17. Theo #3
“Calm yourself.” Spencer’s eyes remain on my twitching hands. “Don’t be dumb, Griffin. We don’t have to have beef.”
“Where are they?” Libby asks. She stops beside me in the center of the room and steps closer when I pull her in.
She might cross me. She might be the very cause of my demise, but I still pull her closer so I can protect her.
What can I say; women control me. First my mom, and now Libby.
“In the boardroom,” Eric says. “Four of them.”
“Four?” I look from face to face. “Four Bishops?”
Eric smiles. “No, two Bishops, and two women who don’t know how to mind their own business. One of those women is set to become a Bishop soon. I sure hope you’re not going to fuck with those plans.”
“Come on.” Libby slips out of my hold, but takes my hand. “Everybody needs to take a breath. This doesn’t have to be so friggin’ tense.”
“Easy for you to say.” Spencer watches every step we take. “You guys have the information. We have a blind date and no clue if the person turning up weighs five hundred pounds and has boils all over her face. Is my date gonna fuck me, Tate? Or fuck with me?”
“Neither.” She pats his chest as we come to stop by the very door he’s guarding. “You’re handsome, Spence. But I’m not interested in fucking vigilantism.”
“And yet, you walk in with this dude.” His dark eyes study my face and chest. “The women in there aren’t a weakness for us, Griffin. They’re armed and capable.”
“Can we just go in already?” Libby places her hand on the door handle, and takes mine in her left. “We don’t have to do this intimidation game thing. We’re just here to talk.”
The silence remains for a minute more. Spence’s stare is hot and dangerous, burning my skin with warning, but then he drops his chin and gives us all the permission we’re going to get.
Libby lets out a deep breath, twists the door handle, then pushes through and brings me into a whole other space of silence.
The boardroom is large, has a table that seats twenty or so people, and a massive smart board on the wall that remains switched off and void of information. The room is bland, clean, and will not give away any of their secrets.
Four people sit at one end of the table. Kane and Jay sit side by side with hard faces and angry stares. Jess sits on Kane’s left, and Sophia on Jay’s right.
I totally fucked up when I hit on Sophia.
The guys watch us with grinding jaws, rolling muscles, and hard eyes.
But the women watch us with curious gazes.
They’re not worried about danger; they know the Bishops will take care of anything that needs to be taken care of, so they relax where the guys can’t, and try to figure us out despite our lack of words.
“Kane.” Libby releases my hand and walks forward to take Kane’s. “Jay. Thanks for seeing us.”
Jay sits back when Libby drops her hands in her pockets. He appears at ease – sort of. He lifts a leg and rests his ankle on the other. He plays with something between his fingers, a fidget spinner of some sort, and watches us under heavy brows made heavier by a beanie.
Kane isn’t fidgeting at all. He sits, ready to explode, silently watching Libby as she steps into my side and rests her hand on my hip. He lifts a brow at her ease, or perhaps it’s at her comfort in announcing who she’s with.
That comfort helps me too. She says she’s not on anyone’s side, but she didn’t rush in here with big smiles and welcoming hugs. She’s standing beside me, touching me, whispering her thoughts to me.
“Theo Griffin is back in our office,” Kane begins.
“Yesterday, you were arrogant and hitting on Soph. Today you stand with the chick cop. I can’t say I understand your angle.
You thought owning Soph would benefit you somehow, but she’s not for sale.
” He lifts a brow. “So you acquired a cop instead?”
Libby’s body tenses against mine as the very thing she didn’t want to happen, happens.
“She’s not for sale.” I came in here planning to be my silent self, to let them talk their way around to what needed to be said, but I can’t let them think poorly of Libby.
“I don’t own her, I didn’t acquire her, I didn’t buy her.
She’s just an old friend of mine who decided I wasn’t a total prick. ”
“I’m yet to be convinced,” Jay growls. “How does Libby Tate, chick cop of our small town, know Theo Griffin? How is she your old friend, when I’m almost certain you’ve never set foot in this town before now?”
“I haven’t.” I take a step forward, nod toward a couple chairs tucked against the table, and when Kane agrees, I pull one out and help Lib sit. The Bishops watch us with dark eyes that speak of danger, a promise to take us out if we move too fast.
I pull the chair out beside Lib, drop down, then I sit back and fold my ankle over my knee. “I’ve never been to this town before this visit.”
“When did you arrive?” Jay asks.
“Little over a week ago.”
