Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Maybe Samson knows nothing useful. Maybe he’s just muscle in an expensive suit. But that’s not what I saw tonight. He listened too carefully. Held himself too tightly. He didn’t have the look of a man who simply obeys.
No.
He looked like a man who makes his own choices and fools others into thinking they’re getting him to do what he wants.
Which means if answers are buried in that family, he is probably standing guard over them.
Arthur Vexley is unreachable. Men like Arthur build walls out of money. Out of loyalty. Out of fear.
But walls always have doors.
I look at Samson’s photograph again.
The camera caught him turning. There’s no smile, no effort to soften the edges. Dark hair. Ruthless cheekbones. Those whiskey eyes that are so alert. So dangerous.
If Samson is guarding the secrets, maybe he is the door.
One I have to open.
The thought should steady me.
It doesn’t.
Because I can still feel his attention on me. I can still hear the low scrape of his voice through the music. I can still remember the way he stepped closer without crowding me, which somehow felt more intimate than if he had.
No.
I’m not doing this.
I stand and move back to the corkboard. I look at the old photograph of the three brothers together. Some charity event years ago. Black tie. Controlled smiles. Arthur just beyond the frame.
Samson stands in front like a threat.
Nathaniel stands beside him like a verdict.
And Cain—
I narrow my eyes.
Cain stands half a step behind the others, one hand in his pocket, his expression almost bored. Not arrogance. Not exactly. Something cooler than that. He’s detached, as though he’s watching a game no one else realizes they’re playing.
A strange thought moves through me before I can stop it.
Samson looks like the man who would end a fight. Nathaniel looks like the man who would justify it.
But Cain Vexley looks like the man who would start one and never have to touch it.
I go still.
Then I let out a humorless laugh. “Good one, Del. You’re projecting onto a photo now. Get a freaking grip.”
Still, I keep looking at him. At the youngest brother I can’t quite place. At the angle of his head. At the faint impression that he knows something the others don’t. Or worse, that he knows the same thing but looks at it in a completely different way.
The corner of the photograph has slipped crooked under its pin. I reach up and straighten it, and for one second I rest my fingertip over Cain Vexley’s face.
A small chill skates down the back of my neck.
I pull my hand away.
Enough.
I walk to my kitchenette, pour a glass of water, and drink half of it in one go. Then I set the glass down and brace both hands on the counter.
What happened tonight was simple biology. Samson Vexley is an attractive man. An exceptionally attractive man. Tall, hard, and dangerous in the way women have been taught to romanticize until it gets them killed.
I know what he is.
I know what his family is.
And I know why I went to the club tonight.
I straighten and turn off the lamp by the desk.
I should go to bed.
Instead I stand there in the dark.
I was supposed to walk into that club and study Samson Vexley.
I was supposed to notice the room bending around him, the way men deferred and women watched and nobody ever came too close without permission.
I was supposed to leave with information.
I did.
But that information isn’t the truth that follows me into the dark.
The truth is hotter.
When he stepped close, I didn’t want him farther away.
For one catastrophic instant in that club, I wanted Samson Vexley to touch me.
And that is the worst complication of all.
3
SAMSON
Mercy is the first weakness.
My father drilled those words into my head from the time I was old enough to talk.
The gates open before I reach them. They’re ornate black wrought iron, set into stone and tall enough to discourage even the most innocent curiosity. The bars are spaced too narrowly to see much of what lies beyond unless you already know what you’re looking for.
I don’t slow as I pass through. I drive myself. Nathaniel has a driver. So does our father. Me? I prefer to control my own vehicle.
My headlights flash over the crest at the center of the gate.
A narrow iron key.
Then it’s gone.
The gates close behind me, and I don’t look back.
The drive curves through a line of dark pines that swallow most of the light. The stone of the house emerges first, then the angles of the roofline, and last, the tall and narrow windows.
I cut the engine in front of the main entrance and step out into the cold.
The air is still. No wind. No movement in the trees.
I walk through the front doors onto the marble floor. It’s warmer in here, but still, I feel like the temperature drops a few degrees.