CHAPTER FORTY-TWO RIGHTS AND WRONGS RHYS
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
RIGHTS AND WRONGS
RHYS
Historic preservation, my left nut.
I exited out of the news coverage before I threw my damn computer across the office.
With my luck, Butler and the rest of his merry band of assholes would somehow get that footage, too, and use it to further their cause.
Not that he’d named Rye, Wicked, or any of his other targets in his interview. He’d carefully skirted all references to the protest or closer of businesses and focused on the buzz words people loved.
That it was time to restore Boston to its roots.
That the focus should be on preserving the rich history of the city.
That the increase in crime and problematic behavior was the fault of the wild nightlife that was making the city unsafe for families and tourists.
People were eating that shit up. And they had been for longer than I’d been paying attention to.
I’d been banking on the momentum fizzling out after the few weekends they’d been posted outside, but after digging into the Butler and his brigade’s past, I realized the assholes were like dogs with a damn bone.
Not that they had a perfect record. Some businesses they’d gone after were still thriving.
But the brigade had dragged out the drama for a long time.
Fine by me. I would take it as far as I could, and then past that if I had to. I wasn’t letting Rye go down without a fight.
And that meant knowing the enemy.
One of them, at least.
The visit to NashVille the night before hadn’t given me anything. Not enough to cross them off the list, but not enough to prove their involvement. Just enough to confirm Nash—or whoever was in charge—was still a sack of shit. Not that we had proof of that, either.
It left a bad taste in my mouth and a worse one in Luna’s.
Since the SBOOB brigade was the present threat—literally, since their people were outside and trying to scare off my Saturday night crowd—I’d spent most of a restless night and the day digging into them.
Not that it got me much further. A lot of names. A lot of connections. A fuck-ton of frustration.
I knew I would have to go see Butler, but I didn’t have much hope of actually getting any face time with him. All my attempts to call and email had resulted in radio silence. I was hopeful that I would find some tie. Some connection. Some way to take the wind from his dickhead sails.
When the words started blurring together, I pushed away from the desk and went out to the bar. For one, it was picking up, and they could use the help. For another, I wanted to see Lo.
It’d been an hour—which was too fuckin’ long—since I’d touched her ass.
I checked in with the kitchen first, making sure they were also good, before heading out front.
I moved to where Lo fixed a drink that she set in front of a guy who was way overdressed for a dive bar.
We got all types in there, including people in their suits and ties.
And maybe I was wrong. It wasn’t like I knew fashion beyond tees and flannels.
His suit might’ve been a cheap knockoff he bought out of the back of a van.
Didn’t look like it, though.
I made a mental note to keep an eye on him—I trusted bikers a fuckuva lot more than I trusted businessmen—before grabbing Lo’s hip.
She moved away.
The fuck?
I went for her waist that time.
She twisted out of my hold, even as she turned her smiling face up to me. “How’d it go?”
“Be a lot better if you told me why you’re dodging me.”
“I’m not,” she insisted.
Just before dodging my hand when it went for her ass.
“Lo.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she shifted to look to the side of me.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“Nothing. Just a headache.” She went onto her toes, but not to kiss me. She leaned to the side again to look around me. “Looks like you’re needed.”
I turned to see she was right and Alice was flagging me down for an issue with a payment. I went to deal with that before getting pulled into multiple refills and even more questions about what was happening with the protests, shooting, but mostly the dicks.
Lo had found out from her handler that the non-emergency line had gotten multiple calls to complain about the technicolor graffiti. It seemed that some thought it was a bold decoration choice that’d I’d purposefully chosen.
In between recounting the lewd graphics and pouring drinks, my eyes inevitably made their way to Lo.
And almost every time, she was standing near the overdressed jackoff.
When they talked, it didn’t seem overly friendly, much less romantic.
His arms were still in their sockets, so it also wasn’t aggressive or hostile.
I would be the first to admit that jealousy was a new thing for me. I couldn’t remember ever experiencing it—and women had tried to make it happen. With Lo, it came up more than I’d care to admit.
And something about them was… off.
Have I seen him before?
He looks like he’d work for the super PAC.
I flipped through the faces I’d seen in my research, but none of them matched. Not that it meant much.
