Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
KYRA
The answer was easy to find. Sure, I don’t have definitive proof that this is what it is, but like my asshole father, my gut has never steered me wrong.
I lean back on my seat with a sigh. Purchased four months ago via private treaty, the property was quietly shuffled through the appropriate stages until it landed in Davis’s possession.
Never listed publicly. No agent used. Just a private agreement between two parties for a purchase price well below market rate.
“Is now not a good time?” Janis startles the hell out of me.
I tap my monitor to send it to sleep and grab something to appear busy. What I’m doing isn’t exactly illegal, but I’m sure I’ve violated a few privacy policies by snooping through council records I have no business viewing. “Just thinking it must be time for a coffee to pep me up,” I lie.
She makes a slight hum in her throat—maybe because she doesn’t believe me, perhaps because it sounds like a good idea. I can’t tell.
“Before you duck to the break room, I need to discuss something with you.” She stands stiffly, hands clasped in front of her hips. “Management has decided to reconfigure your role.”
“Pardon?” I push the paperwork aside when the stapler fails to work.
“You shouldn’t take it personally,” Janis says, settling against the desk beside me. “They didn’t exactly know what the role would be when they agreed to give me help.”
I wrestle with the stapler, which now refuses to stay open so that I can reload it.
Swear the fucking thing is possessed. “I’m not naive, Janis.
I know they created the job as a favor to Dad.
” I know he’ll have something to do with this, given how we left things.
“I should be surprised they promised a full-time role to begin with.”
“I mean,” she hedges, tilting her head. “That’s partially true. But I genuinely do need the extra hand, and I’ve asked for another person behind the desk for months.”
I stall what I’m doing and stare up at her, eyes narrowed. “You said it’s quiet these days. That hardly anyone comes in.”
“They don’t. Not to the reception desk. But the work I do with the online requests?” She thumbs over her shoulder to the closed office behind us. “That’s never-ending.”
“Why not get me to help with that, then?”
“Because I can manage that on my own. But I can’t do this as well.”
The stapler flicks closed, pinching the side of my thumb. “God damn it.” I shake off the sting and shove the offending implement to the back of the desk. “I’m sorry if I’m being rude. I’m not angry at you. I’ve got other things on my mind at the moment that don’t help the situation.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She reaches across me to grab the stapler. “If I were you, I’d be annoyed too when I’ve just taken on a mortgage.”
Except, I haven’t. I’ve merely said I’d bought a house and let them assume the rest. Guess it works in my favor now, excusing my frustration at the changing circumstances.
“Here.” She pops the reloaded stapler in front of me. “One less thing to push you over the edge.”
“Thanks.”
I glance at the clock in the corner of the computer screen. There’ll be no point packing a lunch anymore when I knock off at 12:30. Travel mug of coffee and a small snack, and I’ll be set for the day.
Janis retreats to her office, and I wait a few minutes before I wake my monitor and hit print on the page.
I minimize the screen and then book it down to the shared printer to retrieve the evidence.
With it safely stashed in my pocket, folded into a rough square, I make the coffee I didn’t need and casually walk back to the reception desk, hoping I don’t appear as guilty as I feel.
Steam rises off the cup, nestled neatly in the corner of my desk, as I reach beneath to retrieve my bag and my phone. I need to tell somebody what I’ve found, I’m just not sure who yet.
The answer presents itself when I tug the device free. “The hell?”
I glance at Janis’s office and find her head down, notating pages. Turning my body slightly to block what I do, I open the message thread.
Can we meet up? I’ve got something I want to tell you.
He chooses today of all days to pick up the ball and start playing the game again. Darn it. I need to tell somebody about what I found, and I need it to be people I can trust to do something about it.
I swallow down any conflicting emotions I have about this and think of those women. People like me, snatched from their lives without warning or consequence—so far.
I’ve got something to tell you as well. Can you meet me now?
Screw this job. If they don’t value me, I won’t prioritize them either.
Where?
At the bandstand in the gardens.
This morning’s rain has cleared, but it should ensure nobody else is too keen to venture out and disturb us.
On my way.
I toss my phone back in my bag and slide from my seat to duck my head in Janis’s door. “Hey.”
She lifts her head.
“Is it okay if I call it a day? An issue’s come up that I need to deal with.”
She leans back with a sigh, lips flattening. “I hoped to catch up on this, but I guess. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just time sensitive.”
“Okay.” She gathers her things and moves to the front desk. “I guess it’ll be fine.”
“Thank you.” I gesture to the steaming drink. “You can have my coffee if you like.”
She smiles softly, finding the humor in the moment.
I grab my belongings and dip, dashing across the street to wait for Jinx.
It feels dangerous. As though I’m some vigilante always looking over her shoulder for the law. But I’m not. I’m a woman who feels it’s her duty to do what she can to help others with an overbearing asshole of a father who happens to be the Sheriff.
Printed page in my hand, I sit on one of the few dry spots in the bandstand and stare down at the paper.
This isn’t about me. I don’t want accolades for what I’ve done, or even recognition. I just want to know that being held in that damn alley wasn’t a waste of time. That I can turn a shitty experience into something that matters.
It doesn’t take long before I hear the rumble of Jinx approaching. He swings the bike into a park at the curbside and dismounts, hanging his helmet before ruffling his hair. At first glance, he’s all brawn and cool nonchalance. His wide build and layered attire suggest strength and dissonance.
