by Rose, Emery
“Now you wanna sit around and dish the dirt? Should we plan a slumber party too?”
“Your track record suggests two weeks. A month tops.”
I kept my mouth shut. He read between the lines.
“Holy shit. You’re in love.”
I remained silent, but I didn’t deny it.
“Is that a smart move?”
“Never said I was smart.”
“You don’t usually think with your dick either.” That was true. In the past, I never had. In the past, nobody had ever gotten under my skin the way Keira did either. “Is she involved in this assignment?”
I shook my head. “No. I’d stay away from her if she was.”
Max nodded. He knew I had hard lines and I would never get involved with Keira if she was somehow tied up with this assignment. “She has nothing to do with it. She’s not mixed up in her old man’s business.”
“It’s not easy getting out from under that though.” He sounded skeptical like he didn’t believe that she could get out from under it. I understood what he was saying.
“She doesn’t want anything to do with that life,” I said firmly. However, Max and I both knew that sometimes innocent victims got dragged into shit simply by virtue of being a criminal’s family member. The other shocking truth was that the criminal underground was smaller than you’d think, in the sense that they all moved in the same circles.
“I need to get going.” Off to meet my Russian BFF for a few boxing rounds at the gym. My face was already a disaster. What could a few more punches hurt?
“Thanks for stopping by and interrupting my beauty sleep,” Max said.
“You never sleep past seven, you whiney bitch.”
“Someday it’ll happen. I’ll take a power nap later.” He stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles above his head, his signature move. “Got a hot date tonight.”
“With your right hand?”
“This place is seeing plenty of action.”
“Make sure there are clean sheets on my bed before I get home.” I strode to the door, sparing a look at my comfortable-as-shit sofa and flat-screen TV. My loft was in a former tea factory with exposed brick walls, time-worn hardwood floors and big windows that let the light in. Meanwhile, I was staying in a shitty apartment in Long Island City, furnished with only the bare necessities.
“Hey Ramsey,” he called after me.
I turned to look at him.
“How many close calls have you had?”
“Too many.” Unlike me, Max had never pulled the trigger on his gun, never killed a man in a living room shootout in Greenpoint. I had blood on my hands, but I’d do it all over again, if I had to.
“Don’t try to play hero.”
I grinned, splitting my lip again. Fuck. “I don’t have to try. Just comes naturally.”
“You’re a maverick, boy. I don’t like mavericks,” Max said, mimicking Seamus Vincent, our favorite former police chief. “You know why mavericks are dangerous? They ain’t team players.”
“Hey. You’re a damn good cop,” he said in his normal voice, sensing I needed to hear those words of reassurance. “Everyone who’s ever worked with you knows that you’d have their back.”
“Catch you later. When this is over, we’ll have a few rounds at the pub.”
“As long as you’re buying, I’m in.”
Cheap bastard. But I’d owe him for getting those street races shut down. My IOU list was getting longer by the day. Abby had gotten Angel a nanny job just like I knew she would. Hopefully, it would work out for both parties.
On my way back to Long Island City, I did a drive-by and was relieved to see Keira’s Charger parked across the street from Atlas Motors. Tate was out front, talking to a guy leaning against a Harley. The guy’s back was to me, but I knew it was Connor. Tate lifted his head and stared directly at me, even though he couldn’t see me through the window. I was tempted to stop and talk to Connor and Tate. Then go inside and find Keira. Ask her how she’s feeling. Take her for coffee or a walk. But I kept driving, knowing I couldn’t do any of that. I had work to do and it was going to be a long day.
16
Keira
As I exited the restroom, Tate called to me from his office. I popped my head in the doorway and he swiveled his chair around to face me.
“What’s up, boss?”
“Stop calling me boss,” he grumbled.
“Would you prefer asshat?”
He snorted. “Close the door.”
Uh oh. I closed the door and studied his face, his gaze more intense and unnerving than usual.
“Pull up a chair.”
This was worse than getting called to the principal’s office. Was I getting fired? I dragged over the orange plastic chair from the corner and sat facing him. I was operating on a few hours of sleep and felt all jangly. Sitting in close quarters with Tate was not helping, but I was prepared to beg and grovel for my job, if necessary.
“I love this job,” I said, rushing in. “And if you—”
He held up his hand to stop me. “It’s not about the job. This is about you.”
“Me?” I breathed a sigh of relief that was premature. “I’m fine.” I smiled.
“Uh huh.” That was all he said. Silence fell around us, and I knew that Tate would be quite happy to choke on the silence before breaking it. We’d never had a personal chat, so I didn’t know what to expect or where this was headed. I sat in silence and waited for him to enlighten me.
His office smelled like coffee and brake fluid. My eyes roamed around the room, looking for something interesting to catch my attention. A stack of invoices sat next to a desktop monitor with a blank screen. An Atlas Motors mug filled with pens. A gray metal filing cabinet. Nope. Nothing of interest. The silence stretched out between us.
I cracked first. “What exactly do you want to talk about?”
“How you feeling about your old man?”
He went right for the jugular. Tate and I didn’t usually talk about personal things or God forbid, feelings.
