Black Collar Queen (Black Collar Syndicate Book 2) Read online

  When he had so adamantly decided he was ready to rule, he had also been ill-prepared for the softer, more subtle points of that position. A king should not beg—should not follow after another. But it is different when it is your queen.

  Chapter 2. Bamboo. New York City. September 26th

  Rama Stares At The Coded Message in his hand. He knew it was coming. He's been hearing the speculation on the street for days. But holding it in his hands is a whole different thing. He draws on his cigarette and reads the words again.

  His phone rings—the one only three people have the number to—and he reaches for it with lazy grace. “Hello?” he says, softly, edged with violence.

  There’s a long moment of silence, and then, “You're upset,” she says. “Why?”

  There is a moment when he considers telling her the truth. Instead, he says, his accent thickening, “I want you home.”

  She doesn't respond immediately. When she does, her voice has changed, become cool and remote. "We leave in an hour. I've been where I'm needed.”

  Anger spikes in him, but he shoves it down. As much as he loves her, Emma still is uncomfortable with declarations. They are too much, too similar to Nicolette and her betrayal. She won't speak of it—has refused to each time he's broached the subject—but he knows her, better than she’s comfortable with.

  He knows what she's afraid of.

  His finger rubs the skin on his wrist, still bare, and sighs. "He's not the only one who needs you.”

  A moment of palpable aggravation strings across the phone line, and her voice is sharp when she says, “Any word on my mother?”

  Somehow he expected her to ignore his quiet honesty. His eyes go to the letter again.

  “Nothing. Whatever connections she has are damn solid. There hasn't been a peep of her around town. None of my people or your people can find her.”

  There's a stretch of strained silence, then Emma spits, “That bitch.”

  He sighs again, and the paper crinkles under his tightening grip. He says, “The Olivers are angry, mali. Some of their soldiers attacked your docks operation. Your board is furious.

  Something has to change.” He hesitates. “Have you told Seth how bad it is?”

  “No,” she says immediately. “He doesn’t need that yet.”

  “Does he know there's a hit on you?”

  He didn’t mean to put it out there that angrily, that bluntly, and he can feel the shock resounding across the line. His chest squeezes, like there's a vice around it. How can he fix this? He can't take it back, can't sugar coat it for her. She'd hate him for it if he did. The moments that tick by are so slow, so heavy with anticipation. How will she take it.

  “They took out a hit?”

  Her voice is high-pitched, a little shaky, definitely forced. He silently berates himself for putting it out there like that, an hour before she will board a private jet and be captive for most of the day, left to mull over all the implications of the news.

  He stares blankly at his desk top, and says, “We don't know where it's coming from, but the contract is confirmed.”

  “What are you saying?” she asks, and he can imagine the bewildered, helpless look on her face – and the way her vulnerability will piss her off. He wants to be there for her, to hold her and kiss away her distress. If she'd even let him close.

  He says, “I'm saying it might be the Olivers, or it might not.”

  The silence yawns around him, and he suddenly wishes he were anywhere but his small, orderly office – too small right now, for sure. He can relate perfectly to the anger the breeds from helplessness. What can he do to comfort her when she's in another hemisphere.

  She's quiet for so long that he believes she hung up. Then, in a whisper, she says, “My mother.”

  He bites down on the storm of emotion that trails her realization, and quietly, he answers, “That was my thought.”

  He hears her breathing, strained and fast. He would demolish a city if it meant he could be there for her just now, but she chose Seth. “I have to go,” she says, and her voice is just a shell.

  The anger returns to him, that she would dismiss him now, even as he does her dirty work. The way she sounds so sad is the only thing that stays his temper. His Buddhist roots lend him a moment of grace, and he pushes away the rage with a long and silent breath. Finally, he says, “I love you, mali.” The line goes dead.

  He lowers the phone in slow motion, soul raw and stinging from her rejection.

  A glimmer of violence echoes through him, in which he wants to smash the phone against his office wall, but his eyes have fallen on the Buddha in the corner. The statue stares serenely, calling to a deeply imbedded spirituality, and he finds he is already calming down. Time, space, these things he can give her. If he has anything, it's the patience of a monk.

  Chapter 3. Over the Atlantic. September 26th

  Seth's Eyes Are The Only parts of him that move as a burst of turbulence shakes the private jet.

  His gaze slips from the spectacular view to Emma's hands as she grips the little table between them and curses under her breath. She hasn't said much since they left the secret beach haven that has kept them safely removed from the very real, and very dangerous, world that waits for them back home. She's been a quiet mass of nerves and temper. He can't blame her; not even he has had a hit on him.

  He shifts his attention back to the tufts of clouds that pass below them, aware that she takes an aggravated sip of her mimosa——her third. He's barely touched his first, a fact that he might almost believe she has missed in her quiet fury. Except that he knows better——it's just that now there is something more important weighing on her than fussing over him.

  Already, he misses the sound of the ocean.

  The stewardess hovers close to check on them, a Mexican girl who Seth is certain is a model hired to play a stewardess for her earthy beauty, and the fact that she's barely older than Emma. He hasn't missed the intrigue in the eyes of their attendant, or the disdain——he dares call it jealousy—with which Emma has reacted to her. Now he hears his cousin snap, “We're fine.”

