The Faerie Master (Aaron's Kiss Series) (19 page)

Cade watched as the two of them stared at one another.
She was sure this wasn’t going to end well and for the life of her she didn’t know who the winner would be.
After a few more tense seconds Aaron stood and left the room.
Bradley, laughing and trying his best not to show it, followed.

Shawn sat still. “I’m not leaving.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not leaving.
You can have your little girl talk if you need to and I won’t say a word.”

Cade looked at Pete.
When she shrugged Cade relaxed.
She wanted Shawn to stay, but there was no way she was going to ask.
The woman frankly terrified her.
Ten minutes later the door opened again and Aaron, Bradley, and Duncan walked in.
Duncan had a large tray in his hands and once he’d set it down he left immediately.
Pete leaned back in the office chair with a large plate of foodstuff and the largest glass of iced tea Cade had ever seen.

“Cade’s right, she bounces.
Not only that, but she can break down any security system I know, even mine.
In less than two minutes she not only broke into our accounts, but no matter what I threw in her way as a blocker, she circumvented it and moved in.
It’s as if her mind is connected to the computer and it works with her.
If what she can do fell into the wrong hands, then heaven help them.
She is a walking nightmare for anyone with any kind of computer access.”

“Is this what this is about, Cade?
That man, the one who threatened your friends, he knows what you can do and he threatened them to make you do something?
How long?
How long has this been happening?”
She wanted to crawl up into Shawn’s lap and answer him, but knew that he’d be pissed when she answered.

She lowered her head. “Ever since Garrett caught me trying to change my grades in high school.”

~CHAPTER 13~

“I was changing my grades a long time before he caught me, but when he did he decided that I should change his as well.
Only he wanted the higher marks.
I knew it wasn’t right, but he wasn’t going to graduate if I didn’t do something.
I had hoped that he’d leave home once he got out of school, but time after time he’d come back until our par...his parents were killed.”

“You were lowering your grades?
Why?
Why would you lower your grades and make his higher?”
Shawn asked her softly.

“I was thirteen and they wanted to put me in the pre-college classes.
The other kids made fun of me.
Garrett’s parents made me...they were ashamed of me.
So I changed them. It wasn’t hard.”

Shawn walked over and picked her up.
She was snuggled in his lap and held tight.
She wanted to cry, wanted to sob that it wasn’t fair, but she just let him hold her.
When Aaron cleared his throat she turned and continued. “Garrett was...special.
At least that’s what his parents said to me.
Every time he’d hit me, hurt me in some way, or if I didn’t give in to him, they’d make me do what he wanted.
Mom, his mom, told me that I needed to never hurt him, that he was never going to be much and anything I could do to help him would be for the best.
I...I was beaten when he didn’t get his way, even if I didn’t have anything...I’m sorry.
This has nothing to do with what happened today.

“Then one day Garrett came to me and told me that I needed to get him some money.
That he owed someone a lot of it and if they didn’t get their money he was going to be killed.
I didn’t want to do it, but his father made me.
He’d beaten me until I couldn’t move.
The next day I moved almost twenty thousand dollars from someone’s account at the bank to Garrett’s account.
He didn’t even say thanks.
Then two weeks later he was back again.
I tried to fight him about it, but he’d hurt me so badly that I just did it instead of having him beat me up.

“Then I was arrested.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not where anyone could catch me.
But this cop, Gabriel Sheets, told me that I was going to start working for him and his friends.
Garrett had told him what I could do in exchange for some of his gambling debts.
I refused.
He told me that if I didn’t help, something would happen to my friend and her granddaughter.
Gabriel said that if I didn’t help, he’d kill them.”

“He did, didn’t he?
He killed them because you wouldn’t help them.
And then he told you about it.”

Cade had forgotten anyone other than Aaron was in the room with her so when Bradley spoke she jumped.
She knew that Shawn was there, but she had been telling this to Aaron and had simply been focusing on him.

“Yes.
He and Garrett.
The next day after he let me go Gabriel came by my house and told me that someone had told Ida before she was killed that I’d been the one who caused their deaths and that I was responsible.
I had no choice after that.
If I balked then he’d threaten someone else.

“Paul let me go at the diner and then Gabriel couldn’t get in touch with me.
When he couldn’t, he kidnapped Paul’s daughter so that I would do this job for him.
That’s why I called Bradley.
I couldn’t...I didn’t want him to hurt them.
I’m sorry.
I told him that this would be the last job.”

