SWNOVELS Between Never and Forever: Part 2 – Chapter 24
My control was slipping. I’d left my meeting to see her sing. Her text that she was proving herself that day had taunted me into it. I couldn’t resist her even though she was the one thing I should be resisting.
And I’d sat there so confident in myself that I could handle it. Yet, that rasp, that voice, her words… I knew she’d written them.
No one thought of a field of flowers like Kee did. No one could talk about the stars in the skies being fireflies when we’d stared at them together. And that’s when I’d lost full control of my emotions.
How could I shake a love that was a part of me, my trauma, my damn soul? She’d woven herself in, and I wasn’t getting her out. Of course I’d loved her back then, but I fell in love with her now, too, with her heart breaking for me on that stage.
And I wasn’t even sure it was real.
She was a performer. She made millions of people feel what I was feeling. Shattered their hearts and let the tears seep out of them. I was even convinced she was feeling that same emotion on the stage because how else could she eviscerate me?
The residency at Black Diamond was going to change who she was. I could see it already, and I couldn’t risk losing myself in the process. Escaping her and putting distance between us was the only way this would work. That and me disconnecting emotionally. I left her on that stage, running from the feelings that had gotten me in trouble before.
Emotions blurred logic. Love made you weak. Love made you do stupid shit. It’s how I’d almost lost her once. How we’d lost friends. How I hadn’t seen the signs before we got in the car that night.
“You’re not paying attention.” Bane elbowed me during our Zoom call with Cade. To anyone else, his low warning would probably have scared their attention back to the screen.
But Cade was my brother-in-law. And Bane was my business partner, not my boss. And a questionable partner, at that. I’d started to think he was more involved with my brother-in-law than he should have been.
Cade headed up cybersecurity within the government but was also a member of the Armanelli family, infamous for being a part of the mafia. Rumors upon rumors flew of murder, greed, and power. Most of the rumors were true, except my brother-in-law had cleaned up the family name over the course of about a decade now. He was married to my sister Izzy, who I knew he’d kill for, and I’d come to terms with it.
I’d practically let others die to save my little heartbreaker’s life too. And I’d do it again.
Even still, Cade was pissing me off, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him or Bane. My fake fiancée was most likely in my hotel suite removing a sex toy I’d instructed her to endure for hours.
I knew she’d done it too. There was no mistaking the blush on her cheeks during the songs she sang.
“I already know all this, Cade,” I ground out as I stared at him on the screen.
The fucker bounced one of his kids on his knee as he threw back, “Then what am I on this call for?”
Bane raised an eyebrow, glancing over at me with blue eyes that were so clear, they almost looked translucent.
“You’re summarizing the problem when I simply need an answer to it.”
“Do I look like your employee?” Cade’s face showed disgust.
Bane’s eyes jumped back to me.
“You look like the guy who has saved the country once or twice from cyber attacks.” And he was. He had a direct line to the president.
“More than once or twice. But I have the next generation here now. That’s what I’m worried about now. Anyway, your casino’s security is fine. No one is trying to screw with the HEAT empire…or the Armanelli empire for that matter.”
“Right. But something’s off,” I explained. “That small glitch in the system could be—”
“We’re talking about seconds of the day, Dex. If someone wanted to rob the casino, they’d have to literally plan a heist better than—”
“It shouldn’t be plannable. It should be impossible.”
“What he said,” Bane interjected. “It’s not just the HEAT empire, Cade. It’s my name too. The Blacks will not be open to weakness.”
“Don’t you have a team to work on this?”
“Not when I have a sister and brother-in-law who are better than everyone in the fucking world.”
“Hey.” Bane turned to me. Suddenly, his eyes held fury and something maniacal. “Careful how you talk in front of the little one.”
Cade busted out laughing. “Yeah, Dex. Careful. The next generation of the Armanellis are most important.” He looked at Bane Black. “And the Blacks’ generation will be quite important too.” With that, he was gone.
Bane stood immediately from the conference room chair and frowned at me. “You sure you’re good?” he said and narrowed his eyes like he was trying to pry open my damn mind.
“You think I’m not?”
“You need to figure out your love life. It’ll hinder our casino if you can’t. I know you normally never miss anything. I’ve assessed your security measures for years. I wasn’t about to go into business with someone I didn’t research. And I don’t want that changing because your mind is elsewhere.”
I hummed. “Maybe you should have gone into business with Cade then. Has he missed anything?”
“Cade’s technically not in business with anyone but his family now. You heard him.” He smiled slow. “You know this. You also know what he missed.” We all did. He’d almost lost my sister because of it. “Don’t make the same mistake as him.” His words held a sense of foreboding.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re not focused. And when you’re not focused, people take advantage. You own a place that now makes billions of dollars a year. I funnel even more through this casino. People who have power don’t like that. They don’t like that I’m intercepting their business or potentially hindering other businesses.”
“If you’re talking about laundering, we’ve had a handle on—”
“Platinum Casino took a huge hit when we invested and opened our doors here. They’re not happy, Dex. You think they’re so squeaky clean they wouldn’t somehow try to hurt our business?”
