudden interest in Honor?”

  He wasn’t quite sure yet. All he knew was that she was connected to Guy Tremain. And perhaps that did make her a potentially useful tool. Especially since it concerned claiming justice for his mother.

  But he wasn’t going to tell everyone else that. Even after all these years it was too personal to tell anyone. That he was the walking, talking reminder of his mother’s rape. That he’d spent the last nineteen years of his life knowing that whenever his mother looked at him, she didn’t see her son but the face of the man who’d raped her.

  Oh, she’d told Gabriel it wasn’t true. That she couldn’t remember who the man had been but Gabriel knew she’d lied. He’d heard her confessions, after all, whispered so that no one else would hear. Confessions of guilt and shame. And fear. Fear when she looked at her own son.

  No. They didn’t need to know about that.

  Gabriel met Eva’s gaze. “You said investment opportunity. So? I want to fucking invest.”

  Eva stared at him for a long moment. Then she looked down at her hands, examining the chipped polish on her nails. “Honor contacted me personally about a large hotel chain she’s needing investors for. Apparently the company’s been trying to turn some of the hotels into luxury eco-resorts but ran into serious debt. She still thinks the idea has merit and thought I might want to sink some cash into it because they want to use some of Void Angel’s smart tech.”

  Luxury eco-resorts … that was familiar somehow but he couldn’t quite place it. A Woolf Construction job maybe? His company did quite a bit of hotel building and certainly one of his own personal areas of interest was in green construction—that was where the smart money was these days.

  “How interesting,” Zac murmured, his voice soft.

  Gabriel flicked a glance at the other man and met amber eyes that were staring calmly back. Must have something to do with the information he’d asked Zac to get for him …

  Ah, yes. That was it. Zac’s contact had pulled up a whole lot of financial info about Tremain Hotels, the hotel chain Guy Tremain owned. About how in debt the company was after an attempt to turn a select few of the hotels into a series of luxury eco-resorts.

  Looked like Honor was trying to help her stepfather. Which could mean all sorts of opportunities, if so.

  “Yes,” Gabriel agreed, folding his arms. “Very interesting.”

  Alex abruptly pushed himself off the sofa in an impatient movement and went over to a phone that sat on one of the side tables. “Could we get more of the Macallan thirty-nine in here please, James,” he said shortly into the receiver, then hung up and turned back to the rest of them. “Sorry, Eva. You’re going to have to count me out on this one.”

  “Because it’s your sister?”

  “Yeah, because it’s my sister.”

  “Why? Afraid she’s going to call you out on the last nineteen years of no contact?”

  “Eva,” Zac said quietly. “Respect the group.”

  There was a flush in Eva’s pale, fine-boned face, the glitter of something like pain in her eyes. Most of the time she was guarded, sarcasm her armor, but there were some things she felt deeply enough about to let that armor drop. Loyalty was one, the importance of family another. Gabriel could understand it. He’d first been fiercely loyal to the only blood relative he had—his mother. And then, when she turned away from him, the Angels, the motorcycle club that had embraced him and their president, the Reverend, the man who’d been a father figure to him.

  Oh, yes, he understood the importance of loyalty.

  Eva glanced at Zac and something unspoken flashed between them. Then she looked back to the fire. “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “It’s not my business.”

  Alex let out a short breath. “I may not contact her but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on in her life. I try and keep tabs on what she’s doing.”

  This was news to Gabriel, and judging by the expressions on the others’ faces, news to them as well. Alex made no secret of the fact that he’d cut off all contact with his mother and sister after his father’s death. He’d never explained his reasons for doing so and no one had ever asked, but Gabriel had always assumed that no contact meant no contact.

  Alex’s expression was unreadable. “That was an apology, by the way.”

  “I got it,” Eva replied. “Well, anyway, I guess you’re interested, aren’t you, Gabe?”

  Interested? That went without saying. Already his mind was turning over possibilities, investigating options.

  His whole life had been about doing what had to be done. At first it had all been about mere survival. Making sure the life he and his mom had was secure. Then it had been about safeguarding that security any way he could. Protecting his mother, making sure she’d never have to suffer for the fact that she’d chosen to have him.

