Chapter 6
Arthur
My morning schedule looked the same as it did most workdays: coffee with the guys at The Velvet Bean, touch base on our plans for the day, and get to work.
Today, I had the exposé on the agenda, and then Lance and I would head to Caine-Ferraro’s with our recommendations.
All they needed was a new camera for the rear of the building and fresh security codes for everyone on staff.
As I walked through the front door of the café, the owner finished wiping down a table and greeted me. Grace Laurent was everything her dour boyfriend wasn’t—friendly, chatty, and always smiling. “Hi, Arthur. You want the usual?”
I nodded to her and headed up the few steps to the table near the back corner where Tristan and Galahad were halfway through their breakfast sandwiches. Galahad had his back to the wall, and Tristan was talking with his hands about something Galahad was ignoring.
“Morning,” I said, pulling out a chair.
“You look like shit,” Tristan said.
“Thanks.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Enough.” I hadn’t. I’d gone home after dropping Gwen at Sam’s and Lance at his apartment, then I’d spent the next two hours staring at my bedroom ceiling, thinking about driving back to Sam’s condo. My half-baked plan went no further than sitting in the parking lot. Just in case.
I’d talked myself out of it three times. The building had a doorman, a security desk, and required key-card access to Sam and Antonio’s penthouse level. Gwen was fine. She was inside a safe building with a woman who’d been in the FBI.
But I’d lain there arguing with myself regardless.
Grace brought my coffee over. “Breakfast?”
“Coffee only, please.”
She set my mug down and left without comment, which meant I really did look like shit. Galahad’s girlfriend loved talking to anyone and everyone. The near-silence didn’t suit her the way it suited him.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out.
Morganna: White Spring has me on a thing today. Journalist ID will have to wait.
Shit.
Arthur: Thanks for the heads up
“When do we get to start meeting at the office?” Tristan asked, too casually.
“Don’t start.”
“I’m just asking.”
“The architect sent me the new design for Morganna’s server room yesterday afternoon.”
Galahad’s mouth twitched. On anyone else it would have been invisible, but on Galahad it may as well have been a belly laugh.
“What is that? The fifth revision?” Tristan asked.
“Sixth, since I joined.” Galahad adjusted the sling that held his left arm against his body. He’d been complaining about it since the Czech doctors had forced it on him two months ago. “At this rate, the office might be ready by the time we retire.”
“The renovation would be finished already if our intelligence specialist didn’t keep expanding her requirements.
” I took a sip of my coffee. Grace’s coffee was fantastic, which was the main reason The Velvet Bean had become our de facto office.
That and the breakfast sandwiches. And the fact that our office was still a construction zone.
“She wants a dedicated cooling system now, too.”
“Give her whatever she wants.” That line was usually Merlin’s, but without him, Galahad said it for him. Considering the help she’d given us on his girlfriend’s case, it wasn’t a surprise.
“You both read the article?” I asked.
Tristan nodded.
Galahad grunted, which was the same thing.
“Morganna was going to dig into the journalist’s identity, but she’s busy with some White Spring project right now.” I put my phone on the table. “And Lance hasn’t finished the client outreach draft.”
“Because Lance was busy last night,” said Lance, pulling out the chair next to me and dropping into it. He had his coffee, and the dark circles under his eyes told me he was as rested as I was. “Did Arthur tell you about the break-in last night?”
Tristan and Galahad shook their heads.
Lance filled them in about Gwen’s hotel room, dressing it up enough that he was obviously building a case. He and Tristan were our charmers, but Lance was the storyteller.
Tristan leaned forward and asked, “Do you think it’s connected to the sword?”
“Possibly.” Lance shrugged, but it was clear he thought so. “I’m not saying it is. But she’s an outside expert brought in to authenticate an item from an FBI black-market seizure. If someone involved with the auction wanted to know what she’s found, a hotel burglary is a pretty clean cover.”
“Or it was nothing more than a burglary,” I said.
“Or that.” Lance sipped his coffee. “But it got me thinking. The article in Crécy Defense Review said RTS is a Pendragon puppet. A pro bono close protection assignment tied to an FBI seizure sounds like good marketing copy. If she’s been targeted by someone connected to the auction, that sounds like even better marketing copy. ”
And that was what he’d been building to.
He held out his hands, like he was presenting us all with a gift. “That’s the kind of job that tells the story we need to tell right now.”
Lance had always been talented at polishing an image. The bones of the argument were solid—an FBI-adjacent protection job with no Pendragon involvement would push back against the article’s central claim.
It was a reasonable pitch. But I knew him well enough to recognize the gap between his story and reality. “You’re pretending your theory is the official narrative. We don’t know whether the break-in is related to the sword. You’re just spinning it.”
“Public relations is all about spin, Arthur. That’s literally how it works.”
“And it’s precisely what the exposé accused us of. Dressing things up.” I picked up my coffee, but put it down again. “Besides, Gwen’s staying in a secure building now. The threat, if there is one, doesn’t justify assigning someone to dedicated close protection.”
