by Abigail Roux
unmade bed.
“It’s before noon, man,” Micah mumbled as he ran his
hand through his hair and fought back a yawn. “That’s
always a bad time,” he informed them, refusing to be
embarrassed by the state of his home or himself.
“You’re the tennis pro at the club, are you not?” Walker
asked him softly. “And you give some of their sailing lessons as well, is that right?”
“It’s my day off,” Micah answered with a frown.
“You don’t seem surprised to see us,” the man observed
with a narrowing of his green eyes.
“The club’s a tight place. Word’s gotten around about
your investigation,” Micah responded with a narrowing of his own green eyes. “You’re causing a lot of undue grief, you
know that?”
“Yeah, Cain and Abel are breaking our hearts,” Walker
muttered with a roll of his eyes. He looked around the one-
room apartment with what Micah thought was undue
interest. “Word is, you and the younger Bainbridge are very 68
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close,” the man practically cooed with a condescending
smirk as he looked back at Micah.
“His last name is Satterwight,” Micah responded softly.
He ignored the rest of what the detective was implying.
He had been called every name under the sun for his sexual
preferences and been given every sort of leer, knowing smirk, and disdainful grimace possible. Hell, he’d even tolerated the occasional physical bullying. This prick of a police detective was not going to make him hang his head in shame.
Especially not where Addison was concerned.
“Did Reggie Bainbridge know about you and his son?”
Morgan asked in a much more neutral tone.
Micah looked at the man, momentarily nonplussed by
the question. “I don’t know.” He shrugged.
“Word is, ol’ Reg didn’t like Addison’s taste in partners,”
Walker offered.
“What of it?” Micah asked in annoyance. “Lots of dads
don’t like it when their sons like dick,” he responded acidly.
Walker snorted in amusement.
“My old man certainly didn’t. That’s why he knocked me
around until I got bigger than he was,” Micah spat at him.
Walker merely nodded his agreement as he turned and
began to walk slowly around the apartment. Micah watched
him warily, wondering again where Addison had gone. He
hoped the man had taken what was left of the cocaine with
him, at least. If Micah was going to get busted for
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possession, he at least wanted the drugs to be his when it happened.
“We’ve spoken to some of Mr. Satterwight’s previous…
partners,” Morgan told Micah gently with an unreadable
glance at Walker.
“Look dude, whatever you tell me about Addison’s past
is not going to shock me all that much,” Micah told the man in agitation. “I know he’s gotten around,” he said distractedly as he watched Walker.
He didn’t like the man wandering unchecked through
his place. He stopped at the end of Micah’s bed and looked
down at the rumpled sheets thoughtfully. Micah shifted
uncomfortably and tore his eyes away from the wandering
detective to look back at his partner.
“You may be surprised to hear that Addison’s father
made visits to some of those partners,” Morgan continued,
undeterred.
Micah blinked at him in surprise. He could only imagine
the terror it would cause someone Addison was fucking, to
open his door to find Reggie Bainbridge standing there. The man had been scary even when he was smiling.
Micah didn’t comment. He felt as if they were trying to
corner him, and he told himself to start giving simple yes
and no answers. The less he said, the less chance he could
hurt Addison. He’d been right; the cops were looking at him.
What he apparently hadn’t been right about was the motive.
Past lovers didn’t have anything to do with inheritance.
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“Some of them claim Reggie Bainbridge threatened them
or offered to pay them off if they would leave his son alone,”
the detective continued neutrally.
Micah huffed and crossed his arms over his bare chest.
The hard muscles of his tanned arms jumped as he tensed.
“That sounds like him. And?” he asked in irritation.
“Did Reginald Bainbridge come to you at any point in
your relationship with Addison?” Walker asked from the
other side of the room.
“No,” Micah answered immediately through gritted
teeth.
“You sure about that, Mr. Parrish?” Morgan asked
softly. “Life could get very interesting if you’re lying to us.”
“I think you’d better leave. Now,” Micah said to him
coldly as he stepped aside, held his hand out, and gestured to the door.
“One more question, if you will,” Walker murmured as
he strolled back toward them nonchalantly.
Micah bit the inside of his cheek to make sure he didn’t
mouth off to the man.
Walker inclined his head and looked Micah over with
obvious disdain. “Does Satterwight pay you to use you like
he does?” he asked curiously.
Micah’s jaw clenched, but he refused to rise to the bait.
“We take turns,” he finally said to the man with a defiant
sneer.
