Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nora
T he heavy bass of dance music vibrates through the air as Kate and I step through the doors at Legend. The overhead lights are on, and the club’s sleek interior gleams as a woman in a purple jumpsuit polishes the chrome railings and stainless steel surface to a high shine. Two people chat good-naturedly behind the bar as they refill the beer coolers. And a woman in her forties with a red Legend polo shirt is directing two muscled guys about where to unload the CO2 tanks.
Wow. It feels like a different world than the one Kate, Tanya, and I scoped out last month. My chest tightens at the memory. Things have changed so drastically.
“Here we go.” Kate grins, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Are you okay?”
“Do you think Tanya’s with us somehow, cheering us on?”
“Absolutely.”
“I still feel bad. She should be here with us.”
Kate squeezes my hand and offers me a sympathetic smile. “If you had been taken, would you want Tanya and me to push forward and continue with the plan?”
My answer is immediate. “Yeah. One hundred percent.”
“I would, too. That’s how I know Tanya is fist-pumping the air somewhere in the afterlife, cheering us on.”
I can picture that so easily. She absolutely is.
A thirty-something guy with dark military cut hair and tattoos peeking out from the black ‘STAFF’ T-shirt he’s wearing steps out from behind the bar. He has kind eyes and a relaxed swagger as he gives us a friendly, two-finger wave. “Howeyah, ladies? Might you be Nora and Kate?”
“That’s us,” Kate says.
“Excellent. I’m Jay Leone, and I’m your general manager and boss. I’ll have you handle some administrative stuff, and then I’ll hand you over to Alexis for your job training. Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” Kate says.
Jay checks with me and I give him a nod. “Perfect. Thanks.”
“Good. Then let’s kickstart your Legend adventure, shall we?”
“Absolutely!” Kate is bouncing on the balls of her feet.
We follow him back toward the bar. “First things first—I need to take a photocopy of your licenses for your employee files.”
The two of us dig into our bags until we pull out our IDs.
Jay grabs a couple of black glossy folders and a clipboard from behind the bar. He slides our licenses under the metal clip of his clipboard and hands us each a folder. “While I get your ID copied, grab a seat and check out the orientation package. It’s basic admin stuff, the form to fill out with your banking info to set you up on payroll, shift changes, what to expect on your first night here, how to handle any safety concerns, stuff like that. My card is in there, if you need something and can’t get through to Alexis.”
When Jay strides off to copy our IDs, Kate and I grab a seat at one of the tables and flip our folders open. “He’s nice .” Kate grins, running a finger over his business card stapled to the inside corner of our folders. “And he gave us his number.”
I chuckle. “To call if we need him for work stuff.”
Kate waves my words away. “Stop being so sensible. Let a girl daydream.”
“My bad.” I’ll leave the daydreaming to her because while Jay is hot and seems super nice, my broken heart belongs to another. I can’t imagine anyone ever making me feel that level of passion and exhilaration again.
Brendan ruined me.
Pushing that thought out of my mind, I flip through the paperwork—and there is a wad of it to go through: banking, uniforms, locker protocols, shift expectations…
“All right, ladies! Follow me.” Jay hands us back our licenses as he leads us past the bar and through a black door marked ‘Staff Only’.
“This is the ten-cent tour, so keep up.” Jay strides down the corridor in front of us and Kate checks out his ass and waggles her brows at me. “On the left we have the staff washrooms, the lockers where you put your stuff, the break room, and then the offices. My office is the first one you’ll come to and our owner, Tanner Fraser, has the office at the end of the hall.”
He stops when we get to the end and turns around. “On the opposite side of the hall going back to the club floor, we have the door to the loading dock and dumpster, the mechanical room, the upstairs dry storage, the main walk-in fridge, the freight elevator to the basement where we hook up the lines for the kegs and drink tanks to the three different bars, and then the server station.”
Kate and I shuffle behind him at full speed through the whirlwind tour.
“Now it’s time for the two of you to meet your boss.” Jay takes us back out to the main bar area and points to a tall woman with striking red hair giving instruction to the polishing girl with the purple jumpsuit. “Alexis, I’ve got some fresh blood here for you, girlfriend.”
The woman strides over to greet us, extending her hand to each of us in turn. “Hey, ladies. I’m Alexis, the manager of the serving staff. Welcome aboard!”
“It’s nice to meet you!” Kate says.
I shake her hand while keeping my smile steady despite my racing heart. “We’re excited to be here.”
Alexis looks us up and down and then smiles at Jay. “I can work with this.”
Jay laughs. “And when she says that, she means you’ll fit in just fine.”
“That’s what I said.” Alexis winks and motions for us to follow her. “Come on. Let’s get you ladies fitted for your uniforms.”
I glance at Kate and can’t help but grin back at her excitement. It’s happening. Nothing can stop us now.
Brendan
I need to hit someone. I need to pound someone to pulp and yet I’m stuck sitting in the sunken living room, staring at my computer screen. Finn and I have been tasked with gathering intel on Jordan Kelly and his task force.
With my focus scattered, I’ve been little help. My mind keeps drifting back to Nora, her sparkling blue eyes, and the way she felt in my arms.
The helplessness gnawing at me is brutal.
I understand I can’t be with Nora because of her father—for now, at least—but I won’t accept that in the long term. Nora is my one. I feel it to the marrow of my bones—like Tag did with Laine, like Sean did with Piper, and like Bryan did with Yasmine years ago.
