“Wait.” Scotty pushed Drake back with his hand, their lips parting roughly. “I… wait.”
Drake stopped, and the distance between them, though only inches apart, felt vast. The happy buzz still humming along in his chest stuttered at the distant look in Scotty’s eyes.
“What? What is it?” Drake asked. The black fog rose from its depth, threatening to resurface.
Scotty let his chin drop for a moment, his light hair brushing against Drake’s face as he hid his face from him. But Drake had seen his expression. He had seen hesitancy, uneasiness, emotions Drake wasn’t sure he had ever seen on Scotty’s face before. Drake swallowed against a gorge in his throat at the man’s sudden retreat.
“I need to…,” Scotty said, voice so quiet Drake could hardly hear him. He’d stopped before he could finish his sentence, and Drake took a step back, trying to give him room to gather himself, but Scotty’s grip didn’t loosen. Instead, he pulled Drake closer. Bringing his head back up, Scotty searched Drake’s eyes. Drake didn’t know what he found there, but whatever it was made Scotty pull him even closer, and their lips were once again pressed firmly together.
The kiss went on and on, and Drake, back in his happy state with the fog once again repressed, never wanted it to end.
After what was surely only moments but felt like an eternity—also over too soon—Scotty pulled away. This time his eyes found Drake’s, and there was no hesitation or reluctance in his expression. Licking his bottom lip, Scotty shivered. “What were we talking about?”
Drake’s heart pounded. “You were saying that I couldn’t take a shower with you.”
“Well,” Scotty said, pulling Drake to his feet, “that was a very stupid idea.”
Chapter 19
“YOU SEEM chipper today,” Julie quirked, brushing back her long, wavy locks before pulling out a tray of glasses to stack behind the bar.
Drake tried to hold back his grin but failed miserably. “I’m doing all right.”
“Hmm, I wonder how Scotty will be doing….” Julie’s voice faded off.
Surprise ignited along Drake’s spine, but he smothered it before it could form on his face. He tilted his head questioningly. “Yeah, I hope he’s feeling better.”
With a roll of her eyes, Julie pulled a list from her apron pocket and handed it to Drake. “This is the inventory list from last night. We should be fine for now, but we’re going to need a full restock before the weekend. We had calls about at least two bachelorette parties that will be coming.”
“Yeah? That’s good. I’ll make sure to schedule some extra hands for the weekend, then.” Drake took the list and looked it over, nodding. “Everything went okay last night?”
Julie shrugged. “More of the usual. The only weird thing was some big guy came in and asked for you or Jacob. They went and talked in your office for a while. I didn’t know what it was about, and I was going to call you, but then they both left.”
Drake stilled. “They met in my office?”
“Yeah, I was going to tell Jacob that he couldn’t have guests, especially in your office, but he left before I had a chance.”
Drake shook off the chill that coursed through his veins. It probably had been someone who had come to see about Frankie. Usually they only did business like that through the back entrance, but if the person hadn’t been to the club before, they might not have known. It was fine.
“Nah, it’s fine. No biggie.” Drake smiled reassuringly. “I’m going to go put in this order and let you finish getting ready.”
“Sure thing, Boss.” Julie gave him quick salute, ticking a single finger from her forehead before returning to preparing her station.
Walking back to his office, Drake couldn’t help but feel a little nervous at the fact that Jacob had met with someone there. Had they brought someone else in while Frankie was out of commission? Frankie had said something about there being a narc in the organization. Maybe he had already passed that information to Tony, and now they were bringing in people to check it out.
The thought was enough to raise the hair on his arms.
Drake never had anything incriminating at the club. He kept everything in his room, and the only person to ever see that was Scotty.
Drake pushed open his office door and stopped. Jacob was sitting at his desk, drawers open, riffling through the folders.
“What are you doing?”
Jacob looked up as Drake pushed through the door, his face pulled into a smug tilt of lips. “Drake, you missed a hell of a meeting yesterday. Too bad you’d already left for the night.”
