“No one blames you for that. It was supposed to be a routine missionary trip. She insisted you go to Miami to look in on my prodigal brother. It’s my mother’s fault you weren’t there, not yours.”
“And you’re using my relationship with your mother to manipulate me for what purpose?” Sebastian asked.
“Gabrielle is coming back to St. Felipe, and I want you to be her bodyguard—”
“Fuck no,” Sebastian blurted out. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to provide security for your brat of a sister. Do you remember the hell she put me through when I got to the island?”
“That was a long time ago, and in her defense, she didn’t ask those kids to bully you. They were trying to impress her.”
“And she didn’t do shit to stop them because she hated me.”
“She was jealous of you.”
“Same difference,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. “I know she didn’t agree to this. What makes you think she’d want me to be her bodyguard?”
“Because Damian Hester is up for parole.”
“What? How is that possible. It’s only been—”
“Ten years. They say he’s shown remorse and been a model prisoner. Some advocacy groups believe he deserves a second chance at life.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I agree. This is the one thing that convinced my sister to come back home … for good. I want her to feel safe in her first few weeks back. Once the parole hearing is over and if they deny parole like they should, there’ll be no need for her to have a bodyguard.”
“But you’re worried they won’t.”
“It’s no secret that I don’t wield the same power that Bernadette King did. My mother could’ve squashed Damian’s parole hearing with a simple phone call. I don’t have that kind of influence. My sister has to come back and face the man who tormented her to keep him in prison where he belongs. The least I can do is make sure she feels safe and protected while she’s doing that.”
Sebastian cringed as thoughts of Gabrielle flooded his mind. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck providing security for the girl who’d gone out of her way to be the biggest bitch to him for years. When Ike and his parents had rescued Sebastian from a homeless shelter in Los Angeles, he’d been a scrawny twelve-year-old blessed with a chance at a new life. But Gabrielle had thwarted him at every turn, going out of her way to remind him that he was an outsider in their world.
He doubted her feelings about him had changed.
His about her damn sure hadn’t.
But he couldn’t help but feel a tug to protect her for Bernadette’s sake. Serena’s request could’ve easily have come from her mother if Bernadette was still around.
And Sebastian would never have told the King Family matriarch no.
“Fine,” Sebastian said. “But my rates just doubled.”
Chapter3
Eyes squeezed shut, Ike da Costa gulped air as a litany of blows turned him into a human piñata. Grigor Brazhensky wasn’t kidding when he gave Ike one last chance to make good on the twenty-two million dollars Ike owed him.
Money Ike no longer had.
He damn sure wasn’t going to beg his sister, the newly crowned head of Hullabaloo Enterprises, their family’s coffee empire. Serena would more surely spit in his face than wire an eight-figure sum to his bank account. A gesture that would be much kinder than he deserved.
When the Russian henchmen burst through the door of his condo nestled in Miami’s South Beach, Ike had resigned himself to his fate. The moon was full and stark white against the clear black sky, shining through the expansive window-wrapped living room walls. He rested on the leather couch, shirtless, wearing only a pair of basketball shorts, and sipped on the last remnants of Bishop’s rum he’d nursed all day. A blustery ocean breeze wafted into the space from the open patio doors.
He was waiting for them.
The flames had come to burn the moth who’d gotten too close.
“Do you have the money?” The taller of the two brutes growled, crossing massive dark hairy arms across his broad chest.
Ike recognized the man.
