Epilogue
EPILOGUE
OWEN
I cast my eyes around Shaw’s office, unable to wipe the smug grin off my face.
His eyes bore into mine in his lame attempt to chastise me. “So, let me get this straight. We now owe Oscar O’Connell a favor because you shirked duties?”
“His duties were to my sister,” Tate snaps out in my defense. After being given the green light by Nico to orchestrate Carlos’s death, it meant me having to pass workload on to a Mafia family, notably Oscar O’Connell. The only problem was the workload in question was to track down Rafael Marino’s evasive girl. I grimace at the thought of upsetting Rafael, but then I remember the knowledge I hold in the palm of my hand, knowledge his family would love to be privy to involving the police commissioner.
“I just don’t think you realize how dangerous some of these people are, Owen.” Shaw drags a hand through his hair, and I want to scoff. He seems to forget it was me and my contacts that helped save his little Mafia princess from having their child cut from her stomach.
My best friends may not know everything about my past, but they know I had a different upbringing than them.
“What the fuck ever.” Tate waves his hand toward Shaw like he’s wafting a bug and changes the subject. “How’s Laya doing?”
“Good.” I smirk, remembering how well she took my cock this morning and at lunchtime when I made a trip home.
“Ava says she hasn’t returned her text message yet.”
I take a drink of my water while I contemplate my reply.
“Give him some slack. They’re newly married. He probably has her chained to his bed. Right, Owen?” Shaw jokes, and the water I’m swallowing becomes clogged in my throat at how true that is.
I wheeze like an idiot, trying not to splutter the water over my desk but fail miserably.
The office door opens, and our attention is drawn there as our mouths simultaneously fall open with the disheveled appearance of Reed. His normally well-put-together appearance is in complete disarray. His hair is a ruffled mess, his shirt is open to the middle, and his tie is nowhere in sight.
Last I knew, he was attending a community event.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Mase asks as his hands rest on his hips.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill someone.” Shaw pinches the bridge of his nose, having a sly dig toward Reed’s younger brother, who is incarcerated for doing just that.
He drops down on his chair, and his dazed expression deepens.
Tate rolls a ball of paperwork up and throws it at his head, but Reed doesn’t so much as flinch.
Mase stares down at him, then steps forward while we watch on, each of us baffled. He snaps his fingers in front of his face. “Reed.”
“Tell him Lucinda has genital warts and he might have them.” Tate points toward Mase. “That’ll freak him out.” He chuckles to himself.
“You do realize he can hear you himself, right?” I tilt my head toward Reed.
“Shut the fuck up,” Tate grumbles, then throws himself back into his chair like a petulant child.
“I found her,” Reed mumbles, and we all sit forward dramatically. “The woman. I found her.”
“And?” Mase queries, studying Reed as if checking he has all his limbs.
“That’s good, right?” Tate’s face lights up, and I grin at how much he reminds me of an excitable puppy.
“It’s awful.” Reed laughs, but it lacks humor. “Fucking awful.” He drags his hand over his head and blows out a deep breath.
“Is she married?”
Jesus.
My hand whips out and I clip Tate on the back of the head in warning while he glares back at me.
“Worse.”
We all wait with bated breath for what could possibly be worse…
THE END