Her trust a dark syndica.., p.12
Her Trust : A Dark Syndicate Romance, page 12
I stare at the liquid steaming from my cup. “Miss White is up?”
“No, she’s still sleeping. It’s still early, only seven o’clock,” he says, his lips still to the rim of his mug.
Seven? That’s late morning for me. “You made me coffee?”
“Yes.” He elongates the word, looking at me expectantly like he’s waiting for me to make a point.
“Why would you do that?”
He frowns. “Because you’ve been up most the night and what little sleep you have had was against a door frame? Because I know you drink coffee? Because I was awake before you and it was a nice thing to do? Pick one.”
“Why would you want to be nice to me?” I eye him charily.
“Jesus Christ. Has anyone ever looked after you who wasn’t paid to do so? I mean, I’m paid to be here and you’re still suspicious!” He shakes his head disbelieving.
“You’re hired to stand next to me and look menacing, not to make me coffee.”
He rolls his eyes. “I thought I was hired to protect you.”
“I told you,” I say rolling my head on my neck. “I don’t need protecting. You’re really nothing more than a status symbol.” I peer into the mug again.
“You really can be a bitch, you know that?” He doesn’t say it spitefully, just matter of fact.
For some reason, despite that description being used to my face and behind my back many times before, from his lips, it bothers me. I set my face into my go-to blank coolness and don’t look at him when I say, “That’s what they say.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did, and it’s fine, I care very little what you think of me,” I lie. “So, is there poison in this coffee?” I raise my brow at him, hoping the stupid indent on my cheek from the door frame isn’t diminishing my gravitas.
“No, rainha. No poison, just coffee and milk. I don’t want to poison you; I’d miss our heart to hearts too much.” His lips twitch as he tries to keep a straight face.
I also try to maintain my icy gaze, but his stupid teasing and charming smile have my own mouth pulling up at the corners. As soon as he notices, his face breaks out into an outright grin. I take a long gulp of coffee and sigh as its warmth flows down my throat and to my belly, but there’s an unpleasant, bitter aftertaste that has me screwing my face up.
“Where did you get those clothes?” I gesture to the distinctly un-tuxedo looking attire.
“Some guy called Murray gave them to me?”
I nod. “He’s a guard, lives in the cottage with Lee. You met him on your first night.”
“That’s right. He seems nice.”
I shrug, I’m not sure I’m the best person to judge someone’s niceness. “He’s good at his job.”
“What time did you get to sleep?” he asks me, a familiar concern etched on his face. It’s the same look Guinevere gives me when she asks me that question.
“About four. You fell asleep really quickly and you were dead to the world.” He didn’t even wake when Mabel cracked the door open an inch about an hour after we settled for the night, peering at us in the hall and closing the door again.
He chuckles. “I didn’t always have a comfortable bed to sleep in growing up, I learnt to sleep anywhere. You obviously missed your expensive sheets.”
“Actually,” I say defensively. “I don’t generally sleep very well. I probably wouldn’t have had much more sleep if I’d been in my bed.”
He regards me thoughtfully. “What keeps you up at night, rainha?”
“That’s a very personal question.” I purse my lips.
“Indulge me.” He smirks.
I get another strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, not the same as he usually instils, I recognise this one. Dread. “Would you believe me if I said monsters?”
His intense stare makes me fidget. I hate fidgeting. He’s reading me like an information pamphlet just unfolding more and more without me giving him anything. “What monsters could possibly be scarier than you?”
“The city is full of them, Harvey.”
He nods, a lot more sombre than before. “So, you decided if you couldn’t beat them, you’d join them.”
His judgement ignites my fiery defence. “Actually, I beat them and then I ruled them.”
He nods as if impressed. “Solid game play,” he says taking another sip of coffee.
Feeling like I’ve shared enough, I decide to delve further into this man’s past. “So why didn’t you have a bed growing up?” I cradle my coffee in my hands, the house is warm enough but sleeping without blankets has left me chilled and the warm ceramic is helping.