He nods. “So you met her nine days ago and consider that old friends?”
Libby shakes her head. “G–” She chokes on what I’m certain was going to be the name she once knew me as, and instead swallows down her nerves. “Um… Theo and I met when we were children. A very long time ago.”
“You met Theo Griffin when he was just a child?” Sophia watches us with narrowed eyes.
She has a laptop open in front of her, but her hands remain in Jay’s lap for a moment.
Jess is her opposite in some ways. She’s the light to Soph’s dark, the innocent to Soph’s narrowed gaze.
She’s also heavily pregnant, and instead of laying her hands in Kane’s lap, she rubs gentle circles against the side of her stomach while she watches us.
“You’re gonna have to get to the reason you came in yesterday thinking I could be bought,” Soph continues.
“I’ve tried to run you, Griffin. I’ve searched everywhere; she says she met you as a boy, but I can’t seem to find any existence of a child Theo. And I looked.”
“You’re not a brainless bimbo.” I study her dark eyes and let my nerves slide away when she grins. “You play the bimbo bit well. Why do you do that?”
“Probably the same reason you thought touching me would get you the information you want. Why, Theo Griffin, did you come into Checkmate looking for information? You could have Googled us.”
“This has to be more than business,” Kane inserts quietly.
“We buy Griffin systems, yes, but we’re small-fry.
We’re just one of a million accounts you have.
I can’t figure out why the head of this international, multi-billion-dollar company has made a personal call to a ten-staff mini security company.
And call me a cynic, but I feel like your answer is going to piss me off. ”
“Why does looking at you make my stomach tingle?” Soph asks. “I look at your face, and my heart gallops.”
“Sophia!” Jay turns on her. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“I didn’t say I was gonna suck his dick, Jay. Jesus, calm your shit.”
“You wanna admit in a business meeting that another man makes your heart do weird shit, and you expect me to be okay with that?”
“Yes, because I’m not saying I’m gonna fuck him. I’m saying that he’s attractive, and that there’s something there that makes me–”
“I think you’re hot as fuck, Officer Tate.
” Jay turns to us with a scowl. “Your body is banging, your legs are sexy, your face isn’t normally as bad as it is today, and your hair is long enough to grab onto.
” He turns to Sophia. “I’m not saying I’m gonna fuck her, just that she’s attractive and does things to my heart when I look at her. ”
“Good Lord,” Soph rolls her eyes. “Are you done, drama queen? You need to dial it back.”
“Alright. Now we’ve established half of my team are attracted to you folks, how about we get back on track?” Kane takes a pen from the table and quietly spins it. “Why are you here?”
“Colum Bishop.”
Jay and Soph stop at my words. They stop bickering, stop slapping at each other’s hands, they stop breathing altogether and turn to face me.
“Colum is dead.” Kane’s eyes flicker between me and Lib. “And I was unaware this particular cop had any interest in him. The chief is my point of contact, and as far as I was aware, he’s keeping the Colum shit on lock.”
“Um…” Libby glances from one set of eyes to the next.
Fear buzzes beneath her skin, and surprisingly, her hand slides from her lap to mine.
“You must know my part in Colum’s world.
” Her eyes continue to stray back to Sophia.
“I didn’t change my name, and my father is still doing time.
You would have run everything and everyone Colum knows, so you know there’s a connect. ”
“Yes.” Sophia watches us. “Yes, I know Raymond Tate was a soldier for Colum. I know you’re Raymond’s daughter. You should know I ran you to make sure you were clean. Alex wants to keep you on at the station, but how was I supposed to know you weren’t a next generation scumbag just like your daddy?”
Those words hurt her. Every syllable Sophia spits out is like a bullet that slams into Libby’s chest.
“And what did you find?” Libby asks quietly. “What were your conclusions?”
“That you were a hard worker. That you live within your means. That you were almost the reason Kane’s final mission was killed, because you watch too close and nearly uncovered Kane’s cop contact.”
“Who was Kane’s cop contact?” I look between Sophia and Libby. “You had a soldier after all?”
“Cruz was his contact.” Libby squeezes my hand. “Dude outside with the cane? He’s recently retired. But there was a long time there where I felt like he was dirty. He set off my alarms, so I was keeping a close watch.”
“He took a bullet for me,” Jess murmurs. “I had no clue he was Kane’s guy, but he stood in front of me and my sister when a man came to hurt us. He lost his leg, and it’s directly on the back of protecting me.”