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Dylan settled on the couch, his boots on the coffee table as he eyed Ethan with a speculative look. “I see you’re getting friendly with that mouthy neighbor of yours.”
Ethan sat down beside Myles on the other couch, carefully keeping his expression light and carefree. Personally, he liked Eloise. She was a knockout to look at with all that blonde hair and those icy blue eyes. Long limbed and graceful, she gave the impression of soft elegance until she opened her mouth. Sure, she had a lot of long pretty words, but a little nudge or a poke and she was fit to be tied.
He was amused by her feisty attitude and complete lack of common sense when it came to assessing danger. She charged in headfirst like a pissed off chihuahua and it was fun to watch. At least it would be, until she inevitably ran up against a bigger dog.
Dylan was a really big dog and his bark was nothing compared to his bite. He wouldn’t find her snooping funny or her uptight attitude a challenge to explore. Ethan had plenty of reasons to be grateful to him, but Dylan could be a powder keg under the best circumstances. Eloise, despite the tight grip she tried to keep on herself, was a firecracker ready to go off and Ethan had no intention of bringing the two of them anywhere near each other if he could help it.
“Not really,” Ethan said. He caught Myles giving him a speculative look out of the corner of his eye and grinned back at him like he didn’t have a care in the world. Myles was a good kid but he was terrified of Dylan. Better to have them all fooled than to betray he’d given Eloise anything more than a passing glance.
“Oh?” Dylan glanced around the living room, gaze lingering on the pair of still half full glasses on the table in front of him. Eloise’s lipstick was clearly visible on the rim of the second glass. “Sure as hell looked like it.”
“Winston got out,” Ethan explained. “She came over to bring the dog back.”
“Just being a good neighbor, then?” Dylan obviously didn’t believe a word of Ethan’s excuse, but he smiled as he took another drink of his beer. After all the years they’d known each other, he was as comfortable here as he’d be in his own house and took up half the couch like he owned it.
“Something like that.” Ethan met his gaze evenly, unbothered by Dylan’s cool evaluation or Myles’ uncomfortable shifting in the seat beside him. He’d known Dylan for half his life and as vicious as Ethan had seen him be, it had never spilled over onto Ethan himself. They had discovered long ago that bonds written in blood were not easily broken. After so many years, the two of them were practically brothers.
Dylan had certainly been there for him in ways most of his own family never had been. You couldn’t choose your blood or the way they treated you—a hard lesson Ethan had learned right there in the room they were sitting in—but you could choose to surround yourself with people that mattered. Dylan had become his family and through him, Ethan had gained a little brother in Myles, and a purpose. He owed his current life to Dylan in more ways than he could count.
“Fuck her if you want,” Dylan said after a moment of hesitation, “but don’t let her become a distraction. That last job wasn’t as lucrative as we’d hoped, and we need to keep our heads in the game.”
Ethan winced and got up to grab another beer. “No worries there. I’m pretty sure she’s not gonna talk to me at all after tonight.”
“Losing your charm, Callaghan?” Dylan cracked a mocking laugh. “Pity, she’s pretty enough to be a good fuck if you could get her to relax long enough to spread her legs. Is she as frigid as she looks?”
Ethan shrugged and tried to hide an unusual ripple of annoyance by popping the top on his second beer and taking another drink. Ethan had mostly learned to ignore Dylan’s attitude toward women, but he found he didn’t like the idea of anyone talking that way about Eloise.
She was a pain in the ass, sure, but she was independent and funny, and she liked his dog. He’d started out with the intention of irritating her as payback for her bitchy attitude, and he’d enjoyed getting her under skin and watching her fume, but damned if he hadn’t also enjoyed the scrunch of her nose when she laughed.
He was tempted to tell Dylan exactly where he could shove his opinion, but if he said anything about it, it would only make Dylan that much more determined to continue. He was perverse that way, another thing Ethan had learned to ignore.
“I guess,” he said instead. “She works for some kind of financial place downtown. Sounds like some kind of real fancy shit, so she’s probably used to all those rich trust fund brats in their slick three-piece suits.”
“She works at a bank and you’re just now mentioning that?” Dylan’s boots thumped on the hardwood when he dropped his legs off the coffee table and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His eyes were lit with a calculating light that Ethan knew all too well.
“Not really a bank,” he corrected. “Not like you’re thinking anyway. According to her she handles investments or some shit. I asked her about setting up an account, made it seem like I was just looking for an excuse to run into her, but she said they don’t do that kind of business in her building. Basically, she works at the regional headquarters and they don’t have any customer facing operations, it’s just a place where they do the paperwork and administration duties for the smaller branches.”
He waited until Dylan sat back, disappointment on his face, before propping his own feet on the coffee table and pointing at him, beer still in hand. “And I didn’t tell you, because I just found out.”
“The paperwork places probably know how everything works at the branches.” Dylan said slowly, the calculating look returning after a few moments of thought. “What she knows might still be useful. We’ve been playing in the minor leagues, trying to keep Tough Break off the cops’ radar by dabbling in petty shit and hitting up convenience stores and check cashing places. You wanna live that way for the rest of your life? Because I don’t, and she could be just what we need.”
“Maybe,” Ethan admitted reluctantly, “but she doesn’t seem like the type to be careless with what she lets slip.”
Dylan gestured at Ethan and swung his gaze hard to his little brother. “You see this shit, Myles?”
Myles swallowed and his eyes were wide. “I?—”
“Forget it,” Dylan interrupted. “You’re both useless.”
Ethan dropped his gaze to the beer hanging between his fingers. If Dylan had been anyone else … No, there was no point in imagining what he’d do. Ethan was a laid-back kind of guy overall, but his size and appearance were usually enough to keep people respectful. He also wasn’t above using his fists if it came down to it, so his reputation as a brawler would often do the rest. No one but Dylan would’ve had the balls to sit in his living room and insult him to his face.
“What do you want me to do? I told you she probably isn’t speaking to me now. Y’all scared her off a minute ago.” Not entirely true. He had been the one threatening her about minding her own business and as long as she’d taken to unwind a little around him, he figured she’d be unlikely to do it again after that. He’d started to make a little progress and now he’d lost it. A fact that he resented but what else could he do? She needed to stay the fuck away from Dylan and how else was he supposed to have made sure she got that message loud and clear?
“Get her to forgive you for whatever you did to piss her off tonight. She must be into you or you wouldn’t have gotten her over here in the first place. Be your usual charming self and let the rest work itself out. If you fuck her good enough, she’ll probably tell you the vault codes.”
“She handles investments,” Ethan repeated, more firmly this time. He wanted out of this conversation and for Dylan to never have Eloise’s name in his mouth again. “And since she spent most of the time she was over here talking about work, I happen to know her friends probably don’t know that shit, either. They all work in accounting or auditing or?—”
“Figure it out.” Dylan was already pulling out his phone, the conversation over as far he was concerned. He’d given an order and he expected Ethan to get it done, come hell or high water.