Harvey sniffs, resting his head against the wall and looking to the ceiling like he’s thinking of where to start. “We didn’t have a lot of money is the short answer.” He looks at me and when I just stay silent, he sighs and continues. “I was born in Rio; my mother was only sixteen when she had me. Her boyfriend, my father, was twenty-two and she found herself mixed up in the wrong crowd, him being part of said crowd. She was around but my grandmother was the one who raised me really. When I was three, both my parents were shot in a drive-by, neither of them were the intended target, just collateral damage. My grandmother wanted to take me away, so we moved here. She didn’t have a lot of money, any savings she had she spent to get us here, and she didn’t speak English so getting a job was difficult. We had to move several times from one crappy apartment to another. Some of them I had to sleep on the couch. When she could find work, she often worked nights and I had to stay with her friends who had their own kids and were in similar situations, so my only option was the floor.”
I look at him, trying to read the expression on his face. He doesn’t look particularly sad or bitter about his past. In fact he’s giving me a small smile. “Is that why you went into law enforcement? Because you lost your parents?”
He shrugs. “Maybe. I haven’t really thought about it before. It’s just what I always wanted to do. Help people and beat up bad guys. The force is just a lot less down with the beating up bad guys than I would have liked.”
“Your grandmother is still alive?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “She works at an old folks’ home in the cafeteria, even though she’s older than a couple of the residents,” he chuckles. “She likes to keep her independence.”
“You earnt a decent wage as a detective and lived way under you means.”
He gives me an unimpressed look. He knows I would have looked into his finances before he came to work for me, so there’s no need to defend my decision.
“You have been supporting your grandmother, no? That’s why you had to leave your apartment as soon as you lost your job?”
He nods, regarding me carefully. “She didn’t move country for her; she did it for me. The least I can do is help her enjoy her time now given how much of it she’s dedicated to me.” There’s a glaze to his eyes, the love and respect he holds for this woman evident; it squeezes at my chest.
“That’s very commendable.” My voice comes out rough and I look to the carpet, but my attention is caught on the movement of Harvey clutching a fist to his chest.
“Was that a compliment, rainha?”
I tut, rolling my eyes and dip a finger into my mostly cooled coffee to flick it at his face, which only makes him laugh. My own smile sneaks up on me, but Harvey’s carefree humour and ease with which he talks makes it hard not to feel relaxed.
“Will you tell me about your mother?” he asks and my smile fades.
I sigh. I don’t talk about my mother; no one ever really asks about her. But Harvey shared his story, and something makes me want to share mine with him. “My mother was a model.”
His brow raises and he gives me a slow perusal. “That tracks.”
This time, I train my smile, keeping my glare hard. “I don’t know about the nature of her relationship with my father, only that she knew when she was pregnant that it was by him, and she moved back to Sweden when she could no longer work due to her pregnancy. I, too, had a grandmother, and a grandfather. We lived next door to them, and I stayed with them when my mother was away with work. It was a pleasant life.” A strange prickle at my eyes and a pressure around my sinuses catches me off guard. I swallow the lump in my throat and pick at a non-existence thread on my sleep shorts.
“So how did you end up here?”
I clear my throat. “Stanley, my father, was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He survived but it left him infertile. Men like him want to leave a legacy and he’d lost his chance. So he tracked my mother down and took me away. I remember her crying but she did nothing when I begged her not to let him take me.” The image of my mother sat on a black leather sofa, her head in her hands, her blonde hair falling around her face, and her refusal to look at me as she sobbed is seared into my memory. “He brought me back here and kept me locked away in this place until he had use for me.”
“Training you to take the helm?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I have a vagina.” My face remains completely neutral but Harvey jerks back in surprise, his eyes widening comically before he barks out a shocked laugh. It makes me let out a reluctant laugh, too, that’s more a silent exhale compared to his all-out chuckle.