I walked over there and snagged Lo by the belt loop before she could dodge me. Movement behind her caught my eye, and I looked up to see the guy stand and drop some cash on the bar. He wasn’t looking at us. He didn’t look pissed or jealous. And Lo wasn’t looking back at him, either.
Her hand went to my chest, and she shot me an expectant smile.
“Who was that guy?” I asked.
She lifted a shoulder. “A customer.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Not anything weird, why?”
“No reason.”
That time when she went onto her toes, it was to press a quick kiss to my lips before she returned to work.
An hour flew by before Lo moved into my space and wrapped her arms around my waist while a woman yapped at me about some drink she’d had somewhere. I had no clue. I’d plastered on my attentive bartender smile while I nodded at the correct times.
That bullshit smile grew into a genuine one at what I’d figured was Lo’s own show of possessiveness.
But when I shifted her around my body, she didn’t threaten to kick my ass. “I think I need to go home.”
“The headache?” I asked as I gently pushed her hair back.
“Yeah. It’s worse.” She gave me a subtle brow raise. “Outside seems secure. Will you be okay in here?”
I got what she was saying since the puppy love cop was again keeping close. “I’ll get my shit from the office and—”
“No. No. It’s okay. I’ve got my car.” She kissed me. “I’ll text when I’m home.”
With a quick apology to the other bartenders who would need to pick up her slack but didn’t mind since they were more worried about her, she left.
I didn’t move.
Home.
She called it home.
Panic didn’t flare in my chest, giving me the uncomfortable sensation that my skin was too tight, the room was too small, and regrets were so heavy, I couldn’t breathe.
More than that, my brain wasn’t saying it was just a meaningless phrasing or part of the act.
’Cause I wanted her to mean it.
Fuck it.
I rarely left Rye when it was open.
For the second night in a row, with the shitstorm swirling around us, I left again. I made sure my crew was good and that extra hands were called in. I would also have to swing back at the end of the night to lock everything down. But I wanted to make sure Lo was okay.
I hoped the burger and double order of fries would distract her enough that she didn’t call me out on my obsession.
It would be a valid point but still.
Halfway through my drive, my phone pinged with a security alert. I assumed it was Lo, but when I opened the app at a red light to check, it was someone at my back door.
Being let in by Lo.
A grinning Lo who wasn’t being forced or threatened.
I pulled into a rundown lot and ran the footage back.
The man didn’t knock before the door opened. She said something and hugged him before pulling him inside. It was quick, but he scanned to the sides, giving me a view of him.
It’s the fucker from the bar.
“What the hell is happening?” I asked out loud before dialing Lo.
She didn’t answer.
I started driving again. My speedometer ticked higher and higher as I pictured how good it was gonna feel to break the prick’s jaw.
It took longer than it should’ve for common sense to penetrate the jealous rage that was fueled by my feelings for her but amplified by previous experiences. Lo wasn’t the cunt who’d jacked up my life a decade ago. She wouldn’t cheat. She sure as shit wouldn’t do it in my house.
A house she’d just called home.
And that she knew had cameras and a top-of-the-line security system.
There had to be a good reason he was there. If there wasn’t, I had the jaw-breaking to look forward to.
I parked behind Lo’s car and got out. I expected her to throw open my front door with an eye roll when I approached the steps, but she didn’t.
Instead, she jumped when I opened it myself, clearly not expecting the intrusion.
“Rhys,” she gasped, pressing her hand to her chest. If it weren’t for whatever the hell was going on, hearing her say my name like that would’ve hardened my dick.
Despite the shocked reaction, she didn’t look guilty about the man sitting on the other side of my couch.
She smiled at me, and I got the eye roll I’d been waiting for from her.
“Why am I not surprised that you came home?”
I looked to the guy, then back at her. “Guess I’m surprised enough for both of us.”
She scrunched her face, and that would’ve also shot to my dick. “Sorry, sorry. I wanted to explain, but some bossy asshole said I couldn’t.
The tall, rich fucker stood and offered his hand to me. “Grayson.” He paused before tacking on, “The bossy asshole.”
“Who also happens to be with the FBI. Oh, and he’s also my older brother.”
That’s it.
Lo and Grayson didn’t look much alike. For one, he was over a foot taller than her. But the familiarity that’d stabbed at me was because their body language was a copy and paste.
