That strange twisting burst into flames and burned him from the inside out. “For you?”
“Uh…” For a moment, she wavered. Then her chin went up in a way he was learning meant she’d made up her mind, and damn the consequences. “Yeah. For me. So?”
“So, you want to save me, just like I want to save you.” With a shake of his head, he caught her hand in his and began leading her back to where he’d left the Hummer. “This should be fun, this you-and-me thing. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.”
Chapter Four
“Alice…shit.” Feebly her foster brother, Felix Fielding went into a semi-fetal crouch for self-protection. “Stop throwing things, all right? I’m injured, for God’s sake.”
“I’m throwing pillows, and not at you, you fucking little wuss, because it’s better than throwing you through a window.” Alice threw another accent pillow toward the wall in her foster brother’s professionally decorated living room. Everything in his townhome was professionally done. First-class had always been the Fielding way to go, even when they couldn’t afford to pay for it. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops on you right now.”
“You wouldn’t.” Jaw wired shut and his face still discolored from the beating he’d taken less than two weeks ago, Felix sent her a horrified look from his place on the couch. He needed a shave, his blonde hair looked like it needed a good wash, and even though it was almost eleven in the morning, he was still in his bathrobe. “Alice, please don’t. That’ll ruin me.”
“They’ve probably already been notified that your employees’ checks are bouncing left, right and center.” Looking thoroughly disgusted, Gus Bloch, Joelle’s husband and Felix’s brother-in-law, leaned back on the arm of a loveseat where his wife sat. “Did you really think no one would notice those checks weren’t clearing, dipshit?”
“I haven’t been thinking, period.” Felix kept a wary eye on Alice as he struggled to a sitting position, one hand curled protectively around his busted-up ribs, the other encased in a club-like cast. “I’m flat broke and I’ve got my back against the wall. All I needed was a… a little break my way, so I could get back on my feet.”
“So you went to the Lower Lower. The Pit.” Alice sucked in trembling breaths and fought like hell to get a grip on her emotions. But that was hard to do when Felix seemed determined to make himself the victim of this mess. “You went to that stupid underground fight club, gambled and lost money that wasn’t yours, got the shit beaten out of you in the process, and then blamed the other guy for your long, unbroken line of unbelievably selfish failures.”
“Alice,” Joelle, said, her voice low. “That’s not helping.”
“It might not help you, but at this point I’ve run out of pillows, so I have nothing left to throw at him but my words. I have nothing left, period, because my checking account is now in the red for the first time in my adult life. I’m raiding my meager savings account so I can survive to the end of this month. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to asking you to get the ruby and diamond earrings your mother left me out of your family’s safe deposit box so that I can pawn them, at least until I can get another job.”
“I’ve given those earrings some thought, actually.” Joelle looked like she was going to be sick, huddled in a tight ball on the loveseat. “Why don’t you sell them to me? Mama gave you those earrings and me the necklace, so that they would always be together. I’ll pay you top price for them, and then I’ll give the earrings back to you for your birthday. That way you won’t be able to refuse them because of your silly pride.”
Alice hissed. “Silly pride?”
“And then,” Joelle went on, blithely ignoring her, “Mama will be able to rest easy, because you’ll have the earrings back as the emergency nest-egg she always wanted them to be for you. You have to agree to this, because that’s what Mama would’ve wanted. You know it.”
“There you go, Al.” Gus nodded, smiling for the first time that morning since Alice had told them all about what Loki had shown her two stories below Wacker Drive. “You can’t call that charity and throw it back in our faces like you have every other time we’ve tried to help you out, now can you?”
Alice’s eyes burned with moisture she wouldn’t let them see. “Helping me is charity, Gus.”
“No, helping is what family does when someone’s been fucked over through no fault of their own.” Gus turned to slam his brother-in-law with a look of such profound disgust it was a wonder Felix didn’t dissolve right there. “C’mon, Al. Say yes. Those earrings are worth fifteen grand, easy, so let me just transfer the money into your account right here and now, yeah? You can breathe easy, my wife will finally sleep at night instead of worrying herself sick about you, and we can all get the hell on with our lives.”
“Um.” Felix pulled the robe tighter around him with his non-broken hand. It was as if he wanted to somehow pull it all the way over him and disappear from the world. “Okay, um… please don’t get mad at me, Alice. I mean, more than you already are.”
The room went still, like an eerie calm before a storm. Alice glanced at Joelle and read the same bewilderment she was feeling, but Gus seemed to have no such problem. In two strides, he crossed the sleekly decorated living room, jerked Felix up from the couch by the robe’s lapels and ignored the other man’s protests of pain as he gave him a hard shake.
“You fucking waste of space.” The growl that ripped out of Gus made Alice blink while Joelle shot to her feet in alarm. Who knew day-traders could be so intimidating? “I should’ve known you couldn’t be trusted. You’ve fucked everything up in your own life, so it’s just par for the course for you to start fucking up everyone else’s life, too. There is no bottom to you, is there? Is there?” For good measure, Gus gave him another vicious shake.
“Gus, stop.” Joelle surged forward to pull on her husband’s arm. “For heaven’s sake, take it easy. Felix is hurt—”
“Not nearly enough to satisfy me.” With absolute disgust carved into his expression, Gus shoved Felix away from him and turned to pace the room. Felix bounced back down onto the couch with a whimpering grunt of pain, causing Gus to turn back while Joelle and even Alice closed in to make sure Felix was all right. “Don’t you two go near him. That thieving fucker has robbed you both blind. He doesn’t have any goddamn right to your compassion or concern.”
Alice stopped dead in her tracks. “I know what he did, Gus. Felix ripped off his employees to bet on himself—”
“I’m not talking about that dickhead move. I’m talking about the family safe deposit box,” he went on when they continued to stare at him. “Get it? It’s the family safe deposit box. That means Felix has had access to it all this time.”
Alice sucked in a harsh breath as the truth exploded all around them. “Oh… God. No.”
Gus nodded, his mouth a flat line. “Exactly. That’s what he was getting to when he started begging for you to not get mad at him like the little pussy he is. Everything of value that was in there is probably gone by now, because that thief fucking stole from his own goddamn family.”