Chapter 17 JACE
JACE
Okay.
That’s what I said to her. She stood in my building in a yellow dress I will see for the rest of my life, with her eyes burning and every real thing she had to say laid bare between us, and I said okay like it cost me nothing.
I can still see her walk out.
Back straight. Chin up. She told me everything, turned, and left. Didn’t look back. Didn’t give me the satisfaction of a second glance to hold onto.
Good. She shouldn’t.
Nora knocks twice on the frame and steps in without waiting. “Ten minutes, sir. Conference room B. Erikson’s already here.”
I nod.
She doesn’t leave.
I look up.
Nora is fifty-four, ex-Navy JAG, and has worked for me for six years. She does not ask how I’m doing. She watches me for one extra beat and then she says, “I moved your two o’clock to four. And I ordered coffee for the room.”
“Thank you.”
“Ten minutes, sir.”
She leaves.
I don’t know what my face is doing. I don’t want to know.
I stand, button my jacket, walk out into the hall.
Ryker is coming out of his office like he owns every inch of marble between it and mine, which he doesn’t, because I do. Grin already on. Same suit he wore yesterday, which tells me he didn’t sleep in his own apartment last night.
“Carrington.”
“Vance.”
“You look like hell.”
“Meeting.”
He falls into step beside me. “Erikson brought his entire legal team. I counted four on the way in. We’re going to be in there for three hours.” He glances at me sideways. “Seriously. Who died?”
“Nobody.”
“Uh-huh.”
I don’t answer.
He lets it go for five steps before he can’t anymore. “Who is she?”
“Drop it.”
“Fine. Fine.” Hands up like he’s surrendering, which he’s not. “But I want the story tonight.”
“No.”
“Boss.”
“No.”
We reach the conference room. I push the door open and walk in first.
“Gentlemen.”
“Mr. Carrington.”
I take the head of the table. My mug is already there—Nora knows where I sit. Ryker drops into the chair on my right. Erikson gets right to the revised scope on the Hartford contract and I make it through ninety minutes of a meeting I do not remember a single word of.
We close the room at twelve-thirty. Handshakes. Nods. Ryker walking Erikson to the elevators with a hand on his back like the two of them have been friends for a decade.
I go back to my office and sit at my desk and I open four tabs I don’t read.
* * *
Ryker walks into my office at six-twenty and sits down in the chair across from me.
I don’t look up.
“Get out.”
“No.”
“Ryker.”
“I’m not leaving.”
I look up.
He’s already lost the jacket. Shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled. Planted.
“You’ve been a ghost for a month,” he says. “Today you look like somebody hit you with a truck. I’m not watching you sit at this desk for another four hours pretending to review a contract you closed yesterday. Get your jacket.”
“I have work.”
“You don’t.”
“Ryker.”
“One drink. If you still hate me in an hour, I’ll never ask again.”
I look at him for a long time and exhale.
Part of me hopes he’s right. That a few hours back in a world I used to live in can knock a certain yellow dress out of my head long enough to remember what I used to be.
I shut the laptop. Roll my sleeves to my forearms.
He grins, and it’s the old grin, the one that used to get us both in trouble before I remembered I had better reasons not to be in trouble.
“That’s my boy.”
“Don’t push it.”
* * *
The bar is on the ground floor of a building on Lex, low light and dark wood and a clientele that knows how to hold a glass. The hostess knows Ryker by name. The bartender slides two whiskeys across before we’ve sat down.
I take mine and pick it up and take a long pull. The burn tracks down my throat and I hold it there, savor it, let it be the only thing I feel.
Ryker is already talking to someone. A brunette two stools over, her friend tucked against her shoulder, both of them laughing at something he said inside ninety seconds.
I turn a little away and look at the ice in my glass.
But the room doesn’t stop.
A woman at the end of the bar has my eyes the second I look up. She’s beautiful. Cropped top. Skirt that doesn’t leave much of anything to the imagination. She holds my eyes, smiles slowly, takes a sip of whatever is in her glass.
I look away.
Ryker leans an elbow on the bar beside me. “Brother. You’re killing me.”
“I’m here.”
“You’re not here. You’re a statue at a bar with a whiskey in front of him.” He jerks his chin toward the end of the counter. “That gorgeous woman practically smiled herself into your lap and you looked away.”
I huff out a laugh despite myself.
