17. Theo #4
“He’s okay, Jess.” Sophia reaches into a bag she has hanging on the back of her chair and digs around.
She’s like the pusher for the group, the mother hen, in a way.
Because she tugs a small bag of gummy worms out and places them in Jay’s fidgeting hands.
Then she takes a candy bar and slides it across the table until it stops in front of Jess.
“Cruz is up and running again now. He has a badass bionic leg, and we’re designing him an even better one.
Soon he’ll thank you, and we’ll all wish we could hide weapons inside our legs. ”
“Alright, we’re gonna need to move this along,” Kane snaps.
“What do you want, Griffin? We’ve established it’s not business.
And we know you know about Colum. If you think you can come up in here and hurt my family because of Colum, you’ll be comforted to know that the chair you sit in is spring-loaded and set with explosives.
If you stand, it’ll wipe you from existence.
We will no longer be punished for the actions of a prick.
Make no sudden movements, or prepare to be buried in pieces. ”
My heart stops for a single beat as I stare into his eyes. “You wouldn’t set an explosive this close to your pregnant girl. No way will you put her in danger.”
“Try me.” He lifts a brow. “There’s this company dominating the military markets right now.
Roar explosives are the best, and they’re accurate.
Tate will probably go down with you.” He looks to her, “Sorry about that. But this is one of those things where if you lay with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas.
You brought him in here, you brought him among my family, so if he dies, you’re probably gonna go too. ”
“Threatening a police officer,” Jess coughs. “I intend to marry you next week. Don’t fuck this up.”
“She ain’t a police officer when she’s on my property. She’s a trespasser and associated with some motherfucker I don’t trust.”
It really bothers me that, as he sits and speaks with such calmness in his voice, he looks just like the man I met two decades ago. Dark eyes, dark hair, formidable and unafraid.
“They’re yet to state their business,” he continues. “I trust your chief, Tate. Barely, and only because he’s family to my girl. But I can’t say I know you beyond pleasantries. I don’t want to jump the gun, so get to the point, then we can move on and decide where we go next.”
“Alright…” Lib pulls the unharmed side of her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment in contemplation. “I organized this meet for Theo, but he’s not feeling awfully verbose at the moment.”
“Makes him a pussy,” Jay swipes. “Real men speak up. Real men take the lead. I swear, before yesterday I would have wet my pants if someone told me Theo Griffin was coming to town. But every time we’re in the same space, I like you less and less.
First, you hit on my girl, and now you grow a vagina and make Tate speak for you. ”
“Because real men wet their pants from excitement?” I lift a brow in question. “Don’t mistake my silence for weakness. I speak when I want to speak, and not for the sake of hearing my own fucking voice. You think my silence is a fault, I think your big mouth will get you killed someday.”
“I already died, motherfucker.” He stands and leans onto the table to close the space between us.
Tugging his beanie away, he shows me a scar and what is certainly a hole in his skull.
“I already walked through death. I had tea with the devil, then I ran through the flames and came back to fuck people up again. You wanna test me? Colum already tried. He tried to fuck us up, he tried to kill the only family I have. He was weak. He was old and arrogant. And I see arrogance in your eyes. I can survive a bullet through the brain; can you?”
“Who did that?” My eyes narrow on the small divot in his forehead. It’s like I can literally see the hole in his skull, and though the skin has closed up, I can still see the hollow. The chink in his armor. “A bullet?”
“I’m not in the habit of telling strangers my business. You called this meeting, so how about you give us information before you ask?”
“Abel Hayes did it,” Jess blurts out.
The guys snap their heads around and stare at her in accusation, but she only studies me with firmed lips.
“Abel Hayes shot him. It passed through his skull, and–” She rolls her sleeve back to reveal a scar on her arm.
“It passed through him and hit me. And Cruz? Kane’s cop, Libby’s former colleague?
Hayes’ man got him too. Colum Bishop might be Kane’s father, he might even be my babies’ grandfather, but he’s not missed, and he’s not loved.
We’re glad he’s dead, and if I could bring him back, I would, but only so I can let him die in a much more painful way.
What he got was far too kind, and there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.
” She pauses, grabs Kane’s hand and brings it to her stomach.
