Chapter Thirty-One
Troy
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask Adam while we both stake out the employee entrance to the Premiere hotel.
We’ve turned into fucking movie villains, stalking our own boyfriend. Not that I give a single fuck.
Adam purses his lips. “That the fancy bakery downtown with the good bagels will be open soon, and Wes likes the blueberry ones, so we should stop on the way home?”
In spite of the threats Wes’s boss made, he went back for his next shift with surprisingly little trouble. I’d like to think we put the fear in the skeezy dick bastard. Either that or his threats were just plain empty. Most likely the fear, though.
“Is that really what you’ve been thinking the whole time we’ve been sitting here? Bagels?”
Adam hums while pulling his hair back with a black band. “Well, you and I both really like the bagels, but a dozen split between us is too many. With Wes it comes out to four bagels each instead of six, so yeah. Why not?”
“Figures.” I laugh and squeeze his leg. “That’s not what I was thinking.”
He turns in his seat, looking more serious. “You were wondering if we need to be worried about whoever kidnapped us trying something again.”
Lately it’s all I can think about. Remembering the blood running from Adam’s temple, the way Wes could’ve gotten himself hurt or killed, it all makes me go cold.
“It’s not likely, right? Liam and Brennan said they took care of everyone they could find. And Ravi said Liam has a lead on whoever was pulling the strings.”
Adam hums. “But they haven’t confirmed it yet, which means someone could still be out there planning more of that shit. Yes, it worries me.”
“You don’t think it could’ve had anything to do with your brother, do you?” Ever since the night Adam shot his father and we both ran, we’ve wondered if his brother might come after us somehow.
“If Santi was going to kill me, there are easier places to find me than the employee parking lot of a hotel. Besides, I basically handed him the business on a platter. That woman, Nora?—”
“Nadia.”
“Yeah. I think she said there had been someone else from the hotel there. Those guys clearly had camped out here. Maybe they were picking people off. Hotel staff going missing gets dismissed. We saw that when Wes tried to sound an alarm. For all we know it has nothing to do with us. This is a tourist town. They could even be doing the same thing at other places.”
I draw a sharp breath. “Shit, I didn’t think of that.” I shake my head. “Hopefully Liam finds that fucker soon.”
Adam turns in his seat. “There’s something else I’ve been thinking about.”
“Rigby?”
Adam’s mouth twists. “I’ve never really liked the guy.”
“Me neither. But he’s our biggest paycheck.”
My best friend’s fingers tap the console.
“Right, but I was talking to Michael a little about our portfolio numbers. We haven’t made a firm plan for quitting yet, but…
we could afford it, I think. We’d have plenty of time to figure something else out.
Wes has tried to be cool about it, but it bothers him.
And maybe it makes me a hypocrite, but the more I think of it, the less I like the idea of Rigby touching him. ”
I shake my head. “If you’re a hypocrite, then so am I. I don’t like the idea of anyone else touching him.”
“Well, yeah. Exactly.”
“Okay. Only way to resolve this.” Before either of us can second-guess anything, I pull out my phone and hit the button for a video call.
A few seconds later, our pimp’s face appears on the phone.
He’s up and dressed, even so early in the morning.
I can make out the collar of a shirt and the knot of his tie.
But his sandy hair is sticking up on end, and the circles under his eyes look dark.
Where the hell is he? It’s not his office. Some falling-apart building. The East End, maybe? There are a lot of those over there.
“This better be good. It’s six in the morning. What do you fuckers want?”
Maybe he hasn’t been to bed yet?
“We need a favor.” I lean toward Adam so we can both get into the frame.
“You know how I feel about favors.”
“Don’t ask unless you want to risk getting your dick chopped off,” Adam parrots.
His tone may be casual, but he reaches across the console to grab my hand. This is a risky ask we’re making, so I grab back.
“You’ve helped some of the others,” I point out. “Remember when you saved Simon’s life and gave him a loan so he could go to nursing school?”
“Remember when he spent five years on his back paying off the debt he racked up?”
