“Don’t be a dick. I already told you I’d put some of my men on this. I have just as much to lose as Nolan. Everyone in this family needs this put to rest. Whether you keep the club or not is immaterial to the immediate dilemma. Let’s focus on the most pressing threat — finding out who did this and why. Okay?”
Vince nodded, reluctantly slanting his gaze at his twin. “And you?”
Nolan chewed his bottom lip, caught between a rock and a hard place but Vince didn’t care. He’d never known his twin to be such a pussy and it killed him to see Nolan so neutered. If this was the consequence of wedded bliss, people could keep that shit to themselves. He’d rather remain who he was — a debauched, licentious and unapologetic aficionado of pretty female flesh — because there was only one person on this planet who’d had the power to change him.
And she was dead.
“I don’t care who we have to pay off, make disappear, or otherwise ruin…I’m not giving up the club,” he said with finality. “Got it?” Vince stared down his brothers, almost daring them to fight him on this. His blood burned with the need for something he couldn’t quite define and at the moment, all he had was his brothers to knock skulls with. But when neither presented an argument, he considered the conversation over and grabbed his leather jacket. “I’m out of here,” he growled, eager to get back to the penthouse. He wanted to be there when the broken little dove awoke. He had some questions…and one way or another, he was going to get answers.
Neither Dillon nor Nolan tried to stop Vince as he slammed from the house. Their brother had been percolating at a frenzied clip for a while now and neither knew what to do about it. An intervention of some sort had been tossed around but eventually discarded because they all knew that kind of tactic would blow up in their faces in grand fashion.
Before this situation with the club, Nolan’s biggest concern with his twin had been his seemingly hell-bent course with destruction, as if he were trying to punish himself with the pursuit of pleasure until he died of exhaustion. But now, they had this situation with the club to contend with and it made him edgy and freaked out for the sake of his family.
“What are we going to do?” he asked Dillon, looking to his older brother for advice. “He’s determined to do things his way but I’m concerned he’s not caring around how his way affects others.”
“That’s Vince in a nutshell, isn’t it?” Dillon countered dryly and Nolan couldn’t rightly disagree. Vince had always carried an attitude that shouted, “my way or get the fuck off my highway,” which was one of the main reasons he and Dillon had always clashed. But Dillon didn’t seem as concerned as Nolan about their brother. Instead, he was focused on the bigger picture. “We need to more information about what happened the first time around. And I need to know more about this club, Malvagio. Is it operating under the Buchanan Enterprises umbrella?”
“No, we have it housed under its own LLC so as to create a little distance but everyone knows it’s our club.” Nolan swallowed an aggrieved sigh. “We wanted people to know that we owned it. We enjoyed the notoriety.”
“What happens at this club?”
“Anything but it’s all consensual. That’s the one cardinal rule — that and no scat play.” He grimaced at the idea. “Some people are bigger freaks than we are.”
“So basically, it’s a sex club with some heavy BDSM elements in play.” At Nolan’s nod, Dillon digested the information. “Anyone else involved?”
Nolan hesitated but he knew it would come out sooner or later and frankly, Nolan wanted all of this to go away so he could wash his hands of it all. “We have one other partner, Laird Tiechert.”
Dillon did a double take. “Of Tiechert Construction? The developer giant?”
“Yeah.”
“Junior not interested in going into the family business?”
“No. Laird and his father don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on anything.”
“Sounds familiar.”
Yeah, their mutual hatred for their fathers had been the bond between them. But even though Laird’s father was a dick, no one could come close to the Buchanan patriarch — he’d inspired the Craptastic Father of the Year award.
“So how’s it going to affect Laird if his involvement comes out with the club?” Dillon asked.
Nolan didn’t even want to think what would happen. Laird’s father was a religious zealot, one of the many reasons Laird and his father couldn’t stand each other. “He stands to lose a lot,” Nolan answered grimly. “But Laird is one of many who could lose a lot if their involvement became common knowledge. Vince is right about one thing: we need to keep this as quiet as possible.”
He needed to tell Shannon about the club but he didn’t even know how to start that conversation, particularly when he’d been working so hard to be a different man, the kind who deserved a woman like Shannon and his daughter Aubrey.
Dillon caught the shame in his expression, which wasn’t a surprise because, honestly, it felt as if it were oozing from his damn pores, and gave him a short clap on the shoulder, saying, “ Stop beating yourself up for the past. Trust me, I spent years doing it and nothing changed. You aren’t the same person you were six months ago so remember that. Shannon will understand. She’s a smart woman.”
“I don’t want to lose her, man,” Nolan said with raw emotion. He’d never known the love he felt with Shannon and his darling little girl Aubrey and like a starving man who’d been gifted with a full-course meal, he was desperate to hold onto them. “I wish we’d never opened Malvagio.”
Dillon’s mouth quirked. “Now you’ve got me curious about this place. How bad can it be?”
Nolan barked a mirthless laugh. “It’s as the name suggests…wicked.”
“In another life…sounds like my kind of place.”
“Yeah, me too. Before Shannon, it was my favorite playground. Now? It just appears sordid and fake. I can’t believe I ever saw anything of value. I wish I could get Vince to realize that we’ve outgrown it.”
“You’ve outgrown it,” Dillon corrected mildly. “In case you haven’t noticed, Vince isn’t the least bit interested in following our path to respectability. In fact, he seems to abhor the very idea. I suspect even if he were to find someone, he’d do everything in his power to push them away.”