Chapter 12
TWELVE
Conrad
Later that morning, I settled into the driver’s seat of my car. While readjusting my mirrors, the passenger door opened, and Nik slid inside. He shut the door behind him, strapped on his seatbelt, and sat with his hands casually folded in his lap.
I glared at him. I had intended to be on my own today. Petty? Yes, but I was still pissed off at Nik. Well, in actuality, my anger had ebbed, but it was easier to be mad at Nik than stress about everything else in my life. Namely, Tav.
Nik picked a piece of lint off his pants and turned to me. “Silent treatment, Conrad? Really?”
“I can drive my own car if I want to.”
He leveled me with a look. “Tell me the last time you drove your own car.”
“I get a lot of work done when you drive,” I said defensively. “Traffic is a bitch.”
I started the car and pulled out of my reserved parking space. I had just turned onto a main road when Nik spoke again. “You’re overreacting.”
I gripped the steering wheel as heat worked its way past my collar. Turned out my anger hadn’t ebbed. “You pulled a gun on him”
“From my perspective, he was beat to hell, all puffed up like he was ready to kill someone, and he had a knife.”
He had a point, but I wouldn’t concede. “You have never walked into my apartment unannounced.”
He inclined his head. “That’s the only thing I’ll apologize for, but in my defense I wanted coffee. Also in my defense, you never have anyone in your apartment. Not since…” He made a show of tapping his tattooed fingers on his thigh. “Not since that night at Collar. Also with Tav.”
“Don’t say his name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like he’s my middle school crush.”
“Well, then what is he?”
I slammed on my breaks at a stoplight. I turned and met Nik’s gaze. “He’s mine. I’m keeping him.”
To Nik’s credit, he didn’t show much reaction except for a slow blink. “Of all the men you’ve fucked, you decide to keep the one who’s built like a tank and looks like he went ten rounds with Manny Pacquiao?”
The light turned green. I stepped on the gas and the engine revved. “Yes.”
Nik remained quiet for a long time, still drumming his fingers on his leg. Finally, he said, “I liked that he protected you.” He gestured to his face, referencing Tav’s bruises. “How did that happen? What’s he into?”
“I don’t know. He’s cagey and skittish—”
Nik stiffened immediately. “You need to be careful. What if he’s some sort of spy for Devlin?”
Tav laving my cock with his tongue while he makes pleased little moans. Tav thrusting back against me while I pound into his tight hole. Tav calling me Con. Tav quivering on my balcony with true fear. Tav making me eggs in my kitchen. “He’s not.”
“How do you know?”
I could hear the sneer in his voice, and my anger flared. I beat my palm on the steering wheel and yelled at the windshield. “Because I know, Nik!”
His skepticism bled off him in waves. “Conrad—”
“You have to trust me on this, Nik. He’s… he needs help.” I pulled into parking spot outside a familiar apartment building. Not as high-class as mine, but respectable. Nik peered up at it through the windshield. “What the fuck are we doing here?”
I pushed open my door. “Research.”
The apartment I needed to visit was on the twelfth floor.
While Nik kept watch in the hallway, I knocked on the door and then waited with my hands behind my back.
This would be a surprise to Shane. I’d never asked him for a thing.
I’d provided him a job, an apartment, just about anything he could want.
But now, I needed something. I needed information. And no one knew this city, from the underbelly to the high society, like Shane. He’d worked his way through it on his back and his knees and was rich as hell because of it.
I heard footsteps. Then a pause while he likely looked at me through the peephole as he was smart enough to do. I stared back at that little warped bit of glass.
After another pause, the chain rattled from inside. The door opened, and there was Shane’s pretty face. He barely looked any older than he had over five years ago, when he’d been homeless and hungry.
Surprise flitted across his face, and then he smiled. “Conrad.”
The escorts didn’t know me as Soto—the guy they worked for.
No one did. Usually the escorts dealt with Nik or one of the other bodyguards.
But Shane had been one of the first sex workers Soto had taken under his wing, so Shane had some liberties.
He thought I was Soto’s rarely seen second-in-command.
I disliked lying to him, but it was necessary.
Devlin couldn’t hear about my involvement in the business, and it wasn’t fair to put Shane in the position of having the knowledge of Soto’s true identity.
I’d created Soto eight years ago, when Devlin’s criminal empire had taken a strong foothold in the criminal underbelly of Detroit.