  He allows a smirk. Caleb would be proud of the glorious way she has donned the Morgan attitude. In his peripheral, he sees her snatch her drink from the still-rattling table. Her hand pauses in its pursuit to her mouth, and she glares at him.

  “What's so fucking funny?” she asks.

  The heat in her tone is intense, and it claws at the edges of an old irritation reminiscent of adolescent brotherhood. He says, “You sound like Caleb.”

  She makes a noise in her throat that would have been a quick response if he had said anything else. Her features flatten and she follows through on the drink. He holds on to the tiny smile until it starts to taste bitter, then he lets it fade. She kills the mimosa, sets the empty glass on the table a bit harder than necessary. Then he adds, “Must be a ginger thing.”

  She pointedly looks out her own window, and says, “That's nice, Seth. But there happen to be a lot of details about our landing that have to work perfectly, you know, if you want to be covert about the whole thing.”

  He feels the amusement creep against him again. He doesn't allow the smile, though. He asks, “Tinney is picking us up, right?”

  She huffs. “Yes, I've told you that several times.”

  “Then the details will be fine,” he says.

  He can all but feel the anger that rises in her at his seeming lackadaisical approach; he feels her like heat in his own cheeks. She knows he is goading her. She arranged their return home without him, whether it be because she didn't want him to stress or for some other reason, and he let her do it. It's good for her to get every ounce of experience she can as quickly as she can. Never mind that her sudden need for control has given him time to concentrate on other matters.

  “Fine?” she asks, and her tone is near murderous.

  For a long moment, he merely stares out the window, like she didn't speak at all. She broods into the space between,
forcing long, even breaths. Her eyes are narrowed, venomous. It almost isn't fair of him to make such easy jabs, but she acts so much like his brother these days that he can guess where the holes in her armor are. He lazily reaches into the shoulder bag in the floor at his feet. She sharply eyes the brown folder he pulls out. Finally, he straightens his posture and turns to her. He drops the folder onto the table, which makes their glasses shake. His expression is stone, serious and void of any clue of what he feels inside.

  He says, “These are my picks for the new board of directors. I need you to look over them, because if we're doing this together, we both need to agree on everyone. I need your picks within the next few days. Once we're safely in New York, word will be out real fucking quick.”

  Now her eyes grow wide. As he had hoped, her anger turns to steam that fuels the gears in her mind. She says, “We can manage a week if we're careful before word gets out.”

  He lifts his eyebrows just the slightest bit, and takes a steady breath. “No,” he says, “we can't. I'm going straight to Remi Oliver's office when we land.”

  “What?” she cries. “You've got to be fucking kidding me, Seth. He'll kill you!”

  “In his bank's office? Use your head, Em. He's not going to shed blood in his business,” Seth says in a tone admonishing enough that her eyes narrow again? He adds, “He makes a lot of money off of our family. I'm not convinced he's willing to lose that. We've got a lot to do in a fast kind of way and that would be a bit easier if there's not someone waiting around every corner to kill you.”

  She blinks, does it again, and bites her lip as tears well in her eyes. He wants to wrap her in a hug and calm the anxiety that's so painfully obvious on her face, but she has to learn to control it. He does let his eyes soften. Of course he knows what's bothering her; he can at least let her know that she's not suffering alone. He says, “Please don't argue with me on this, Emma.” Still, she's battling the tears that want so badly to fall, so she just nods. He softly says, “Thank you.” And he thinks that maybe if those at the top would say that a little more often, they wouldn't have to kill one another all the time.

  “Now,” he continues, “since time is of the essence, we need to work out the details of the brothel venture as soon as possible, and we need to close on the resorts that we’re using to absorb the new capital. Our lawyers are in talks for that. But we'll need to have some serious meetings with Rama and make sure he’s on board with what we’ve come up with.”

  Like another verbal punch to her gut, the name of her lover makes her look away. Having not so long ago watched the love of his life get shot in the throat, he can understand her conflict regarding the Thai. Again, she must bear the weight of her decision to court another family's rank. He doesn't want to think about betrayal any more than she does, so he continues.

  “We can't green light any of this until I take it to Havana—otherwise we're dead anyway. And I won't go to the top until we have a plan that is airtight. Also, I have a meeting scheduled Monday morning with the police commissioner. He needs to know that our company's philanthropy will continue. It's possible that our contributions may increase, depending on how he reacts to dealing with someone half his age. If there are adjustments in our projections, you will have them by the afternoon.”

  Her eyes wander back to him, wider now, but drying. She won't ask him when and how he managed to organize all of this without her noticing. Will she let herself understand why he is wielding his information this way? Can she understand that he has let her take off with no training wheels or safety net, and plunge headlong into syndicate business—from an acceptable distance? Can she see that even though he let her, he is the king, and he can't afford to take a quiet backseat on family matters?

  Sure, it will infuriate her that though she has believed she was protecting him from all those gruesome details of life back home, he has quietly kept in touch with his head of security. He has remained abreast of her decisions and commands. Will she finally realize that she needs his experience, that he's not just being a prick with all his lessons and guidance? This is a precarious game he plays.

