CHAPTER FOUR
NOLA
Nola slept forty-three minutes.
Not because she wanted to count. Her phone told her when she finally gave up and sat up.
Dre still hadn’t called.
She texted him again.
No response.
Then she called work and used a personal day she had been saving for something more enjoyable than chasing her brother through South Jersey.
By seven, she was back at Vaughn Recovery with two coffees and an attitude.
Kai was in the manager office wearing the same clothes, sleeves pushed to his forearms now. He had a laptop open, two legal pads filled with handwriting, and a paper cup he hadn’t touched.
He looked at the coffee she set down.
“What’s that?”
“Coffee.”
“I got coffee.”
“You have something pretending to be coffee. Drink that if you want.”
He picked hers up and took a sip.
Nola smiled. “Exactly.”
“You always this smug?”
“When I’m right.”
“So yes.”
“Pretty much.”
She sat across from him.
“What’d you find?”
He turned the laptop.
Dre’s bank account showed a cash withdrawal of twenty-four hundred dollars at 10:41 p.m.
“That’s all?”
“All.”
“He had that in there?”
“Paychecks plus whatever he already had.”
Nola frowned. Dre had been claiming he was broke for two weeks.
“He lied about money. Shocking.”
“The withdrawal matters.”
“Because?”
“If he had eighty-seven thousand cash, why stop at an ATM for twenty-four hundred of his own?”
Nola looked at him.
“So you don’t think he took it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You almost did.”
“No. I said the withdrawal doesn’t fit.”
“Same neighborhood.”
“Not same house.”
She hated that she liked the way his brain worked.
Kai didn’t rush to make the evidence fit whatever made him feel powerful. He kept moving pieces until they matched.
She leaned toward the screen. “Where was the ATM?”
“Blackwood. Convenience store. We got the footage. He’s alone. Leaves on foot.”
“Then what?”
“Unknown.”
“Phone?”
“Off.”
“The borrowed number?”
“Off.”
Nola rubbed her face.
“I should’ve known something was wrong.”
“How?”
“He left his car. He lied about Keem dropping him off. He climbed out my damn window. Pick one.”
“You got home after midnight.”
“And?”
“And you’re acting like you should’ve conducted an interrogation before you took your shoes off.”
Nola looked at him.
“Was that reassurance?”
Kai’s face changed immediately. “No.”
“Sounded like it.”
“It was common sense.”
“Mm-hmm.”
He pointed at the laptop. “Focus.”
She laughed.
A knock came at the open door.
Rome stepped in. “We found the sedan.”
Kai stood.
“Plate?”
“Partial matched against one employee visitor record. Keem Fletcher’s girlfriend got an Altima with a cracked tail light.”
Nola stood too.
“Keem said his girlfriend?”
Rome looked at her. “Who said anything about Keem saying anything?”
“Dre told me Keem brought him home.”
“Which he didn’t.”
“Apparently.”
Rome held Kai’s gaze. “Keem clocked out at eight-fifty.”
“Address.”
Rome gave it.
Kai grabbed his keys.
Nola reached for her jacket.
“You stay here,” he said.
She laughed once because surely he was joking.
He wasn’t.
“I beg your pardon?”
“We don’t know what Keem’s role is.”
“And?”
“And if he helped Dre take my money, I’m not bringing you to the conversation.”
“That’s my brother.”
“That’s my eighty-seven.”
“You promised—”
“I promised not to beat Dre before you got there. Keem ain’t Dre.”
She stepped closer. “You’re not leaving me sitting in this office while everybody else decides what happens with my brother.”
“I’m deciding what happens with my business.”
“And I’m deciding I’m coming.”
“No.”
Nola stared at him.
Rome looked between them, then quietly backed out of the office.
Smart man.
“You got a real control issue,” she said.
“I got a safety issue.”
“Same shit in a nicer outfit.”
Kai shut the door.
“You don’t know Keem.”
“Neither do you if we’re still asking questions.”
“I know what men do when they’re cornered.”
“And I know what I do when somebody tells me to sit down like a child.”
“Nola.”
“Kai.”
He stepped closer.
She didn’t back up.
That was the problem.
He was tall enough that she had to tip her chin to keep eye contact. Close enough now that she could smell soap under the stale night and coffee. Tired eyes. Beard patch still there. Mouth entirely too calm for somebody irritating her this badly.
“You like arguing,” he said.
“I like people not making decisions for me.”
“You’re not going.”
“Watch me.”
She moved toward the door.
Kai caught her wrist.
Not hard.
Enough to stop her.
