“Yeah,” I said noncommittally, then hung up. I moved to the small bed in the middle of the sunny, yellow room. From all the pictures of horses on the wall, I had to assume the room belonged to Ronan and Seth’s younger daughter, Nicole. I’d left my coat and jacket on the bed before entering the bathroom. My gun was still tucked at my back because I wasn’t comfortable enough to go without it, even with my bodyguards outside. I’d had the sense to pull my dress shirt out of my pants so I could hide the weapon from Remy’s view. But it wasn’t my gun that my fingers were itching to feel.
I was in the process of pulling out the pack of cigarettes from my coat pocket when I heard the floorboards creak behind me. I managed not to go for my gun, but the fact that I wanted to was proof of how on edge I was.
Ronan watched me dispassionately as I tried to conceal the pack of cigarettes in my hand. “I wasn’t going to smoke in your kid’s room,” I murmured. I didn’t mention that I’d fully intended to smoke on the girl’s balcony, though.
It was all I could do to not squirm beneath Ronan’s knowing gaze. I could feel my muscles bunch as he moved into the room. Despite the role the man had played in rescuing my son, I wasn’t able to let my guard down around him. The only men I trusted in my world were the ones I called brothers.
I kept my free hand loose and by my side as Ronan moved farther into the room. I didn’t think the surgeon was armed, but I couldn’t be sure. And from the little I knew about him, he didn’t need to be armed to take me down. Hell, for all I knew, his men could have already dispatched my bodyguards just like they’d done to Con and King in New York the previous month when they’d come to get Aleks.
I remained still as Ronan approached me. There was no relief as he moved past me. I merely turned so I wouldn’t have my back to him. He grabbed a half-empty bottle of water off the nightstand next to the bed and extended it to me. “You can put your ashes in here,” he said gruffly at the same time that he motioned to the balcony. “You’ll still be able to watch for him.”
There was no reason to wonder who him was. And it shouldn’t have come as a shock that Ronan had figured out that I’d been reluctant to leave the room for the mere fact that I hadn’t wanted Remy to think I’d walked away from him again. I snagged the bottle from Ronan and strode to the balcony. I hated the fact that the man was seeing yet another one of my weaknesses, but being on edge around Remy even more than I already was just wasn’t going to cut it. The way the young man had jerked away from me when I’d gone to wipe his face with the towel… it stung.
It just fucking stung.
I had the cigarette lit and was already drawing the smoke into my lungs when Ronan stepped onto the balcony and shut the door behind him.
“How many of your guys are out there?” I asked as I studied the backyard between the glances I kept shooting at the bathroom door.
“None.”
“Liar,” I murmured.
“Ask me why there aren’t any, Luca,” Ronan responded.
I laughed as I took another drag on the cigarette, then shook my head at the man’s naivety. “You think you’re untouchable.” I glanced at the gorgeous view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountain range beyond. “You think your money and reputation will protect you. You think it’s enough to buy your family a normal life.” I took another puff on the cigarette, then dropped the rest of it in the bottle of water. I’d wanted the whole thing but had known after the first inhalation that it would do nothing for me. If anything, I was more jittery than before. But as always, I kept my voice even as I glanced briefly at Ronan. “You want a piece of advice, Ronan?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me, of course. I didn’t care.
“Power won’t protect you from men who can’t be bought. Someday the kid or brother or father of some pervert you had offed will come after you with something a thousand times more valuable than cash.” I paused and checked the bathroom door through the glass of the balcony door. “It’s the same currency you trade in… justice. But the cost won’t be your life… the return on that isn’t high enough.”
I handed him the bottle with my discarded cigarette. Unfazed, he took it and leaned back against the balcony. The second my hand touched the door handle he said, “Eight.”