Adam and I glance at each other. “Fair point,” I say. “But this is important.”
“We want out,” Adam blurts.
My eyes pop wide open so fast they almost hit the windshield. “What the fuck, man? I was going to ease him into it.”
Adam bites his lip. “I couldn’t keep it in.”
Brennan makes a loud throat clear over the phone. “What the fuck are you idiots talking about?”
“We’re seeing someone, and we don’t wanna fuck other people anymore.” Adam slaps his hand over his mouth.
“Are you serious right now?” I give him a light slap on the back of the head. Giving someone like Brennan Doyle too much personal information is like handing him a loaded gun and then standing still so he has a clear shot.
“I didn’t mean to.” He bites his lips together, but it’s too late. He’s already said too much.
“Guys,” Brennan says again, “shut the fuck up. You’ve got three upcoming jobs on the books, including the boyfriend experience with Mr. Rigby. You get those done, and I won’t schedule you for anything else. Easy.”
“Okay. Great,” I say. “There’s one little thing, though.”
“We need to cancel them,” Adam says.
Brennan drops his chin to his chest. “Fuck you. Adam, listen to Troy. You really need to stop talking.”
“My bad,” he murmurs.
“We can pay you back,” I tell Brennan. “Or we can find someone to take over the jobs.”
“I can probably get Dean to take the other jobs. They’re first-timers, and he’s always looking to earn more. But Rigby? No. He specifically wants the two of you, and I’m not trying to piss off a customer who has a quarterly golf outing in West Palm Beach with two US senators and a known felon.”
Ugh. “Right. That’s trickier.”
“We could try talking to him,” Adam suggests.
“Don’t.” Brennan sighs, adjusting his tie a little. “God forbid something unplanned comes flying out of your mouth again. You could accidentally start a trade war.”
“I’m not going to—” Adam frowns. “Wait, what does Rigby do for a living?”
Huh. Come to think of it, I’m not quite sure. “He owns a couple of companies or something. Something to do with real estate or land development?”
“That’s not the point.” Brennan sighs. “Okay, here’s the deal. I texted you about my friend Nate wanting to meet with you. I owe him a favor. You do the meeting, and I’ll consider it a favor to me.”
Shit. Shit, really? My spine straightens. “So, you do your fiend a favor by getting us to do him a favor, and in exchange?”
We need him to spell this out. No misunderstandings.
“Meet with Nate and I’ll smooth things over with Rigby.”
Adam pummels my thigh with his nervous fingers. “You’re serious?”
“So long as you manage not to piss me off between now and then. And don’t ever ask me for another motherfucking thing unless you’re ready to owe me a kidney.”
Adam opens his mouth to say something again. I slap my hand over it before he does, indeed, piss Brennan off.
“Got it. Thank you.” So fucking much. Jesus Christ. I could kiss our pimp through the phone right now.
Adam mumbles something similar from behind my hand.
There’s a jarring knock at the window. I look over to find Wes’s ex peering into the car. What the hell does she want?
“Thanks again, Brennan. Gotta go.”
I hang up and roll the window down. She gives us a little wave. “Hi, guys. Got a minute?”
For the woman who made Wes afraid to let us touch his dick? I doubt it. “Not to be rude, but we’re from Miami and Florida winter is too cold for us this far north. Whatever this is about, say it fast. We’re letting the heat out of the car.”
She glances around. “You can’t loiter out here, you know. Max doesn’t want to upset the VIPs, but this is getting ridiculous. You’re here all the time lately.”
We’re here all the time because of Wes. Not whatever she’s thinking. I should give her the same speech I gave Max.
“We’re picking up Wes.” I check the time. “He should be out any minute. Then we’ll leave.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with the three of you, but don’t you think it’s beyond inappropriate for him to be seen with two known sex workers?” She whispers the end of the sentence, like if she utters the phrase too loud, more of us will appear.
“Lady, the only way someone knows is if they’ve hired us. In which case they’re not going to say anything.”
“I know, and I’ve never hired you.”
