The texture of his thumb moving across her jaw was nice. Clyde was such an upright guy. He was reliable and always around when she needed support, no matter what.
“Can I stay tonight?” His eyelid twitched. She pushed his hand away from her face. “Not like that, Clyde. On the couch. Come on.”
“I knew that,” he said. Getting up, she went into the kitchen seeking takeout menus. “I knew that. I did.”
He made her laugh, he always did. Harlow reminded herself not to take him so much for granted in the future.
Clyde gave her a safe haven, away from the madness, and a place for her to make decisions. He was right. She couldn’t pardon what Ryske had done. Accepting it once would leave the door open for it to happen again. Harlow didn’t need to be saved. Although it wasn’t a happy life choice, it had been her decision to accept that the rest of her life was going to be in jail.
Ryske had thought he knew better. He must have known the mission came with risks. Still, she wouldn’t believe that he had sanctioned what happened to the guard. No way had the job been arranged to end with another murder. Accidents did happen.
The evidence that was taken from the other cases was another story. As a cover for her evidence going missing, other evidence had to be corrupted or stolen too. Were those cases vetted? She doubted it.
If the police were convinced it was a gang prank or initiation, the perpetrators couldn’t have appeared to be searching for specific case numbers. Hers would’ve been hard enough to locate discreetly. To avert suspicion, it had to appear that the evidence was lost in the melee rather than hunted down.
Harlow didn’t know what she was going to say to Ryske, or what this meant for their relationship. She needed some downtime to absorb and process so she didn’t do anything rash. Her feelings often overwhelmed her sense. That was why, at times like this, she had to put distance between her and Ryske.
All he’d have to do was kiss her or say something that reached her… Hell, he could erase her doubts with a look if he wanted to. Harlow loved him, no doubt about that. Accepting this truth was going to be difficult. Their love now came with a body count. Could she take the risk that it might keep climbing?
23
When Maze had insisted she memorize specific credit card numbers, Harlow hadn’t thought she’d ever need them. She may have even accused him of being pedantic. But, her unscheduled stay at Clyde’s left her with nothing to wear that would be suitable for a fancy restaurant. So, she had to stretch her memory and do some online shopping. Having to eventually put up with Maze’s mocking was a more appealing option than returning to Floyd’s while her mind was still screwed up.
Harlow could’ve gone back on the Wednesday, except she found herself enjoying the peace. After spending some time walking in the park, she’d cooked for Clyde. The normality was such a novelty that she’d stayed to watch a movie and fallen asleep at his apartment again.
So, when the time for her dinner date rolled around, it just made sense to get ready at his place given that it was closer to the restaurant. Clyde gave her a hug on her way out the door and a look that said be careful.
She hoped her expression conveyed her gratitude. He didn’t have to accept her into his home, disrupting his life whenever she was selfish enough to feel like showing up, but he did. She couldn’t put a price on his generosity.
Harlow knew that Ryske would be late, Ophelia would know it too. Given that he was bringing Anwen, she wouldn’t be on time either. Still, that didn’t prevent either of them from being on time.
Ophelia was just getting out a stretch limo at the same moment Harlow turned around the corner. They spotted each other, and Ophelia surprised her by waiting on the sidewalk. Before Harlow reached her, another car pulled up. Parratt, Yarker, and Lydia got out.
The group were just finishing their greetings when Harlow joined them.
“Where is he?” Parratt barked.
“Hello to you too, Gil,” Harlow said.
Ophelia looped an arm through hers. “Oh, Gil you know Ryske is never on time. The man missed his own funeral.”
The joke fell flat. Maybe because it was an actual fact.
“Let’s go inside,” Yarker said.
“Yes, yes. Of course,” Ophelia said, leading the way with Harlow still attached to her side. “Demar always has a private dining space for me.”
The owner was right inside the entrance waiting to greet Ophelia. He fell over himself welcoming their group and getting them seated. Obviously, Demar had done the math and noticed that the whole party wasn’t present. Still sucking up, he promised to go and wait for the last couple personally.
Ryske wouldn’t like the brown-noser, but that made Harlow smile. Chances were high that her love would have to restrain himself or risk getting kicked out before being shown to his seat.
Lydia sat between Parratt and Yarker at their circular table. Ophelia guided Harlow into the seat next to Yarker and then sat at her side, leaving two empty chairs between herself and Parratt.
“It’s rude,” Parratt said. “Being late for a meal is rude.”
Their personal server came and took the drinks order. “Bring an extra bourbon,” Harlow said and the server looked to Ophelia as though that request needed sanction.
“For Ryske?” Ophelia asked and laughed. “You shouldn’t order for him. You don’t have any right to—”
“She has every right,” Ryske said, causing everyone to whirl around.
Typical that he wouldn’t come through the main door of the restaurant. He’d come through a service door at the back of the room, from behind a screen that was supposed to disguise it. He moseyed over to stand next to the table, at the first empty seat by Ophelia.
Harlow didn’t know how he knew this was the room they’d be in. It was possible he’d been there before because Ophelia had said it was her favorite restaurant.
“Bring wine and bourbon for everyone,” Ophelia said and waved at the server. “Shoo. Shoo.”
