Submerged (Bound Together #1) Read online

  The bureau considered stepping in and taking him into custody, but he was picked up by one of Roman’s men before they could intercept. I went to the house last night and tried to get details, but no one has seen or heard from Jimmy Mo since the night of the heist. I spent all day yesterday trying to repair the damage to the front end of the car to prepare it for sale. Mattias was grumbling on the phone earlier about how he had to smooth over ruffled feathers when the client caught wind of the car not being at the rendezvous point the other night. He was able to save the deal, offering the client an upgraded engine package that I’m supposed to install tomorrow.

  I lower the lift so that we can get the Jag ready for paint. Blade is the best painter in the area, and I know he’ll take good care of this sweet ride. The bright pink car seat in the back of the sedan throws me for a loop, though. The car screams money, even with the four doors. It’s top of the line in every detail from the added-on safety packages, all the way to the custom leather seats. But the car seat just doesn’t fit. Probably some rich wife to a lawyer or a plastic surgeon with too much money to spend on shopping and days at the spa.

  Typical.

  * * *

  Later that night, I’m nosing around the office of the shop, trying to find any link I can find to the offshore deals, yet knowing damn good and well that I won’t find any here. Why would they keep that information at the shop where any Tom, Dick, or Harry could bust in and steal the info? But according to Luke, the Bureau wants me to cross all of my T’s and dot all of my I’s. No stone is left unturned.

  I’ve been poking around for an hour when I hear the backdoor of the office open up. I quickly slide the ledger book back onto the bookshelf just as Divine walks around the corner in stilettos.

  “Oh, hey you. What are you doing working so late tonight?” she coos, positioning her Double D’s front and center.

  “Workin’ on getting this paperwork ready for Friday’s deliveries.”

  “Oh, you could have left that for me, sugar,” she says, walking over to me. Before I can even stand up from the chair I’m sitting in, Divine straddles my lap. “I don’t think it’s much of a coincidence that you’re still here tonight when I came back for my phone,” she coos, pressing her tits directly into my chin.

  “Yeah, well, I was just getting ready to leave, Divine,” I reply, ready to drop her on her ass at my feet. Before I can do just that, she plants her bright red lips directly on mine. She grinds her crotch against me, getting only the slightest rise out of me.

  “Are you going to show me just how big and bad you really are, Blake?” she purrs like a sex kitten as she slides her hands up my chest, gripping at my hard pecs.

  “I don’t think so, Divine.”

  “I think you really want to,” she adds, pulling her tight miniskirt the rest of the way up her hips and exposing her naked pussy underneath. As enticing as that smooth, bare skin is, I just don’t want to screw a woman that everyone else in this building has already taken a second and third round with.

  “Come on, baby. I’ll show you a really good time,” she purrs as she reaches down and grabs my half-hard erection. Warmth spreads through me as she grips and paws at me, making me completely hard. I wonder if I should just get lost in her, in what she’s offering, for just a little while. Divine reaches for the button of my jeans with her free hand. She almost gets the zipper entirely down when reality slams into me. I don’t want this. I don’t want her.

  I grab her hands, halting her progress. With a little too much excessive force, I fling her off my lap and onto the hard, tile floor. I don’t mean to be a complete dick, but my nerves are shot. “Jesus, Blake. You could have just said no,” she whines as she gets up from the floor, tugging and pulling at the skirt around her hips.

  “I did tell you no,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Yeah, but I felt just how excited you were to have me on your lap,” she adds with a smile.

  “Any man with a bare pussy rubbing against him is going to get hard, Divine. You know that better than most women. I’m not interested. Not now, not ever. Go screw one of the shop boys who’ll share their weed with you,” I tell her before turning and walking out of the office, leaving her standing there, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

  I walk straight out the back door and head towards my Camaro. Let Divine lock up behind her. I turn over the engine and crank up Metallica. This life is slowly sucking me dry. I’m tired of this shit day in and day out. My entire life has been at a standstill since this case started. I’m tired of the lies, of the drugs, of the crime. Though I rarely engage in the drugs, they’re still there–front and center in the lifestyle. Fast cars and even faster women.

