Black Collar Queen (Black Collar Syndicate Book 2) (13 page)

Chapter 18
.
Graystone Apartments. New York City. November 10
^th
 

The
Penthouse Overlooks
the Park, and just now, it is dark and quiet. Seth prowls through
the living room silently. Emma has been quiet and withdrawn since the lawyer
visited her. She hasn’t shared what’s on her mind, and he wants to push her.
He’s waited for her to confide in him—they agreed that there was no place for
secrets.
 
He’s tired of waiting.
 

Emma steps off the
elevator, her head down, immersed in the reports Kai delivered as she left the
office. For a few seconds, he can watch her—the tilt of her head and the way
her shoulders relax as she pauses in the hall to step out of her heels.
Barefoot, still carrying her briefcase, she looks for all the world like a
little girl playing dress up.
 

He moves quietly and her
head snaps up, eyes narrowed. One hand twitches toward her hip, the gun she
wears, and he steps out of the kitchen.
 

Her shoulders sag with
relief as she lets the report close, and she frowns at him.

“What are you doing,
Seth?”
 

“You can't be unaware
when you enter a room, Em. It's dangerous.”

She wrinkles her nose,
stepping past him. “Do we have to do this? I'm tired.”
 

“Do what?”
 

She makes a vague motion
with her hand. “Lessons. It feels like every time I turn around, you’re
teaching me something, or Rama is, and I'm exhausted.” She’s quiet for a
moment, and then, plaintively, “Am I such a bad queen?"
 

He jerks, startled. “Is
that what you think?”

She shrugs, dropping her
briefcase on the marble countertop. “What should I think?”
 
Seth twists to follow her. “Emma.” His tone
is slightly admonishing.
 

She ignores the quiet
admonition and selects a bottle from the wine rack. He watches as she pours a
glass and extends it to him silently. She pours another and then turns to him,
taking the first sip as she watches him.
 

She doesn't cringe at
the bitter red, and he realizes again that she's growing up. It's easy to
forget sometimes, but occasionally she'll do something and it hits harder.
Watching her in her own space, occupying it with negligent grace, her eyes
quietly challenging—he can’t forget it today, and it hurts suddenly as it hits
him again how much he missed while he was gone. Who she is, who she is
becoming—he can shape and teach. But the foundation was set while he was in a
foreign court, by a brother they both miss.
 

“No lessons, Em. Not
today.”

She pauses in the middle
of sipping her wine, suddenly tense. “What's wrong?”

They have spent too much
time living on the edge of danger. Her first instinct demands something is
wrong—Seth doesn't have time to be here unless there is a crisis.
 

He shifts, prowling to
the sprawling view of Central Park, his thoughts circling.
 

“What did you and Caleb
do?”

He watches her eyes go
moody at the mention of Caleb. “Why?”

“He was your confidant
for two years. Is it so unusual for me to ask?”

She shrugs,
uncomfortable. Talking about Caleb feels strange, like stretching a muscle
stiff from disuse. And there is the new knowledge weighing on her, changing
every memory she has of him. “He'd pick me up from school. Not all the
time—maybe once a week.”

Seth takes a sip of his
drink, waiting. “Sometimes, he'd take me with him. He hated the office, so he
did almost all his work on the streets. We'd go to little cafés and I'd do
homework while he met with his division or clients. He never wanted to take me
on runs—said it was too dangerous.” She smirks as Seth's grip tightens on his
wine glass.
 

“He taught you the
business.” Seth says, incredulous.

“Some. As much as he
felt was safe. He had a preoccupation with keeping me safe.”

A wave of sadness hits
her. How much of that was natural male Morgan protectiveness they’d shown her
entire life, and how much was for the half-sister he had just discovered?
 

“It changed,” she
murmurs, and Seth steps away from the window, coming closer. “Right before he
left—about nine months before you came home, how he was with me changed.”
 

“He avoided you?”

She shakes her head.
“No. If anything, he came by more. To Mother's house, when she wasn't there,
and he took me to his place a lot.”

“What did you do?”
 

She shrugs. “Ate bad
take out. Watched movies. Nothing, really. It wasn't about doing something; it
was about being there.”
 

Seth sighs. “He believed
in the value of family.”
 

She nods, the tight pain
in her chest blooming. She steps away from the counter. “I'm going to change,”
she says. Her voice wobbles a tiny bit and Seth's eyes narrow. Why does it feel
like she is shaking apart? The stress from the Oliver situation shouldn't be
affecting her this much.
 

“He loved you,” he
says.
 

She goes still, standing
in the doorway to the back of her apartment. “Caleb loved us both,” she says,
and retreats.
 

Her hands are shaking as
she reaches her bedroom. There doesn't appear to be a reason for Seth's
presence, but he doesn't do this—there is too much demanding his attention for
him to spend an evening in her apartment.
 

She strips out of the
pencil skirt and jacket, leaving her thin tank top and removing her thigh
holster before pulling on a pair of yoga pants. She tugs her hair into a
ponytail and pads back out to the living room. Seth is on the phone, his back
to her as she enters and she goes to the couch, curling there and
watching.
 

He’s smiling when he
hangs up, a smirk she recognizes. Her blood heats and she hesitates, watching
him. “Where's the bar?” he asks.

She sniffs. “What makes
you think I have one?”

He laughs. “You’re a
Morgan.”
 

