Read Lily: Captive to the Dark for Free Online

few places after that. But you don’t belong in the business world. I see that now. So, who the fuck are you?”
    My Scotch disappeared in one swallow and I rotated the glass back and forth in my hand. “I’m a man with a dark past, but I’m hoping to improve my future. My skills are varied and I don’t accept failure. I speak four languages fluently. I know a lot about money. How to earn it, and how to spend it. If it’s persuasion of a client, I can do that, too. Name it and I’m your man.”
    “You didn’t answer my question. Who’s the real you?” He took a gun out from inside his jacket, pointing it at me, but I never broke my stare.
    “I just told you.” I stood, walking a little closer to him. “If you don’t mind, I can demonstrate.”
    “You come any closer and your brains will decorate my floor. Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?”
    A sigh left my mouth. This was backfiring in my face. What the hell was I doing? “My name is Zane Collins. You know that. I’m a jack of all trades. All . Although, I’d like to put that part of my life behind me and look for something a little more…respectable.” A step closer brought me within perfect range. My hand lunged forward, removing the gun from his grasp. I had it disassembled in seconds flat. “I’m asking for your help. Something I never do,” I said, placing the pieces on the desk next to him.
    “Quite the party trick,” he said, raising his eyebrow, “but I’m not impressed. I’ve seen it before. And I’m not sure I can help you. You’re hiding something pretty big. I can feel it.”
    I laughed. “Aren’t we all?” The darkness in me swirled and I brought up my hand, shaking my head. “Listen, I’m going to be frank. You and I have the opportunity to get along great or we can be worst enemies. I really don’t need any more of those.”
    The ring of his phone had his hand coming up.
    “Marcio.” He pushed off the desk and headed back for the Scotch. Shit, was he going to have me thrown out? Killed for showing up and running my mouth, not to mention threatening him?
    He paused in pouring. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Hesitation. “No, not yet. I’ll get back to you.”
    A growl tore from his throat as he hung up the cell and pushed it back into his pocket. My lips parted at the new man I was staring at. A caged animal surfaced from the depths of the mask I was so sure I’d seen through. Glass shattered against the wall, sending liquor all over the surface.
    “Fuck! I’ll destroy him. Sending flowers to my sister. I’ll—”
    Slade’s glare melted as he turned to look at me, the composed imposter sliding back into place. “You want my help, you’ll do something for me to earn it. How does that sound?”
    Flowers? To Lily? He…another man trying to take what was mine? “Name it,” I gritted out.
    “If you’ve done your homework on me, and I have no doubt that you have, you know I have people I don’t get along with. First, I want you to tell me who those might be. Let’s see how good you really are.”
    The internal list I had made would have been pages long. Slade was far from popular. He had more enemies than anyone I’d met outside the trafficking world. “Well, there’s Taylor Williams from Putlzer, David Lang from Weston, and if you want to go way back, there’s your ex-best friend and right hand man, Christopher. He didn’t take to being fired very well, if what I heard was right. Forcefully removed from the building, so I hear.”
    Anger returned. “He hit on my wife. Showed up at my yacht while I was out of town. Mary thought she could trust him. He crossed the fucking line. He’s luckier than he knows.”
    “I have no doubts.”
    He shook his head. “Besides, I’m not worried about any of those people. This goes past that. This is about my sister.”
    Heat rushed through my limbs. “The Brightons, then?”
    A tick pulled at Slade’s eye for the briefest moment. “The flowers I mentioned came from none