“Only because you work here and you’ve seen us before. Also because you’re overly invested in the life of someone you recently divorced.” I gesture across the parking lot to where Wes is trudging toward us. “There he is now. Better scurry inside.”
Wes gives her a questioning look as she walks away but doesn’t say anything until he climbs in behind Adam. “Why was Gina talking to you?”
“She doesn’t like us being here.”
“Well, officially, the hotel has a policy against?—”
“Please. You know this has dick to do with hotel policy and everything to do with her not wanting us around you.”
He settles back in the seat. “Right. Well. That’s not my problem, and it’s not yours. What I do with my personal life stopped being any of her business when I walked in on Max bending her over our newly updated bathroom vanity.”
“Ouch.”
Wes gives a short shake of his head. “It’s in the past. Let’s go.”
“So,” I say as I pull out of the parking lot, “one of us is going to have a meeting with a friend of Brennan’s next week.”
“About?”
“Not sure. He said if we do it, though, he’ll smooth things over with Rigby so we don’t have to do the job.”
“Didn’t you say that could cause problems?”
I glance in the rearview. “We know you don’t like it.”
“I don’t feel like it’s my place to ask you?—”
“Fuck that. We’re all in this together, Kitten. Of course you can ask.”
“I can’t tell you to quit earning money. The only reason I’m getting by right now is because the two of you aren’t charging me rent.” He swings his gaze back and forth between us. “Which you really should be, by the way.”
My long sigh ought to tell him how tired we are of discussing this.
Adam twists in his seat. “No, we shouldn’t. We don’t need the money, and you do. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Which is also why we feel good about quitting,” I add. “We’ve got enough in savings to float for a while until we figure out something else to do.”
When I check in the rearview, the hope on Wes’s face is unbearable. So is the gentle touch of his hand on my shoulder. I want to pull over and fuck him right on that cramped back seat.
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as we can be without getting a definite yes or no from Brennan,” Adam says.
“I understand. If you have to do it, then you have to. I’m still willing to, uh, you know. Sub in. If needed.” Wes sounds about as enthusiastic about the idea as we are.
The way his halting suggestion makes my skin crawl? Right there is reason enough to find a new line of work.
“No need, Kitten. It’s gonna be fine.” I reach up to my shoulder, putting my hand over his. It feels good, the way he’s trusting us. The way he’s letting us take care of him.
For whatever fucked-up reason, I get my jollies from taking care of people. Going all the way back to when I was a kid and I was the only person who could make my mom smile.
“I’m going to wait and try not to get too excited,” Wes says. “Until we know what Brennan’s friend wants. Should I maybe go with you?”
Adam frowns. “I can go. He only said it needed to be one of us.”
“But the two of you hardly ever go anywhere apart.”
Agam and I exchange a knowing look. “We don’t want to leave you alone right now,” I tell him. “Just in case.”
“In case whoever kidnapped us tries again? I’ve been thinking about that, but what are the odds of it happening twice?” Not that he exactly sounds relaxed about it.
“You’ve been thinking about it too?” Adam asks.
“Can’t stop thinking about it. But . I also can’t live my life looking over my shoulder. You two should go to the meeting. It’s silly to sit around and wait for me in the parking lot while I’m working.”
“We don’t sit here the entire time,” Adam protests.
“I’m not sure that makes it a whole lot better.”
“Whatever. Kitten, give Adam your phone.”
“What? Why?”
“If you let us put a tracking app on your phone, then maybe we’ll stop sitting out here while you work.”
Wes hesitates. “How’s that going to help? Those guys took our phones before.”
“Yeah, and they were dumb enough to take them to where they were holding us before they crushed and tossed them. They didn’t even break yours all the way. It would make us feel better if we had a way to find you. Just in case.”
Adam turns and bats his eyelashes. “Please?”
“Fine. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t do it when you bought me a new phone.” Wes sighs and pulls out his phone, handing it over to Adam. “I must be absolutely out of my mind, but here.”
“You’re with us, Kitten, so you definitely are.”
And maybe we are too. But it’s okay, because we have each other.