Free Say You Need Me by Kayla Perrin Page A

in and out of the grocery store. Thank God, he didn’t see anyone suspicious. But he’d best get out of this public place now—just in case.
    Heading back to his van, Cecil cringed. A Pontiac. God, could life get worse than this? He missed his Jaguar and his Viper, but there was no way he could drive them. Anyone who knew him would recognize both flashy cars.
    Well, at least the Pontiac’s windows were tinted. No one should spot him in this vehicle. Still, as he opened the door to the boring van, he couldn’t help exhaling a frustrated breath.
    Hopefully, he’d hear from Eddie soon and find out who’d bought the jewelry. And hopefully he’d get his hands on some cash so that he could buy the jewelry back.
    Because this time, he’d crossed the wrong person. And if he didn’t make this situation right—and soon—he was as good as dead.

Chapter 5
    Thirty seconds into the short drive to his brother’s condo, Darrell couldn’t help wondering if he’d made one of the bigger blunders of his life.
    The woman beside him was clearly crazy. He should run, not walk, in the other direction. Five minutes in her presence last night had cost him his pride, and had given him a miserable night in Miami that he would never forget. Hell, maybe her insanity had rubbed off on him. Otherwise, why on earth would he have agreed to work with her? She’d given him a hellish twenty-four hours. What else could he honestly expect if he spent more time with her?
    All right, maybe he wasn’t being fair. She’d thought he was Cecil, so her wrath hadn’t actually been directed toward him. Now that she knew who he really was, he shouldn’t have to worry that she’d up and go berserk on him again.
    He glanced at Serena. Feeling his gaze, she angled her head toward him and gave him a half-smile.
    Darrell opened his mouth, but after a moment, he closed it. As much as he wanted to tell Serena to forget this arrangement, he couldn’t. She did have a point; two heads were better than one. But she was a feisty little thing, and that attitude of hers might get them both into trouble.
    Then again, maybe it would get them out of a snafu or two. Which he expected, given his brother’s reputation.
    Darrell’s mind wandered to Cecil and what he possibly could have done wrong this time. Though the younger twin by a few minutes, Darrell had acted as Cecil’s older brother his whole life. While Darrell had been responsible, Cecil had been irresponsible. Darrell had been studious and well behaved in school; Cecil had been a pain in almost every teacher’s butt. Not to mention other students’ butts. He fought so much as a young child that one might have guessed he was preparing for a career in the boxing ring.
    Darrell had no doubt that Cecil’s problems started when their mother abandoned them. He misbehaved as a way to get attention because negative attention was better than no attention at all. At first, he must have hoped their mother would hear of his antics and return. When she hadn’t come back, he’d continued to act up, probably hoping to get a rise out of their father, who’d become despondent after their mother’s disappearance and had turned to booze. But their father hadn’t had the patience to deal with Cecil’s antics, and in an attempt to control his son’s bad behavior, he’d beaten him every time he’d done something wrong.
    Darrell would comfort his brother at night after such beatings, having taken on the role of surrogate father almost from the moment their mother had run off with that filthy rich CEO she’d worked for. Time and again, Cecil promised Darrell he would do better, not their father. And as he held Darrell and cried and made all these promises, he sounded completely sincere. But no matter how much Cecil said he’d try harder to do the right thing, he never did.
    At age thirteen, when Cecil got caught stealing a Walk-man from a K-Mart store, their father had beat the living daylights out of him, then