The server did as told and scurried out of the room. Ophelia stood up to slide a hand onto Ryske’s shoulder so she could rise onto her tiptoes. But when she tried to kiss his mouth, Ryske leaned past her and snagged a finger through the loop of Harlow’s necklace.
He stole her attention from Anwen who was hanging back by the screen. Harlow’s curiosity had snagged there because she wondered why the woman wasn’t coming over to join them. She’d had no intention of standing up to greet her love. Ryske, it seemed, had other ideas. He drew her onto her feet and bowed to take her mouth, leaving Ophelia in the awkward position of almost being caught between them.
Having not been kissed by him for two days, Harlow wasn’t prepared for the impact. All the melancholy and confusion of the last couple of days faded and she felt herself sink into the abyss of her love for him.
When her tongue beckoned his for more, he eased back. “Let’s bug out,” he murmured, brushing his lips back and forth on hers. “Hmm?”
Without really thinking, she felt herself nodding and his fingers slipping between hers. The reaction of the others didn’t even enter her mind.
Ophelia was forced to move when Ryske pulled Harlow away from the table. “Wait, what?” Ophelia blustered. “You just arrived. You can’t leave! Why did you come if you were just going to leave?”
Ryske kept on going toward the screen and pushed open the service door to urge Harlow out. “I came to get my girl, Fi,” he said. “Your ride will wait for you, Annie.”
He didn’t wait for a response, but Harlow could hear Ophelia squawking as they departed. Ryske took her hips and pushed her down a narrow corridor that took them past the employee restroom and out the propped open fire escape.
“Can we leave Anwen with—”
Ryske spun her around and thrust her against the hard wall of the restaurant building. He planted his forearm on the wall above her head and leaned in. “I don’t give a fuck about anything ‘cept you right now,” he growled and lunged lower to steal a h
ard kiss. “What’s going on?”
“Take me to dinner; we have to talk.”
His hand moved from her side to her stomach. Smiling at his presumption, she pushed his hand down. “No, not that,” she said and cupped her hands around his face, arching her body toward him. “No matter what, I love you, okay?”
His frown intensified, implying that might not have been the right thing to say. “Trink, if you tell me someone hurt you, I’ll raze the city.”
Dropping her hands, she sank deeper against the wall. “You love me too much.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Seeking his hand, she laced their fingers together and took him from the wall. A few steps later, she spotted Noon parked in the shadows. She waved and he reciprocated, but she and Ryske kept on going out of the alley and onto the street.
“Did Anwen know you were going to abandon her at the dinner?”
“I didn’t say anything,” he said, picking up his arm that was joined to hers and looping it around her neck.
“Noon knew.”
“How do you know he knew?”
She peeked up at him. “I know my crew. If he hadn’t expected to see us walking away, you’d have said something to him or there would’ve been a question in his expression. And you told Anwen her ride would wait.”
“Noon always waits.”
“Is he going to wait for us?” she asked.
“He knows we can find our own way home,” Ryske said and kissed the top of her head. “You are coming home tonight, aren’t you?”
“Is there space for me?”
Stopping, he turned her around to examine her. “Baby, where there’s you, there’s me. If you think it’s too crowded at home—”
“I didn’t say that,” she said and took his hand off her shoulder to pull him along. “Come on, we’re never going to find a good Chinese place around here. We have to move fast.”
They walked about five blocks in the direction of home and found exactly the kind of Chinese place she loved. Not too upmarket, it had plastic tablecloths, paper lanterns and pagoda prints on the walls.
Harlow ordered more than she’d eat figuring that whatever they didn’t finish would be well-received at home.
Leaning over the table, she let her eyes slink around the room. “Don’t look now, but I think we’re on our first date.”
Ryske put down his beer and thought for a second. “Damn, baby, you might be right.”
Sitting up straighter, she touched her paper wrapped chopsticks. “Shame for you I have a rule against giving it up on the first date.”
Confident as ever, Ryske took his beer bottle to his lips again. “You will for me,” he said. “Why’d you think I picked this place? There’s a dark dead-end alley right next to here. Perfect for what I plan to do to you.”
Smiling at him, Harlow admired the cut of his jaw, the roughness of his stubble, his finger-combed hair. Ryske was a whole package on the outside. With a ripped body and menacing tattoos, he was every bit the bad boy.
Her smile began to fade. But without boundaries, without rules, he was capable of anything. His love for her would drive him beyond any limits he might try to set for himself. There wasn’t an atom in her body that doubted it. He’d do anything within his power to keep her safe, to make her happy. Nothing was too much for her.
“I bring out the worst in you,” she whispered.
His gaze drifted from the window to her. “What?”
“I think we have to stop.”
Just saying the words made her throat want to close. They wedged themselves in her voice box and battled not to be said. Harlow forced them out, though they scratched at her, cutting at the sensitive flesh within her vulnerable neck.
Tension and anger seized his body. As the words slithered into him, he became rigid. “Stop what?”
“Being… being together.”
A desperate gasp punctuated that sentence, which was exactly what she didn’t need. Harlow should be strong for this, because any chink he’d wedge open until he tore her resolve away.