“I’m fine. It’s all good.” As good as it could get after yesterday’s news and last night’s disaster in the parking lot.
“Cut the bullshit. How are you doing? Nothing you tell me will go beyond these four walls.”
Connor told me that Tate was like his priest and he was the sinner sitting in the confessional box. Maybe it would feel good to talk to someone who wasn’t as close to me. Someone who was more neutral than the other people in my life.
“What was it like? Being in prison?” I’d wanted to ask him this for a while but had never had the guts.
“You want the truth, or you want me to sugar-coat it? It’s prison. It ain’t a picnic.”
“I know,” I said quietly. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I just…it’s hard to think of him in prison. It’s better not to think about it at all.”
“Holding shit like that inside eats away at a person. By trying not to think about it, you ain’t dealing with it. And take it from me…that shit always comes back to bite you in the ass.” He leaned his elbows on his thighs and studied my face. “You need to visit him.”
I shook my head, horrified at the prospect. I might be brave in a lot of ways, but that would require the kind of bravery I didn’t have. Facing my worst fears. The possibility of…I didn’t even know. More rejection. He probably hated me. I wasn’t his darling girl anymore. “No.”
“You came in here back in November all piss and vinegar. I’ve watched you go through a hell of a lot more than most twenty-year-old girls would ever deal with—”
“I’ll be twenty-two in January.”
“Yeah, yeah. Twenty. Twenty-two. Same difference. You’re still a kid.”
“I don’t feel like a kid. I don’t feel like I’ve been a kid in a really long time.”
“I didn’t say you act like one,” Tate said. “Just that you’re a hell of a lot younger than me. You’re tough and you’re strong. I admire the way you�
��ve handled all this shit. But I’ve seen the doubt creep in. I’ve seen you grapple with your conscience. It’s natural. It’s what makes you human. You still love your old man. No crime in that. Someday you need to go down there and visit him. Put this thing to rest.”
I had no idea that Tate saw all that. Maybe he had observed a lot more than I’d expected, yet he had kept it under his hat all this time. “He won’t want to see me. He’ll never forgive me.”
“You don’t need his forgiveness. You need to find a way to forgive yourself. You can’t do that by running away.”
I let that sink in for a minute. It sounded familiar. “Is this the kind of stuff you told Connor?”
“Close enough.”
“You only hired me because of Connor.” An abrupt change of subject, my specialty.
“And I only keep you on because you’re good at your job.”
It was the first time he’d ever acknowledged that, and it meant a lot to me. “Thanks, Tate.”
“No problem.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You wanna tell me about the black Escalade?”
“The black Escalade?” I cleared my throat. Playing dumb wouldn’t fly with Tate. “We don’t need to talk about that.”
He raised his brows. Maybe he thought I was in trouble. “It’s not…I’m not doing anything illegal.”
I mentally rolled my eyes. I sounded like a dork.
“Well, thanks for the chat, Tate.” I returned the orange chair to the corner and opened the office door behind me. “I need to get to work. My boss is a slave driver. So yeah, I’m just gonna go now.” I backed out of the office with a little wave.
His mouth twitched with amusement. “Okay, you do that.”
“Okey dokey.”
“And Keira?”
I poked my head back in the doorway.
“I’ve got a job for you.”
Oh, no. No, no, no. Please don’t let it be what I think it is.
He stood and gestured that I should go ahead of him and sure enough, he steered me toward a black Porsche 911 that had been brought in earlier.
“I need you to detail it.”
Was this punishment? Was he trying to make a point?
“Martin does all the detailing,” I pointed out. Unlike me, Martin loved detailing cars. I craned my neck, looking for Martin to come to the rescue and claim this job as his own. But he was nowhere to be seen.
“Martin ain’t here. I’m busy. Pete’s busy. Phil’s busy. So that leaves you. You good with that?”
It was a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah, sure.”
I wasn’t good with that because detailing cars was my least favorite job in the garage. Detailing a Porsche 911 that looked almost identical to the one I borrowed from my father, except for the color, made the prospect even less appealing. But I wasn’t a spoiled princess from Miami, and I wasn’t about to act like one, so I hooked myself up to my music and got to work without grumbling about it.
* * *
“See? I told you this table and chairs would come in handy,” Ava said, stabbing a dumpling with her chopsticks.
“Yep. It’s great,” I said distractedly.
“The photos look great on that wall,” Eden said, looking at the wall next to my flat screen TV. Last week, Deacon had helped me hang the black-framed black-and-white wedding photos—candid shots of me, my brothers, Ava and Eden as well as a few staged shots.
“I love the one of your first dance,” I said, dipping my egg roll in spicy mustard. It was a gorgeous photo. Eden’s head was tilted, a soft smile on her face as Killian whispered something in her ear.
“I love the one of you with Killian and Connor,” she said.
I did too. It was also Deacon’s favorite, but I didn’t mention that. The camera had caught us mid-laugh. We looked so happy and carefree.
A knock sounded on my door and I threw down my egg roll and jumped up from the table, my chopsticks clattering to the floor.
