Wanted(102)

“It was an electrical fire, right?”

“That’s the story my mother and I spread.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that my fucking father decided to kill himself and almost took Ivy along with him.”

I stared at him, horrified.

He sat up, then scooted back so that he was leaning against the headboard. He was no longer touching me. One hand was above his head, clutching tight to one of the brass bars that made up the bed frame. The other was idly twisting the spread into a knot. I don’t think he was aware of either.

“He was in banking. Made a fortune and then when he lost it all he was too much of a coward to try to dig himself back out. So he killed himself. Went to the guesthouse and took a bottle of sleeping pills. But he had a cigarette and managed to set the bedspread on fire. Ivy used to sneak into the guesthouse to play, and she was in there.”

“My god.” I couldn’t even imagine how scared that poor little girl had been. “Does she remember?”

“Not much, thank god.”

“And your mother?”

“She was a mess. She’d never worked a day in her life, and it turned out that my brilliant father had borrowed against his life insurance so that we were left with absolutely nothing except a bunch of debt and a shit-ton of medical bills.”

“The articles hinted that your mom had a trust fund, and that helped keep you guys afloat.” I looked at his face. “Oh, crap. You made that part up, too.”

“He didn’t leave us shit, but I needed a story. I didn’t want people looking too hard at what I was doing.”

“So what were you doing?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I could guess. Maybe not the specifics, but enough to know he wasn’t working minimum wage in fast food.

“My sister pretty much lived in the hospital, and my mom fell into an alcoholic haze. I was fifteen, and I’d been your typical, spoiled, rich kid asshole. I had too much money, bought alcohol illegally, and smoked pot behind the school with my friends. I could either stay a disconnected asshole or I could get my shit together and become the man of the family. I chose the second.”

“But most fifteen-year-olds work at McDonalds. And that wasn’t going to pay the bills.”

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

“And since the universe doesn’t play fair,” I began, remembering what he’d told me.

“I didn’t have to play fair, either.”

“Go on.” I scooted closer to him and rested my palm gently on his leg. “I want to know how you survived.”

“Need and adrenaline,” he said, then grinned. “And every time I did something dangerous and came out okay on the other side, I felt like I’d put one over on the universe and was that much stronger for it. I started taking chances to get a thrill and to get money. I did everything imaginable. Jacking cars, dealing drugs. Hell, I even got a bit of a reputation as a cat burglar—not that anyone ever found out it was me doing the sneaking around.”

“It didn’t scare you?”

“Just the opposite.” His grin was boyish. “I like the rush, too.”

He told me more and more. About how high school turned out to be the best possible place, because he could research anything and everything and taught himself how to boost cars and disable alarm systems. He even dabbled in counterfeiting. And all the while he was keeping detailed records, figuring out which endeavors brought in the most money so that he could most efficiently take care of his mom and sister.

“I screwed up senior year, though. I got hooked up with the wrong crowd—folks who weren’t nearly as careful as I was.”

“Did you get arrested?”

“And convicted.”

“Really?” I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to my chest. Heart was pounding against my rib cage in memory of my own arrest, and I couldn’t believe he was talking so calmly about a conviction. “You weren’t scared to death?”

“It wasn’t a pleasure ride if that’s what you mean. But it did change my life.”

He had ended up in a juvenile pilot program and was shipped off to a scared straight camp where he met Cole and Tyler. “The lessons of the camp didn’t really stick,” he said. “But the friendship did.”

“In other words, three of the most upstanding businessmen in Chicago aren’t that upstanding, after all.”

“I’d say that was accurate,” he acknowledged with a grin. “Not as much for me anymore. I’ve been selling off my share of our more shady enterprises to Cole and Tyler. And I’ve been legitimizing my own operations. To be honest, I’ve reached the point where I get just as much of a rush from negotiating a hard bargain with a competitor as I do from stealing his assets when he’s not looking. Maybe more.”