Chapter Two
Lula
The clanking of glasses and the rush of water as the dishwashers cleaned the pub’s glassware used to be background noise to me, something almost soothing that helped me get through my work.
Cillian had offered to rent me an office or allow me to work from home.
I declined both. From home because I had a strict work/life balance that I felt was important, considering how high-stress it was to hide funds from ill-begotten means inside the everyday operations of the Murphy brothers’ pub, The Bog.
As for the office, well, a part of me was already worried I didn’t have nearly enough of a social life as it was.
If I was sitting in some cushy office on my own somewhere, that was only going to get worse.
So, I had a tiny little office in the back of the pub.
“Office” might have been generous. It had been an extra supply room at some point.
But when it got too hard to share an office with Cillian, he had his other brothers clean it out and spruce it up for me.
So instead of the scuffed, peeling linoleum you could find in his office, I had a lovely wide-plank, light-wood click floor under my feet.
The beige paint that had been on the walls since before I was born had been stripped and replaced with a stark white and gorgeous accent molding.
My white desk was likely too big for the space, but the nature of my job meant that I needed to make sure there was no evidence of what I was doing, so there was no need for printers, scanners, notebooks, or binders.
I’d recently added a plant stand and all my plants from home, along with a strong full-spectrum lighting setup.
When asked, I claimed that the point of having plants was to enjoy them, and that I worked so much that it made sense for them to be at work with me.
Because they could never, ever find out the truth. No one could. Well, no one else. Two people were enough. One, the person responsible for the mess I was in. The other, an antisocial town recluse who barely ever spoke to anyone and was known for his discretion—his job demanded it.
Outside of them, I didn’t want my employers to know. My friends. Not my cousin Detroit. No one.
I couldn’t stand how differently they might look at me if they found out. Just the thought made a shiver work its way up my spine.
Or maybe that was the sound of a rack of dirty glasses slamming down on the platform beside the sink just a few feet away from me.
I let out a sigh and closed the lid of my laptop. It was no use. Each sound coming from the dish pit was setting my teeth on edge, making it impossible to think clearly.
For the first time in my career, I kind of wished I’d taken my boss up on his office offer.
Quiet.
A place to rest.
No one to see me and assume correctly that my entire life had just been turned upside down and shaken.
Standing, I soothed a hand down my sleeveless sage green A-line dress even as I cursed my shoes for pinching my toes. I had a very sit-down job, so my sit-down shoes were definitely more aesthetic than functional.
I grabbed my mug off the warmer on my desk and stepped out of my office and into the controlled chaos of the pub kitchen.
The humidity hit me first. The never-ending dishwashing station meant hot water was constantly filling the air.
I normally had my hair in more protective styles—twists or braids—but I’d cut back on my salon visits the past few months.
When someone asked, I claimed I was into that new ‘clean girl’ aesthetic with the center-parted slick-back hairstyle.
Which couldn’t be further from the truth.
I liked fun hairstyles and great makeup.
But my life had been full of a lot of changes lately.
I was trying not to let myself think about them.
At least the Murphy brothers took their coffee seriously, so my caffeine habits didn’t have to change.
I greeted a few of the back-of-house staff, then pushed through the door leading to the bar.
“More coffee?” Casey, a new hire, asked as she reached for the soda gun.
She was recently twenty-one, with all the pretty and pep that meant she was making a pretty penny slinging drinks, even in this small town.
Casey was short and curvy in that compact way that made you think of cheerleaders—great boobs, hips, and thighs, but a slim waist—with long golden hair and these big gray eyes that made her look doe-like. The guys ate it up. She raked it in. It worked for everyone.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” she asked as she passed the drinks to two men who looked disappointed that her focus was elsewhere.
I’d barely slept in weeks.
“I think the heat is getting to me,” I told her. It wasn’t a lie. The air was barely working in my room. I tossed and turned, even with a high-powered fan blowing on me.
“This heatwave has been intense,” Casey agreed. “I had to stop running and start going to the gym. I hate it.”
I grabbed the pot of coffee, pouring some into my mug, then adding a little soy milk and a sweetener packet—just enough to take out the bitter.