“So, what was the point in taking you?” he asks, sobering.
“To marry me off to a man he deemed worthy so I could be bred and pop out a tiny tyrant to take over the family business.” I sigh.
He gives me that all-seeing look, and something that makes me uncomfortable is held in his eyes. Pity. I shuffle on my butt, reminding me that I’ve been sat on the floor all night and I ache. “I’m sorry you went through that. It’s shit.”
Not many people know about that part of my history and those who do were brought up in a certain life. Although they understand it was shitty, it’s more normal to them. For someone to acknowledge that I’ve had a rough deal feels like a welling in my chest. The look of sincerity on Harvey’s face has me blinking over the stinging in my eyes. “I’m sorry about your mother,” I offer in return.
He nods. “Me too.”
This feels weird, we went from Harvey joking about our heart to hearts — or lack of — to having one. I don’t talk about myself. It’s uncomfortable and unnecessary, but for some reason, Harvey made me feel like I wanted to share. I also find that I like learning about him. Of course, I knew a lot of what he told me already because Stuart had a full background on him before he even stepped foot in my office, but I enjoy hearing it from him.
“What made you start the Her Foundation?” he asks.
I contemplate for a moment, staring into his dark amber eyes. “A few years ago, a young woman came to The Diamond Dozen to audition as a dancer. I don’t normally oversee recruitment at the club, I have a general manger for that, but I happened to see her audition. It was awful.” I stare at my knees as I remember the day, tracing circles on my bare skin with the tips of my fingers. I can sense Harvey watching the movement. “Her dancing was average at best, but it was evident that she was completely uncomfortable being on display. Stripping would have been a nonstarter. When she was told then and there that she wouldn’t be hired, she broke down. She begged for a job, any job.” I sigh, the memory of those heartbreaking sobs punching me in the gut. “I took her to my office and spoke with her. It turned out she’d managed to escape a man she thought she’d been in love with who had been grooming her over months until he started hiring her out to his friends.”
“Jesus Christ,” Harvey mutters, disgust creasing his face and his fists balling on his thighs.
“She’d been looking for work but wanted somewhere with high security and as the club has men on the door as well as a high security presence inside, she thought she’d be safe. She also informed me of several other women she knew in a similar situation, and it pissed me off. So, I set up the foundation to help those affected.”
He looks at me, nodding with an impressed expression. “What happened to the woman who auditioned?”
I put my half-drunk cup of coffee on the carpet — it tastes like instant, and I didn’t even know I had instant in my house — and bury my hands between my knees, not looking at him. “I wouldn’t give her a job at the club. Contrary to popular belief, stripping is not a last resort for the desperate and desolate. It’s an art form, an expression, and all of my girls are there because they want to be.” I glance up at him to see that he’s nodding in agreement, not scoffing at my words as so many men do when I tell them the same. “I found her a job elsewhere in my organisation where she is well protected and secure.”
He's staring at me with that stern seriousness again. “You didn’t have to do that.”
I shrug. “I couldn’t exactly just turn her away. Who would do that?”
“An ice queen,” he answers.
I don’t know what to say to that but luckily the need to say anything is wiped out when a door opens along the corridor. Guinevere steps out wearing her usual leggings and oversized flannel shirt with that hideous brown cardigan that I want to burn. She stops when she sees us, looking surprised.
“You really stayed out here all night?”
“Yes,” I sigh, trying to hold in my yawn.
“Oh goodness, you must be exhausted, both of you.” She looks between Harvey and I and I don’t miss her slight blush at the sight of Harvey’s muscles in the tank and shorts. She clears her throat looking quickly back to me. “Shall I make some coffee?”
“Yes,” I answer. “Harvey may have good intentions, but no skills as a barista.” I hand her my half empty mug and fight my smile when Harvey clutches his chest and groans as though he’s been stabbed.
Guinevere smirks at his antics. “And Mr Campos, would you like a cup?”
