Page 7 of Provocation (Den of Deception #3)

Chapter Two

SHADE

D aisy comes into Blake’s room in my robe looking much more relaxed than she was a few minutes ago and I raise a brow at my friend who’s literally swaggering in behind her.

It wasn’t the right time for something like that, I want to tell him, but Daisy’s small smile makes me pause. She isn’t anywhere near as tense as she was earlier. Her movements are almost languid as she sits cross-legged on Blake’s bed and opens the top pizza box.

He gives me a wink and takes out his phone.

Mine and Mav’s phones buzz and I glance at the screen.

You’re welcome.

I frown at him.

Whatever he was doing just now that had her making all those delicious moans and cries has my dick hard as a rock.

After the night she’s had, the fact that I want to fuck her right now has shame coursing through me. What the hell is wrong with me? Besides all the shit my dad put her through tonight with that dinner, she was literally told she’s marrying Joe Banderville and then got assaulted by the fucker.

I try not to make it obvious that I’m watching her closely as she peruses the pizza slices in the box and makes a tiny sound of happiness as she picks one up and takes a bite.

My phone buzzes again. It’s Mav.

She was lowkey freaking out ten minutes ago. What did you do to chill her out like that?

Blake shrugs and grins to himself as he leans over the bed.

‘Can I have that one?’ he asks.

‘What?’ I glance at Mav, but he looks just as confused as I am.

But Daisy peers at the piece he’s pointing at and then nods. ‘Yes. The pepperoni pieces aren’t as crispy. It’s a dud.’

He reaches down and grabs it, kissing her on the top of her head as he does.

She lets out a small sigh and I pull my phone back out.

No seriously. What did you do to her in there? Give her a massage?

He sees my message and barks a laugh, choking on his pizza a little.

Kinda.

But he doesn’t say anything else. My eyes narrow on him.

‘What time do you want to go tomorrow?’ I ask Daisy.

She finishes what’s in her mouth before she answers. ‘As early as possible. The first batches will take the longest and we shouldn’t distribute unless we’ve done… well, sort of clinical trials, but not actual clinical trials, obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ I agree. ‘I have some people we can use as guinea pigs.’

She frowns at me, the pizza in her hand forgotten for the moment. ‘People?’

‘Daisy,’ I hesitate, running a hand through my hair. ‘We don’t have time to…’

Her eyes bore into me. ‘There are things you haven’t told me,’ she murmurs.

‘Yes.’

She takes another bite of her pizza and chews, looking thoughtful. She swallows and surveys us.

‘I’ve noticed that you have been…getting nervous in the lab lately. You’re on some sort of deadline, aren’t you?’

I see the other guys looking surprised, but I’m not. Not at all. It may not seem like she’s paying attention sometimes, but her conclusions are usually right. She just gets to them in a different way.

‘Yes,’ I say again.

She sighs. ‘Are you going to tell me?’

I shake my head. ‘All you need to know is that, yes, there is a deadline, but now that we have a working formula, it doesn’t matter.’

Her lips thin. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t argue.

‘Tomorrow. Early. I might need some things. But I won’t know until I see the lab for myself. Will you be able to get them for me?’

Mav nods. ‘Just give me a list.’

‘Okay.’

She finishes her piece of pizza and selects another one. I think we’re done talking, but her eyes find me again. ‘Is there a box in your boot…trunk? Some things of…Mom’s?’

‘Shit, yeah. Stevens put it in there the other day. I forgot about it. I’m sorry. I’ll get it out tomorrow and you can take a look.’

‘We can go through it together if you want,’ she says in a small voice.

My eyes clench shut as, without warning, I’m hit by a tidal wave of grief. I draw in a harsh breath, trying to cover it, and I feel her fingers touching mine.

‘Yeah,’ I whisper. ‘That would be good.’

We finish the pizzas in silence, and she gets up when she’s finished.

‘I’m tired,’ she announces, and her eyes fall on Mav. ‘Will you sleep with me tonight?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, Tulip. I’ll be in in a minute.’

‘Goodnight,’ she says, glancing at me and Blake.

‘Night, gorgeous.’

‘G’night, Daisy,’ I say, watching as she leaves the room and disappears into her own almost silently.

I flop back on the bed with a groan. ‘Jesus.’

‘What are we going to do about Banderville?’ Blake asks quietly.

‘Which one?’ I mutter. ‘They’re all pretty terrible.’

‘All of them, but Joe has earned himself the top spot as of tonight,’ Blake snarls. ‘What the fuck happened? How was he able to do that to her without anyone knowing?’

