Bonus Content #2
off, addressing Ava, Sadie and Shirleen. “Do you have rides or do you need me
to arrange them for you?”
Shirleen took her
feet off the desk. “That means get the fuck out, I got words to say to my
wife.”
It absolutely did.
Shirleen stood, “I
brought ’em all here. I can take them back. I assume
you’ll take Daisy home?”
“You assume
correctly,” Marcus confirmed.
Slowly, Ava and
Sadie stood, giving Daisy “I’m sorry” expressions as they trooped behind
Shirleen out the door.
Sadie still had a
leaf stuck in the back of her hair.
He waited until it
closed, then he shifted his position to lean against it and face his wife.
“Marcus—” she
started again.
“Please begin by
explaining why you’re spying on me.”
“I wasn’t spying.
You’re my husband. You can’t spy on your husband,” she returned.
“When you’re wearing
a makeshift camo hat with branches stuck in it and lurking through trees on a
golf course, watching me when you think I don’t know you’re there, that’s
spying.”
She pressed her lips
tightly together.
It took effort to
keep the bite out of his voice when he demanded. “What is it, Daisy? Do you
think I’m cheating on you?”
This was the only
thing he could dredge up as explanation for her behavior, considering the
foursome he’d joined included two women.
She jumped to her
feet and cried, “What? No!”
“Then why on earth
would you…and Ava…and Sadie…shove branches in knit caps, don safari shirts and
creep through trees watching me?”
She threw her hands
out to her sides and snapped, “Because I love you.”
“I know you do. You
don’t have to prove it by keeping an eye on me every moment of my life.”
“Take your own
advice, darlin’,” she shot back.
He stiffened.
“Your life can’t be
just me,” she went on.
Marcus stood stone
still and silent.
Daisy didn’t.
“In the beginning, I
needed it. Lord knew, and definitely you did, that I needed a good man’s
attention and his love and devotion. You give your heart, Marcus, and God,
there’s so much in there to give. All for me. But I can’t hack it. It’s not
fair.”
She walked to him
and put both hands on his chest (and he noted she might have been skulking
through the rough around six holes of golf, and she might have somehow found a
safari outfit to do it in, but she’d also managed to find some camo-covered
platform boots to wear with it).
“The time has gone
when I need you to give me your everything, Marcus,” she concluded.
“I realize you have
the Rock Chicks now and—”
“I’m not talking
about the Rock Chicks. I’m talking about the rape.”
Marcus clamped his
mouth shut and gritted his teeth.
She noticed and
cupped his jaw in her hand. “Life is life, sugar bunch. You can’t shield me
from it. You can’t cushion every fall I might take. And you can’t live your
life in the wings like you’re Batman waitin’ for the
Bat Signal to come out so you can be available to swoop to my rescue anytime I
might need you. You gotta have your own life. Not one
without me, but one that’s about you so it can be as full as it should be. And
you’d be givin’ that to me too. Because I want it for
you.”
“I have a full life,
Daisy.”
She dropped her hand
and stepped back. “You have no friends.”
“I don’t need
friends.”
“Okay, then, I’ll
remind you, you’re not in that business anymore where you gotta
always be lookin’ over your shoulder and wonderin’ if every person you deal with is gonna turn around and fuck you over. I’ll also remind you,
there are some damn fine men in our midst. They respect you. They like you.
Hell, darlin’, you could take your pick, and I bet they’d welcome you.”
“I’m not a beer and
wings and football person.”
“Heads up, Marcus.
Those boys like their sports, sure, but most of their downtime they spend sittin’ at Lincoln’s, drinkin’
beer and wonderin’ where they went wrong, gettin’ involved with a crazy group of bitches like us. And
I’m sure you might have a few things to say on that matter yourself.”
His tone was gentle
when he told her the absolute truth. “I never wonder why I’m with you.”
“I bet you wondered
why I was there when some lunatic chased my friends down in a haunted house.”
He had to admit, he
definitely wondered that.
“Or nearly rolled
onto I-25 when someone was chasin’ Ava’s Range
Rover.”
And absolutely that.
“Or when someone had
to pull me off Harvey Balducci when I was beatin’ his
stupid ass in the alley behind a gay bar.”
He didn’t really
have to wonder about that.
“Or when Roxie and I
got shot at when that bad man from Chicago’s boys were on our ass through the
streets of Denver.”
He didn’t even want
to think of that.
“Stop talking,” he
ordered.
“See?” she said like
she’d proven her point. “What do you think the men are doing when an RCG is
going on?”