“If you’re here because you’re avenging his death, if you want to hurt us, if you try to hurt anyone I love, then you won’t make it out alive.
If you’re here to punish us for something Colum did to you, then you need to sit down and get over it, because Colum was no friend of ours. ”
“Why does Sophia have Bishop money in her dance studio bank accounts?”
Sophia’s brows shoot high enough that she almost loses them in her hair. “Come again?”
My blood surges hot at her shock. The truth is coming.
It’s all coming. “I have my own way to find out information. I’ve studied you all, and when I happened across money that I know damn well doesn’t belong to a dance school for toddlers, I was forced to look deeper.
It’s not just a lot of money, Sophia. I can trace it straight back to accounts that once belonged to Colum.
So explain to me how you came to accept money from the man you claim to despise. ”
“You ran me?” She slowly lowers the lid on her laptop and leans forward. “ You were in my data?”
“Yes. I was in all of your data. I didn’t ask you out yesterday because you’re pretty. I asked because your name popped up in my searches way too many fucking times.”
“I mean, that’s better than hitting on her because she’s sexy.” Jay’s brows furrow. “I guess.”
“He thought you were nothing more than the brainless bimbo of this family, and the Bishops were hiding their money in your accounts.”
I turn to Libby with a snarl. “Are you done? Anything you else wanna share with them?”
“Someone’s gotta share something!” She thrusts a hand in their direction.
“Just tell them already. This doesn’t have to be as scary as it is.
Instead of brains, you’re all using testosterone, and, surprise surprise , the women are the only people here actually speaking.
” She looks to Jay. “You’re a pussy too.
You call him on his silence, but you’re not saying shit.
You’re just making threats. And you.” She looks to Kane.
“You give Jess the grumpy eyes because she speaks, but your hands shake, your eyes can’t move away from Gu–” She scrunches her face with exasperation.
“Gah! Theo. You can’t stop looking at him. Why not?”
He says nothing, which enrages Libby more.
“Because you’re scared! You’re all scared, and when a guy gets scared, he hides behind a bad attitude. Just speak already.”
“Why were you in my data?”
“Why are you in possession of Colum’s money?” I counter. Sophia isn’t stupid at all. She might be the smartest of them all. “There is no way you can explain that and remain innocent.”
“Well…” She hesitates and glances to Libby. “Cop or friend? Off the record?”
Libby’s eyes cloud as she meets Sophia’s gaze. She’s a cop, and to be a clean cop, she needs to take admissions of guilt straight back to work. She needs to follow the law to the letter, and not be the cop that will brush things under the rug.
She craves distance from her father’s reputation, but she’s already broken laws, and continues to do so the longer she sits in this boardroom. She’s an accessory to crimes simply by hearing the things that are being said and not reporting them.
Her eyes come to mine. She’s weak, struggling, and scared of undoing all of the hard work she’s put in over the years.
There’s a massive part of me tempted to let her off the hook.
I could stand and walk away. I could forget the anger I feel toward Colum Bishop and all of his sons.
I could go back to the world I created, and simply pretend these people don’t exist. They won’t come looking for me, and if I stay away, we never have to cross paths again.
But as I sit merely six feet from men that look painfully similar to the man that raped and murdered my mother, I can’t. I’m choosing me over her, and for that, I’m a fucking asshole.
“Libby.” I grab her hand and draw her eyes around. “You need to leave. Walk out of this room and remain the person you worked hard to become.”
Her eyes sparkle with tears she refuses to let fall. “I’m already involved. I already know enough that my conscience doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Of course it matters. You don’t know anything that you have to report yet.”
“I know heaps!” she snaps. “I know that you came here planning to implicate and kill Bishops.”
Kane scoots his chair back so fast that the metal feet screech against the floor. From sitting with empty hands, to standing with a nine-millimeter Glock pointing at my face, he manages to move everyone back to be shielded behind himself, then his eyes burn.
Not at me. But at Libby.
“Get up and leave. Both of you.”
“No, we’re not leaving.” Libby snatches her hands from mine. “We are not leaving. Not now that we’ve come this far.”
“You said you were here to talk. You said that you weren’t bringing trouble to my family.”
“We’re not! We’re talking, aren’t we?”