  I’m done with it all.

  I want a life–my life back. I want to get home from work and kiss a wife hello. I want to throw a son over my shoulder as we head out to the backyard to throw a baseball around for a few rounds. I want to play dress-up and read bedtime stories to a daughter who looks just like her mother.

  That’s what I want.

  This is usually the part in my dream where a certain black-haired beauty works her way in. Her image is so crisp, so pure that it’s as if she’s standing right in front of me. I always considered myself to have a type: blond hair with light-colored eyes. Much like Carly’s friend Tara that I met that night so long ago. But one look at Carly’s dark hair and exotic beauty had me throwing everything I thought about myself right out the damn window. One night with her wasn’t enough. Two years later and it still isn’t. I crave her like an alcoholic craves a sip of whiskey.

  I drive towards my shitty little apartment in a shitty part of town, all part of this shitty life I’m living. I pick up the phone and send a quick text message to Luke.

  Me: Tell me what I need to do to get this job done.

  I slam the gearshift into neutral and head up the crumbling steps. Inside, I don’t even turn on the lights. I head straight to the little cabinet above the fridge and grab the bottle of gold liquid. Jose. When I’m feeling extra shitty, I drown my sorrows in the man who helps calm my mind. I slam back the bottle without even grabbing a tumbler. I don’t want to waste the time or the glass.

  The liquid burns my throat, lighting my gut on fire with each gulp. After I’ve chugged several mouthfuls, I finally pull the bottle from my lips. Walking over to the nasty old couch that I found for practically nothing at the Salvation Army, I throw myself down, feet hanging over the armrest. My hand hangs over the edge, firmly gripping the bottle of poison. After several deep breaths, I take one more long pull from the bottle before setting it down on the floor.

  I should order a pizza. I’ve just consumed enough liquid to render me legally drunk in every state in the union. Food would help absorb the alcohol and keep my senses from being too impaired. But, I don’t want food. I want solitude. Tonight, I want to get lost in the rest of this bottle and try to forget the eyes that haunt my dreams. Those dark chocolate eyes that I see every damn time I close my eyes.

  Tonight, I just want to forget the one I can’t have.

  But even after a quarter of a bottle, it’s still not enough to forget.

  Chapter Five – Best Friends Forever

  Carly

  “You made it,” Tara exclaims as she stands up and greets Natalia and me. “I told the hostess that we needed a table in the back so that the little lady couldn’t disturb everyone in the restaurant.”

  I pull off Nat’s jacket and hand her to her honorary aunt. Tara has an older brother, my boss, Reid, but there’s no way he will ever settle down and make her the real deal. “Good thinking,” I tell my best friend as she places my happy toddler in the wooden highchair at the end of our booth. I quickly make a grab for her favorite set of linking rings and toss them on the table within her reach.

  “How has my sunshine been?” Tara asks, rubbing her hand over Natalia’s fuzzy head.

  “Not too bad. Just when I think she’s developing a new routine, she throws me off my game and revert
s right back to being a night owl,” I say as I glance over the menu.

  “Well, at least she’s a beautiful night owl,” Tara coos, speaking baby as if that makes my daughter understand her better.

  “You’d think that. Maybe you need to come over at two a.m. when she’s screaming at the top of her lungs and pulling at her hair.”

  “I would, but I need my beauty sleep,” Tara says with a grin and a wink. Tara is drop dead gorgeous with her platinum blond hair and her striking blue eyes. Men practically drop to their knees before her, worshipping her everywhere we go. I’ve always been second fiddle when it comes to Tara. Guys check me out, sure, but it always seems like their eyes gravitate to the beautiful tall, tanned blond before they find their way to me. Well, except that one night…

  “I won’t hold it against you. What are you going to have?” I ask, perusing the entrée selections one more time. This place is definitely a little pricier than I like to dine at, but Tara invited me to come, so I’ll take the financial hit to my checkbook. I’ll just have to budget a few other expenses later this month.

