One Last Rainy Day: The Legacy of a Prince(10)
Glancing back at Roman’s pool camera—which gives an ample view of the pool and a large amount of side yard—I catch Sean standing in the shallow end with a lit cigarette in hand. Cecelia treads water at a safe distance, her posture suggesting mistrust as she weighs up Sean while they converse. A conversation I can’t hear because Roman hasn’t updated his security cameras since he built the house.
As Sean lures her closer with his pretty boy charm, he makes it a point to lift his chin in acknowledgment to me. Just after, I command the camera’s red light to blink twice, unsure if he’ll see it. Lifting my burner, I shoot off a text to the bird waiting nearby to scoop him up. Knowing I need to switch my focus, I observe their posture for another few seconds and get confirmation of my earlier assumption. Sean’s doing anything but fucking taking notes for the club’s benefit, far more focused on details for his own.
Even so, facts are facts. For now, and because of Sean, we’re one step closer to accessing that house.
I’ve often had an inkling that Roman built that mansion to use as an overpriced safe. His secrets hidden somewhere between the walls, which is most likely why he keeps his distance from it.
Time will tell.
When Sean lifts from the pool after our bird pulls up, Cecelia watches him saunter off, staring after him long after he’s out of her line of sight. It’s then that I get my first inkling.
This could work.
Exhausted from our warehouse raid earlier, diving into the ether to research what we discovered, and then working a long shift at the garage, I glare at the asshole in front of me. He’s testing my limits thanks to his invitation to the comatose girl on the couch behind him. “I’m taking her. So, make an excuse,” I grit out. “I need to scope the house.”
“I’ll get to it,” Sean assures.
“You were in her pool hours ago and got exactly shit. You’ve milked this already within the last two days, both of which you saw fit to put her directly in my fucking path.”
“I’m not trying to piss you off,” he swears.
“You’re failing. I swear to God, Sean. If you make this about your dick—”
“I’m not,” he snaps back, giving me an irritated jerk of his chin. “It’s not like that.” He glances back over his shoulder where Cecelia is still passed out due to taking a few hits of my blunt during our exchange in the lobby.
“It’s just . . .” he turns back to me, “she’s been questioning everything since minute one. She’s young, sure. But she’s not an empty head. From what I’ve gathered, she’s no more a fan of Roman than we are. I think there’s potential you can’t see because you’re too fucking pissed off to try and glimpse it.” He exhales smoke too close to my face, and I knock the lit cigarette out of his hand.
Lit ashes scatter down his arm and jeans as he bats it off. “The fuck, man! Who the fuck are you right now?”
“I’m the guy you’re currently fucking to get into her panties.”
“Yeah, seeing as how you’re becoming more unrecognizable to me by the day, and we have to handle this just so. You sure I’m the one in the way?”
He doesn’t bother hiding the doubt in his expression as he continues. “I get why you’re pissed, but the brother I know would never let someone this volatile near this situation. So, you tell me, should I trust you to handle this for all of us? Because from what I’ve witnessed, you scare the shit out of her already.”
From what I’ve gathered, she seems mature for her age. Too fucking young to know better, but brave enough to cross borders to start to learn her lessons. She all but admitted during our back and forth earlier that she’s using us, this situation, as an experiment for her own amusement to piss her father off or test herself. Probably both.
Because knowing your enemy is the most important rule in the book. Unlike Sean, I took the time to understand her typical behavior pattern. Holing up in a garage with a bunch of tatted mechanics getting stoned? Not on her resume. She even went so far as to call me “Frenchman,” which means she’s already been warned by someone who couldn’t spot my brother in a fucking two-person lineup.
Even when I full-out warned her that being here wasn’t in her best interest, she didn’t pause before leaping over the line I drew, entering the garage, and making herself at home amongst us with Sean’s encouragement.
So, while she might be asking the right questions for answers she’ll never uncover on her own, this seems more a classic case of a good girl wanting to go bad or, at least, make bad decisions.
That’s where I come in.
I don’t scare her. I intrigue her.
My blatant disgust with her invasion of my life and space only draws more curiosity, which I will use to my advantage as soon as I can swat her new bodyguard away.
Shifting my focus back to Sean, I stare past his bullshit reasoning—the image of his fingers curling around her earlier in a slight hint of possession fresh in my mind. “Do I even need to say it?”
The flick of his Zippo is the only answer I get for a few seconds until he lifts eyes full of contempt. “Yeah, Dom, maybe you better.”
“You willing to fuck us all over for her?”
“Yeah, I’m in love,” he spouts dryly.