Chapter 16
Had it been anyone else—like literally anyone else on the face of the earth, except maybe Lilith—Cole would have been beyond annoyed.
Desiree Montgomery, though, got a fair bit of leeway from him. She certainly could annoy him, and she had, but no one had ever taken Marcus down more pegs than she had, never mind in one fell swoop. That alone earned her some serious respect and leeway from Cole.
And that aside, they’d been… Well, “friends” might be a generous way to put it.
Part of that respect he had for her was the understanding that she wouldn’t hesitate for a second to epically screw him over if he ever had the audacity to cross her.
He respected her the way he respected a lion or a tiger—something to be admired from a safe distance while not making any sudden moves, especially if it started growling.
That she’d gone to his penthouse to make contact with him left Cole equal parts amused and alarmed. She was either being characteristically brazen, or she was freaking out, needing to make contact with him ASAP by any means necessary.
Only one way to find out.
“My God,” she said when she answered his call. “Where the hell are you?”
“Actually I think the more pressing question is whether those dogs you brought into my building were properly housebroken and had flea and tick treatments. Because if I have to fumigate for fleas, I will—”
“Don’t fuck around, Cole,” she snapped, and there was an edge of worry that tipped him from amused to alarmed. That was the point of his ostensibly irreverent question—to gauge her state of mind. Mission accomplished.
He sat up on the rental’s sofa, making the aging furniture squeal in protest. “What’s going on?”
A harsh breath hissed down the line. “Marcus is furious, and he’s in full panic mode. He’s coming after everyone who was at Alders’s party.”
Cole swallowed. “Is he, now? I thought Alders was the one freaking out and coming after us.”
“Well, see…” Desiree sighed. “That’s the thing—it’s both of them.”
Somehow that was both a gut punch and not in the least bit surprising.
As if it just made perfect sense for two of the biggest, dumbest assholes on the planet to join forces and make everyone’s lives miserable because they were butthurt and humiliated.
God help him if one of them ever became President.
Rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, Cole asked, “How did they manage that? Doesn’t Alders know Marcus was involved in trying to steal the Puffin?”
She laughed dryly. “Have you met Marcus?”
“A time or two, yes,” he muttered, rolling his eyes for no one’s benefit but his own. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that you of all people should know what a manipulative dickcheese he is. Therefore you shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that he weaseled his way into the good graces of the man he tried to screw over.”
Cole quirked his lips. “Point taken. And I’ll probably give myself a migraine trying to imagine what kind of bullshit mental gymnastics he did to accomplish that weaseling.”
“Exactly. The bottom line is that Alders wants the Puffin back. More than that, he wants you and Yarmouth drawn and quartered over it. He’s pissed that something was taken from him, but he’s incandescent with rage over being humiliated.”
Cole winced. Yeah, that tracked. Losing material items was something that could be dealt with through insurance claims, tax write-offs, predatory investments, or—as was Mother’s preferred approach—seven-figure retail therapy.
Losing dignity? Social standing? Respect, especially the respect of the ultrawealthy who Alders desperately wanted to call his peers?
That warranted bloodshed.
And if Marcus promised to help facilitate that bloodshed, he’d worm his way right into Alders’s buttcrack without the man ever even suspecting Marcus had been the mastermind of his humiliation.
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered.
“I know,” she said. “But before you give yourself that migraine trying to imagine how Marcus made this happen, because I know that’s what you’re doing”—damn, she was good—“let’s cut to the part where we deal with this.”
“Yeah. Good idea.” He paused. “Let me call you back on FaceTime. I think we should loop Will into this.”
“Loop—holy shit, Yarmouth is there?”
“Um. Yes?”
She whistled. “Wow. I thought Lilith was exaggerating when she said you’d teamed up with him.”
It was a weird feeling, knowing that very recently, he’d have grumbled and sworn and begged her for a solution that allowed him to ditch Will. It was an especially weird feeling to have on top of the irritation he was still carrying over Reed cockblocking him earlier.
Christ. One job gone wrong, and now he was running from an oligarch who’d recruited his taint barnacle of an ex to exact revenge on him and Will Yarmouth… who Cole really should’ve let fuck him before he made this call.
Taint barnacle? God, I really have been around Will too long.
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Let me call you back on FaceTime.”
The response was an ended call.
Cole exhaled hard, pushed himself to his feet, and jogged upstairs to the bedroom. “Hey, this is going to take all three of us to—”
He halted in both step and sentence when he saw what waited for him in the bedroom.