It’s the way Quinns love—deep and devoted.
Sure, we play the field often enough, but once our hearts weigh in, we’re all-in.
It sucks balls that Nora and I are on opposite sides, but I won’t let that keep us apart indefinitely. I pull out my phone and scroll through my photo gallery. I snapped a couple of candid photos of her last week and brush my finger over her smiling face on the screen.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you’re missing her, B. I only talked to her for a few minutes at the bar, but she seemed special.”
I meet Finn’s sympathetic gaze over the top of his laptop. “Yeah, she is. That’s why we need to get off Kelly’s radar. There must be a way to protect the family and clear the way for me and Nora.”
Finn goes back to staring at his screen. “Maybe it’s time to call in some reinforcements. We could surveil the people surveilling us and see what we can find out.”
“That could get messy.”
“At the very least, knowing who is out there gunning for us might tell us where they have focused their interests.”
“Aye, there’s that.” I scroll down my contact list to Sean’s number and click to dial.
He answers on the second ring and I can tell he’s at the clubhouse because he shouts for everyone to shut the fuck up so he can hear. “One second. Let me get somewhere I can fucking think.” I wait for the beat of time it takes until things quiet down on the other end. “All right, what’s up?”
“Finny and I were thinking. What if we put some Devils or some of Kieran’s street rat army on Jordan Kelly and his task force? It would be good to know who the players are and who they’re interested in.”
“That could bite us on the ass as easily as not.”
“Only if our people fuck up.”
Sean lets out a long breath. “All right. Let me pass it by Tag and see what he thinks. I’ll let you know what he says.”
Before he hangs up, I think of something I want to add. “And Nora, too.”
“And Nora what?”
“Put someone on Nora. If the McGuires find out about Kelly, they might go after her and use her as leverage. I agreed to back off, but I won’t leave her out there unprotected.”
“Brenny, I feel your pain, brother, but Nora’s not your problem.”
“Like Piper wasn’t your problem? Do you really want to play that card with me, Sean?”
My brother sighs on the other end of the call. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”
I end the call and shrug. “He’ll pass it by Tag.”
Finn chuckles. “Ironic, though, right? Us putting surveillance on the cops who are surveilling us.”
I give him a half-hearted smile. “Aye, it is.”
Finn nods and goes back to his laptop. I do the same, pushing thoughts of Nora to the back of my mind. Today was her orientation. I want to send her a text wishing her good luck but recognize what a bad idea that is.
We only had one full day together and a couple of hours on the side. Some might think that’s not enough time to know we’re perfect for one another. They’d be wrong.
The way we fit together when snuggling on the couch was fucking heaven.
The way her body responded to my touch stole my breath.
She is meant for me.
I lift the bottle of scotch I’ve been nursing all afternoon and tip it back. I swallow three long, drawn-out gulps and let the burn slide steadily down the inside of my throat. It doesn’t touch the ache in my soul.
I close my eyes and all I can see is Nora in the throes of her orgasm, shattering beneath my touch, her insides clenching my fingers in greedy abandon. I can picture what she’ll look like when we get together. The way her hair will fan out behind her head. The way her weighted breasts will spill to the side. The way her cunny will glisten with my cum after I make her cry out my name.
Best daydream ever…
I give myself an inward shake and pour myself into the work. If I don’t focus, I’ll end up at Legend, pretending I coincidentally stopped in for a drink. But I can’t be seen in public with Nora now that I know the risks.
If someone on the task force follows me and sees me with Nora, it will destroy everything she’s building for herself.
Damn. I thought Sean and Piper were hopeless.
“You boys still at it?” Bryan strides into the living room and plunks down in the chair by the fireplace. “What do we know?”
Finn looks up from his computer. “We know what headquarters building is being used for the task force, and that it’s a joint operation between Europol, National Crime Agency, Garda, and the US Customs and Border Protection.”
Bryan frowns. “It’s not much.”
“It’s a start.”
Bryan turns his frown on me. “Any chance your girl will give us more?”
I close my computer. “There’s no way to know because I won’t ask her.”
“That’s a waste of a fucking opportunity.”
I flash him a middle-finger salute. “Nora isn’t an opportunity to be exploited. She’s an amazing girl who stumbled into the life of the wrong guy at the right time. She’s severed ties because she doesn’t want to be caught in the middle. She’s better off being clear of us.”
“Or not.” Finn shrugs when I peg him with a stink-eye look. “Things weren’t all rainbows and raspberry orgasms for Sean or Tag either, but they worked through the obstacles well enough.”
“I wish that were in the cards for me and Nora, Finny, I do. But I’ve thought about it from every angle and can’t see any scenario where a made man and the daughter of a head Europol agent wind up sitting on a porch swing. If you know how I make that happen, please tell me.”
The silence that stretches on proves my point. The loss of control burns like acid in my gut. I really need to hit something. “I’m done. Let’s pick this up tomorrow after breakfast.”
Finn nods. “Aye, that sounds good to me. I’m knackered. I’m going to raid the kitchen and see if there’s any of those scalloped potatoes left from dinner. Care to join?”
“I’m always good for a snack,” Bryan says.
I shake my head. “I’m heading down to the gym. I need to blow off some steam.”
Finn holds out his fist for a knuckle bump as he and my twin pass me on their way out. “Hang in there, man. We’ll figure this out.”
I watch them leave and then get my ass out of the couch and head for the stairs. I’d like to think Finn’s right about finding a way but, try as I might, I don’t see how.