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Walker grinned and chuckled darkly as he brushed past
Micah and headed for the door.
ADDISON stood at the courtesy desk, dressed impeccably—
as he always was during daylight hours—and looking
perfectly sober and normal. Brayden didn’t know how he
managed to party all night long and still look like he did the next day. There were never any dark circles under his eyes, never any hard lines around his mouth, never even any
bloodshot eyes.
Brayden could take Nyquil and wake up twelve hours
later looking like he’d just been steamrollered.
He stalked up to Addison and leaned over the desk to
glare at him as Addison wrote in a logbook.
Addison glanced up when he sensed that someone was
standing in front of him. He did a double-take and jumped
slightly when he found Brayden’s face so close to his.
“What?” he exclaimed in surprise. “Jesus,” he huffed as
he looked around and rolled his eyes. “Christ, man. What,
you forgot to turn off the stealth mode?” he grumbled.
The hostess who stood beside him was covering her
mouth and trying not to giggle or look at them.
“Where have you been?” Brayden demanded angrily.
“Brayden, it’s eight o’clock in the morning,” Addison
muttered with a shake of his head as he went back to writing 72
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in his logbook. His voice was low and rough, as if he might have a cold coming on or a sore throat.
Brayden forced himself to not think about what his kid
brother might have done to his throat to make it that way.
Knowing Addison like he did,
the possibilities were literally endless.
“Technically,” Addison continued with a wave of his
hand, “I won’t be here for another hour, okay? Go give
someone else an ulcer ’til then,” he suggested dismissively.
“Julie,” Brayden snapped at the hostess.
The girl looked up at him with wide eyes and then
nodded before scurrying away and leaving them alone to
fight.
Addison watched her go with a frown and looked back at
Brayden in consternation. He reached under the counter and
extracted a muffin he had apparently placed there earlier—
his breakfast, being saved for later. He handed it to Brayden with a raised eyebrow. “Bran?” he offered sarcastically.
“The cops have been all over the fucking place,” Brayden
snarled without responding to the proffered muffin. “I’m
closing the club for the week,” he declared as Addison’s eyes widened in alarm. “We’ll have some sort of refurbishing work done,” Brayden went on with a wave of his hand at the foyer around them, glancing over his shoulder with a slightly wild look in his normally calm eyes.
“Jesus, Brayden,” Addison murmured in concern as he
seemingly looked at his brother in a new light. “You’re
panicking,” he observed in amused shock.
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“Yes!” Brayden hissed unashamedly as he glanced
around them nervously then lowered his head to glare at
Addison.
“Well, stop,” Addison urged softly. “You’re freaking me
out, man,” he muttered as he closed the logbook and looked
over Brayden’s shoulder at the front entrance. Brayden
turned to look at the front door to see Micah Parrish
standing there and motioning for Addison to come unlock
the door. The club wouldn’t open for nearly another hour.
“Ugh,” Brayden huffed as Addison went to let the man
in. He rested his forehead against the cool wood of the front desk in a rare display of frustration and listened to them
greet each other. He was careful not to move his forehead
from the greeter’s desk or indicate that he could hear. It
wasn’t exactly the lovey-dovey greeting he had expected.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Micah hissed as soon
as the doors opened. He stepped inside and pulled them
closed again with a loud clang.
Brayden straightened up and turned to look at them
with a frown.
“What?” Addison responded in confusion. He was
looking at Micah critically and backing away from him
slightly, like a man in a museum, backing away from a large painting in order to get the entire picture. “You look like hell,” he observed as he looked Micah up and down.
Micah returned the look in exasperation.
“What?” Addison asked again, his voice entirely
innocent.
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“Where the hell did you disappear off to?” Micah asked
in agitation.
“I have the early shift today. I had to go home and get
clothes that didn’t smell like smoke,” Addison explained. “I left a note,” he added defensively as he reached out and
brushed at Micah’s shoulder.
Micah watched his hands as Addison brushed and
tugged at his shirt, straightening it out, and then he pulled at his polo and brushed at the front of it like it might have been habit for Addison to help him spiff up. He seemed to
realize what he was doing and he slapped Addison’s hands
away with a frustrated growl.
Brayden was hard-pressed not to laugh at them.
“The cops were at my place this morning,” Micah told
Addison in a quiet voice that still managed to carry to
Brayden in the empty foyer of the club.
“What?” Addison responded angrily, his innocent
teasing suddenly forgotten. “Why? What did they want?”
“They were asking about you and your dad and….”