Keeping his shoulders back and head tall, Drake walked to his desk, dropping his paperwork. “That doesn’t sound like an answer to me.”
Putting both elbows on Drake’s desk, Jacob leaned forward, tapping his fingertips together. “Well, with Frankie being out of commission, Tony put me in charge. That’s what he came here to do yesterday.”
A chill ran down Drake’s back, but he tried to school his features. It made sense that Tony would put his nephew in charge with Frankie out, but Drake couldn’t help but feel a little offended at the jump in the chain of command.
Meeting Jacob’s arrogant gaze with a glare of his own, Drake growled, “Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing sitting at my desk.”
Completely unaffected by Drake’s power play, Jacob shrugged. “Chill, man. I just had some stuff to do is all.”
“What stuff could you possibly have to do at my desk?”
“Don’t worry about what stuff. I needed to handle a few things and I did.”
Drake didn’t let his eyes waver from Jacob’s. The kid was trying his hardest to be the alpha dog, but Drake hadn’t worked this hard and gotten this far to be usurped by an egotistical ankle biter. The kid was subbing for Frankie, that was fine, but even Frankie didn’t act as if he owned the place. Drake crossed his arms over his chest, chest out, shoulders wide, looming the best he could in an intimidating manner. He knew it had nothing on Frankie’s menacing posture, but he could sense Jacob’s courage shrinking even if the kid didn’t show it.
“All right, so you’re subbing for Frankie. That’s great, kid. Just one question. Do you own the club?”
Jacob’s brows jumped like the question surprised him. He shook his head.
Drake pulled the corners of his lips up into a tight smile. Drake shot out a leg to push the chair back enough to make Jacob reach out for a support. When his arm flailed near Drake, searching for a stable surface, Drake grasped his wrist and twisted it, using the momentum to wrench Jacob’s hand behind his back. Then with one hard thrust, he bashed Jacob’s chest against the top of the desk, following it with his weight. He gave the wrist one more twist, making the kid jerk underneath him, before growling, “Then get the fuck out of my chair.”
The words spat with venom vibrated over the desk. Drake let it sink in before releasing Jacob’s limb. He backed up just enough to give the kid room to get up, but he wanted to make sure his presence was still known.
“What the hell? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Drake eyed the kid. “Just because you have family in high places doesn’t mean that you get to disrespect the order of things. This is my club, my business, not your fucking playground. You do any shit again to undermine my authority, we will see who will be ‘in charge’ next time.”
Jacob pushed away from the desk, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. Sure, he was “in charge,” but he was still just a stuck-up, brat kid. Drake followed Jacob with his eyes as the kid moved around the desk. Once the desk was between them, Jacob dropped his hands back to his side, his fingers twitching, and Drake suddenly realized that he hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Jacob having a gun. And while Drake’s trust was won with Frankie, Jacob definitely did not have the same feelings.
Jacob lowered his chin just enough that he was looking at Drake through narrowed eyes. The silence around them thickened.
“I warned you about getti
ng in my way,” Jacob uttered, his voice dark and quiet. “Frankie isn’t around for you to hide behind anymore.”
Drake kept his expression blank. At least he hoped it was blank and didn’t reek of the anger and fear rising in his chest. “I don’t need to hide behind anyone.”
Jacob laughed, a loud bark of a sound. “You keep thinking that, Drakeybo,” Jacob said, turning on his heel.
Before Jacob could disappear, Drake stopped him. He sat down in his chair and, duplicating what Jacob had done earlier by placing both elbows on the desk and pressing his fingertips together, he waited for Jacob to turn around and face him.
“The bar is short-staffed this weekend. So, I expect you to be at your best. We wouldn’t want bad service to be a reason why the money coming in doesn’t match the money going out, now would we?”
Jacob’s smile was unwavering, his eyes dark. “You got it, Boss Man. I’m sure Scotty and I will get along just fine.” The words were crisp, curt, and cutting, and the last thing Jacob said with a smirk before disappearing, the door slamming shut behind him.
