Chapter Twenty-Eight
“It’s fucked and it’s not much, but it’s more than what we had,” Beckett finished.
I went from looking at Pete’s phone sitting on the table to the man himself, then over to Gavin. Both of them looked as disturbed as I felt.
Beckett had just spent the last twenty minutes briefing us on a trip he took up north to the San Fernando Valley with Blackwell.
A trip where he’d scoured the porn scene, making his selections for talent for an upcoming feast. Blackwell hadn’t been forthcoming with the ins and outs, but Beck had been able to connect the dots.
Blackwell was a sick fuck and he was hosting a party for his rich, equally sick friends at his mansion in Rhode Island.
“I’ll call Fallon and tell him to run missing persons reports from the San Fernando Valley and surrounding areas and have him narrow that to anyone in the porn industry,” Pete said, then switched topics. “How are you handling being under again?”
I heard Beck grunt through the phone.
“Need more than that, Beck,” Pete urged.
“I’m fine.”
“Brother—”
“This guy’s a motherfucker, but I’ve dealt with worse,” Beck returned, then added, “It feels good being back in the game.”
After months of isolation, I hoped Beck being back to the land of the living meant he was healing. The man played his cards close to his chest. I knew he’d opened up to Jack, but that opening was more of a crack in the fortress he’d built around himself.
“Anything else for us?” Pete inquired.
“Yeah, one more thing. Blackwell had an intense call with Len Taylor.”
That spiked my interest. “Intense how?”
“Didn’t hear the conversation. Blackwell walked away when Taylor called, but whatever he had to say pissed off Blackwell in a big way. Body language was tense, and when the call was finished, Blackwell was agitated.”
“And he didn’t mention a Dex while you were with him?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“No Dex. Blackwell’s not stupid. He’s playing this smart, feeling me out, not taking calls in front of me, only letting me in on piddly shit.
He called the porn girls entertainment, which could mean just having pretty women walking around his party as eye candy.
And he stepped away to talk privately to the producers about the girls he was interested in.
The three he propositioned aren’t bad looking, but not the prettiest, and all three looked to be high. ”
“Seems he’s got a type,” Gavin put in. “Lisa Peters, otherwise known as Chantilly Luxx, has five arrests, all drug related, two stints in rehab, and over thirty film credits. I’ll run Porsche, Moxy Witherspoon, and Diamond Rough and see what I can find.”
What Gavin left out was, Lisa Peters’s family lived in Florida and, from what we could dig up, they were estranged.
Something Lisa had in common with Lucy Macmillan and Amber Sadler.
Neither the missing bartender nor the coat check girl had family nearby, and both had fucked-up childhoods.
Cynthia was an orphan who regularly complained about her sister, which could easily be misinterpreted as them not being close.
Easy targets.
No family to miss them.
“Tonight, we’re meeting with Mercer at the Vault,” Pete told Beck. “Membership’s approved, money’s been transferred, all we need to do is sign the NDAs and we’re good.”
“I don’t know what Blackwell’s plans are. I’m meeting him at the hangar at five,” Beck returned.
“Shep sent two watches for you. One’s a Fēnix, the other’s a Rolex. Both are chipped with tracking devices. Aiden’s going to drop them in the alley behind your Airbnb.”
Since part of Beck’s cover was that he was new to the area, he was staying at a rental owned by the brother of a former Team Guy and his wife.
He’d given us access to the security cameras he had around the property.
So far Blackwell hadn’t sent one of his men to sit on the house and watch Beck, but to be safe, Aiden would still use the alleyway.
“Right. Tell Aiden to text me after the drop.”
There was a soft knock at the office door before it slowly opened, and Chloe’s face appeared. I waved her in while Pete told Beckett, “We’ll check in later, and Aiden will text.”
Beck grunted his farewell and disconnected.
Chloe set my coffee down. I caught the flush on her cheeks and her pinched brows. “What’s wrong?”
“I ran into a woman I work with at the Vault while I was at The Daily Grind. Naomi accused me of trying to . . . seduce Sterling to get a spot at a feast.” Chloe sounded more pissed than freaked out she was confronted.
But not as pissed as I was some woman had cornered her at a coffee shop.
“She went on to tell me that Sterling didn’t fuck his hostesses and warned me to back off because it was her turn.
Oh, and she called Cynthia a bitch . . .
and doesn’t believe she’s missing. She said she thinks Cynthia took her twenty grand she earned working for Sterling and ran off to Vegas, where Cynthia had been saying she wanted to move to.
She also said the girls get paid five K plus tips at these feasts. ”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gavin grab his phone. I opened my mouth to thoroughly explain how I felt about some bitch getting in my woman’s face, but Pete beat me to it. “Has this woman hassled you before?”
“No. But I did hear her complaining to Muriel the night Sterling came in with Beckett. She wanted the table, but Muriel told her Sterling had requested my station.”
“We already looked into Cynthia’s account,” Gavin put in. “And all transactions in and out have been consistent until the day she went missing. Cash deposits four times a week. Those were consistent, too, between two and three thousand. No savings account. No investment accounts.”
“Could she be hiding it under her mattress?” Chloe tossed out with a shrug.
At the moment I didn’t give a flying fuck what Cynthia had done with her money. “Let’s go back to Naomi. What else did she say?”
“That was it.”