  And now? Now he’d do what had to be done again.

  To take down his rapist father. Get a little piece of justice for his mother.

  “Yeah,” Gabriel said. “I’m interested.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Honor pulled the door of her Midtown office shut with a resounding click, prompting a surprised look from Weston, her PA.

  “You’re going home?” he said, making an exaggerated show of looking at his watch. “Now? But it’s only five o’clock.”

  Honor lifted an eyebrow. “Thanks for the sarcasm, Wes. You know how much I appreciate it.”

  “Anytime. But seriously. You live at the office.”

  Tightening the belt of her cashmere trench coat, Honor picked up her briefcase and crossed over to Weston’s desk.

  The reception area of St. James Investments was empty, most of her clients long gone, but her PA was still doing some last-minute tasks. He was a workaholic just like she was.

  “I’m not going home. I’ve got a meeting.” She placed the folder she’d also been carrying on his desk. “Here’s the Cornwall account info back again. I’m finished with it.”

  Weston picked up the folder and filed it away with his usual efficiency. “A meeting? There wasn’t one in your schedule.”

  “No, I know. It’s a personal one.” Glancing down at the rose-gold Cartier Tank watch Guy had given her for her twenty-first birthday, Honor checked the time.

  She had to be at O’Rourke’s, an Irish pub a couple of blocks from her office, in about twenty minutes, to meet with Eva King, the media-shy CEO of Void Angel, one of the country’s largest and fastest growing technology companies, and she did not want to be late. Especially since they were going to be talking investments.

  The pub was a strange place to meet for a technology CEO but really, what did that matter? She hoped the meeting—which she’d only received a text about that afternoon, necessitating a rescheduling of a number of other meetings—was going to yield some results. Eva had been cagey when Honor had put forward the details of Guy’s hotel project and Honor supposed she couldn’t blame her. Putting money into a failing business was always going to be risky.

  Then again, Eva’s company had a reputation for taking risks, as well as constantly being on the lookout for new opportunities, which was why Honor had approached her in the first place.

  “Oh?” Weston looked interested. “Sounds
intriguing.”

  Honor just gave him a smile as she turned toward the elevators. “Not really. Need-to-know basis only, Wes dear, and you don’t need to know.” Finding investors for Tremain Hotels was her baby and with the way it was currently going—badly—it wasn’t anything she wanted to crow about.

  Besides, Wes didn’t need to know that if she couldn’t find the money to get Tremain out of debt, he’d be out of a job.

  And so would she.

  “Spoilsport.” Wes pulled a face. “Oh well, have fun.”

  Honor’s smile remained in place until the elevator doors shut. Then it vanished because, really, she had nothing to smile about. Not when she thought of the amount of her own money she’d invested in Tremain. Money she’d put in against her better judgment, purely to help Guy save his company. Money she’d lose if Tremain went down the drain.

  As the elevator descended, her phone rang. She checked the screen. Guy, again.

  “Hey,” she said, answering it. “And no. No news yet.” She debated whether or not to tell him about her meeting with Eva, but decided not to. No point in getting his hopes up when she didn’t have any concrete answers for him.

  “Well, you be sure to let me know as soon as you get any bites.” Her stepfather’s voice was level but she could hear the undercurrent of worry in it.

  “Don’t worry, I will. Look, I’ve had some interest already. Now it’s just a matter of reeling them in.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t say just yet. I’ll give you an update tonight though, okay?”

  Guy sighed. “Yes, all right. Your mother and I are at a gallery opening now but I’ll have my phone on me. Call me as soon as you know.”

  After he’d hung up, Honor leaned back against the railing that ran around the interior of the elevator and shut her eyes.

  She’d used every contact she had in an effort to get more backers for Tremain but every single one of them had refused, using words and phrases like “recession” and “economic climate.”

  God. She’d promised Guy she’d help him save the chain. Promised she’d fix his debts. Because that’s what she did—she fixed things. Always had.