In, one, two, three, out, one two, three. Drake raked in a harsh breath and forced his body to relax. He had hoped to savor his newfound bliss for a little longer before returning to the darkness of his life.
Had he really been foolish enough to think he could partake of both worlds? Had he really thought it was possible for him to be happy, that he could get his revenge and Scotty too?
Shit.
Bile rose in the back of Drake’s throat as he thought of Jacob and Scotty working behind the bar together. He thought of all the ways Jacob could hurt Scotty. Not only could he use his inexperience and stupidity behind the bar, but Jacob also had the tools of a cartel at his fingertips. He had drugs and weapons at his disposal, any means necessary to hurt him. Not to mention the means of getting rid of a body. Fuck knew how many bodies they had disposed of this year alone.
Drake slammed his fist on his desk, sending a pen hurtling to the floor. His fist vibrated from the impact, but it wasn’t enough to calm him, so he did it again, then again, the harsh noises vanishing into the club’s pulsing ambiance. When that wasn’t enough, he swiped his arm across his desk, sending notepads, pens, and papers flying.
“Fuck!” he shouted because the airiness and light that had carried him to his office had finally been replaced by the dark fog.
He needed to think. What the hell had Jacob been doing at his desk? Sure, Tony had put him in charge but of this side of town’s operations, not the club. Drake raked a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots. What the fuck had the kid been looking for?
Drake had come in earlier than he usually did. After Scotty left he thought he’d come in to get some work done, so most likely the kid hadn’t expected to get walked in on. He hadn’t been on the computer or looking through any of the paperwork on the desk; it had all still been lying in the piles he had left them in yesterday before he’d displaced them. No, Jacob had been going through the drawers. Either he was looking for something, which would be stupid because Drake didn’t keep anything but work documents in the desk, or more likely, he was hiding something.
Drake glanced at the clock. There was still about an hour until Scotty would be coming in. Standing up, Drake crossed the office and quickly twisted the lock on the door.
The search didn’t take long. Either the kid wasn’t the grand marshal of hiding things or he had wanted the small black flash drive to be found. The device had been stashed loose in the bottom of the top drawer, probably the first place anyone would look if they were going to do a search. Hell, it had been the first place Drake had looked. Just to be safe, he completed a search of his desk, looking for anything out of place. Nothing.
Drake fingered the small black plastic box. He didn’t really know why he felt hesitant, but a queasy feeling in his gut kept him from plugging in the device. He didn’t know what he was going to find, but whatever it was couldn’t be good. Not if Jacob wanted him or someone else to find it.
Dropping his head into his hands, Drake let out a frustrated growl. This was not how he had imagined this playing out. Reaching out, Drake blindly grabbed for a tumbler on the shelf next to his desk and set it down so he could search out his scotch. He poured a couple inches of liquid into the glass and looked at it.
It was the first time he had thought about having a drink today. Usually by now he had at least one under his belt, but as he stared at the warm brown fluid, all he could think about was Scotty. Scotty didn’t like him drinking. He wasn’t going to stop him, but he didn’t like it. And even more importantly than that, Drake didn’t feel like he needed a drink when he was with Scotty. At least, not as much.
But Scotty wasn’t here, and Drake needed that spoonful of liquid courage with a touch of recklessness and a lingering smoky flavor of bitter resentment. He put the glass to his lips and sucked down a few smooth swallows, then let out a breath.
Okay, he was ready.
Without letting his thoughts get in his way, Drake quickly pushed the drive into the USB hub on his computer.
The folder opened to a series of documents. None named with anything but instead numbered. Clicking one at random, Drake eyed the information presented. At first look, he thought that the gibberish was code. The random numbers and letters splayed out meant absolutely nothing at all. But as he stared at them, he realized that, while it was in code, it was not going to be that difficult to decipher. All words were abbreviations and not necessarily abbreviated the same way each time. Any numbers that weren’t an address but instead money amounts were in roman numerals. It wasn’t necessarily code, more like shorthand for dummies. Probably so any Joe Shmoe who looked over your shoulder couldn’t figure it out.