‘They knew.’ I close my eyes, bile rising in my stomach. ‘I shouldn’t have left her in the room.’

‘You fucking think?’ Blake hisses. ‘She was supposed to be safe with you!’

‘She was! She is! I just… John is a lot of things, but he never hit April or Daisy. I didn’t realize. I didn’t think…’ I rub my face. ‘This is my fault. I had no idea this was my father’s plan, and I didn’t know Joe would… He already sees her as his, which means he’s known for a while.’

Blake nods. ‘That’s what she thinks too. She said he knew something about her time in England that he couldn’t have unless he’d seen something on a camera. And if he was keeping tabs on her then, it could be him who’s watching her now and sending those notes.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Mav asks. ‘He’s a fucking monster. He’ll destroy her.’

‘We have time,’ I mutter. ‘A few months to get everything up and running. We can’t do anything with Sauvage breathing down our necks. We need money.’

‘What then?’ Blake asks.

‘Trying to fight my father in court would be a mistake,’ I say. ‘He’ll have his bases covered and he’ll draw it out to kill us with the legal costs, not to mention he plays golf with most of the judges in the county.’

Mav stands up. ‘So, we do what Daisy was going to do. We make money. As much as we can. And then we run. Together. We get new names and new lives far away from the Novelles and the Bandervilles. I don’t care about my future. We’ll work in some shitty little lab somewhere if we have to.’

I nod. I don’t care either. I used to, but so long as we’re far from my father, I don’t care at all. I don’t need prestige or kudos. I just need Daisy.

Blake goes to his computer, nodding absently.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

‘I’m going to find out everything there is to know about Joseph Banderville and his sons.

Anything we can use to gain leverage. Make them back off.

Crush them.’ He glances back. ‘But motherfuckers like these are like roaches. They always are. They’ll keep coming back.

I think we put things in place to leave if we have to. ’

Mav turns back. ‘Can’t you…’

Blake’s eyes narrow. ‘Can’t I what?’

‘Do…what you do?’

‘What do you want me to do, Mav? Put a bullet in each one of their heads? Maybe go to their house and pop the mom and sister too?’ he sneers.

‘They aren’t low life bottom feeders who no one will miss.

Even I can’t kill a whole family of rich assholes.

Also, fuck you. I’m not just some guy who does all the wet work. ’

Mav puts his hands up. ‘Okay, okay. I get it. You focus on your clever cyber villainy. I’m going to bed.’

He gives Blake a narrow-eyed look. ‘And no sneaking into her bed tonight. She needs sleep and she hates it when she’s squished.’

‘Fine,’ he mutters, ‘but it’s my turn tomorrow.’

Mav grunts a response and leaves Blake and I alone. Blake gives his computer monitor his full attention, so I grab the empty pizza boxes and get up.

‘I’m taking her to the club early. You coming?’

He nods. ‘Wouldn’t miss it. I can’t wait to see what she thinks of the Dark Lounge.’

I shake my head at him a little.

‘What did you do in there to make her scream like that?’ I ask again.

He glances over his shoulder at me and grins, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Maybe next time I’ll let you watch.’

My groan is low. ‘You’re an asshole.’

He snorts.

I leave him to it, taking the pizza boxes downstairs and putting them with the recycling.

I go out to my car while I remember and grab the cardboard box of April’s stuff from my trunk that Stevens put there.

I take it back upstairs and put it next to my desk, staring at it for a moment.

But I don’t open it. I want to do that with Daisy.

I sit at my desk, trying to crunch some numbers from the club invoices because I know I won’t be able to sleep, but I can’t stop staring at the box. There’s something that’s been niggling at me, something about Daisy, about the afternoon that Larson died and the aftermath of his murder.

I can’t get what she said the other day out of my head.

She doesn’t remember killing him. I mean maybe it was the trauma, but the fact that she was picked up by the cops and my father didn’t even get her a lawyer.

Daisy was a minor with no one bar some half-assed social worker to advocate for her.

There’s no way April knew about that. And Daisy said she was left alone with the file of the murder which she read and used the information in it to tell them what they wanted to hear to stop the interrogation.

All of this was rolling around and around while I was sitting with my father and Joseph in the study while they were droning on about some business opportunity, and it’s rolling around and around again now.

Frowning, I pull out my phone and I message Daisy’s friend, Lu Garrett.

I need something.

The reply is swift.

Who this?

Shade. Can you help?

I don’t do shit 4 free

Would you do it for Daisy?

What is it?

I let out a breath and frown as I type out the message, wondering if there’s even anything she can do, but she messages back a minute later to tell me to give her some time, and not to contact her again, like ever.