I’d been a devoted Pilates and spin girl for the past several years. Now, I did at-home workouts I found for free online.
Another sacrifice.
Another loss of something that brought me joy.
I shook those thoughts away.
This was temporary.
I wasn’t going to be living this way forever.
That was the point of all the extra work I was doing after I left the pub each day: to get my lifestyle back.
“And there’s no end in sight,” I said, shaking my head. “Though I’ll take our dry heat over the humidity any day.”
“Oh, God. I went to Florida for spring break my senior year. My hair was five times its normal size. I lived in the pool every moment I could.”
My recent trip to Florida had not involved a pool. Or much air conditioning at all. It had been a sweaty, miserable trip. Though a lot of the misery had nothing to do with the humidity and everything to do with why I was there. And how I didn’t get the results I wanted.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” a familiar voice called, making my eyes roll even as my lips tugged upward. “Or is that the lovely Lula Lane I see?”
“How did you learn my middle name, you creep?” I asked, turning toward the voice to find Raff sitting at the bar, his elbow on the surface, his chin propped in his hand as he watched me.
“I may have extracted that information from your cousin when he had one too many drinks one night.”
“What next? My shoe size?” I asked, sipping my coffee.
Raff popped up, leaning over the bar, then glancing down at my feet.
“Eight… and a half.”
“That might be impressive if I didn’t know you came by that skill because of how many women you’ve undressed.”
“Are you… calling me a slut?” he asked, pressing a hand to his heart.
“Only because it’s an accurate descriptor.”
“I’d give it all up for you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve been saying that for years. And yet, I will see you leave with half a dozen young women in a few hours.”
“Baby girl, I’d follow you like a dog if you invited me home.”
What home?
Nope.
I was not going to keep thinking about that. I did what I had to do, case closed.
“And then you’d follow the scent of the next pretty woman right out of my room,” I said, tapping my finger to his nose.
Only to jerk it back when his gaze went to my hand, brows drawing together.
If there was one person who noticed small details about me, it was Raff.
No one else would have realized I stopped getting my nails done, that I was now keeping them natural, short, filed, and glossed with some cheap top coat I bought at the grocery store.
I’d always been a mix of bewildered and charmed by how well he knew me on a surface level. I never stopped to think what a liability that might be.
Raff reached out, taking my hand before I could snatch it away.
And there was the strangest little sizzling sensation that moved from the contact and up my arm.
That was new.
It was something that would have taken all of my focus. But then he opened his mouth. And threatened to tear everything left of my life down.
“So, what were you doing in Florida?”
I yanked my hand away so fast you’d think he’d burned me.
My stomach twisted.
My pulse skittered.
My heart felt like it hit the floor.
Because, no.
In fact, hell no.
I knew that Raff traveled a lot doing… illegal gun things. But what were the chances that he’d seen me? I’d been in some nowhere backwoods town. In a disgusting little motel.
Apparently, those chances were high.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Raff’s head angled. “I saw you.”
“No, I can assure you, you didn’t.”
I was a great liar. I wouldn’t say I was proud of that fact, but it was a professional necessity. You wouldn’t make a very good mafia accountant if you couldn’t lie with a straight face.
The problem was, Raff was a criminal. And criminals had top-tier bullshit detectors.
And, well, he’d seen me.
“Lula,” he said, leaning forward. “I saw you.”
“You didn’t. You must have met my doppelg?nger.”
“Detroit said you were away.”
Shit.
Having a cousin in the same club as him was definitely working against me here.
“Yes, I went to a spa.”
“A spa?” he asked, gaze sliding over me. I could hear his thoughts: then why aren’t your hair or your nails done? Why don’t you look rested? Why do you look so tense?
“Yep. It’s been a long time since I took a few days off for myself.” That was painfully true. “It was time to pamper myself.”
Raff leaned closer, his voice just for me. “Lula, why are you lying?”
I forced my chin up, lifting a brow. “I take offense to that,” I told him, folding my arms over my chest, my mug resting on my forearm. Everything about me was daring him to contradict me.