“I’ll get it,” Ava said, already out of her seat and halfway to the door. She was closest to the door, so it made sense, but I zipped past her thankful that my legs were longer, and practically shoved her aside. Flattening my palms on the door to prevent her from opening it, I checked the peephole. Killian and Connor. I let out a breath of relief as I opened the door and ushered them inside, ignoring the funny look Ava gave me.
Connor grabbed a stool from my kitchen and he and Killian took their seats at the table, loading up their plates with steamed vegetables, chicken and brown rice that had obviously been specially ordered for them. If I hadn’t been so distracted, I would have noticed. It was also possible that Eden or Ava had mentioned that my brothers would be joining us. I couldn’t remember. Eden and Ava had surprised me with a visit and Chinese food. I was still out of sorts from last night and I’d worked until eight tonight before Tate forced me to go home.
A throat cleared and I looked across the table at Ava who raised her brows. A quick look around the table confirmed that all eyes were on me, waiting for the answer to a question I’d obviously missed.
I shook my head to clear it. “Sorry. What?”
Ava pointed her chopsticks at me. “Why were you so freaked out about answering the door? You practically knocked me over to get there.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“Uh, no, it’s not,” Eden said. “You sprinted to the door and shoved Ava aside.”
I winced. “Sorry, Ava.”
“Yeah, okay, fine. But we’re waiting for an explanation, not an apology.”
I shrugged. “It’s my apartment and you’re my guests. I should be the one to answer the door.” It was lame, but it was the best I could come up with.
“Have you had any problems with security in this building?” Killian asked, his face lined with worry.
Yes, a certain detective can pick my locks—a pin tumbler lock and a deadbolt—in ten seconds flat. I didn’t know how long it took him and to be fair, he didn’t make a habit of it, but locks and alarm systems were not impenetrable, no matter how good they were.
“No. My building is fine. It’s safe and secure.” Nothing in this world was safe and secure, but I didn’t need to spell that out for Killian. He knew that. Besides, I didn’t want him worrying about me. I didn’t want anyone worrying about me.
Ava gave me a sly smile. “Well, guess we’ll all have to hang out tonight and wait for Keira’s secret lover to turn up.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but he’s taking the night off,” I joked.
Ava winked at me. “You must have worn him out last night.”
“You have no idea,” I said, keeping up with the jokey tone. But it was true. I had worn him out. Unfortunately, not the way I would have wanted to.
“Feel free to share the details,” Eden said.
Killian held up his hands. “I don’t need to hear this.”
“Ditto,” Connor said.
I laughed and ate my Lo Mein. I could feel Connor watching me, but I pretended not to notice. “So, are you guys ready for your road trip?”
“All packed and ready to go,” Ava said, her face lighting up at the thought of their two-week road trip to California. Apparently, they’d been talking about it for years and now it was happening. They were leaving tomorrow in the Mustang. “I made a detailed itinerary,” she teased.
“If it’s on the iPad you’re shit out of luck, babe.”
“What did you do with my iPad? I need it for work.”
“No, you don’t,” Killian said. “We’ve been over this.”
“But you’ll need help with the new—”
“Ava. I’ve got it covered,” Killian said.
She deflated a little, but then she smiled. “Thank you.”
“I owe you that and more.”
They exchanged a look I couldn’t read, no doubt thinking of something from their past I wasn’t privy to. “You owe me nothing, Killian. We’re even.”
Killian nodded, ac
cepting her assurance that they were even, and all debts had been more than paid.
We talked about the new space that Killian had recently acquired which would be a rec room for the teens. It was right next to his gym and they were installing a kitchen, basketball hoops, and a lounge area for the kids to hang out in. They were also expanding their volunteer program and it sounded as if Connor, Ava, and Eden were already on board.
“I’d like to volunteer,” I told Killian. “Cleaning, painting, whatever you need me to do.”
“You have time for that?” he asked skeptically.
I nodded. “Yep. I can come after work and on my days off.”
“I talked to Tate this morning,” Connor said. “He says you’re working too hard. Putting in twice as many hours as you should be.”
I rolled my eyes. I’ve had this conversation with Tate already but decided to turn it back around on Connor who was always working. “How many hours do you work at your tattoo shop?”
“Too many,” Ava said, answering for him. “He lives there.”
“You have no room to talk,” Connor said. “You put in way too many hours working. Which is why we need this road trip.”
“No rest for the wicked.”
Connor grinned. “Keeps us out of trouble.”
Ava returned his grin. “Most of the time.”
“You don’t have room to talk about working too much either,” Eden said, pinning Killian with a look.
“Yeah, okay, Sunshine. And you didn’t stay up all hours working on those paintings for Zeke’s new restaurant.”
“That’s not work. That’s…I love painting.”
“Zeke isn’t paying you for those paintings? You’re just doing it as a hobby?” Killian asked, his brows raised.
“You know he’s paying me.”
“Damn straight he’s paying you. So, that’s a job, right? You were doing your job.”
Eden clapped her hands together. “Okay, let’s just drop it. We all like working. We all like what we do. End of story.”
Killian chuckled. “Glad we got that straight.” He turned to me. “We’d love to have your help. Thanks for offering.”