  “Oh, I’m going for the grilled salmon and steamed vegetables,” she says as the waiter approaches our table. He does a quick double take first at Tara, and then glances at me with an appreciative head to toe check. Typical. He practically starts to drool all over the front of his starched white dress shirt and black necktie.

  “What do…can I get…what would you ladies like to drink?” he asks, his eyes still focused on Tara’s girls, hidden snuggly beneath her black shift dress.

  “I’ll take a strawberry margarita,” Tara says with a flirty smile.

  “And I’ll take a Bud Light bottle, please,” I add before pulling Natalia’s juice cup out of the diaper bag.

  “What’s with that smile?” I ask as our waiter retreats.

  “What? If you flirt a little, then you’ll get better service,” she says with a casual shrug of her shoulder.

  “I’ll take your word for it. It’s been so long since I’ve flirted that don’t think I know how anymore,” I say, waving a teething gel ring within Natalia’s grasp. “Which reminds me, thanks for talking to your brother about me.” The look I give her tells her that I’m not happy with her at this moment. Tara has the decency to look sheepish as she offers me an apologetic smile.

  “Yeah, sorry. It wasn’t my intention to talk about you behind your back, but I was just making sure that my meathead big brother was being good to you. And yeah, I’m worried about you sometimes. You don’t do anything fun anymore. How are you supposed to meet someone if you don’t go out?”

  “I don’t have time to meet someone, Tara. I have a baby to care for,” I add, absently stroking my daughter’s fuzzy head.

  “I know you do, but it seems like you haven’t really gone out since that night you spent with her father.” And that’s true. I haven’t dated or been with anyone since Blake.

  “I’m just not ready yet, Tara. When I’m ready, I’ll go out. Promise. I’m not going to be that woman who lives alone with her sixteen cats. Don’t write me off yet,” I tell her as the waiter returns to our table with our drinks and to take our dinner orders.

  “Baked cod with steamed vegetables and mashed potatoes,” I tell our waiter before giving each of us one more glance and heading off to place our order.

  “How is my brother treating you?” she asks as she absently stirs her drink.

  “Very well, as you already know. He treats me like a queen. Last week, he yelled at me for misplacing a file right before a meeting. We tore apart the entire office–his desk and mine–and couldn’t find it. I distinctly remember putting it with the figures for the meeting, but he swore it wasn’t there. After about thirty minutes, I finally went over and checked his briefcase, and there it was. Right there with the figures that he swore he hadn’t put in his briefcase yet. Talk about eating crow,” I told her with a smile.

  “Ha ha. I love it when my brother is wrong. It hardly ever happens and he never apologizes.”

  “That’s the thing. He was so embarrassed when he left for the meeting that he didn’t even talk to me. I came back in the next morning to the biggest bouquet of fresh plum orchids imaginable. The card just said, ‘You know why.’ That was it.”

  “Oh, Reid. It’s like he’s afraid of being struck by lightning if he were to actually apologize for an error. I’ve told him so many times that we’re all human and make them. It’s like he’s afraid to actually look mortal or something.”

  “Yeah. He was sweet as pie for about two days,” I add with a smile.

  That’s how our work relationship is. Before I was transferred from legal grunt work to his office, he went through personal assistants like most people went through underwear. A few months, then they were gone. Reid is very focused and driven. He wants precision and excellence from everyone who works for him, including his assistant, and he won’t accept anything less.

  “I’m just glad he finally wised up and stopped hiring those hussies who just wanted in his pants and his bank account,” Tara says as she dives into her salad greens that our waiter just delivered.

  “I think when the women realized they actually had to work and not just flirt in hopes of getting a dinner invitation, they ran for the hills. He’s tough, don’t get me wrong. There are days I want to reach over his desk and throttle him good. But, he’s a great boss. He’s actually very caring and we make a great team,” I say as I give Natalia a bite of tomato.