I began spreading rumors about a challenger in the city, a man named Soto.
Creating a legend out of thin air had been easier than I anticipated.
Men like Devlin were paranoid and giving them a Keyser Soze-like adversary played into their insecurities.
Soto’s deeds were whispered in the dark until his name alone was a threat.
I gathered men who believed the legend, who had no idea Soto was more vigilante than criminal boss.
All they knew was that we fucked up whatever of Devlin’s we could.
They didn’t know that the sex workers I stole from Devlin were now protected, and their only clients—if they chose to stay in the business—were those who’d been vetted and made to sign contracts.
Soto burned warehouses, stole guns, and bribed employees to betray Devlin. He created havoc but only to Devlin. Most of Soto’s men—my men—didn’t know that those guns and drugs were handed over to authorities anonymously by a small, trusted group led by Nik.
I was both Soto and not Soto. Because Soto wasn’t one man; he was a reign of terror meant only to bring down Devlin. And absolve my soul.
Shane stood in his doorway, watching me curiously.
I cleared my throat. “May I come in?”
He stepped back, opening the door wider. “Sure.”
His apartment was neat and clean. He took pride in his things.
He worked hard for his money but didn’t spend it frivolously.
I looked forward to the day he came to me to tell me he was done with the escort business which I owned.
But for now, it was a job he knew, and because of Soto, he had the protection to work it safely.
Each of Soto’s escorts traveled with a chaperone capable of punishing anyone who crossed a line.
Shane held his hand out for my jacket, which I slipped from my shoulders. He hung it on a rack by the door. “Do you want a drink? Something to eat?”
“Just a water would be great.”
He nodded and walked to the far corner of his apartment.
He wore an oversized pair of jeans, bearing multiple holes and worn patches, as well as a large T-shirt.
He looked comfortable, happy. His hair was a little longer than usual, stray strands falling down his forehead to catch on the dark lashes of his big brown eyes.
Pretty as always, Shane was. But I never touched my employees.
Shane had tried, and had tried hard, but I always refused. Eventually he let it go.
He handed me a glass of ice water, flicking the hair out of his eyes, shooting me the smile he reserved for friends, of which he had few. I was proud to be on the receiving end of it now. “How are you?” I asked him.
“I’m good.” He led me to the couch, where I took a seat. He curled up in the corner, his knees to his chest. “What’s going on? I’m not sure you’ve ever visited me.”
I looked around. “No, I don’t think I have. I like your place.”
“Thanks,” he murmured. “I-Is everything okay?”
I placed my glass on the coffee table and rested my hand on my knee. “I need to ask you about a man. I’d like more information about him.”
Shane dropped his feet to the floor, body straightening as he realized the importance of the conversation from my tone. With a little line of determination between his eyes, he said, “All right.”
I had agonized over this. This entire visit felt like a betrayal to Tav, to go behind his back, inquire about him, dig into his life.
But after that first night, he’d willingly come to me twice now, each time with a desperation that bordered on panic.
This last time, he’d slept in my bed. We’d held each other, broke bread together.
The uncertainty of where we stood was what had caused anxiety for me.
But I’d made a decision. Who he was to me was a real, tangible concept in my mind, so there was no more agony over Tav.
Only a single-minded focus to fix and save and own.
This had never been me. He’d knocked something loose in my head, he’d yanked all the loose yarn until I was nearly unraveled ever since I held him as he shivered naked on my balcony.
There was a reason he’d done that, a reason that made me want to put my fist through a wall until I remembered who I was. What I’d done. What I was capable of.
“He’s a couple inches over six foot. Big, muscular, Probably two-thirty or two-fifty. Dark hair. Handsome but… rough. Some scars. A crooked nose.”
I couldn’t look at Shane as I talked. I felt naked, vulnerable, rattling off Tav’s stats. And when I finally paused a risked a glance, Shane’s eyes were huge in his pale face. “Is that it?” he asked softly.
I waved my hand at my face. “No, he’s…his eyes. They’re unique. Two colors, one mostly brown the other mostly green. And a tattoo takes up his whole back. An angel.”
The flap of wings.
The muscles in Shane’s face were shifting. His gaze had gone out of focus. “His eyes, you say?”
I nodded. The genetic heterochromia iridium was somewhat rare. I’d looked it up—about six out of every one thousand people had it, although on most it wasn’t noticeable. Tav’s eyes were definitely noticeable.