Micah answered in a worried voice, trailing off with a shake of his head.
“Me and my dad and what?” Addison demanded. “The
money?” he guessed heatedly. “They want to know how
much I inherited?”
“No,” Micah answered regretfully. “They were asking
about your… past partners,” he said with obvious distaste.
“Wanted to know how your dad felt about it all.”
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“Fuck,” Addison spat.
Brayden sighed heavily. So that was the angle the
investigators were taking. He had so hoped they would go
the money route. It would have been easier to deal with.
“What did you tell them?” he demanded of Micah.
Micah and Addison both turned to stare at him as if
they had forgotten he was there. Micah glanced at Addison
uneasily and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, waiting for Addison’s permission to respond.
Addison nodded at him and looked away, rubbing his
mouth with his fingertips.
“Come to my office,” Brayden growled at them both.
“The fucking cops are working together on this; we may as
well be too,” he snarled as he turned and headed for the door to one of the various hidden stairwells of the club.
The winding stairwell led directly to Brayden’s office.
The entrance was hidden in the paneling of the foyer
downstairs, and the exit was hidden behind a section of the hexagonal bookshelves in the office wall. It had been added to the original plan of the club by Brayden and Addison’s
great-grandfather during construction of the building, but he had never actually put it into use. Not that anyone knew of, anyway. It had remained forgotten and unused ever since
the club was built, until Brayden and Addison had found it
on one of their midnight forays into the club as children.
Brayden stalked around the office as Addison and Micah
slipped through the door behind him. It was obvious from
Micah’s expression that he hadn’t even suspected the
stairwell was there. Brayden knew rumors swirled through
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the staff about the hidden passages and rooms in the club,
but obviously none of the rumors were taken at face value by many of them.
“Tell me everything,” Brayden demanded of the two men
as soon as he was certain they couldn’t be overheard. He
had seen that the duct problem was fixed days ago.
“Tell you what?” Addison asked with a huff. “There’s
nothing to tell, Brayden!”
“Were you followed last night?” Brayden asked
knowingly. “What did you do?”
“Nothing… out of the ordinary,” Addison muttered with
a glance at Micah. “And I don’t know if we were followed,” he spat sarcastically. “I missed How to Spot a Tail day when I was at Camp Superspy.”
Brayden shook his head angrily, but he couldn’t manage
to respond with anything other than a spitting sound.
“Sonny, they were asking about your dad and how he
felt about your… preferences, was how they put it,” Micah
murmured as he began to pace. “They wanted to know about
him and how he’d treated you, how he’d treated your past
lovers, and they asked if he’d ever thr
eatened me to stay
away from you,” he supplied worriedly. “It sounded like they were looking for motive.”
“They’ve already got motive!” Addison shouted in
agitation as Brayden stared at Micah. “They’ve got about
twenty million motives!” Addison continued, oblivious to both Micah’s discomfort and Brayden’s annoyance.
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“They have to know that inheritance wouldn’t stand up
in court,” Brayden argued quietly as he found his calm once more and began trying to think rationally. “We both have
money and Father was never stingy in that respect. Your
boy’s right; they’re probably looking for something more
concrete.”
“My boy?” Addison echoed incredulously, momentarily
sidetracked as he looked at Brayden oddly.
Brayden shrugged helplessly and gestured at Micah.
“Look, whatever,” Micah interjected with a wave of his
hand. “The point is, they’re really digging, Sonny. You’ve got to start taking this more seriously,” he insisted.
“I’m calling John,” Brayden announced with a shake of
his head. He headed for the desk and the telephone.
“You’re calling our lawyer?” Addison asked with a sneer.
“Yeah, Brayden, that won’t just scream ‘we killed our daddy’
to the cops. We need a better plan than what screaming ‘I
want my lawyer’ entails.”
“Fuck you,” Brayden responded matter-of-factly as he
picked up the phone and dialed. “I’m calling John,” he
repeated as the phone rang at the other end.
Addison was at his side in a heartbeat. He placed his
finger on the receiver gently and looked up at Brayden
expressionlessly. Brayden turned on him in outrage.
Addison shook his head and held Brayden’s gaze
unerringly. “Don’t panic,” his younger brother whispered to him seriously.
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Brayden stopped short and simply stared at him.
“Trust me,” Addison urged in the same soft, collected
whisper.
Brayden met his eyes for a brief moment of indecision
before nodding and slowly setting the phone back in its
cradle.
“MR. Grace?” Detective Ray Morgan called as he and Sam