Nola looked down at his hand.
Then up.
“Move it.”
His fingers loosened immediately.
He didn’t let go yet.
“You want me to?”
Her anger changed shape.
Annoying.
His thumb rested against the inside of her wrist where she had rubbed the skin raw all night. The contact wasn’t sexual by itself.
Her body disagreed.
Nola looked at his mouth.
There went her moral high ground.
Kai noticed.
Of course he did.
“That’s what I thought,” he said quietly.
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late.”
She yanked him down by the front of his shirt and kissed him.
If she had thought that would surprise him long enough to regain the upper hand, she miscalculated badly.
Kai’s hand left her wrist and went to her waist. His other palm hit the door behind her before he backed her against it. The kiss got rough fast, not sloppy. He kissed like he did everything else: sure he knew where he was going.
Nola bit his bottom lip for the arrogance of it.
He made a low sound and pulled back half an inch.
“You bite everybody you mad at?”
“Only the ones who don’t listen.”
“You still not going to Keem’s.”
She kissed him again just to shut him up.
His hand slid under the edge of her sweatshirt and spread across the bare skin of her back.
Nola went still for half a second.
Not from insecurity.
From the way his palm moved like he had found something he wanted to keep touching.
Kai felt the pause.
“Still want me to stop?”
“Did I say stop?”
“No.”
“Then quit interviewing me.”
That almost made him laugh against her mouth.
He locked the office door.
Nola noticed.
“Prepared.”
“Private business.”
“This your HR policy?”
“I own HR.”
“That’s actually worse.”
He kissed her again.
The argument dissolved without being resolved, which should have bothered her more than it did.
Kai lifted her onto the edge of the desk, moving the laptop and legal pad out of the way first.
“Even now you organizing shit,” she said.
“You want a keyboard in your back?”
“See? That’s the kind of thoughtful behavior I can support.”
He laughed once, low.
It was the first full laugh she’d gotten out of him.
Then his mouth went to her neck and Nola stopped being funny.
She pulled his shirt free from his waistband. His hands moved over her with no hesitation, no awkward pause at her stomach, no performative worship. Just want. Simple and obvious.
That she understood.
When he pushed her sweatshirt up, his eyes dropped.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You really need new material.”
His thumb traced the lower edge of her bra.
“I’m trying not to say something disrespectful.”
Nola smiled. “Why start having manners now?”
His eyes lifted to hers.
“You sure?”
There was enough seriousness under it that she answered seriously.
“Yes.”
Kai reached into the bottom desk drawer.
Nola stared. “You keep condoms next to office supplies?”
“I keep condoms where I might need condoms.”
“Cocky as hell.”
“You currently sitting on my desk with your shirt up.”
“Don’t ruin this.”
He grinned.
That grin did more damage than the calm face ever had.
The first time between them was not romantic.
There was no careful confession hiding in it. No fake tenderness pretending they had earned something they hadn’t.
It was heat and irritation and curiosity finally losing patience.
Nola hooked one leg around him and pulled him closer. Kai’s hands stayed busy, one at her waist, one braced beside her hip until she dragged it where she wanted it.
“You need instructions for everything?”
“I like clarity.”
“Then be clear.”
He was.
Enough that Nola forgot for several minutes that she was supposed to be mad about Keem.
Afterward, she sat on the desk trying to recover while Kai fixed his shirt like they had just finished a budget meeting.
She stared at him.
“You irritating.”
“You bit me.”
“And I’d do it again.”
“I know.”
Nola adjusted her sweatshirt and hopped down.
“That ain’t happening again.”
Kai looked at her.
Not smug.
Worse.
Certain.
“You didn’t even believe that when you said it.”
She opened her mouth.
A knock hit the door.
Dez’s voice came through it.
“Y’all done resolving conflict in there?”
Nola covered her face.
Kai closed his eyes.
Dez added, “Because Keem just called me back and I would like to discuss the missing eighty-seven before lunch.”
Nola started laughing so hard she had to lean against the desk.
Kai unlocked the door.
Dez took one look at them and nodded slowly.
“Mm. Productive meeting.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Kai said.
Nola grabbed her jacket.
“I’m still going.”
Kai looked at her.
She looked back.
Dez stepped between them before either spoke.
“Good news. Nobody gotta go anywhere. Keem agreed to meet us at a diner in an hour. Public place. Cameras. Witnesses. Everybody happy?”
Nola smiled sweetly at Kai.
“Very.”
His eyes dropped briefly to her mouth.
That was all.
But she knew.
The bastard had been right about one thing.
She had not believed herself at all.