Drake’s heart pounded with excitement as he flipped through the documents. Money and accounts. Dealers and amounts. The drive was a fountain of information. Heart beating so quickly that he couldn’t hear anything above the cacophony in his ears, Drake flipped through the pages, and then he saw something that made his stomach drop. Where his beating heart had almost overwhelmed him, now the silence was deafening. If felt as if the world had stopped.
Drake saw his name, a series of numbers, and then some roman numerals. He clicked through some pages. More numbers with his name. Times, dates, accounts, monies.
“What the fuck?” he breathed.
According to these files and bank accounts, Drake was one very wealthy man.
Drake could hardly breathe as he quickly scanned the remaining documents. He exited out of the program. He stared at the icon on the desktop. The icon that held the files that showed proof of Drake skimming money. Money Drake had never seen, in accounts Drake had never set up.
Drake’s vision blackened around the edges. His breathing came in short, quick puffs that didn’t feel like the air was actually making it to his lungs. He clicked on the icon, dragging it across his desktop.
Are you sure you want to permanently delete 12 items? The words flashed before his eyes as he hit Delete.
All air left him in whoosh as the files were deleted from the computer. Drake sat back in his chair, his limbs numb, his mind so jumbled and flighty that it might as well be blank. The moment stretched and finally feeling came back to his limbs. Leaning forward, he grabbed the bottle of scotch. Ignoring the empty glass sitting next to it, he took a long swallow directly from the bottle.
An abrupt knock on his door made him jump, goose bumps rising along his arms. His heart leaped into his throat, and he tried to swallow it back down so he could answer.
“Just a minute,” he called, steadying his voice. His limbs moved as if in hyperdrive, pulling the drive loose before dropping it carefully back to the bottom of the drawer. He glanced around the floor at the mess of papers and quickly picked up what he could, grabbing the papers and ignoring the pens and paperclips that had been strewn.
Shaking his hands, he tried to quell the nervous tremor tingling through his limbs. In and out, he counted his br
eaths before opening the door.
Scotty leaned against the wall across the hall dressed in tight black jeans and a black button-down that didn’t belie any of his assets. The man screamed sex, and Drake’s body didn’t care that he was in the middle of a meltdown. The panic ebbed slightly at the electric pull of Scotty. It was amazing the calming effect Scotty had on him.
Scotty cocked his head at Drake, licking his lips seductively, “Hey, Boss, can I come in for a moment?”
“Um, now, isn’t, um,” Drake stammered. He cleared his throat. “Now isn’t a good time.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be quick,” Scotty said and pushed past Drake.
Drake let him pass with a sigh. Scotty hardly let him finish closing the door before he turned and wrapped his arms around Drake, roughly pulling his head down for a kiss.
Drake was ready to protest, had tensed at the man’s touch, but as the warm lips devoured his, he changed his mind, melting into the warmth, the black pushed back again. He wasn’t sure how Scotty did it, but his presence alone seemed to make other things less important, and the only thing that mattered was the here and now. This. Warm lips on his, arms wrapped around each other. Drake and Scotty bound together in a tight embrace.
Apart just enough that their lips were barely touching, Drake smiled. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Scotty laughed, quick tufts of warm air against Drake’s lips. “I guess I missed you.”
Drake let his own soft laugh meld with Scotty’s. “I guess you did.” Drake nuzzled Scotty’s nose with his own. “You’re early.”
Scotty shrugged. “I had to make up for leaving early yesterday.”
“And you thought coming in and seducing your boss by imitating the opening sequence to a bad porno would be the way to make up for it?”
“Hey, it would be a great porno, thank you very much!” Scotty pushed Drake’s shoulder teasingly.
Laughing, Drake pressed his lips back to Scotty’s. He hadn’t intended for it to be anything but a quick brush of lips, but soon they were lost in each other again. Time passed without notice as they slowly and tenderly kissed. Reluctantly, Drake pulled away, but Scotty’s arms tightened around him so he couldn’t retreat far. He rested his forehead on Scotty’s, enjoying the soft breath of each of his exhales along his cooling lips.
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