Lance shifted to the edge of his chair to get closer to me. “You don’t think it justifies protection, or you don’t want me to be the one providing it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You tell me.”
Tristan glanced from me to Lance. He picked up his sandwich and took a very deliberate bite.
“You want to talk about last night?” I should have let it go. That was the smart move, but I was too fucking tired for smart moves. “Let’s talk about last night. About your arm around her waist. Sitting on the bed with her. Offering your apartment. Calling her ‘Babe.’”
Lance narrowed his eyes, as though offended I’d call him on his ulterior motive.
“Oh yeah, I heard you call her that when you thought I was too busy with the police. If this protection proposal is genuinely about the exposé and the PR angle, great. But if it’s about getting into Gwen’s pants, we’re not—”
Lance launched out of his chair, sloshing his coffee onto the table. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Sit down.”
“She called me at ten o’clock at night, terrified.
” Lance’s voice was strained, barely held together.
“She was alone in a room someone had broken into. I held her because she was fucking crying, Arthur. I sat next to her because she was shaking. I offered her my apartment because her hotel room had been violated and she had nowhere else to go. And you’re sitting there accusing me of trying to get into her pants? ”
I stood, both hands out, like I could contain the conversation to our corner of the café. More than a couple of heads had turned. “I said sit down.”
“Fuck you.” He jabbed a finger into my chest. “Gwen and I are ancient history. And it’s none of your fucking business.”
“Lance. Mind your volume.”
“And she was right to call me,” he said, dropping the decibels but not the edge, “because I drove back to Sam and Antonio’s building after you dropped me off.”
He what?
“I couldn’t sleep. So I stayed in the parking lot for a while.”
The coffee shop noise went distant. Grace’s espresso machine, the clatter of plates, a woman laughing near the window. All of it faded. He’d done exactly what I’d talked myself out of doing. “And?”
“There was a car idling in the lot. Someone just sitting there with their engine running and lights off. I walked toward it, and they pulled out before I got close enough to question them.”
Fuck.
I lowered myself into my chair. Slowly. “When?”
“Around two.”
“And you’re just sharing this now?” God help me, somehow, I kept my voice from rising. “You sat through this entire conversation, the pitch, the PR angle, all of it, with this intel in your back pocket?”
“The close protection proposal is a smart recommendation on its own.” Lance stayed on his feet, but the heat was draining out of him.
“Based on the break-in alone, it made sense. I didn’t need an idling car to sell it.
” He finally sat, pulling his chair back harder than necessary.
“But you wanted to make it about her pants instead of listening to me.”
“Someone was watching the building where she’s staying?” I said, more to myself than him.
“Yes.”
Not yes. I was jumping to the same conclusions he was. A random idling car meant nothing. “We don’t know they were watching her. It’s the middle of October, and it’s chilly out at night. It could have been someone waiting for their car to warm up.”
“But it could have been about her,” Lance said. “Why drive off when I approached them?”
“Because you’re a big guy who’d scare anyone walking up to their car in the dark.”
Lance threw his head back, looking at the ceiling as though he could find a convincing argument printed there. “Why are you fighting me on this?”
I picked up my phone, turned it over, and set it down. People were probably still staring. I didn’t care anymore. We were all supposed to be equals in this company, but I was falling into my old role, and the guys expected me to make the decision.
Lance waved his arms at Tristan and Galahad. “Tell him he’s being thick.”
Tristan held up both hands as if in surrender. “I learned a long time ago not to get in the middle when you two are fighting over a woman.”
“We’re not fighting over a woman,” I said.
Galahad frowned and stood. “I need more coffee.”
“We’re not—” I started to call after him.
But you are, Arthur. Admit it—you saw red when Lance suggested she stay at his place.
Either way, the idling car didn’t prove anything.
It could have been someone waiting for a passenger, a delivery driver on his phone, a couple making out.
But it was suspicious. And with the break-in and Gwen authenticating an item out of an FBI raid, it added up to something.
What exactly? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t ignore it and hope it went away.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said.
“The proposal is smart. The PR angle holds regardless of whether the break-in is connected to the sword. But we’re not spinning theory into fact, and we’re not deciding this for her.
We take it to Gwen. We lay out the situation, we tell her about the car, we tell her we can’t confirm what it means, and we let her decide. ”
“My instincts say it’s connected,” Lance said.
“Fucking hell, man.” I clenched my jaw and shook my head, knowing he wouldn’t let it drop. Because my instincts said the same thing. “Fine.”
Lance studied me, then reached for a napkin to soak up the coffee he’d spilled on the table. “For the record, she’s going to say yes.”
“That’s her call.”
“And when she does, I am doing that job,” Lance said. “Unless you don’t trust me to protect her?”
“This is a good one,” Tristan said, around a mouthful of food. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
I could have told them what I honestly thought. That Lance was overreacting. That I suspected he was working the same angle he worked with every woman. Instead, I stood and said to Lance, “I’m going to Caine-Ferraro’s. Get your head on straight. I’ll see you there.”