Chapter 3 Connall
Connall
Six Months Later: August
The bathroom lights do nothing to improve the dark circles under Connall’s bloodshot, navy-blue eyes as they stare accusingly at him from the shabby mirror.
He fleetingly wonders if he shouldn’t replace the bulbs with something less harsh, because time has not been kind.
They’d be the newest additions to an old apartment that Connall is sure hasn’t seen an upgrade in several decades.
Sighing, he bends to rinse his face, the remnants of shaving cream washing down the drain, and the extra-cold water doing nothing to wash away the last of his fatigue.
Last night, he’d spent hours poring over his predecessor’s second set of books, well into the early hours of the morning, and now, at almost noon, Connall feels like he’s been run over by a truck. To make matters worse, he’s no closer to figuring out the code than he was a month ago.
Maybe it was that he’d just turned thirty-six last fall, or that he was now king of a criminal empire, trying to untangle decades of damage Patrick Carnell had done to Nashville and beyond.
There’s no denying the toll it had taken on his soul, let alone his face—as if the inward wear and tear of his less-than-perfect life had seeped into his every cell.
Truth be told, his ever-present exhaustion could only explain away so much of how Connall appeared ten years older than other men his age. No amount of skincare could counterbalance that much stress, and he knew it.
Checking the time on his phone, Connall adds his moisturizer-slash-sunscreen, hoping the product will have acquired magical properties overnight.
How had he managed to rise before dawn for almost seventeen years?
Catering to Patrick Carnell as butler and general errand boy had made him an early bird—or so he’d thought. Turns out, Carnell’s world didn’t hold up to the light of day, and Connall’s new “promotion” required adapting to a nocturnal life.
Truly, it wasn’t coming down from the late hours that kept him awake when he finally crawled into his narrow, single bed. It was the skulking in the shadows when all he’d dreamed of was living in the light.
With practiced efficiency, he rinses his straight blade under the lukewarm tap water—the water temperature in his little place is only slightly worse than the pressure. He slaps on an extra-strength scent patch to mask the scent of fresh snow before dropping his towel into the hamper.
He runs his hand through his wavy hair, hating that this longer length shows he has more than a few greys at his temples. He can’t shave them off like he does with his beard. Perhaps adding a trip to the barber is just one more thing he’ll have to make time for this week.
Yanking open the cabinet underneath the small vanity, he pulls out a rag and his preferred homemade vinegar spray. He makes quick work of the counter, the basin, and finally the spotty mirror by rote, while his mind runs through the next twenty-four hours.
When they’re once again pristine, he crouches to take stock of toilet paper (more than any reasonable person without the norovirus would need) and cleaning supplies (same) under the sink.
All of it done by rote, by habits hammered into him over a lifetime of doing the same mundane tasks for someone else, where failure had never gone unpunished.
Seems the last six months have done nothing to break him of them.
Between paranoia born of nearly two decades working as a butler for a psychopathic narcissist and the senses of an alpha Were, he hears the whisper of footsteps in his bedroom even with the decrepit exhaust fan running at full blast to clear away his shower steam.
When the intruder fills the doorway, Connall has the bleach tile cleaner pointed upwards in one hand and his claws out on the other.
“Uh…boss? You planning on cleaning me to death or what?” Beau asks, teeth bright in his dark brown face and his perfectly groomed eyebrows raised in mockery. “Won’t be the first time you’ve tried.”
“Don’t call me ‘boss,’ dumbass,” Connall says, blowing air out in relief that he wasn’t going to be cleaning blood out of his bathroom carpet…for the second time this week. “And fuck the fuck off.”
Beauregard Johnson is a stunning giant of a man. He’s six feet five and over two hundred and fifty pounds of prime Tennessee beefcake, with fists the size of hams and a heart bigger than anyone Connall had ever known.
Brilliant and cunning, he is Connall’s best—and only—friend. If two grown men up to their ears in the crime world could be called something so benign.
He’s also stubborn as hell—and now that Connall is in charge, he makes a point of calling him “boss” just to piss him off.
At least that hasn’t changed.
“Awww, you say the nicest things. Now cover your scrawny ass—it’s offending my delicate sensibilities,” Beau grumbles, shielding his face with a giant hand.
“I’d be more inclined to believe you if you weren’t staring at it through your fingers.” Connall smirks, pulling boxers out of his neatly organized dresser drawer.
“Not my type,” Beau winks, “but that never stops you from trying to get a piece of this.” He runs a hand down his sculpted abs beneath the maroon silk of his suit, then strikes a pose—one hand in his pocket, lips curled into a perfect ‘blue steel.’
His friend’s old Timex is fixed to his massive wrist, chipped glass face reflecting the light creeping in from between the curtains. Connall shouldn’t be surprised that his friend isn’t wearing the Rolex Connall had gifted him on his fortieth birthday in May—old habits die hard for Beau, too.
“You keep saying I’m not your type, and yet, here you are—ogling my ass.”
Even though the joke is an old one, Beau is right about one thing: they aren’t each other’s type.
No matter that they’d been forged together in Carnell’s life of hellfire. Connall and Beau didn’t suit each other physically or romantically—mostly because they were both toppy as fuck.
Oh, they’d tried, way back when Connall had been twenty, terribly lonely, and the twenty-five-year-old Beau had been new to Carnell’s vicious brand of tender, loathing care.
But it hadn’t worked out. Not even once.
Destined to be each other’s ride or die—just not mated for life.