“You don’t really think he’s going to quit, do you?
You can’t think that he’s going to be okay with his cash hog just telling him she’s had enough?
Christ, Cade, he’s either going to keep going and kill more and more people you know, or he has to be stopped. I’m all for stopping his ass.”

Cade smiled at Bradley.
He was so fierce now.
Before he wanted to beat her she was sure, but now he was her ally.

“No.
I don’t think he’s going to quit.
And now he’s involved you, Mr. MacManus.

~~~

Shawn looked over the paper work that Cade had picked up at the Post Office today.
He was trying to work past the anger and focus on the issue at hand, but it was hard.
He realized that about the time she had been telling him what she wanted to do to him, distracting him, she was planning to go out without him and to probably take on this man on her own.

When Cade had gotten up to go to the bathroom again, he’d gotten up too.
When she returned he made sure he was standing when she entered.
He would never forget the look that passed over her face when he didn’t go to her, but she moved to the desk when Pete had asked her to come and show her something.
He’d caught Aaron looking at him oddly a couple of times, but he chose to ignore it.
At least for now.

Shawn looked at the information again.
Cade was to move all of the money in this account into another.
All the money in Aaron’s account was to be moved to an account in an off shore account for Gabriel.
According to the information, Cade was to move the money by noon tomorrow or face the consequences.

Pete and Cade had been working on a plan to make it look like Cade moved the money.
Shawn had no idea if they could make it work.
He didn’t know why they didn’t have Cade just tell Gabriel that she moved it and then watch him until he made a mistake.
Seemed to Shawn that Gabriel was pretty stupid so it wouldn’t be a long wait to get him to make one.
He was deep in thought when Aaron sat down next to him.

“You all right?
You look at her any harder and she’ll turn to stone. Want to talk about it?
I’m a pretty good listener.”

Shawn looked over at Aaron.
“She lied to me.
She told me that everything was all right this morning when I felt her anger.
How can I trust her when she keeps something like this from me?
How the hell am I suppose to keep her safe if she won’t tell me what’s going on?”

“So you’ve told her everything?
You’ve told her that you’ve gotten all of your memory back?” Shawn looked sharply at Aaron as he continued.
“Yeah, I’m aware of that.
I can tell by the way you’re talking, the way that you’re moving
,
that you’ve remembered.
I told you, I’m a good listener.”

Shawn glanced at Aaron then at Cade again.
She wouldn’t look at him anymore.
Not that he could blame her. Every time he’d caught her looking at him he glared at her.
He wasn’t even sure if he had any right to be mad and that made him madder.

“I got it back right after I bit her.
We are a couple now, both mated and bonded. And as soon as we mated it was as if my mind opened up and all this information flooded it.
I know why I was coming here.
I’ll talk to you about it later, but this...how can I be there for her?
How can I help her when she’s not going to do what I want her to do?
I’m in love with her and I can’t keep her safe.”

“And you won’t be able to. Not from everything.
You think she was just sitting around waiting for you to come along and start bossing her around?
Yeah, we boss.
I get told that a lot by Sara.
I know this is a cliché, but pick your battles.
She left here when you told her to stay.
What happened?
I found out that I’m her next target.
You know about Gabriel Sheets.
We know how brilliant she is and we’ve gained her trust.”

“Trust?
How do you figure that?”
Shawn looked back over at the women when Pete burst out laughing.
He wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but Cade was blushing.
It must have been good.

“You don’t think it was easy for her to come and tell her new master that she is supposed to steal all my money, do you?
Even mated to you I’m still more powerful than her.
She came to me before you were up and she had to know that I could have ripped her throat out before you’d have gotten here to save her.
She sat on your lap even though she knew that she had lied to you.
Again, she must know that you’re stronger and even you could have hurt her.”

“I can’t hurt her.
I won’t hurt her either.
Okay, so she trusted me not to rip her throat out.
Maybe she knows that I can’t harm her.”

As soon as he said it he realized it wasn’t true.
He knew that what she’d done was seek comfort from him and he’d given it.
At least until he’d gotten pissed and had practically thrown her off his lap. “Christ, you always this annoying? Tell me again why we’re friends? I can’t have been happy hanging around with someone who thinks they’re right all the time.”

“I don’t think I’m right, I am right.
You might want to remember that too.
Of course, if you tell Sara she’ll just tell you that I’m wrong.
Damned woman disagrees with me just to be pertinacious.”