His eyes, those piercing gray eyes, held her stare. “Sign this.” After she did, he muttered, “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.”

Her breath rattled in her chest as she exhaled. “But then what.”

What exactly was going to be different on the other side of all this? It wasn’t like her father was suddenly going to turn over a new leaf. Edward had barely survived William Baldwine’s willingness to choose business over his children.

“We get you out first,” Lane said. “Then we’ll deal with the rest of it.”

Glancing at her brother, she realized she had never seen him so serious before: As he leaned against the bare wall of the ugly little square room, he was so much older than when he’d left two years ago, so much more in command.

She had grown to expect such authority from Edward; never Lane, the Playboy.

“He’s going to win,” she heard herself say. “Father always wins.”

“Not this time,” Lane gritted out.

“What the hell is going on here?” Samuel T. asked.

Lane just shook his head. “You take care of this, Samuel. You just get my sister out of here. I’ll handle the rest.”

God, she hoped that was true. Because clearly her attempt at crossing their father hadn’t gone so well.

EIGHTEEN

As Lane came to a halt in front of Easterly’s front entrance, he hit the brakes on the Porsche so hard that he dragged half of the drive’s cobblestones with him into a park. He didn’t kill the engine; just got out and flew up the stone steps, passing through the double doors like a draft.

Nothing registered as he entered the mansion, not the maid cleaning the parlor. Or the butler who spoke to him. Not even his Lizzie, who stepped into his path as if she had been waiting for his appearance.

Instead, he left the house through the door at the base of the dining room and strode for the business center, crossing through the orderly arrangement of round tables under the tent and then dodging the groundskeepers who were stringing lights in the blooming trees.

His father’s place of business had a terrace onto which a series of French doors opened out, and he headed for the pair that was all the way down on the left. When he got to them, he didn’t bother trying the handle, because it would be locked.

He banged on the glass. Hard.

And he didn’t stop. Not even as he felt a wetness on the outside of his hand, which seemed to indicate he’d broken something—

Oh … he’d smashed the glass out of the first pane of his father’s office and moved on to another.

The good news, he thought, was there were plenty more where that came from.

“Lane! What are you doing?”

He stopped and turned his head toward Lizzie. In a voice he didn’t recognize, he said, “I need to find my father.”

William Baldwine’s exceedingly professional executive assistant raced into the office and her gasp came through loud and clear through the shattered glass.

“You’re bleeding!” the woman exclaimed.

“Where is my father.”

Ms. Petersberg unlatched the door and opened things up. “He’s not here, Mr. Baldwine, he’s gone to Cleveland for the day. He just left, and I’m not sure when he’ll be back. Was there something you needed?”

As her eyes went to the blood dripping off his knuckles, he knew she was heading in a may-I-bring-you-a-hand-towel direction, but he didn’t care if his veins emptied all over the place.

“Who told my father Gin left?” he demanded. “Who called him? Was it you? Or a spy in that house—”

“What are you talking about?”

“Or did you call the police on my sister? I know for a fact my father wouldn’t know how to dial nine-one-one himself even though they said he did.”

The woman’s eyes flared, and then she whispered, “He told me she was going to hurt herself. That she was going to try to leave this morning, and that I had to do what I could to stop her. He said that she needs help—”

“Lane!”

He whipped his head around to Lizzie just as things went off-balance, his body listing to one side.

With a strong hold, she caught him, and kept his weight off the ground. “Come on. Back to the house”

As he let himself get rerouted, blood fell to the flagstone terrace, speckling the gray with dark red spots. Glancing back at the assistant, he said, “You tell my father I’m waiting for him.”

“I don’t know when he’s returning.”

Bullshit, he thought. The woman scheduled William down to his bathroom breaks. “And I’ll be here until Hell freezes over.”

There was so much rage in him, he was blind to his surroundings as Lizzie guided him off. The fury was about Edward. And Gin. His mother.

Max—

“When was the last time you ate anything?” Lizzie said as she muscled him through a doorway into Easterly.

For a moment, he felt like he was hallucinating. And then he realized all the men and women in white were chefs, and that he and Lizzie were in the kitchen.

“I’m sorry, what?” he mumbled.

“Food. When.”

He opened up his mouth. Closed it. Frowned. “Noontime yesterday?”

Miss Aurora entered his field of vision. “Lands, what is wrong with you, boy.”

There was some conversation at that point, none of which he tracked. Followed by a bandaging of his hand which he didn’t pay attention to. Then more talk.