Beau snorts. “It’s an ungrateful ass. Here I am, parked illegally in front of this death trap because you couldn’t find the right time if it sat at your bar and ordered you a fucking martini. If you don’t hurry the fuck up, you’ll be late for your lunch date at Quest.”
Nowadays, more often than not, Connall shows up late—just because now he can, and besides, it never pays to be too predictable in his new line of work.
Out of the corner of his eye, Connall sees his friend considering sitting on the edge of his perfectly made bed. Stopping in an awkward half-sit, Beau clearly remembers—at the last second—that they’d lose another five minutes while Connall fixed it if he did.
“Dude, you’re slow like molasses today. Aren’t you eager to finally get that audience you’ve been waiting on with the old heir apparent?” he asks, settling into the rest position instead, with his hands clasped behind his back and his feet shoulder-width apart.
“Gideon will wait,” Connall mutters—or at least, he’s 99% sure his cousin won’t give two shits if he shows up twenty minutes late, as long as he shows up.
Pulling on his custom-tailored white cotton shirt, Connall buttons the front and adds cufflinks he’d taken from Carnell’s stash that first night, after he’d sent him to the Goddess.
They’re small bronze compasses pointing north with a small diamond star in the center.
They remind him of where he’s been—and that there is only one direction he can go: forward.
His favorite navy suit pants are next, followed by silk socks with tiny otters on them and cognac-brown handmade loafers. Finally, adding the matching fitted jacket, he finds the second reason he’s meeting Gideon Carnell today—the purple velvet box buried in the back of his sock drawer.
Slipping it into his pocket, Connall runs a last hand through his hair, lamenting, “This is as good as it’s going to get. Let’s go.”
“Tell me you’re not proposing to me at Quest. It’s going to be awkward when I turn you down,” Beau says, nodding at the slightly bulging pocket.
“Fuck no. You know I’m a lone wolf. Arooooo.” Connall pretends to howl, deadpan. “It’s time I return this to its rightful owner.”
The purple box had been tucked into the back of the safe in Carnell’s penthouse when he’d returned to Nashville in February. Dusty, even there, he’d opened it and known right away it wasn’t Carnell’s—or his—to keep.
“Let’s hit it. I’m so fucking tired, I need coffee before I make nice.”
“You’re always nice, boss. Except maybe that one time in Florida…or that time last week when Vincenzo’s idiot—”
The apartment is so small that they’re in the hall before Beau can list a third time, Connall hadn’t been so nice.
He keeps reciting Connall’s list of sins down all three flights of stairs and out into the Nashville sunshine.
Groaning under his breath, Connall pinches the bridge of his nose.
Beau doesn’t even pause. “And that time when that frat douche grabbed Ruby’s ass and you broke his fingers…”
By the time Beau opens the back door of the black Escalade, Connall has long since tuned him out, because it’s not like those “not nice” moments aren’t engraved on his psyche and his soul.
“Sorry to interrupt this delightful ode to my villainous ways, but did you happen to grab that file from Ollie?”
Beau grunts as he buckles himself into the driver’s seat. It used to be strange seeing the back of his friend’s head, after spending years up front beside him like the “help.”
“Of fucking course. You know Ollie has that damn thing highlighted and tabbed with color-coded ‘sign here’ stickers,” Beau returns, meeting his gaze for a minute in the rearview mirror before pulling out and into traffic. “It’s why you pay me the big bucks.”
It wasn’t why, but that list is even longer than Beau’s had been.
“Thanks. He’s a good kid.” That kid is only twenty-two but an indispensable administrative whiz. Cute as a fucking button, but with a backbone of steel, Oliver Talbot is just one more person Connall tries not to care about.
“Let’s hit Dunks for that coffee, please,” Connall says, pulling his aviators out of the center console before sliding them onto his nose.
Beau signals and merges into the busy street traffic. “Sure thing, boss.”
The street in front of Connall’s “deathtrap” is busy with regular people going about their everyday lives.
No pesky tourists in this neck of the city—just Nashville natives sharing the sidewalk, cloth bags of meager groceries, or laundry from the brand-new laundromat slung over shoulders stooped with a life on this side of the Dickerson Pike.
This was the neighborhood where Connall had grown up, with his parents and grandfather, before his dad had met the business end of Carnell’s .
38. It was home, and he was doing everything he could to bring it back to life for the people who lived here with as little fanfare as possible.
Locals were understandably suspicious of anything that looked too good to be true and came too easily.
When Connall had inherited Carnell’s empire, he hadn’t considered for even a minute moving up to SoBro or Downtown. He needed to remember that this is who he was.
Still does.
Beau’s Escalade is out of place, and when he rides in back—as his new station demands for appearances—Connall struggles to remember this isn’t who he is now: luxury cars, bespoke suits, and Gucci shoes that pinch his toes.
Because after six months, the suits have started to feel right. The SUV rides too smoothly, and the tattoo on the back of Beau’s neck is more and more familiar.
The idea that he’s changing who he really is scares the shit out of him—and as Beau had listed, it’s not for the better.
A pain in his gut follows hard on the heels of that thought, as he struggles to remember what it felt like to wear his favorite jeans, a T-shirt, and eat burgers at McDonald’s.
It’s not lost on him that he’s spent most of his adult life doing what he needs to do instead of what he wants to do.
Today, that includes eating a fancy lunch deep in the heart of The Gulch and hoping his cousin—Carnell’s son—hasn’t changed his mind about signing over a billion-dollar criminal empire.
Connall doesn’t want to take it by force, not when Gideon’s got something at home that Connall could only ever dream of. And this whole thing has always been for Gideon’s own good, even if it will never be for Connall’s.