Chapter 15
Nash
Four days. Something shifted four days ago, and I can't find the source.
Ruby still talks. Still jokes. Still wears the red lipstick and fills whatever room she's in with a frequency my chest registers before my brain catches up.
Yesterday she told Frankie's client that his shoulder piece was going to make him look like a "tattooed Hemsworth, but with better taste and worse decision-making.
" The whole shop laughed. The client laughed.
Frankie laughed. I waited for her to glance at me the way she always does after a joke lands, checking for my mouth twitch, measuring the damage.
She didn't even glance.
Last week she made a joke about my security sweeps, making it sound like a nature documentary.
Delivered it with her chin tilted, her eyes locked on mine, waiting for the crack.
When my jaw fought, she followed up with a second one, sharper, lower, her voice dropping into the register that hits somewhere behind my sternum.
Frankie had to put her machine down. The client was grinning.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper.
For a second, everyone else in the room faded, and it was the two of us pretending not to notice.
Now the room stays wide. My chest stays loose. My jaw doesn't fight because there's nothing to fight.
I miss it. The ache that sits low in my ribs is constant.
I lie on her couch at two in the morning and listen to the silence through the wall. She's awake. I can tell by the rhythm of her breathing, the way it never fully settles, the way the sheets shift every few minutes.
A week ago I had her against that wall. Her legs wrapped around my waist, her back pinned against the plaster, the sound she made when my thigh pressed between hers.
Her mouth was on mine, nails in my shoulders, and hips grinding against my cock until I had to grip her hip hard enough to leave marks just to stop myself from carrying her into the bedroom and finishing what we started.
Yes sir. Stripped bare. No joke underneath.
I pulled back the next morning. Spent three days putting distance between us because the alternative was crossing a line I couldn't uncross. Three days of me retreating. Then something shifted in her, and the last four days have been hers.
Now I'm on this side of the wall with the spring in my back. She's on the other side with whatever I broke. The silence where her voice should be is louder than anything she's ever said.
In the morning, I make her coffee. Two sugars. Splash of cream. Set it on the counter. She takes it without our fingers touching. Four days ago she brushed up against me on purpose. Now she waits until my hand is clear.
"Morning," she says. Bright. Easy. Aimed past me.
"Morning."
"Frankie's got a full day. I've got a sleeve session and two consults." She takes a sip. "Ready when you are."
I watch her over the rim of my mug. She's dressed with purpose this morning.
Her jeans, boots, her jacket pulled from the hook by the door.
Everything buttoned, zipped, covered. Last week she walked out of the bathroom in sleep shorts and a tank top with her hair still damp, close enough that I could smell coconut, then held my gaze until my chest ached. This morning she's armored.
"You good?" I ask.
"Always." The word lands flat. She rinses her mug, grabs her bag, and heads for the door.
On the bike, her grip is functional. Arms around my waist for balance, nothing more. Her chin hovers two inches above my shoulder blade. The spot where her forehead used to rest is empty, and my back registers the absence the way I'd register a gap in a perimeter line.
I drop her at Amaranth and ride to the clubhouse for the war room session.
Malachi sits at the head of the scarred oak table.
Knox is on his left with the laptop. I take my spot to his right.
East sits across from me, leaning back, arms crossed.
James is in his chair with tea. Rider and Kyle are at the door standing post. The Boss Babe mug sits at Malachi's usual spot, pink ceramic with gold lettering.
Nobody has moved it. Malachi drinks from a different mug and pretends it doesn't exist.
I brought the investigation to the table two weeks ago.
Not all of it. Enough. The sealed federal case connected to the trafficking pipeline.
The name Naya gave me. Courthouse records that don't add up.
Malachi listened without interrupting, then assigned Knox to the digital forensics and told me to keep pulling the thread.
He didn't ask why it mattered to me. Malachi doesn't ask questions he already knows the answer to.
"Forensics update," Knox says. "The server data contained partial file headers from the sealed cases. I've been reconstructing the docket numbers. Another few days and I can cross-reference against the judicial assignment logs."
"Webb?" Malachi asks.
"Courthouse records confirm he was on staff during the right time windows. His access level matches what we'd need for someone making files disappear."
Malachi looks at me. "Nash?"
"I'll handle the approach when Knox has the numbers. Solo."
James wraps his hands around his mug. His eyes move from my face to the headband on my wrist.
