CHAPTER EIGHT
CASH
“Make any headway?” Maddox sips his drink, lounging on the couch and twirling his balisong, as I amble into the penthouse great room.
Ignoring his probing, I toss my tux jacket over the back of the chair, plop onto the seat, and deflect. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a wife to get home to?”
“The girls took over our place. It was pajama-party, baby-naming, and Hallmark mayhem down there.” He kicks his chin to Jax, who is sprawled out on the floor. “We stayed with Remy and decided to wait up for you.”
It’s two in the morning. They have Creedence Clearwater Revival on the record player and conspiratorial grins in place, the room lit only by the moon and city lights. No matter how old we get, some things never change. And yet so much has.
Of course, as that thought strikes me, I notice a shadow on Maddox’s cheek. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Cinco de Mayo in the Underground,” he starts, as if that alone is an explanation, and I guess it is.
“Brasi was up for the pinata, and he came out fucking swinging. Beating the shit out of the mustache penis, like he had a personal vendetta against that dick. He hit and hit …” He stalls there.
Not like Jax’s typical pause to gather his thoughts.
This is purely for dramatic effect. “And he let go of the bat.”
“Shit.” I belt out a laugh, unable to contain myself. “You got a bat to the face?”
“Nope,” he huffs in annoyance. “I fucking caught it.”
Before I can inquire how that led to a shiner, Jax chimes in, “It was something. It came flying fast, and Mad … stuck out his hand and snatched it.”
Noting my confusion, Maddox picks up the story. “The second it left Brasi’s hand, Johnson decided tonight was the night he was going to be a hero. He flew—”
“Got a running start,” Jax supplies.
Maddox clicks his knife shut with an eye roll. “I didn’t clock that in time ’cause a metal bat was coming for me. Anyway, he flies from the other side of me, trying to intercept the bat.”
Abe Johnson is a big guy. In his fifties. Broad shoulders. Thick neck. Beer belly. He was a hell of a linebacker in his college days, and it still shows.
“You shoulda fucking seen it, Cash.” Jax is laughing so hard; I’m pretty sure he’s crying.
“He was reliving his glory days, but … Mad was so focused on the bat that—” He breaks off for a beat, hanging his head while his whole body convulses, like he’s replaying it in his mind.
“Johnson smashed right into his face—forehead to cheekbone. Nearly knocked the asshole out.”
“No one fucking knocks me out.” Maddox turns to me with a smirk. “Aren’t you sorry you missed it?”
He’s sorry I missed it.
“Absolutely.”
“You’re in luck.” Maddox takes another sip of his drink. “One of the employees recorded it. By the time we left to stay with Remy, someone had made a remix with it.”
“It’s so good. The collision is slow motion.” Jax lies back down, throwing his forearm over his eyes. “I’ll send it to you.”
“Perfect.” I glance around, wondering if the older Noires were privy to the Underground stupidity. “Are Axe and Ryker working or sleeping?”
Maddox flicks his butterfly knife toward the hall that leads to the home conference room. “They got a call they had to take.”
“Which means you should … answer Mad’s question about your progress,” Jax drawls.
People often think he’s out of it, but he’s the sleeper everyone should be watching.
I swear he’s compiling a mental file on every damn person he meets, including all of us.
Some of that is typical little-brother shit, but he can turn it all on and off so easily.
There’s a cunning genius behind that lackadaisical veneer.
All I offer at first is a caustic laugh because they’re probably expecting answers I can’t give. “That depends on your definition of progress.”
Maddox arches his brows in challenge. “Let’s go with what you would’ve defined it as pre–Mardi Gras.”
There is no sense in glossing over it, so I throw out my empty hands. “Nada.”
Jax lifts up on his elbow, obviously finding something of interest in my response. “And post chasing a girl all over the country?”
My mouth curls into a genuine smile. “She’s a hell of a dancer, and I got her number. She already texted me.”
I glance at my phone, pleased that she kept her word and overzealous to text her again, but it’s only been four hours, and it’s the middle of the night.
Sylvie: Thanks for the tango. I made it in.
Me: Anytime, Sly. I’ll be in touch.
“Even based on previous standards, how is that nada?” Maddox presses, and it has reality crashing down on me. “Doesn’t sound like you’re sorry you weren’t here.”
I’m not, but …
“She used the F-word. And not the good one.”
As the admission leaves my mouth, Axel and Ryker strut in, chuckling.
Perfect fucking timing.