The man who’d slept beside him last night was sprawled in the middle of the mattress, not a stitch of clothing in sight. He was fully hard, his hand and dick both gleaming with lube. There’d been a huge grin on his face, too, but that vanished when he met Cole’s eyes.
“All three of us?” Will’s hand stopped mid-stroke. “We’re having a threesome?”
“We’re… We…” Cole gaped, and he couldn’t help gazing longingly at Will’s hard-on before forcing himself to meet the man’s gaze. “I’m supposed to call Desiree back.” He waved his phone in the air. “On FaceTime.” He swallowed. “So we can loop you into the conversation.”
“Oh.” Will gulped, glancing down at his now flagging erection. “I, uh…” He cleared his throat and sat up. “Guess I should put on a shirt.”
“Or some pants, maybe?”
“Right. Yeah.”
Cole bit back a frustrated groan, which also helped him tamp down a laugh at the utter ridiculousness of the situation.
A moment later, they were sitting on the edge of the bed. Cole held his phone out far enough to fit them both in the frame, and he called Desiree back.
“So how exactly have you two not killed each other?” Then she squinted. “Wait, is that a bedroom? Are you two, like—”
“Can we please focus on Marcus and Alders?” Cole groused.
Desiree and Will both fought losing battles against grins.
“I hate you both,” he muttered. “Anyway. Alders. Marcus. Coming after us. Go.”
Fortunately for Cole’s blood pressure, Desiree dropped the teasing and filled Will in on what she’d told Cole.
“So the issue now,” she said when she was done, “is that those two maniacs are working together. They want the Iberian Puffin, and they want both of your hides.”
Will exhaled. “I don’t suppose it would help for us to tell them we don’t have the Puffin?”
“Pfft.” Cole rolled his eyes. “He’ll just try to gaslight us into thinking we actually do have it, and then get pissed at us for not giving it back to Alders.”
Will rocked his head from side to side. “I mean, that’s probably true, honestly? Like I could fully see him doing that.”
“Me too, now that you mention it.”
“Ugh. What did we ever see in that guy?”
Cole grunted. “Who the hell knows?”
“Boys.” Desiree glared pointedly at them. “You can reminisce later about your mutual ex-boo. Right now, we need to make a plan.”
“What kind of plan can we make, though?” Will shrugged. “It isn’t like we can magically conjure up the Puffin.”
Cole considered that. “We could hand over a counterfeit.”
Will and Desiree both peered at him curiously.
He shrugged. “Lilith herself said there’s a ton of fakes out there. Hell, she has one—maybe she’d let us have it for this.”
“You think so?” Will asked.
“Worth a try.”
“He’s got a point,” Desiree said. “Obviously neither Marcus nor Alders would know the real Puffin if it pecked them in the balls.”
Cole snorted, clapping a hand over his mouth. Will barked a laugh.
“Am I wrong?” she asked, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Nope,” they both said. “Not wrong.”
“Right. So, if we can get a counterfeit—Lilith’s or anyone else’s—then you boys can offer it up to Marcus and Alders.”
“What if one of them does clock it as a fake?” Will asked. “I don’t think it’s likely, but we should consider it.”
“Hmm, probably.” Cole switched the phone to his other hand, since his arm was getting tired. “We could always throw Marcus under the bus.”
Desiree’s eyebrows flew up. “Figuratively or literally? Because I’m game for both.”
Cole chuckled. “In this instance, figuratively, though don’t let me stop you from the other one.
But I think if they catch on to it being fake, I mean…
” He shrugged, then adopted his best puppy-dog eyes and innocent voice.
“It’s the one Marcus told us to get. We had no idea what a real one would look like, but he said this one was the real McCoy. ”
Silence fell.
Will stared at Cole in horror. Desiree was so still, Cole thought the phone had frozen.
He glanced back and forth between them. “What?”
Will shifted beside him. “Dude, that’s fucking scary.”
“What? Blaming Marcus?”
“No, your…” Will gestured at his own face. “That whole act. It’s like… if you had a customer service voice, but you were also holding a knife.”
Cole laughed. “Oh, come on. It is not. It’s just—”
“No, no, he’s not wrong,” Desiree said. “You sound like a serial killer waiting to get off his shift at the call center.”
“Jesus Christ. Would you two focus?”
“Fine, as long as you drop… that.” Will shuddered.
Cole huffed and rolled his eyes again. He was getting a headache from these two.
“Psycho call center persona aside,” Desiree said, “Cole’s right. Marcus did put all of us up to going to that party to get the Puffin.”