2. Chapter 2
Chapter two
By midmorning, a shower and clean clothes had done what they could for the outside of me, but my temper was still boiling.
Nik’s man inside the Office of Special Enforcement didn’t ask why I needed private access to a city attorney on a Monday morning. Smart men on mafia payrolls knew better than to confuse curiosity with survival.
He gave me a visitor badge, a floor number, and a hallway that would stay empty long enough for me to make my point.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Isabella Delgado was about to learn the difference between walking into my club with cops at her back and standing alone in her office with me.
The hallway to her office looked like the city had stopped trying decades ago. Dull gray paint covered the walls, fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and scuffed floors ran past closed doors with cheap nameplates. The air smelled like copier toner, old coffee, and stale air.
There were no marble floors or polished wood. Nothing built to impress.
Just bureaucracy with bad lighting and too much power.
Her office sat at the far end, smaller than I’d expected and tucked into a quiet corner.
I stopped outside her door.
On the other side, a woman spoke rapid Spanish, low enough that I had to pause to hear it. The words came too fast for a casual call, but her tone was too controlled for panic. I couldn’t catch enough to make sense of it.
She had no idea that entering my club with more bravado than legal backing had brought me to her door with a visitor badge and every intention of making her regret it. I was the devil in the details, and her cases were about to go up in smoke.
I opened the door, stepped inside, and slammed it shut.
Her head shot up.
Her mouth fell open, the Spanish dying on her tongue.
Then she snapped it shut.
For one perfect second, I had her completely off guard.
Then the mask came down.
She ended the call with one tap and shoved the cellphone into the top drawer of her desk.
Her chair scraped back as she shot to her feet. “Who the hell are you? Get out.”
The office was bare, even by government standards.
A city-issued desk faced two visitor chairs, and a dented file cabinet stood in the corner.
A half-dead plant sat on the sill beside one narrow window facing brick instead of the skyline.
It was the kind of room assigned to someone without enough seniority to get decent furniture.
I crossed the room in three strides and dropped the folder on her desk—the one with Nik’s research on her and the threats against Xyst tucked inside.
She slapped both hands flat against the surface. “You can’t be in here.”
I planted my fists on the desk and leaned in until only inches separated us.
“What, love?” I asked calmly, holding her stare until she blinked first. “You don’t remember me from the wee hours of this mornin’? I find that hard to believe, seeing how confident you were when you walked into my club.”
Her chin lifted.
There she was.
The pretty, polished courtroom soldier in the navy suit. Long black hair fell in waves over her shoulders, her makeup was perfect, and those big brown eyes locked on mine like I was a nuisance with a pulse.
“Oh, I remember.” Her gaze dragged over me with deliberate insult. “You’re the barkeep from that dive at Tenth and Fifteenth.”
A slow smile cut across my face.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth, then snapped back to my eyes. The irritation on her face said she hated that I was enjoying this.
“The dive that can’t legally pour a drink,” she continued. “You had a window to cooperate. Slamming doors and throwing your weight around just closed it.”
“Careful.”
“With what?”
“Using that tone when no one’s here to save you from it.”
Her nostrils flared.
She reached for the phone on her desk.
My hand moved before hers touched it.
The phone shot sideways across the surface and smashed into the wall hard enough to crack the plastic shell before it hit the floor.
Isabella sucked in a breath.
I leaned over and caught her chin before she could scream. One finger pressed lightly on her lips.
“Don’t.”
Her eyes went wide.
Not helpless.
Calculating.
“No one’s coming,” I said. “No assistant. No coworker. No helpful guard who thinks a uniform makes him brave. I’ve been assured we’ll have all the privacy I need.”
She jerked her face away from my hand, but she didn’t step back.
Interesting—most people did.
“I don’t know who you think you are,” she sneered, “but the people I work for will make sure you’re served justice.”
“Will they?”
“They will.”
I chuckled and then leaned back, dragging a hand over my jaw. “See, that’s where your lack of planning and foresight went to shit.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“A woman with a law degree from the University of Texas, top of her class, law review, a summer at Harrington Shaw & Pierce, and enough polish to make city trash look respectable should’ve been smarter than this.”
That landed. Her eyes blinked as her control faltered for half a second. Her mouth opened, then closed again, and her fingers curled into fists just long enough for me to see the woman underneath scrambling to recover herself.