"You look tired," he says.
"I'm good."
"Go do your job."
I leave the war room. The clubhouse lot is bright with morning sun. East is leaning against his bike, grinning at his phone.
"Phase two," he says.
"Of what?"
"Retaliation. The guys' response to the bedazzlement." He holds up his phone. A photo of Ruby's closet, open. "Rider's hitting her apartment right now while she's at Amaranth. Replacing every piece with identical items two sizes too large. Same brands, same colors, same tags."
"You're going into her apartment."
"Rider has a key from the detail rotation. Operational necessity." He pockets the phone. "Your contribution is handled. One item in Frankie's shop. Moved. Just one."
"Which item?"
"The sage dish. Three inches to the left."
Frankie's altar shelf is arranged with the precision of a surgical tray. Three inches would register as wrong without being identifiable.
"And Kyle?"
"Kyle is a masterpiece. You'll see."
I ride back to Amaranth. Ruby is at her station, prepping for her first client. She doesn't look up when I walk in. She used to look up every time.
I take the wall. Wait. Frankie is bent over her station, focused on a stencil. Ruby's back is turned.
I cross to the altar shelf. The sage dish sits in its exact position, centered on the second tier between two candles. I slide it three inches to the left. Walk back to the wall.
Frankie doesn't notice.
The afternoon runs in the shop rhythm. Clients in and out. Ruby consults, preps, jokes with her first appointment about the design placement. The banter is warm, professional, and aimed at the client. None of it is aimed at me.
At eleven-thirty, the front door opens. Kyle walks in.
He's wearing a headset. A lanyard. A clipboard. The lanyard holds a laminated badge reading PRANK WAR COMPLIANCE OFFICER. Below that, DEPARTMENT OF OPERATIONAL MISCHIEF. BADGE #001.
Ruby looks up from her station. Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
"Ma'am." Kyle crosses to her station with the measured stride of a man fully committed to a bit. He clicks a pen. "I'm here on official business."
"Kyle, what the—"
"Officer Dawson, ma'am. Routine compliance check on behalf of the Prank War Regulatory Commission." He consults his clipboard. "Are you Ruby Leighton, primary instigator of the Knox Bedazzlement Incident of last Tuesday?"
"I invoke my right to an attorney."
"Noted. Denied." He makes a mark on the clipboard.
"Ms. Leighton, I have here a formal citation for unauthorized emotional warfare, defined as the deliberate deployment of rhinestones, tassels, and/or pink ribbon with intent to cause psychological distress to a fellow club member.
" He tears a slip of paper from the clipboard and presents it with both hands.
"Your fine is two six-packs and a formal apology to Knox's Harley. "
Ruby takes the citation. Reads it. Her lips press together. Her eyes brighten. She straightens on her stool, and the grin that spreads across her face is the one I haven't seen in four days.
"The Harley loved it," she says. "She has never looked better. The Harley sent me a thank-you card. With glitter."
"That's for the tribunal to decide, ma'am." Kyle clicks the pen. Turns to Frankie. "Ms. Devereaux. Any prank-related activities to report?"
"Leave my shop, Kyle."
"Understood. Compliance verified."
Ruby laughs. Full, real, the sound bouncing off the shop walls. The laugh I hear through the floor when she's on the phone with Candace and makes Frankie look up from her station. The one that hits me in the chest every time.
Kyle turns on his heel, pauses beside me at the door. Lowers his voice. "Mission accomplished."
He leaves. Ruby is still holding the citation, and the smile on her face is the first real one in days.
She folds it and tucks it into her apron pocket.
The smile holds. Her eyes are bright. She laughs at something Frankie says about Kyle's badge.
For ten seconds she's the woman who aimed every joke at me, who stole fries off my plate and waited to be caught, who said make me and meant it.
Then it goes. The laugh fades. Her jaw resets, shoulders pull in as her eyes drop to her station, then she picks up her pencil and starts sketching.
My hands flex at my sides.
At three, Frankie stops working. She turns toward the altar shelf. Her hand reaches for the sage dish. Pauses. Her fingers hover an inch above it. Her head tilts.
She touches the dish. Moves it back three inches to the right. Precisely. Her jaw sets. She turns, scans the room, and her eyes land on me at the door.
I hold her gaze. Tilt my chin up. Just barely.
"Nash," she says.
"Frankie."
"Three inches."