Not to mention, their sharp gazes that seemed to commit everything to memory in a blink. Both sets of brown eyes were aimed my way. Lo was happy to see me.
Grayson seemed less than impressed as he stared at me like he knew all the shit I’d been doing with his little sister. I knew that couldn’t be the case.
I was wrong.
“So how long have you been sleeping with your protectee?” he asked her.
I expected her to say it was just the cover, and I was good with that. Fine, not good. But I got it. She had her career to protect, and that was more important than my feelings right then.
I was wrong again.
“Hmm, let me see.” She tilted her head to the side. “Today’s Saturday. Not a leap year. Waning crescent moon under a Freddie Mercury in retrograde. Divide by four. Carry the one. Going by the Aztec calendar, that makes it… none of your business.”
It was a tense situation, but she was still funny as fuck. I couldn’t hold in my laugh, and that seemed to please her even though her brother didn’t look amused.
“Lo,” he started, but she held her hand up.
“I appreciate the concern. I do. But I’m not talking about this with you. I know the risks.”
But I’m doing it anyway went unsaid but was still somehow loud.
“You may know the risks, but do you know your man?” he shot back.
“What’s that mean?” I bit out, not liking the insinuation.
He didn’t look any happier about it. “That when a group of bikers and a bar owner drop in for a visit to a strip club, I wasn’t expecting that last guy to track back to my baby sister.”
“Why the hell were you tracking me anywhere?”
If he’s another damn suspect to add to the list of people targeting me, I give up. I’ll have Beck burn the building to the ground for the insurance money, and then Lo and I will take off to the Bahamas. A private beach. Her in a bikini or less…
Christ, I can’t get hard right now.
“He wasn’t tracking you,” Lo said. “He’s watching NashVille.”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Grayson said.
That was a yes.
She knew it, too. “Well, you’re not tracking the bikers because you would’ve seen me before now. That leaves the messy strip club.”
Technically, Mayhem did some stuff that could land them on the FBI’s watchlist. Nox had even more. But the rest of her point was valid.
“You’re the one Carl was talking about,” I said slowly. “The one who’s been asking about Nash.”
“The FBI has no interest in a dead man.”
“Confirmed dead?” I asked since they could be going off the same assumptions we’d made while Nash was the one up to fuckery on a beach somewhere.
Grayson lifted his chin. “His body was found over a year ago. Parts of it, at least. But we’d already been building a case. Our interest is in who we think took over expanding his operation.”
“Which is?” Lo prompted.
“Which is something we’ll talk about at a different time.”
“You can trust Rhys.”
“It’s not Rhys I’m worried about.”
I’d seen Lo pissed, annoyed, and menacing plenty of times. But I’d never seen her so instantly set off and ready to fight. Even when she’d dislocated the man’s arm at Rye, she’d looked almost bored by it.
Not right then.
She glared at her brother like she was about to launch him out the front window. “If you’re implying that I can’t be trusted—”
“I’m not. I’m outright saying you’re a rule follower who runs and tattles about every little thing.”
“Yeah, when I was a child.” She didn’t exactly help her case by picking up a pillow and chucking it at his head, but I supported her rights and her wrongs by offering up the heavier one nearest me.
She threw that, too. “And for the last time, I didn’t know that you and what’s-her-name were having sex.
I thought you were doing CPR for a medical emergency. I was helping.”
Being an only child is suddenly looking pretty damn good.
Grayson dodged another projectile as he said, “And your spotless record on the force now?”
“Are you seriously twisting that to be a bad thing?”
“It is if you’re going to rush to tell your handler everything the second I leave here.”
“I’ve trusted my own discretion at what needs to be shared and when,” she said guardedly. She’d said there were certain things she wasn’t sharing with her handler because she wasn’t sure how or if it connected with the case, but the way she spoke made it seem like that wasn’t protocol.
“Good. Keep doing that.”
“Okay, what am I missing here?” I asked, assuming it was just me who was left out.
But Lo crossed her arms and added, “I’d also like to know.”
“The FBI is building a case against the Irish mafia.” Grayson looked at his sister. “And we’re pretty sure there’s a mole in your precinct working with them.”