Maddox drags a hand down the side of his face, though it doesn’t hide his twitching lips. “Christ. Has anyone unrelated to you ever called you that?”
“Fuck off, jackass.” I kick my feet up on the coffee table, determined to be forthright, even though I know it will incite Ryker. “But, to be fair, I don’t think so. It, uh … it caught me off guard.”
Ryker guffaws, dropping down beside Maddox. “Payback is a bitch.”
“How the hell does any of this qualify as payback?” I counter.
“Not from me for your incessant razzing about Mercy and me being friends. This is the universe getting even for”—he can barely push the rest of his sentence past his shit-eating grin—“everything. You are down bad for this girl.”
“You cornered the market on being a man down bad, lover boy. I just refuse to lose.” I nearly make an off-handed joke about going down on Sylvie or some other reference to fucking her, but it’s bitter on my tongue before the retort is even formed.
Axel side-eyes him while handing me a glass of whiskey and moving on. “What the hell happened that you needed to cut power in San Antonio?”
“Jesus,” I hiss. “Liam called you?”
“No.” Axel takes the other chair, and his eyes narrow, concern mixed with intrigue. “Wells just called. They were following up to make sure you were good.”
That’s on me, I suppose. I silenced a call from Liam when I was still in the car with Sylvie, and then I forgot to call him back. I didn’t think about updating him since I’d boiled it down to a possessive chess move.
Wells and Liam are both men in my sister’s family.
Rena is married to Ty. Wells, Liam, and Gage are like his brothers.
Their wives are like sisters to Rena. And they all live in a grand French chateau about a half hour from here.
The guys are ex-military, CIA assets, identity erasers, and members of KORT.
So, they are a powerful resource, but also thorough. I should’ve expected them to follow up.
“I’m fine.” I wave my hand as if that were all nonsense. “Peter Fairfax had his eye on Sylvie.”
Ryker claps his hands—the fucker has probably been praying for me to go off the deep end over something like this. “So, you shut down his party?”
“The party kept going.” I shoot him a warning leer while swilling my whiskey. “I simply made it so he could no longer eye-fuck my girl, utilizing the only cordial, non-blood-shedding solution I could fathom.”
None of them know Sylvie was there on a job, nor will they. It’s not important. And my appetite to choke out Peter Fairfax for drooling over her all night is something they will all understand.
“He eye-fucked your friend,” Jax corrects, but his brows are furrowed, so he’s not being a smart-ass.
“Yeah,” I concede. “My fucking friend.”
They all get quiet for a beat, and something about that is jarring, like they can see deeper. It makes my skin itch. The truth is always in what most people don’t notice. I clear my throat, but before I can change the subject, Ryker breaks in, subdued and serious.
“Talk to us. What’s the end goal here?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
My attention darts to the Picasso we have hanging in honor of my mom since he was her favorite artist. And maybe for the first time, I get why she was enamored with him.
His works are raw, showcasing all the right pieces, but in an arrangement that’s twisted and disjointed, which somehow makes it seem like his subjects were inside out, with all the ways they don’t align with the world on display.
I skip the art analysis with my brothers though. “Part of me thought if I could just have a night with her, I could move on. Get back to normal. That’s not gonna happen. She’s not open to it, and I’m … Walking away is best, but …”
“She called you a friend,” Ryker fills in because he gets that torment better than anyone.
“Worse. She said she needed one, and I don’t know …
” It takes a beat to gulp down the truth of this, and for some reason, it has my mind drifting to my mom again, which all the men in this room would understand.
“I’ve had people ask me for money, connections, nights out, gifts.
I probably would’ve given her my goddamn jet if she’d just agreed to have dinner with me.
She’s in some sort of trouble. She could’ve requested anything to help with that.
But all she asked for was for me to be her friend. ”
Again, I’m met with silence because we all know how fortunate we are, and not one person in this room would complain about our life, but it’s rare to meet someone who isn’t more swept up in what we can give them than they are in anything real about us.
“Are you okay with only being her friend?” Maddox asks.
“Fuck no.”
Axel sighs—it’s quiet but an undeniable prelude to his concern. “Are you okay with being more?”
“That’s not a good idea.” My chest fucking hurts. I finish my whiskey and shake my head. “I don’t even know what that means, and even if I did, I’m not cut out for it.”
They all know this. I don’t have the gene that lets you feel shit and go deep with someone. Squeezing myself into that box would be disastrous for everyone.