“You dug into me.”
“What can I say? I was curious.”
“You’re threatening a city attorney.”
“No.” I tapped the folder on her desk. “I’m threatening a liar with a government title.”
Her spine stiffened. “Get out.”
“Let’s talk about who Sarah Farris really is,” I said.
She went still.
My gaze moved over her face, enjoying every moment of watching her falter as she understood I hadn’t come empty-handed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. Let’s not waste time pretending. Sarah Farris. Thirty-four. Grew up in Yonkers. Two divorces. Petty theft. Cocaine possession. Employment history that looks like someone threw darts at Craigslist and called it a life plan.”
Color crept higher in Isabella’s cheeks.
I kept going.
“Also goes by Tammy Bondi when she’s taking bookings through Elysian Companions Group. That name mean anything to you?”
She swallowed hard.
“Careful, lass,” I murmured. “Your poker face just folded.”
“You have no right to access private information.”
“Neither did you when you chose to go after Xyst with a fairy tale dressed up as legal enforcement.”
“It isn’t a fairy tale.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then explain why the assault wasn’t in the original complaint last May.
” I leaned over the desk again, forcing her to look up at me.
“We knew about the fake-ID kid. We knew he got drunk, got stupid, and put hands on a cop. That was handled. But a sexual assault tied to Xyst? No. That wouldn’t have stayed buried.
Not in my club. If a woman had been hurt, that wouldn’t have come to the surface almost eight months later.
That would’ve been blood on the floor that night. ”
Her mouth pressed into a thin line as she stewed over my words.
“Nothing?” I finally asked. “No righteous speech? No victim statement you want to wave at me?”
“You think because you own a nightclub and a few men with badges who know when to look away, you get to decide what happened?”
“No, love. I’m responsible for that nightclub, our reputation, and every patron who walks through the door. And I know the difference between an actual crime and a manufactured one.”
She let out a quiet, contemptuous laugh. “That’s supposed to convince me…supposed to mean something coming from you?”
“No. It’s supposed to educate you.” I straightened. “We don’t hurt women in Xyst. We don’t serve girls up to rich men. We don’t let drunk boys put hands on anyone and brag about it later. If a woman had been hurt inside my club or because of my club, we would’ve dealt with it appropriately.”
The office fell silent.
Then Isabella leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest and gathering the pieces of the city-attorney mask around her like armor.
“That’s very dramatic.”
“It’s true.”
“You can tell yourself whatever you need to sleep at night, Mr. Byrnes, but the City has cause. The State Liquor Authority has cause. Sarah Farris has cause. Your club has been on the edge for a long time.”
“You mean Xyst has been in your boss’s way for a long time?”
She frowned and shook her head. “If powerful men insist on building empires in public, they shouldn’t be surprised when someone starts checking the foundation.”
I studied her.
She didn’t flinch under my scrutiny, which should’ve impressed me, but it didn’t.
Her anger looked real. Her arrogance did too. But the fear beneath—when it appeared—had been too controlled and had vanished too fast.
I’d long known that a person’s eyes were the windows to their soul, and hers held secrets. Every time I got close to the truth, they shifted like pools of black mercury. But there was one thing I knew with absolute certainty—eyes never lie, and hers kept changing their story.
It was a red flag, one I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to move away from or charge straight toward.
My gaze cut from her eyes to scan the government office around us. “You don’t belong in this job,” I huffed.
Her expression didn’t change, but her shoulders tightened.
“You belong in corporate law, making obscene money helping rich men move dirty money from one place to the next. You don’t leave that kind of opportunity to play junior city crusader unless someone puts you there.”
“I chose public service.”
I laughed.
She flinched.
“Aye. And I’m the patron saint of restraint.”
“You’re a thug in an expensive suit.”
“Maybe. But I’m not stupid.” I tapped the folder again. “Hayes. Farris. Elysian. Leon Brands. Whitaker. Delgado. You walked into Xyst, throwing legal daggers at men who know how to throw them back. Trust me, our aim is better, and now we have more targets.”
Her lips parted.
There it was again.
The smallest break in the mask.
I let that sit for a moment, then smiled wider. “And the liquor-license suspension you strutted in with? Already handled. Cleared. Gone. Evaporated into thin air before you had your morning coffee.”
The color drained from her face.