  “There's one more thing you need to know,” he says, and he waits for the suspicion to shine in her attentive gaze. “It was Vera who helped me put together the pieces of Caleb's life.”

  The change in Emma's expression is violent, as all her features harden and the corners of her lips turn down. It feels like fire when she says, “What the fuck, Seth? That tramp reporter?”

  He makes a shell of a dry laugh. Why do the women in his life hate Vera so much? “Yeah,” he says. “Turns out Caleb did the exact same thing to find out about Rama.” And to find me.

  Emma shakes her head in the only denial she can manage, and her brow creases like she wants to cry again. She doesn't have to say it, all this time he has kept this information from her. So he says, “I'm telling you now. I'm also telling you that her amnesty from our family remains.”

  “Why?” Emma spits. “How can you protect someone like that, who could bring us down so easily?”

  Seth sighs his frustration, the tension that always accompanies the mention of goddamned Vera Rohan. How many times has he had this argument? He looks back to the stunning blue beyond the oval window, and says, “If she wanted to bring us down, she could have a long time ago, and without my contribution. She doesn't want that.”

  Emma scoffs, asks, “How do you know?”

  “Because she's in love with me,” says Seth quietly.

  “Yeah, well we saw how that went with Nicolette,” Emma says with huff.

  Seth's eyes flash back to Emma's, and so does all the fierce turmoil that has been gone for the past month. His regard is so stormy that she is stunned into silence. She swallows dryly. Rather than suffer his own wrath, he forces himself to look away. Mechanically, he again digs into the bag by his seat. He withdraws a cigarette case and clicks it open. Inside is a single joint, a masterpiece he paid the houseboy to roll before they left. He fishes a lighter from the bag, and sparks the smoke, a perk of owning the plane.

  Almost instantly, the tension in his muscles eases, and the ever-present ache in his left shoulder soothes a little. He reminds himself what he did so many times on that lost beach, that his anger is better used when controlled and channeled. This is not the place.

  He takes several quick tokes, holds in the smoke as he reaches across the table and ashes in Emma's empty glass. Rather than focus on how skinny and pale his fingers are, he reclaims her attention as he lets loose his hit. He nods toward the joint. Her expression crinkles as she undoubtedly searches her soul. Several slow moments tick by, and she releases a much quieter breath. She accepts the joint without a word. Neither of them can know they're both thinking of their first night in the Hamptons, after the board meeting that had been the beginning of the end.

  She had convinced him to smoke with her. He had actually laughed that night.

  Her hits are longer, more spaced out, and she lets her eyes crawl over him on their way back to her tiny window. He ignores her blatant attention, and lets his eyes follow hers. The clouds are fat and happy, so pure white as they march into the distance. The jet's engines just purr. She says, “I'll have my board picks to you by Monday, and a meeting with Rama scheduled by tomorrow.”

  Maybe, he thinks, just maybe she can understand how he misses the southern hemisphere so much.

  The knitting across her brow has eased, and the smoke and silence drifts between them.

  He had hoped the weed would calm her down, and it did, and with her calm comes her defenses. She's about to raise a wall between them, but as it usually does, his speed gains him the advantage.

  “I know you're scared, Em,” he says softly.

  She bristles, refuses to look at him when she passes the smoke. He leans forward, the sling inhibiting him, threatening to ignite his temper. Not now. Instead of taking the joint, his fingers close around Emma's hand. Her eyes snap to him, and he squeezes.

  “We're goin
g to find Beth, and I'm going to stop this shit with Remi.”

  The usual softening in her to his quiet charm never comes, instead her eyes harden. She jerks her hand away, and says, “You think Remi is really going to negotiate with you? When he's already put a hit on me?”

  Her voice shakes, and her tone is vicious. She's cornered, and – yes – scared. He sighs.

  “We don't know that Remi bought the contract.”

  She laughs, bordering on hysterical. She's losing her calm, and for once, he can be a rock for her. He waits, silently watching her, giving her a little space. Her eyes are wide when she looks back at him, and she says, “If it's not him, then it's my mother. My own mother, who no one can seem to locate.”

  “We're going to find her,” says Seth in a low, steady tone that she has heard before, the tone he used that night when Nicolette’s betrayal came to light.

  Her big blue eyes fall to the table top, and she passes the joint. He accepts, avoiding contact with her fingers. He takes a hit and relaxes back against his chair, sprawling as best he can with one arm confined. He blows smoke at the ceiling, and says, “I won't let anything happen to you.”

  Chapter 4. Private Airport. New York City, September 26th.

  Rama Stands In Shadows, flanked by two bodyguards. Men like them belong to shadows, and he rests easily there, watching the sky streaked with orange and red as the sun sets. The plane coasts down the runway, a gleaming, sleek machine that reeks of indulgence and privilege.

  Tinney straightens as the plane glides to a halt. The bodyguard is tense, his eyes darting around uneasily.

  "Relax," Rama says softly, a hint of command in his tone. "We're well guarded."

  It is true. Both the Morgan family assassin and the Thai prince have brought the best of their security to welcome home the new king.