He breathes noisily out of his nose before his fingers working a keyboard jut out of the console’s speakers. “He has four men surrounding him.”
“Not a problem.”
“Three are carrying automatic weapons.”
He groans in frustration when I reply, “Still not an issue.”
“Isaac…” Although his formal salutation expresses his true concern, I act as if it doesn’t.
“Give me his location, then shut down surveillance.”
When silence is the only thing resonating out of the speaker for the next twenty seconds, I prepare to remind him who he works for, but before I can, Hugo joins our conversation. “He’s at the warehouse you fought in for the first time. In an office on the west side.”
I realize Hugo and Hunter are in the same room when Hunter tells him he’s a fucking idiot. I miss what Hugo replies since he muffles the mic before speaking, but it calms Hunter down effectively enough for him to load the warehouse’s address into my GPS before advising, “The only surveillance close by is in an ATM camera three miles out. It’s currently going through an update.”
“Good.”
My thumb hovers half an inch above the disconnect button when Hugo issues a warning, “As my ma always said, ‘Look before you leap because you never know what’s lying beneath the surface.’”
His saying is lost on me until I commence pulling down streets several miles from the university Cormack and I attended. A car is tailing me. Its headlights aren’t the standard sedan shape. They’re curved, eccentric, and as blinding as the hair on Cormack’s head when his platinum-blond locks are illuminated by a streetlight.
“Call him off.”
I’m anticipating a familiar twanged, “No can do,” from Hugo. I don’t even get a snicker.
“For fuck’s sake, this isn’t his fight. Call him off!”
My narrowed eyes rocket to the rearview mirror when Cormack says, “Are you sure about that, Isaac? Because from where I’m standing, pretty mucheverythingthat happened back then was my fault.” As his voice projects from the speakers in the console, I watch his lips move in the rearview mirror. “I took you to your first fight. I paid the entrance fee. Then I accepted an offer for a fight I knew was too good to be true but was too greedy to ignore.”
“You left with only the clothes on your back—”
“That doesn’t excuse anything, Isaac. You were my friend. I should have looked out for you like youalwaysdid me.” He brings the hood of his car to within a car length of my trunk, then says, “So let’s do this. Let’s show Col the men we’ve grown to be.” I know where his speech is going before his mouth can articulate it. “It won’t bring Ophelia back. Hell, it might even lose you Isabelle, but why should that matter? When vengeance comes into play, who cares who it takes down. It’s all fair game, right?”
I slam on my brakes, shutting down both Cormack’s rant and my speed before I peel out of the driver’s seat and stomp to his idling car. “He threatened Isabelle!”
“Because he knew you’d react.” He clambers out of his car, then steps up to me, thrusting chest to chest. “Just like he knew using his daughter was the only way he could get to you. He can read you like a fucking book, Isaac.”
A motorist toots at me when I pin Cormack to the side of his vehicle by a robust clutch on his shirt. I glare at him with flaring nostrils, my mood so worked up, it takes everything I have not to wipe his abhorrent grin from his face with my fists.
“Do it,” Cormack encourages, his voice without a quiver. “Hit me. Because I sure as fuck would rather you take your anger out on me than watch you play on his fucking field again.” The number of times he curses reveals how foreign our bust-up is, much less what he says next. “I thought you were better than this, Isaac? That you play a tactical yet fair game.” He nudges his head in the direction we were traveling. “Noneof his games are fair. And you know that because that’s thesolereason you chased Ophelia as relentlessly as you did.”
I try to shake my head, I try to brush off his claim as if it’s a lie, but the longer I stare into his eyes, the more honest his statement becomes. Ophelia rarely talked about her family or her past. I thought that centered around the loss of her mother at a young age, but it was only after her death did my thoughts probe a little deeper. She was skittish and reserved, and no matter how much I try to deny that my instincts to protect and nurture are as high as my wish to dominate and rule, my endeavors display otherwise.
I like fixing broken things. It’s why hardly any of the buildings in my empire were built from scratch. Watching an uncut gem slowly form into something magical is far more enticing than purchasing an over-polished diamond on the black market. There’s value in the unknown, and Ophelia guarded her secrets almost as well as Isabelle does.
“There he is,” Cormack mutters when I loosen my grip on his shirt enough to expose he’s slowly getting through to me. “The man who can fight with his fists but prefers to use his brain. You’re smarter than him, Isaac. More tactical. And that’s all that is needed to win a game of chess.” After pulling himself out of my hold, he straightens his disheveled clothing, then nudges his head to his car. His 1995 McLaren F1 is his prime pick from his fleet of vintage sports cars. “Let’s go get a drink.”
“Where?”
He squeezes my shoulder in support before peering past it. “Anywhere but here.”
When I follow the direction of his gaze, my palms drench with sweat. With my focus more on Cormack than the road, I didn’t realize I pulled over at the front of Ophelia’s last place of employment. Buck’s Diner is as rundown now as it was back in the day. Since it’s meant to be about what’s inside that counts, I’ve never had it revamped. Her uncared-for appearance is the reminder I need that no matter how much effort you put into something, sometimes they’re just not fixable. It isn’t from a lack of trying. It’s from a lack of chance.
Ophelia died.
There are no second chances when that happens.
After swallowing down my annoyance, I lock my eyes with Cormack’s. “You lead, I follow.” He only gets in two head bobs before the remainder of my reply slows his nods. “But when we get where we’re going, you’re going to share your thoughts on Ophelia. The good, the bad, and the ugly.” He is already uneased about my request, so picture how perverse it becomes when I add, “Then you’re going to shift your focus to Isabelle.”