  “I won’t tell him you think he’s caring. You know how he is; like he has a hard ass reputation to uphold,” Tara says with a smile.

  “Oh, he definitely upholds it. You should see the looks on some of the faces that come out of his office. Like they’ve just been chewed up one side and down another. Your brother is ruthless in business.”

  “Oh, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” she adds with a laugh as our waiter takes his sweet ol’ time delivering our meals. He dotes on Tara like she was dropped from the heavens just for him before finally turning, reluctantly, to leave.

  After sharing a few bites of mashed potatoes with Natalia, I cut into my cod and my mouth starts to water. I rarely come to this restaurant because of its high priced menu and the fact that reservations are two to three weeks out, but when I do, I’m never disappointed in the food. The cod has a slight crisp to the outside and is white and fluffy on the inside. It practically falls off my fork as I dip it in the warm butter sauce.

  Dinner is heavenly as we make small talk. Tara is an accountant for one of the large casino chains in town. She’s constantly bitching about her job, but I think her attraction towards her boss keeps her from finding another one. Practically every night I get a rundown of what he did and how great his rear looked in his suit. Sometimes I even get pictures…

  “Oh my God, Carly. Check out the ass in that pair of jeans,” Tara says across from me. I follow her glance and watch as the tall, broad man heads towards the backroom of the restaurant. He’s following behind the rest of his party, which gives me the perfect view of his very nice rear end fitted oh-so-snuggly in a pair of dark denim. His entire being is hypnotizing with his large, muscular frame and cocky swagger. He screams sexy with a touch of bad boy, and for the first time in a lot longer than I want to admit, I feel my blood flowing and my breath quickening.

  “Earth to Carly.” I hear her words moments before she waves her manicured hand in front of my face.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. I’m sure I’m eight shades of pink right now.

  “Don’t be sorry for checking out some guy’s ass. I never am,” she adds with a wink before we both laugh. I glance back over, but the man is gone, disappearing behind the closed door. Something felt oddly familiar about him, and that leaves me slightly unsettled.

  As we wait for the check, my attention is drawn back down to my daughter. She’s contently playing with her toys, tossing them onto the floor as she waits for her auntie Tara to pick them up again. She may resemble me w
ith her lighter olive complexion and her dark hair, but when I look into her eyes, I see her father. With every big, toothy grin she awards me with, I’m pulled deeper into the memory of that night. As I softly touch her head, I glance over her shoulder one more time towards that closed door. I don’t know why, but I’m drawn to it; like something new and fresh awaits me on the other side. Like gravity pulling me towards the unknown.

  But that can’t be accurate. Mom always told me that you make your own destiny. And my destiny sits right next to me with a teething ring and half a cracker shoved in her mouth.

  Chapter Six – Duty Calls

  Blake

  I have this crazy feeling of déjà vu as I sit across the table from the head of the Hernandez organization. When I was walking through the restaurant, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, leaving me feeling unsettled and off. I had taken in the room as I walked through the place, glancing at faces for any sign of recognition. Nothing registered, though. Yet, for some reason, when I got to the doorway, I turned back around and scanned the tables a little closer. No one registered. A handful of businessmen enjoying a meal, a few couples, and even two women dining with a baby. While gravity pulled me towards those two women sitting across from each other, laughing with their heads together, I don’t know anyone with a baby so I moved on.

  Now I’m sitting across from Roman, his brother Mattias, and anyone else who matters as we discuss the latest problem with Jimmy Mo. An associate of Roman’s owns the restaurant so meetings are held in private, in the back dining room, reserved for our party.

  “The problem has been dealt with,” Mattias confirms to the small room.

  “Excellent. What do we have on the horizon?” Roman asks as salads are set down in front of each of us.

  “A few smaller jobs, nothing too big and flashy. Styx was compiling the list from the database in the system. We should know more later this evening,” Mattias confirms.