Bounding around the square table, he inverted his chair, bringing it to the corner of the position perpendicular to hers. Straddling it, he hunkered down, resting his torso against the chair back and grabbing up her hand in both of his.
“Listen to me,” he said, imprisoning her hand on the back of his chair. “Look at me, Trinket. Look at me!”
Shaking her hand, he tugged her closer, forcing her dazed eyes to rise to his. It was ending. Harlow couldn’t quite believe they’d come so close to bliss and now she had to sacrifice it.
“Crash,” she whispered.
“You are the best thing in my world, in any world, goddamnit. Whatever it is, whatever happened…” He smiled and pressed her hand flat to his chest, holding it over his heart with one hand. The other snatched the side of her head, beneath her ear, in his powerful grip. “It doesn’t matter. Baby, don’t you get it? Nothing matters more than this. You and me, we’re gonna own the world.”
He’d said that to her before, so long ago that it felt like an illusion. “What we feel, it killed people, Crash. People died so we could be together.”
His optimism faded into concern. “You’re talking about the guard.”
Loose because she was a little out of it, Harlow nodded. She was aware enough to be grateful he wasn’t lying to her or playing ignorant. But, she had to know how far his honesty went or if he’d try to cover his tracks.
“Was it us?” she murmured. “Did we arrange it?”
A beat of silence passed before he answered, “Yes.”
24
Sucking in a shaky breath, relief came with knowledge, but there was a deluge of guilt too.
“Goddamnit, Ryske,” Harlow said, pulling her hand away from him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it was my burden. It didn’t go down like it was supposed to. A bunch of stuff went wrong, but we got the result… And I know you’re not an idiot; I thought you’d figured it out. ‘Cept you didn’t ask, so I thought you were protecting yourself. If you didn’t want the details, I wasn’t going to force them on you.”
“Protecting myself?” Harlow was so offended that she wanted to punch him. Instead, she clenched her jaw and huffed out her words. “Protecting myself? You asshole.” She socked his shoulder. “When have I ever put myself above us, above our crew, above the truth? Huh? Protect myself, fuck you.”
“You didn’t need to know. At first, it was plausible deniability. I was protecting you.”
“And after? I asked you when we were in bed at my parents’ if there were any other secrets and you said no. How can I ever trust you, Ryske? Clearly, you don’t trust me.”
“Don’t trust—where the hell did you come up with that?”
“Plausible deniability? So, what? If the cops asked what I knew, I might just spill everything in exchange for a deal, is that what you think? I was willing to rot in jail so you and the guys didn’t have to answer about Pothos and your pasts. I was willing to do that for you. Why wouldn’t I have kept this secret too?”
“I don’t want you to resent what we do,” he said, matching her anger. Having this kind of discussion in a public place meant a lot of hissing and mumbling. Still, it was better to draw attention to themselves with the odd raised word and obvious tension than to have this conversation at home where there would be all out war. “Me and the guys have connections all over. We’re used to making a plan and getting things done.”
“And killing people? You didn’t tell me you’re used to that.”
“Non-lethal force was the instruction, but the guy kept coming. Idiot wouldn’t stay down. He got up and lost his footing, he fell and hit his head. That was the injury that put him in a coma. No one beat him to a pulp or used a weapon.”
“It wouldn’t have happened if our people weren’t in there.”
“They weren’t our people. These things happen with six degrees of separation. Everybody kn
ows something; no one knows it all.”
“And what about the others who got out, huh? Killers back on the street. How do we live with ourselves if they kill again?”
Shaking his head, he balled his fists on the table, pushing deeper against the back of the chair. “We did our homework. Why do you think it took us three months to get it done? If we didn’t care what we were doing, it would’ve happened overnight.”
“I don’t understand what you’re…”
“We weren’t the only interested parties. We matched people to those who had evidence in that locker. We weren’t the only ones who had people inside we wanted to get out.”
“So you had another consortium? Nice. A consortium of killers.”
“We did our homework. Those people were either innocent or victims of circumstance.”
“What about the guy who killed his wife and kids?”
He scowled and pushed back. “Vehicular manslaughter. That guy has to live with what he did for the rest of his life. The DA says it was deliberate, but we looked at the details, there’s no way… We checked everyone out. Then Maze went into the system and made sure that gradually, as we vetted and approved someone, that all the evidence was moved to the same area. He had a map of the whole place. There wasn’t a sheet of paper in there that he couldn’t account for. We made up replicas, so they would know exactly what was in each box. They memorized it, so they wouldn’t come out with a thing they shouldn’t have. They didn’t touch anything they weren’t supposed to. Evidence that wasn’t vetted wasn’t touched. The stuff they smashed up was window dressing, cop stuff that meant nothing. The graffiti was in the hallways and outside. It was a performance, theater… Baby, you have to believe me, we were thorough.”
So that was how the perpetrators had known where to go and what to look for.
“Until the last step,” she said, raising her gaze from the table. “Until it came to telling me.”
“I won’t apologize for what we did,” he said, sitting up straight. “To get you out, I’d do it again.”
Go All In (A Go Novel Book 4) Page 19