“They would be stupid to do so.”
“I didn’t claim that they were smart. All I said was you’d better focus. Protect what’s most important.” He leaned in. “And I don’t mean that girl.”
He left me reeling. That girl…like she was only that and not my girl. My fiancée. The woman who broke my heart but still had the pieces in her grasp. Control of emotions slipped faster and faster, gaining momentum down a slope that wasn’t stoppable. I wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t fall off the cliff again.
I pounded a number into the phone. “Mitchell, I want that fucking contract in my email by the end of this week.”
“Oh, Keelani has it. She said she’d discuss it with you.” His voice shook over the phone. It’s how I knew the fucker was lying.
“She’d better.” I hung up, not willing to deal with that now.
I went to work instead. I had Penelope cater in some food to the conference room for me, not willing to go back to my place, where I could smell Kee everywhere, hear her tiptoeing around that room, feel her presence but never see her step over the threshold to talk to me.
Penelope set the food down on my desk once it arrived. “Dex, I’m putting your first few events with Ms. Hale on the calendar. How would you like the next event handled regarding your engagement? I’ve got a few options for—”
“Keelani and I will handle it.” I wasn’t sure how, but I knew we would even if we’d been avoiding each other now for damn days and still her words about wanting experience were clamoring around in my head. Could she handle that type of experience with me? Could she want who I was now instead of who I’d been?
“Like you handled your engagement post too?” She glanced up from her phone with pursed lips. “That was surprising, Dex. I can at least help you with the next location of—’
I frowned. “That’s not going to be public.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not… We’re not…” I narrowed my eyes at her.
Penelope was quick to figure things out, and her blue eyes searched mine so hard I felt like she was using a jackhammer to break through my thoughts. “You’re not what, exactly?”
“We don’t need attention.”
She lifted a brow and leaned back. “Interesting, Dex. Isn’t this all for attention?” she murmured.
“It’s for something. I’m not sure what yet.”
She smiled and went back to her phone. “Don’t expect to avoid the paps if you go outside of HEAT territory. They’ll be circling, and you’re both well-known.”
“I’m aware,” I grumbled, stabbing the fork into my salad.
“Also, make it believable, please. PR stunts never go over well publicly if you’re found out.”
Was she my mother? “Why would you think this is a PR—”
“It’s only obvious to me because I’m in and out of your home. The bedroom separation is a pretty good indicator—”
“Penelope, can you please let me eat in peace?”
“You’re such a drama queen.” She patted my hand before standing and straightening her skirt. “Ask her what she wants, Dex. Controlling the narrative with the one you love never works.”
“Penelope, you’re giving me relationship advice? Are you married all of a sudden?”
“No.” She tapped the desk. “But I’m a woman. I know. Also, make it clear when you open car doors, escort her into dinner, and—”
“I know how to woo a woman.”
“Is it all about wooing her? Are we not concerned about the media now?”
I threw my fork down and leaned back in my chair to glare at her. “Jesus fucking—”
Yet, she was walking out as she held the door open for Dimitri.
He poked his head in. “What the fuck are you still doing in the conference room? Go home.”
I nodded, not about to tell him the real reason I wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon. “I’m finishing up a few security checks.”
He stepped in and glanced at the food on the desk. “We good for next month?”
“When have we ever not been?” My tone was defensive after dealing with Bane.
“It’ll be a big month with Keelani’s concert opening. And with the fact that you dropped the news about this engagement—’
“Dimitri.” His name came out a warning rather than a sigh. He sat down across the table from me, and I tried not to grumble. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Of course you’re not. You’re never in the mood to talk about her. But I still need to say a few things.”
My stomach churned, and my mind ran away with thoughts of my brother and Kee betraying me somehow. They were illogical and near deranged but that didn’t stop them. “Whatever you need to say probably isn’t relevant to—”
“She’s had stalkers before,” Dimitri said as if it were a revelation to me.
“She mentioned it.” I shrugged because she had when her eyes had skirted around my resort halls.
“No. Not like she says. These people aren’t just obsessed. They’re out of their minds and dangerous.” He dropped the bomb like it was nothing. “I’m not talking about someone peeping in her room here and there, Dex—though she’ll describe it that way. They’ve come to every one of her concerts, followed her home, filmed her, tried to…”
His voice drifted off while my whole body leaned forward to get the rest of that sentence. “To what, Dimitri?”
He shook his head. “She goes with the flow when asked about it, like it’s no big deal and part of the job. I’m ninety percent sure she hasn’t even told me everything.”
My brother stopped to rub his knuckles together. I did the same thing when I was trying my best to keep a lid on my emotions, to come to terms with something. I let the silence fill the air while I took one deep breath before asking quietly, “Why didn’t you tell me?” The question was a selfish one, and immediately, I wanted to snatch it back because I knew the answer.
He leaned forward and pounded a fist on the table. “I don’t tell you shit about her because you don’t deserve to know. You left and wanted nothing to do with her. Remember?”
I winced at his words.
“Look, damn it. It’s no one’s fault. We got dealt a shit card.”