“I don’t know.
Drinking raw eggs before taking Krav Maga classes?”
Her laugh filled the
room, and she shook her head. “No, sugar. They’re havin’
HBAs.”
“What’s an HBA?”
“A Hot Bunch
Assembly, where they hang at Lincoln’s, or one or the other’s houses, shooting
the shit and makin’ bets on stuff that don’t matter,
and silently hoping that Tex isn’t gonna be given a
reason to craft another makeshift bomb.”
He smiled at her.
She didn’t smile
back.
“You’re a member of
the Hot Bunch, honey,” she told him in all seriousness. “All you gotta do is join the club officially.”
He felt something he
didn’t understand, because it had been so long since he felt it.
It came to him.
Uncomfortable.
“I’ve never really
been a joiner,” he admitted.
She approached
again, putting her hands back on his chest and leaning into him.
He loved everything
about his wife.
But he wasn’t so
sure about the look in her eye.
“Don’t you worry,
honey bunches of love. Leave that part to me.”
Right, then…
Fuck.
His intercom in the office buzzed.
He hit it. “Yes,
Sarah?”
“Mr. Nightingale is
here for his appointment.”
“Bring him back.”
“Right away, Mr.
Sloan.”
Marcus wasn’t sure
what this was about. He and Ren still had NI on retainer for various things,
but it wasn’t like the relationship Marcus used to have with Lee and his men.
And Lee had made
this appointment.
So it was either
Daisy meddling after their conversation at the club last weekend.
Or it was Lee coming
to tell him that his client list had expanded beyond his current capacity, so
he needed to drop a few of his less challenging ones.
He wondered what Ren
would think of moving those issues to Ally.
The door opened and
Sarah ushered Lee in.
“Coffee? Sparkling
water? Regular water?” she offered.
“I’m good,” Lee
said, moving in to shake Marcus’s hand.
Marcus had stood and
rounded the desk to do the same.
“We both are,
Sarah,” he told her, “Thank you.”
She nodded and
stepped out, closing the door behind her.
He gestured to a
chair in front of his desk and said, “Have a seat.”
Lee sat.
Marcus returned
behind his desk and started it.
“What’s up?”
“I need some
advice.”
That wasn’t what he
expected.
“What kind of
advice?”
“I’m hiring two more
men. The demand is too much and coming so often, I worry I’m leaving money on
the table, so I’m getting back into security. To see to current client loads,
and add that back to our menu of services, I not only need to upgrade current
equipment, I need more space.”
“All right,” Marcus
replied when Lee paused.
“So I got three
choices at the moment. Find another office. Wait and hope the tenants next to
my current one vacate and take over their space, which obviously is not
optimal, but it might be doable. Or last, buy the whole building, seeing as the
property management team told us that the owners were about to put it on the
market, so they were feeling out their tenants to offer the opportunity to
buy.”
Marcus knew what
he’d do. He just didn’t know if Lee had the capital to do it, or the credit to
leverage it.
Therefore, he asked,
“Are you in a position to buy?”
“No. Got a new baby.
New house. I got money in the bank, but it’d wipe me out if I bought in cash.
And not feeling having that kind of debt on top of adding property management
on the list of shit to oversee.”
“You get a good
property management firm, it shouldn’t take much of your time at all.”
Lee smiled. “Yeah, I
know one of those.”
Real estate was the
bulk of a variety of interests he and Ren managed.
Marcus smiled back.
“We’d be happy to take your building on. It’ll be a nice change, me looking out
for your interests for a while.”
“Thanks, man. But
I’m not there yet.”
“I don’t want to add
weight to an already weighty decision, especially with your expanding
responsibilities including an expanding family. But it’ll be a very good
investment.”
“I got one more
option open to me, it’s the one I’m leaning toward taking, but it’s the one
that concerns me the most.”
“And it is?”
“Luke, Vance and
Hector all said they’d buy-in.”
“I see,” Marcus
murmured.
“Mace is probably gonna be on the road a lot with Stella, and they might be
moving to LA. But he wants a buy-in too.”
“What are we
talking?”
“I’ll always be
controlling at fifty-two percent. They’ll take a quarter each of the rest.”
“Are you okay with
giving up forty-eight percent?”
“It means they’re
tied to the operation, and since I never want to lose any of them, abso-fucking-lutely.”
Marcus smiled.
He then asked, “And
are they in a position to give you enough to buy the building?”
“Luke and Mace are.