“Nothing else? She didn’t threaten you or—”
Chloe’s hand went to my shoulder, her fingers curled in, and she squeezed.
“No, honey. No threats. She was antagonistic but not aggressive. And she didn’t explain why she thought it was her turn, she was just adamant it was.
She was also clear in her opinion of Cynthia, which pissed me off.
So I thought it best to end the conversation before I threatened her. ”
“After Aiden delivers Beck’s watches, I’ll have him go by Cynthia’s condo and look around,” Pete said.
“Look around?” Chloe asked. “You mean like break in?”
Gavin didn’t outright answer, yet what he said was confirmation. “A little B and E is exactly what Aiden needs. He’s getting antsy being stateside.”
Aiden antsy was never a good thing. Him bored meant he’d go looking for trouble, and sometimes that trouble came in the form of finding an underground fight.
Other times it could mean him taking off to Joshua Tree or Moab to free-climb with no one there to watch over him.
He was restless on a good day. Edgy most days.
And sometimes when it got to be too much, downright tetchy.
The it being the things he’d seen. The other, arguably larger it was the abuse he’d endured growing up.
The man needed his mind occupied at all times or the demons of his past encroached.
“I’ll handle Aiden,” Pete announced, pushing away from the table.
When he was on his feet, his gaze landed on Chloe.
“It might not seem like a big deal to you, but for us, you taking over the office work is a huge help. Having someone we trust to watch over the bar while we’re gone is bigger.
I hope you get this isn’t a handout, and when this is over, we can make this permanent.
” Then his gaze came to me. “I’ll pick you up at seven. ”
With that, Pete left.
“Fallon’s on Poppy tonight,” Gavin told me. “I’ll be at home with Chloe.”
“Did he finish running the plates?” I asked.
“Yep. None were registered to a Dex or any variation of the name. Tonight, I’ll run the names while you’re out.” Gavin transferred his attention to Chloe. “You wanna learn how to run a background check?”
Chloe’s face lit up.
“I absolutely want to learn how to run a background check.”
Her excitement didn’t bode well for me. I’d watched this happen twice before with Jack and Mason.
Catarina and Calista ran roughshod over their men—not backing down when the danger ramped up.
However, both of those women were trained.
Chloe was not, and she’d already proven to be stubborn.
Given the opportunity to wedge herself further into the investigation—or worse, push her way into future operations—she’d jump at the chance.
I was totally fucked.
“Thanks, buddy,” I grumbled.
Gavin smiled and nabbed his keys and tablet off the table. “I’m gonna go out and check the floor.” When he was at the door, he turned back. “Don’t forget Grace needs her schedule changed.”
Shit, with Beck calling in his brief and Chloe coming back after she’d been approached by Naomi, I’d forgotten about Grace.
“Is everything okay with Grace?” Chloe asked with wide eyes full of concern.
It would seem I’d forgotten something else. Or maybe I didn’t forget; maybe I thought I understood the depth of Chloe’s care and concern for those around her but what I knew didn’t scratch the surface.
“Yeah. She’s added a behavioral science class to her class load, so she needs her schedule adjusted to Mondays and Thursdays off this semester, and Wednesday nights if we can swing it.”
“Can you swing it?”
“If we can’t, we’ll hire a new hostess to cover the shifts.”
Her eyes warmed when she asked, “Just like that?”
I liked that look so much, and since we were alone, I shoved my chair back, leaned deep, and tagged her hand. With a tug she lurched forward. She stopped her fall with a hand planted on my chest. I used her being off balance to my advantage and twisted her so she landed on my lap.
When I had her settled, I told her, “This isn’t the first time she’s asked, and we’ve made it clear school’s important and we’ll work around her schedule. So, yeah, just like that.”
Chloe’s hand came up to cup my jaw, and her thumb grazed my bottom lip. The touch was featherlight, tender. So were eyes as she watched her thumb. “That’s cool of you.”
It wouldn’t be me shifting the schedule around, putting an ad out if need be, doing interviews, and hiring someone.
I didn’t remind her that was now her job.
Instead, I allowed myself a moment to soak in her touch, the soft look, the way she felt sitting in my lap and thought—finally.
After all this time, wanting her exactly where she was, fighting against it, and all of that behind us, we were finally exploring what had been simmering between us, which meant I now had options available to me.
Options I’d waited a long fucking time to have.
Therefore when I was done committing to memory how good it felt to be on the receiving end of all that was Chloe, my hand wrapped around the back of her neck to pull her close.
My head tipped back just as her mouth got close, but I stopped short of kissing her when she murmured, “Thank you.”
“For what, baby?” I asked.
“For doing what I was too scared to do. Which means I’m now sitting in your lap, living out a hot-boss fantasy I never thought I’d get in real life,” she teased.
I felt that tease in my dick, but I felt the whispered softness someplace else.
That meant when I finally took her mouth, I did it smiling, with my heart fully engaged.
Further, it meant while sitting in my office with Chloe finally on my lap, her hand still resting on my jaw, I experienced something for the first time in my life—the beauty of a kiss.
Not the preamble to more.
Not foreplay.
Not the means to an end.
Just a kiss.
The slow glide of tongues. Savoring. Tasting. Building a connection—not a physical one, an emotional joining.
It was the best kiss of my life. Bar none.