Dimitri was the baby boy of the family. He would never understand that the car accident was on me, not him. I was supposed to keep his ass safe, not the other way around. I should have kept them all safe, and instead we lost a life and nearly ruined all of ours. “Sure, D. It’s a shit card.”
“But we don’t talk about it, and we don’t discuss Keelani or her family, which is a whole other issue in and of itself.”
“What’s wrong with her—”
“I’m not here to give you a damn summary of her life, Dex. She can do that when she’s ready. Maybe try asking her.”
“Maybe I should hack her records,” I grumbled, irritated that he wanted to protect her privacy over helping me.
“I’m actually surprised you haven’t,” he threw back, but the fear of falling into an obsession over her was real, and I didn’t want to go down into that black hole, unsure of if I’d be able to get out.
“Whatever. What else do you want?” I asked.
He took a deep breath, as if he was trying to cool down. “Look, she needs security all around that fucking concert, okay? Not just normal security. I want them crawling up the damn walls. Cameras everywhere. The last guy wrote her letters, enclosed her own panties in the envelope, and he was found in her hotel room.”
“What do you mean he was in her goddamn hotel room?”
“Police got there before she did. She was fine, but we need to be vigilant.”
“Now wait. What the fuck? How had he sent her her own panties?” I bellowed.
Dimitri stared at me like I was born yesterday. “If you got a girl’s panties, you either were given them or—”
“He was in her home before that and was searching for them?”
“Bingo.”
“Fuck me.” This is why I couldn’t have her blurring lines. It fucked with how I managed my resort and infected my mind with something I thought might be love. If I wasn’t focused, I’d lose her in a much more permanent way. I grumbled and then I grabbed my laptop. “She’s got a security team, right?”
“One Mitchell assigns every tour. She doesn’t trust them, and I don’t either. Your eyes had better be on her at all times during performance nights. Mine will be.”
I opened my laptop and typed away, pulling up camera after camera until I saw her in our apartment. I breathed a sigh of relief. My system’s technology was state of the art and innovative. We tracked the rate of a heartbeat, could decipher the difference in fear and pain and pleasure just from the room-monitoring capabilities.
Our watches also alerted us to information on each of our clients. They’d all signed off on us tracking their every single movement. Being a HEAT member meant safety, security, and protection. Not intrusion.
At least not in the past. But fuck if I wasn’t going to cross that line with her. “I can take care of her.”
“I don’t give a shit what you think you can do. That’s my girl out there.”
I couldn’t help that my eyes cut to his fast. “Your girl?”
“She’s been mine all the years you were too much of a coward to get over your feelings and do what you should have done long ago.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” I stood up.
Dimitri knew not to go down this road with me. He never did. It was a line he wasn’t supposed to cross. Still, he stood up too. “You heard me.”
“What is it, exactly, that you think I should have done?”
“You should have wifed her up years ago. She should be my sister-in-law.” He said it so matter-of-factly. Like I had a choice.
“She left me,” I clarified, even though it sounded like a weak excuse at this point.
“Oh, grow the fuck up. She never actually left. She would have done long-distance had you given her the chance, and we all know it. She even came back and nearly begged for you to get back together. You left her.”
“You don’t know,” I whispered, but my voice almost cracked. I almost gave into the pain I felt as I crumbled back into my chair, not willing to fight my brother over a girl we both loved but in different ways.
“Fine. Maybe I don’t. But I know she’s been through enough hell. You get me? So, don’t fuck it up this time.”
“Or what?”
“Or one of us will have to call Mom and Dad to say we fought to the fucking death. I don’t know if I can take you, but I’m starting to think Dec and Dom would be on my side. All three of us can definitely take you. Cade and Dante will hide your body after Mom and Dad cry over you.”
“You’re a dumbass, you know that?” I shook my head as I rolled my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m not going to hurt her. And I’m sure as hell going to protect her.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because, Dimitri, she sang to me today.” I slumped with the confession because we all knew what it meant.
“Just to you?” He lifted a brow.
“Yes, and it felt like she literally peeled back my skin and pulled my spirit from my body.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“Probably, but there’s no use lying to you. It’s about as dramatic as I feel about her.” I waved him toward the door. “Go home and leave me the hell alone. I’m going to take care of my girl. And let’s be clear, she is mine. You may be her best friend, but she’s my fiancée.”
“That’s a PR stunt.”
“Is it?” I held his gaze now, daring him to answer that question wrong.
“I’m beginning to think you’ve lost it, brother.”
“Maybe.” I sighed. “Maybe I have. Just know, if I can’t have her, I’m not going to let a stalker or someone unworthy have her instead, that’s for sure. No one gets my girl but me. And I’m not even sure she’ll let me have her anyway.”
“Not sure you deserve her,” Dimitri mumbled.
“I’m not sure I do either.”
“Better figure it out before you commit, brother. I won’t forgive you if you don’t.”
He didn’t break eye contact. He didn’t smile. He didn’t even freaking blink. It’s how I knew he’d choose Keelani over me.
It’s how I knew I needed to figure out how I really felt befor