“Exactly my point,” Ryker says.
The waitress passes close. Ryker hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her into his lap without breaking eye contact with me. She laughs, steadies herself with a hand on his shoulder, doesn’t move away.
“Loosen up,” he says. “One night.”
“Trying.”
“Try harder.”
I’m about to tell him to fuck off when I feel nails drag lightly across my forearm.
A blonde to my right traces the line of my tattoo slowly. “What are you, military or something?”
“No.”
“Mm.” Her smile widens. “You definitely look dangerous enough to be something.”
I look at her.
She laughs, completely undeterred. Doesn’t move her hand.
A second later the woman from the end of the bar is at my other side, drink in hand, hip against the stool. The blonde still hasn’t let go of my arm.
“We saw you over here looking miserable,” the brunette says. “Thought we should intervene.”
Both of them gorgeous. Interested. An invitation hanging openly in the air between us.
This was every Friday night of my twenties. A year ago I’d have bought the table a round and left in a cab with both of them before midnight.
I look at them.
I feel nothing.
“Ladies.” I pick up the whiskey. “I appreciate the offer. Have a good night.”
The brunette’s eyebrow lifts. “That’s it?”
The blonde pouts against my shoulder. “Don’t be mean.”
“That’s it.”
They go.
Ryker’s at my elbow before they even make it back to their table.
“Dude,” he says. “What the hell is wrong with you? That was a sure thing times two.”
“Not tonight.”
He studies me for a second. Doesn’t push.
I pick up my phone off the bar.
I’ve been checking the feed all night. I don’t know how many times. Hoping, like a goddamn idiot, to catch a glimpse of her through her kitchen window. A shadow. Anything.
I open the feed.
The camera I mounted on the streetlight two weeks ago has a clean angle on the front of her building. Streetlight on the left. Iron rail. Green door. Her kitchen window three floors up—one light on. Quiet block. Nothing moving.
I put the phone down and pick up my whiskey.
Take a long pull.
The glass is still at my mouth when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye on the feed. A figure walking into frame from the right. Stopping. Positioning himself directly across from her entrance.
I set the glass down.
Pick up the phone.
Gray hoodie. Hands shoved into the front pocket. The exact stance from four weeks ago outside the coffee shop, and the exact stance from every surveillance still my guys have sent me since.
I know before the image fully resolves.
Tyler.
Every muscle in my body locks.
I’m off the stool before Ryker’s even registered I stood up.
“Jace?”
“I’ve gotta go.”
“What—”
“Tab.”
I’m already out the door.
* * *
I’m in the SUV before the bar door finishes swinging shut behind me.
I hit the highway hard. Phone in my hand. Dial Rivas.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“Home, boss—my shift ended at six, Miller’s supposed to be covering her—”
“Miller is not fucking on her, Rivas. I’m looking at her building right now and there’s nobody there but him.”
A beat of silence.
“What—who’s there?”
“Tyler. Fucking Tyler is there. Right now. At her door.”
“Fuck.” His voice sharpens instantly. “I thought—”
I hang up.
Dial Miller.
“Boss.”
“Why the fuck aren’t you on Ashford?”
“I’m on my way now—I thought Rivas was overlapping until seven—”
“Nobody is on her, Miller. Nobody. He is standing outside her door.”
“Jesus Christ.” I hear a horn blast in the background. “I’m at a light on Flatbush. I can be there in nine—”
“Too fucking late.”
I hang up.
Throw the phone onto the passenger seat.
Fuck.
I’m twenty minutes away. Ten if the lights stay green and I run every one that doesn’t.
I flip the hazards on.
Blow through the next red without slowing down.
And the next one.
And the next.
I throw the feed onto the SUV screen beside the navigation map and keep driving.
Tyler hasn’t moved.
He’s standing at the foot of her stoop staring up at her windows.
I hit the Manhattan Bridge and call her.
Voicemail.
I call again.
Voicemail.
The speedometer climbs past ninety as I hit the bridge. Eight minutes away. He’s at her door. She’s not answering her phone.
His hand presses the buzzer.
Nothing.
Come on, Wren.
Then the building door opens from inside. Two women step out laughing about something, one holding the door with her hip as they move onto the sidewalk.
Tyler catches the closing door with one hand and slips inside.
Every muscle in my body locks.
I bury the accelerator.