Page 3 of Lane (East Dremest Mafia #5)

LANE

Present Day

I wore a smile as I walked through the door to the building.

Not all of the dates I’d been on were great.

Hell, some of them were downright awful.

Last week, I went out with a man who hit on multiple people at the bar and ignored me.

I ate my dinner alone and made him pay for it for wasting my time.

If I didn't have other people requesting dates, I would have thought there was something wrong with me. There still could be. None of the men I’d been out with desired a repeat.

At least tonight, I leaned into the fact my date only wanted a good meal and an even better fuck. Hence the smile on my face.

“That good?” Sheldon asked when I exited the elevator onto my floor. It was one in the morning, and he was doing his usual pacing of the building.

“The best I’ve had in a while.”

“Does that mean you're seeing him again?”

“Nope. We ate, came, and parted ways.”

I started walking down the hall toward my apartment.

It wasn’t the same one as when Jordan had me under a guard’s watchful eyes.

I’d moved to a higher floor, lost my babysitters, and enjoyed a two-bedroom apartment.

There was rent I had to pay, but the utilities were covered.

The rent was much lower than it should have been.

Being related to one of Jordan’s partners had its perks.

“Now what?” Sheldon asked as he trailed behind me.

I stopped when I reached my door and leaned against the wall beside it. My arms crossed as I assessed the late-night conversation with the guard turned shadow once the sun went down. “Why do you want to know?”

Sheldon raked his hand through his blond hair and glanced down the hall, where there was nothing but closed doors. His sweatpants hung low on his hips, and the T-shirt he wore was a size too big. "If you must know, I need a distraction. I have no love life to speak of, so I’m latching on to yours.”

“I don’t have one either.” I didn't call a date and fuck a success.

“You're better off than me.”

“How do you figure?” This might have been the longest conversation I’d ever had with him.

The only person I’d consider myself sort of close to was Vincent.

It wasn’t like I poured my heart and soul out to him.

Then there were my half nephews. That still sounded weird.

Hartley’s deceased grandfather was my father.

He had a one-night fling with my mom, and I was born.

Of course, we didn’t find this out until I was tucked away in Jordan’s building while he assessed how much of a threat I was.

None of us knew I was related to Hartley and his brother before I came here.

“You're going to make me talk, aren't you?”

“I didn't drag you here, Sheldon.” I’d invite him inside, but the place had become a sanctuary to me. Something of my own. That hadn’t existed for me in a long time, and I wanted to preserve it.

“You can have anyone you want. You’re free to date, sleep with, do whatever with whoever.”

“Last I checked, you weren’t trapped here.”

“No, but I can’t leave.”

“Can’t or don’t want to?” I pushed. That was what he got for tailing me to my room.

“He tortures my thoughts day and night. He has no idea how deep his claws are into me.” Ah yes, Forest Weathers, my other half nephew. Hartley’s brother was the object of Sheldon’s obsession.

“First, Forest doesn't really have claws. Sure, he can get angry and protective, but I haven’t seen him be violent. Second, have you even talked to him about how you feel?”

“What would be the point? He dates women. I’ve heard him talk about them.”

“Maybe because he doesn’t know he has other options.”

Sheldon's eyes met mine. “There are men in this building daily who would love to have a chance with him. There’s no way he doesn’t realize how hot he is.”

I sighed. Sheldon was one of the smartest people on Jordan’s payroll. He literally had a hidden closet of poisons and could concoct just about anything. When it came to Forest, Sheldon forgot how to function.

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” I told him.

“Forest watches you in a non-creepy way. He blushes when your attention is on him. When you’re both in the same room, you’re all he sees.

Before you debate the importance of this, I know the difference between curiosity and attraction.

How you don’t notice it is beyond me. I really do think it’s as simple as you talking to him.

Even if he’s not ready to ride your cock, or even entertain having another cock in his future, at least let him know the option is on the table. ”

Sheldon blinked, tilted his head, and pursed his lips. Then, without another word, he spun on his heel and left.

Fuck, he was a strange dude. Did he even hear what I tried to tell him, or did he only allow in the words that fit the narrative he’d created?

Whatever. He ruined my orgasm high, and now I was lonely again. I should track him down and make him listen to me. I could tell him a story.

How my pretend, non-biological father was a piece of shit, who liked to remind me how useless I was.

How he never told me I wasn’t his. I had to find out when I was away from him.

How I grew up with two brothers who thought they were better than me and treated me as such.

How the one loving person was taken from me far too soon.

That didn’t even cover me killing my pretend father and then watching as my remaining brother was murdered.

I would have taken care of him too, if Jordan and Barrett hadn’t.