Hector and Vance are going to get second mortgages on their houses, though
Sadie might circumvent that for Hector. She’s got the cash to give him. He’s
just gotta stop thinking with his dick and let his
woman be a part of their financial situation.”
“Regardless if
Hector figures it out, no way around it, with all of them investing, more
weight lands on you,” Marcus surmised.
Lee nodded. “I can’t
fuck this up. They do that, too much is riding on it.”
“That isn’t your
problem.”
“It is when it’s
family.”
“Yes, true,” Marcus
whispered.
“So what would you
do?” Lee asked.
Well.
Damn.
This wasn’t about
Daisy setting this up.
This was about
respect. This was about the fact that Lee thought highly of him and honestly
wanted his advice.
And Marcus felt
something else he hadn’t felt in a long time, unless Daisy was making him feel
that way.
Good.
“You, nor those men,
are stupid, Lee. I believe there’s a part of them that’s investing in you
because they believe in you, and they know you’re solid. But they also have
women and families, or they will, so they’re not going to do something to put
those important parts of their lives in jeopardy. To end, they believe in this
as an investment. They believe it will have fruitful returns. And I believe
they’re right. Take on these partners. And buy that building.”
Characteristically,
Lee thought on this for only half a second.
And then he said,
“That’s what I’ll do. Thanks, man.”
“My pleasure.”
Lee looked over his
shoulder at the door, then to his watch, then to Marcus. “Close to quitting
time,” he noted.
“You’re my last
appointment.”
Lee grinned. “Wanna
go out and get a drink?”
For a second, Marcus
didn’t move.
Then he started
laughing.
“Daisy?” he asked.
Lee started laughing
too. “Gotta say, Marcus, when she marched her stonewash-denim-clad ass in my
office and told me to be friends with you, I was half scared of her, half
wondering if someone time warped me back to middle school to Mrs. Zhang’s
class, a real ballbuster, when she made me be friends with all the kids who
didn’t have any because, ‘You’re a leader, Mr. Nightingale. Lead.’”
Marcus kept laughing
even as he said, “Please don’t worry about it. I’m not a friend type of
person.”
Lee wasn’t laughing
at all when he replied, “Yes you are.”
Marcus’s amusement
ceased as well.
“If I remember
correctly,” Lee said, “you had Jet’s back. And Roxie’s. And Ava’s. Wait, back
up, you started with Indy’s—”
Marcus interrupted.
“Your point is taken.”
“I’m not sure it is.
It wasn’t missed, Marcus. This isn’t about you bein’
one of those kids from Mrs. Zhang’s class. This is about you already having a
crew, but you leave us hanging.”
Marcus said nothing
because he didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t even know
what he was feeling.
What he did know was
what came out of his mouth. “You had Daisy’s back.”
“Damn straight,” Lee
returned. “And that shit’s never happening again, but if she needs me, you need
me, I’m there. Any of the men will be there. And that won’t earn an invoice.
Invoices don’t happen when it’s in the family.”
Marcus turned his
head and looked out the window.
Lee gave him a
second.
And then he urged,
“Come have a drink. My sister’s getting married. I overheard just a hint of
Indy’s plans for her bachelorette. That shit hasn’t even happened, and I
already need fortification.”
Marcus looked back
at Lee.
And then he made a
decision.
“Let’s go.”
Immediately, Lee
smiled.
Marcus returned it.
Several hours later, Marcus walked into his and his
wife’s bedroom.
Daisy was on the bed
with a plethora of magazines, her journal, a stack of self-help books
(something she always bought but never cracked open) an open, partially eaten
box of Godiva, a glass of rosé on the nightstand, the bottle in a marble sleeve
along with it, a pile of pillows stacked behind her and her phone to her ear.
She spied him, said
quickly, “Gotta call you back, Shirleen, my man just got home.”
She hit the screen,
tossed the phone on the bed and stared at him.
He reached a hand to
his tie, walking to the foot of the bed.
“I’m sorry, darling.
I know I texted I’d be late, but just to fully explain. Lee and I got to
talking. So we decided to stay for dinner.”
She bounced up and
magazines, books and chocolates went flying when she raced across the bed and
threw her body into his arms.
As ever, he caught
her.
She smiled down at
him, “Has my man accepted his membership in the Hot Bunch?”
“Yes.”
She threw her head
back and cried, “Yippee-kay-yay!”
He smiled at her.
But when she looked
back down at him, he kissed her.
Then he fell on her
in the bed.
And sometime later,
he helped her clean chocolate ganache out of her hair.