I expected him to. At least one more time. Raff was nothing if he wasn’t relentless. So when he shrank back, watching me with those dark eyes of his, I was almost even more on alert.
The look was uncomfortably long, making me need to concentrate so I didn’t shift around and give my guilt away.
“My mistake then.” There was something inexplicably soft in his voice as he spoke.
Thankfully, Casey either caught up with everyone else or sensed the rising tension in the air and moved between us, wiping down the counter.
“What can I get for you, Raff?”
He didn’t answer with one of his usual cheesy pick-up lines. He just gave me one last lingering glance, then her a distracted smile.
I took that as my chance to get the hell away from him.
I turned and slammed my hand into the swinging door. Then ran right into someone.
“Dammit!” I yelped as my hot coffee spilled all down my front.
“Shit,” Cillian hissed as I spilled coffee on him as well.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, taking a step back, horrified by the sudden and almost overwhelming urge to cry.
I wouldn’t say I wasn’t a cryer. We all had our little mini breakdowns. They were good for our mental health. Purge all the ugly crap and move on. But I never, ever cried over silly inconveniences. Or, worst of all, at work.
I blinked rapidly, forcing the moisture back as Cillian grabbed a nearby rag and handed it to me. “You okay? That’s hot.”
“I should be asking you the same thing,” I said as I blotted the front of my dress.
“I have more layers on,” he said, waving down at his suit.
Objectively, Cillian Murphy was hot. All of the Murphy brothers were. They were all tall and fit with dark, dirty blond hair and different shades of blue eyes. In Cillian’s case, they were a light, almost translucent blue.
They were even my type: successful, gentlemanly, and well-dressed.
But they’d just never done it for me.
Maybe it was just because they were my bosses; who knew?
“You okay?” he asked. “You’ve seemed a little… off since you got back.”
“Off?” I asked, playing dumb. “Frazzled, because no one is spending ten hours a day pampering me?”
“Off like… unhappy.”
My head jerked back up before I could stop it, and I just knew I looked like a deer in the headlights right then.
“No, of course not,” I insisted.
Cillian’s head tipped to the side. He wasn’t going to call me out. We tended to be too professional and respectful for that. But he was making it clear he didn’t believe me.
“If you need a few more days to get back into life-mode, I get that.”
“How would you get that? You never take vacation,” I reminded him.
“I… hear things,” he said, shooting me a smile. “But, seriously. You’re too important to us. If you’re feeling off, I want you to take more time for yourself.”
“No, really, I’m fine,” I insisted, lying through my teeth. “But I am going to cut out early tonight. I don’t love the idea of sitting around in a wet, stained dress.”
“Okay. But keep it in mind. It’s an open-ended invitation.”
With that, he walked off before it could get too uncomfortable.
I loved that about Cillian as a boss. He knew exactly how much to push before backing off. I don’t think I’d ever been in a conversation with him that felt awkward or like it went on too long. He was always swift with a breezy exit.
I took my cup to the dish pit, making quick small talk with Javi as he cleaned my cup along with some more glasses, then handed it back to me with a clean dishtowel, since it was about a million degrees.
Then I deposited it back on my desk, made sure my coffee warmer was unplugged, grabbed my purse, and headed out the back door.
That was all normal.
What wasn’t normal was that I got in my BMW and turned left out of the back lot. Not right toward my condo.
Because it wasn’t mine anymore.
I traveled down the side street and took an unofficial dirt road shortcut to avoid going back on the main drag in town. Where someone might see me. As I pulled into the lot for the motel in town.
Parking in the back lot with my car mostly hidden by the dumpster, I climbed out and made my way toward the back entrance that I had rigged so it didn’t lock.
Not fair of me to the owner, Jack. But the only way I could get in and out of the motel without being seen by someone in town.
The interior of the inn was the kind of place that harkened back to old horror movies: long, dark hallways, flickering lights, the glow of vending machines, distant sounds of people talking or screaming, and the distinct slapping sound of bodies slamming together.
Whether that was porn played loud and proud or someone getting down with a fling or local sex worker was anyone’s guess.
I slid my key in the lock and moved into the room.
Flicking on the light, I sighed.
“Home sweet home.”