He doesn’t wait for her
response, just moves past her. She lets her head fall back on the couch,
watching him stalk through the penthouse. She loses sight of him as he hits the
formal dining room, stark and barren in its unused state. There is a soft
exclamation, and then the clink of glasses. Seth is grinning when he
returns.
 

This is a bad idea, she
thinks. Seth is at his most dangerous when he is like this, charming and
carefree and completely oblivious to her.
 

He sits down on the
couch next to her and pours two shots. “What are you doing?” she asks, amused.

“We,” he corrects
firmly, “are taking the night off. And getting drunk. Dinner will be here
soon.”
 

“What did you order?”
she asks, ignoring the shot of rum. He nudges it toward her and she huffs, “I
don’t want it, Seth.”
 

His expression turns
pleading. “Don’t make me drink alone, sweetheart.”
 

She stares, her
expression steely and his a cocky assurance that she won’t turn him down—of
course she won’t.
 

Isn’t this the cousin
she missed while he was gone? The carefree cousin cloaked in danger and sexier
because of it? The cousin she’s missed since they returned from their island
hideaway, and all the pressures of the syndicate engulfed them both.

With a sigh, she reaches
for the shot. His eyes sparkle and she shakes her head.
 

“Bad influence,” she
mutters, before throwing it back. Seth laughs, a dark noise that ripples across
her skin like warm water, and follows suit.
 

She leans across him to
reach for the files she was reading and he catches her hand.

“Nope. No work
tonight.”
 

“Seth!” she protests,
and he gives her a quelling look. She sighs and looks out the window. Seth
lazily clicks through a few channels and settles on an old sitcom. He drops the
remote and leans forward, wincing a little as he tugs a bag of weed out of his
pocket. She makes a disgruntled noise and swipes the bag, crossing her legs
under her as she preps the weed. He watches her, amused.
 

“Caleb taught me,” she
says by way of explanation.
 

For a few minutes, they
sit in silence as she quickly and efficiently rolls two joints. There is a soft
buzz from the hall, and Seth comes alert, rising to his feet and plucking one
of his guns from the coffee table. She smirks as he stalks into the foyer. She
hears the elevator doors slide open and the guard from the lobby talking to
him. A few seconds later, Seth calls, “Do you want plates?”
 

She rolls her eyes.
“Yes.”
 

He comes back with two
plates of greasy pizza and calzones. Her heart twists—he’s trying to give her
back some of that ease she had with Caleb. He can’t—but she won’t tell him
that. She blinks hard and forces a smile.
 

“Smoke first,” she says,
pouring another round of shots.

Seth grins and throws
the shot back, plucking the joint from Emma’s fingers and lighting it. He draws
on the joint deeply, his eyes closing. She watches from the corner of her eye.
There is something incredibly attractive about Seth smoking. She shakes her
head hard, and pours another shot.
 

“What’s going on with
Rama?” he asks, leaning back against the deep couch.

Emma picks at the pizza,
glancing at him from under her lashes. “What makes you think anything is?”

“You’ve been skittish
all week. Something happened.”

She hesitates—Rama
hasn’t told Seth about the tattoo. She stands, walking to her bookcase and
picking up the small present from Rama. It’s been sitting there, waiting for
her to do something, for over a week. She tosses the box lightly and Seth
catches it midair. He opens it and she watches his expression stutter, shock
flitting across it before settling into an impassive mask.
 

“He gave you his
syndicate’s mark. Did he ask you to get a tattoo?”
 

“No,” she says shortly.
“But he did.”
 

Now shock does fill his
face, “He took our mark? The snake?”
 

“Yes. As proof of his
loyalty to us.”
 

Seth’s gaze narrows, and
he hits the joint again as she comes back to the couch, sitting next to him.
She grabs it from his fingers and he shakes his head.
 

“It’s not loyalty to
us
. It’s to you.”

“Does it matter?” she
asks.
 

“I think so, since it’s
clearly disturbing you.”
 

She gives him a glare
that holds no heat, and glances pointedly at his shoulder, changing the
subject. “What did the doctor say?”
 

He shrugs and she
exhales a stream of smoke, some of her nerves loosening. “It’s slow, but it’s
healing. He wants me to do some therapy.”
 
Her head comes up, and he smirks.
 

“Don’t worry; I will.
I’d like to be able to use my arm again.”
 

“What kind of
therapy?”
 

“Swimming. Sessions with
a physical therapist, exercises to get back my range of motion and strength.
It’s not that big a deal, Em.”
 

“It is if you won’t do
it on your own.” She leans forward to pour another shot. The weed and alcohol
are loosening her limbs and tongue. “You won’t. You never remember to take care
of yourself.”

“That’s what you do,” he
says, giving her a boyishly charming smile.
 

She hesitates, staring
at him. “Take your shot,” she says, ignoring the statement.
 

Seth’s eyebrows inch
upward, but he doesn’t argue, reaching for the little glass. She sticks her
tongue out and steals one of the shots. “Ok. I’m going to change, and we’re
going to do your therapy.”
 

“Emma,” Seth says, his
voice holding the hint of warning.
 

She sways a little, a
smile dancing in her eyes. It’s the happiest he’s seen her since they came
home. He doesn’t want to do anything, but killing that smile isn’t an option.
So he relents.

“Fine.”
 

She squeals, and bounces
on her toes.
 

He waits as she changes,
smoking the second joint thoughtfully. She doesn’t take long, returning in a
red bikini he remembers from the island with a sheer black cover-up, her hair
piled on her head. He glances away—that damn bikini.