Edison was my pretend father. I wasn’t sure how else to refer to him.

He didn’t raise me. My mom did. Plus, he lied.

All of them did. They never told me who my real father was.

I wasn’t given the chance to meet him. From the stories Hartley, Forest, and Vail shared with me, he was a good man.

I lost one family and gained a much bigger one.

Jordan was my pretend father’s rival. Now, he was in a committed relationship with Hartley and Vail.

Vail grew up with Hartley and Forest. He was Forest’s best friend.

They did everything together back then. Well, not everything.

They didn’t have feelings for each other, so that line wasn’t crossed.

As if those weren’t enough people in my new life, Jordan’s son, JJ, was in a relationship with a Dremest, the very family the city we lived in was named after.

Add in Jordan’s nephew, his partners, friends, more relationships, plus all the guards on Jordan’s payroll, and here I was, acquainted with more people than I ever had been before.

I was in the middle of one of the most powerful families around.

My life was entwined with them in a way I couldn’t have imagined, nor had Jordan.

“Fuck’s sake,” I groaned and kicked off my shoes inside my apartment. I didn’t bother turning on the light. My feet carried me through the dark space into my bedroom, where I stripped off my clothes and got into the shower as the water turned from warm to scalding.

While I’d wiped the cum off my skin after my date, I had to scrub it away. Something about my conversation with Sheldon got to me.

Here I was, thinking about dates and sex. Yes, that included no one wanting a repeat. And Sheldon showed up, torn over one person. If I focused on one person, someone particular came to mind—a man who worked and lived in this very building.

People thought I didn’t notice how he looked at me, even when he tried not to. How his body seemed drawn to mine when we were in the same room. I noticed him a lot more than I let on. How could I not? He was gorgeous.

Raiden Sutton was what dreams were made of.

The thing was, if we were together and it ended badly, I would have to leave here.

Leave my blood and found family. Risking all of it on a maybe was hard to swallow.

It wasn’t as if I’d have nowhere to go. I had some money left over from what my mom had given me.

Most of it went to the city as a thank you to Jordan for helping free me of my shit relatives.

I jumped from one family of crime to another, apparently.

This time, I had choices and opportunities. I could do anything.

Jordan wasn’t like my pretend father. For all the crime and illegal shit Jordan did, he cared about East Dremest and the people in it. Edison was pure evil.

I hung my head, letting the water beat down on me. I’d cleaned myself while I was in my thought spiral.

Finally, shutting the water off, I grabbed the towel from the bar and dried myself. The air was cool when I left the bathroom naked. Finding a pair of gray sweatpants, I slid them on, as well as a white T-shirt. Then I stood in the middle of the room, wide awake, not sure what to do with myself.

Maybe there was something to Sheldon walking around the building during the night. He had to find peace in it, or why bother?

Putting on a pair of navy slippers Vail had given me, I opened my door and stepped into the hallway. The door shut at my back, automatically locking, but the sound was distant, hardly reaching my ears because, standing in front of me, as if I conjured him with my thoughts, was Raiden.

Six foot six of sin with nearly black hair, equally dark eyes, and a small scar that ran through his right eyebrow. I’d heard he got it protecting Jordan. So what if I’d thought about tracing it with my finger more than once?

My eyes drank him in, from his black boots to jeans that hugged his strong thighs to the way his navy Henley stretched over his chest and arms. He was stunning, and I was openly staring at him.

He didn’t say a word, so I asked, “Raiden?”

“You’re awake.”

I smirked. “I’ve never been known to sleepwalk.”

“That’s not what I… I thought… Never mind.” He turned to head toward the elevators, but I was far too amused by him losing his ability to speak in full sentences.

The other times I’d spent with him, he’d said nothing or very little. I wasn’t sure how to take it since I’d seen him joke and talk with others. What if the reason he didn’t talk a lot before wasn’t because he didn’t have much to say but because he couldn’t get it out?

I rushed after him, reaching for his arm before he could hit the button. “Wait.”

He turned, his eyes meeting mine. They didn’t hold anger. What I saw bordered on torment.

I took another step, bringing us closer together. He had a solid six inches on me. “What were you going to say?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.” Why was I forcing this? It could be due to me being wide awake and thinking about him. Or it could be I really wanted to know.

“Why do you do it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Go on dates that lead nowhere?”

“How do you know that? How do you know what I do?” It wasn’t hard to guess. People here talked. There were cameras throughout the building that caught me coming and going.

“Does it matter?”

“No, but why do you care?”

“I shouldn’t.” He raked his hand through his hair. “It’s not like I even know what the fuck I’m doing on your floor.”

I repeated my question and added, “Why are you here, Raiden?”