But he’s so much different beneath it all. Inside all the leather and denim is a teenage boy still wondering why he’s not enough.
Do we ever really grow up? Or do the things that shape us early on stay locked inside until the shell withers and dies?
I get the sudden urge to hug him—not just for his pain, but to ease mine also. To remind us both that we’re not alone in feeling vulnerable from time to time, but it doesn’t make us less.
It makes us more for being able to recognize it. Confront it, and name it.
“You look far too excited for someone who walked away from me last time we talked,” he remarks as he takes the few steps into the bandstand with me.
I’ve missed him more than I gave myself credit for.
“I have something I need help with.”
He bops his eyebrows, glancing to the side. “Don’t we all?”
“Sit down.” I pat the bench seat beside me. “You’re intimidating me by standing there, dominating the space.”
One raised eyebrow is all I get before he does as I ask and sits beside me.
It might not have been the wisest decision, considering that at this distance I can smell his leathery musk. Focus.
“Do you want to go first?”
He frowns.
“You messaged me saying you had something to tell me, remember.”
“Right.” Jinx sets his elbows to his knees and leans forward, scrubbing at his face. “I did.”
“Would it be easier if I faced the other way?”
He peeks at me from behind his hand and chuckles softly. “Maybe.”
I twist on the bench and stare at the barren rose bushes.
“I went to see a doctor,” he starts.
My stomach flutters.
“And he gave me something to help with, you know, my issue.”
I wriggle my toes in my shoes. The need to ask if it did help burns in my throat, but I utter a quiet, “Okay,” instead.
“It worked, Kyra.”
Screw this. I swivel back to face him. “It did?” Oh, hell no. Did he try it with someone else?
Maybe my panic is written on my face, or perhaps he can see the color drain as all my blood runs south, because Jinx takes one of my hands in his and gently strokes a thumb over the back as he says, “I watched your last post to test it out.”
Thank fuck. The adrenaline drains so fast that I swear I’m going to be sick. “You did?”
“I did.” He kisses my hand and then sets it back in my lap. “So, even if this is all we ever get, Kyra, I want you to know how grateful I am that you pushed me to get it checked out.”
“What did he say?” The paper crumples in my hand, I grip it so tight.
“That’s it’s likely caused by stress initially, and now the way I think about it affects what I can and can’t do.”
“He knows your lifestyle is kind of stressful, right?”
“I think he understood that, yeah.” Jinx smiles softly. “Your turn. What’s your news?”
“Well.” I glance at the printed address. “It’s nowhere near as awesome as yours, but I think it’s just as important.”
“Yeah?” He frowns, turning to face me and tucking a leg onto the bench. “What have you got?”
I pass him the page.
He glances at me briefly as he wrestles the paper flat. Jinx drags his gaze down the page with an ever-increasing frown and then sets it between us.
“I think that might be where the Devil’s Breed are holding women,” I say.
“Pits asked Davis if he could do seven on Thursday, and he said yes. Davis then told me the seven referred to women. I didn’t see the point in Pits asking Davis if it was okay if the Devil’s Breed owned the property themselves.
So I dug around on a hunch and came up with that. ” I shrug. “I could be wrong, but—”
“The Breed came back the following Thursday,” Jinx says. “I think you’re on to something here.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Take it to the table.”
I draw a deep breath through my nose, rolling my lips before asking, “And what about us?”
“What about us, Kyra?” He peers up at me as he puts the paper into his breast pocket. “I fixed the only problem I had with us being together. I think it’s entirely up to you now.”
“I never had any problem with us being together.”
He bites his bottom lip, staring at the ground before he looks back at me. “Maybe not, but your father did. Still does, if his behavior this morning is anything to go by.”
“What are you talking about?” What the hell has the asshole done?
Jinx sets an arm on the back of the bench seat and spreads out. “Marty swung by the farmhouse at the crack of dawn for a little neighborhood raid.”
“The fuck?” I edge toward the front of the seat, primed and ready to confront the bastard.
“Didn’t find anything—that’s not legally registered to us anyway. But him and his fuckboy deputies made a mess of the place.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He pins me with a hard stare. “Why? It wasn’t you that did it.”
“I might have provoked him a little.”
“Did you now?” He smirks. “How?”
“Told him his reasons for picking on the Kings are fucked up and that he should try harder to understand the club.”
“What else?” He leans a little closer, trapping me in his honey gaze.
“Said that if he truly wanted the evidence that he needed to find those missing women, the Kings could probably help him with that.”
“Oh, Kyra,” Jinx teases, leaning back.
“What I meant is that the club would probably have intel about the Devil’s Breed that could help. But I guess he took it entirely the wrong way.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Jinx sighs. “You could give that man the evidence in black and white, darlin’, and he’d still pin it on the Kings.
The hate runs too deep for him to ignore, let alone acknowledge.
We’ve slipped by him enough times that it’s a matter of pride to put us all behind bars now, nothing to do with truth. ”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again. “I didn’t mean to make things worse.”
He rises from the seat and then leans down to kiss me on the top of my head. “You could never make things worse.”
I swallow back my bubbling emotion as he heads for his bike.
“Let me know when you’ve made your decision, Kyra. You know where I’ll be waiting.”