“Miss White, I must insist you call me Harvey. And I would be ever so grateful for a cup of coffee.” He gives her a full and brilliant smile, so wide his cheeks dimple.
She gives him a warm smile. “My pleasure.” Glancing at the door behind me, her smile fades, concern replacing her delight. “And perhaps a good breakfast?”
“Yes,” I agree. “A good selection, we don’t know what they like.”
Guinevere nods. “I’ll be downstairs, come and get your coffee when you’re ready and drink it from the comfort of the kitchen stools and not the floor.”
I nod and she heads downstairs to the kitchen just as movement can be heard from behind me. I can almost see the deliberation in Harvey, he wants to stand and to be on alert but at the same time, while also not wanting to appear threatening.
The door cracks open and Mabel’s face appears, looking wary and sleepy at the same time. No one says anything as she looks between Harvey and me. We give her a minute and, ever so slowly, she opens the door wider where I see Keeley hiding behind her, hugging her bare leg.
“How did you sleep?” I ask.
“Okay,” she shrugs. “Would it be alright for us to use your shower again? We were too tired to wash properly last night.” She looks embarrassed as she asks.
“Of course,” I say as gently as possible, aware that my usual tone is clipped and angry whether I mean it to be or not.
She nods. “Thanks.”
“I’ll get you something to wear on your lower halves,” I say, gesturing to their bare legs. I don’t think Harvey had noticed that they were half naked, luckily the t-shirts Lee provided are long enough to reach Mabel’s knees and practically to the floor on Keely, so they aren’t showing anything. All the same, Harvey clears his throat and stands.
“I’ll uh, go help Miss White.” He disappears and I stand, gathering up my laptop.
“I’ll leave some more clothes for you just outside your door. Take as much time as you need in the shower and breakfast will be served when you’re ready to join us downstairs.”
They both look up at me with wide eyes and uncertain faces. I don’t know what else to say so I turn on my heel and head to my room.
15
ANNIKA
I’ve eaten my bowl of fruit and had a proper cup of coffee but Mabel and Keely are still not downstairs. I’m considering if they’re okay, what if one of them has fallen in the shower? Or what if something spooked them and Mabel’s currently on a murderous rampage with my switchblade? I can’t say I’ve ever had to worry about another person before and I’m finding the sensation disconcerting. I’m about two seconds away from going upstairs again to check on them when Mabel tentatively creeps into the kitchen. She’s wearing my silk pyjama bottoms, which were the only thing I could find with a drawstring. They’re three-quarter length on me but they drag on the floor on her.
Keeley, wearing a different t-shirt to the one she slept in that still reaches her ankles, follows her sister, holding on to the back of her t-shirt. They both look around warily. Guinevere is still frying bacon, but she turns to give an encouraging smile to the girls. Harvey sits next to me, nursing his third coffee of the morning with a plate piled high with eggs, sausages, bacon, and toast. With the nearly two helpings he had yesterday evening and the portion he’s putting away this morning, I don’t know where he’s putting it all.
“Good morning,” Guinevere says, saving me from coming up with some awkward greeting. Neither of the girls say anything back, just hover in the archway, shuffling on their feet. “Would you like some breakfast?”
Again, she’s met with silence but the way both of them eye the platters of food, I know the answer to that question. “Here, you can have my seat,” I say, standing from the tall stool at the kitchen island. Harvey follows suit, wordlessly moving his plate to the side and choosing to stand to finish his breakfast, keeping as far away from the girls as he can without actually leaving the room. The girls clamber up onto the stools, Keely struggling while her sister is seating herself. I want to help her but I’m unsure how she would take that. But when her foot slips off the footrest as she climbs and she falls forward, her head coming close to the island worktop, I don’t think, just act. I catch her from behind, my hands gripping just under her arms, feeling her ribs prominent even under the soft cotton of the t-shirt she wears. Mabel’s head snaps to see us, watching closely as I lift her little sister onto the stool and then push it in so she is close enough to the counter.
