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“We won’t know if you don’t ask.” Dylan set his beer on the table in front of him with a thump that set the glass bottom to wobbling. “Are you trying to protect her from me?”
Yes.
Ethan was surprised how quickly the answer came to him. For one wild moment he thought he’d spoken the traitorous thought out loud, but Dylan’s face didn’t flicker, there was no response written in the icy depths of his eyes. There’d never been reason for Dylan to question his loyalty and Ethan wondered what his reaction would have been if he’d admitted to his sudden unexplainable urge to keep Eloise safe, even if it compromised Dylan’s plans.
He’d always kept women at arm’s length because he knew Dylan considered anyone in his sphere as a tool at his disposal. Drawing Eloise into that had been a mistake, but it had also put her in unusually close proximity to a part of him he’d never let anyone else see. She was bright and perceptive, her questions cutting to the heart of his motivations and forcing him to examine them in a way he hadn’t in years.
There was no way he was going to let Dylan do anything to cause her harm or interfere in her life any more than absolutely necessary, but he knew the best way to do that was to never let Dylan know it was happening.
“I’m protecting us,” he said, leaning into years of friendship and Dylan’s expectations. “If she does have information we can use, it will be worth the wait and if she doesn’t then we don’t want anyone to have any suspicions about why I was hanging around.”
Dylan nodded slowly but he kept his eyes locked on Ethan’s. “You know how important you are to me. You’ve had my back for more than a decade and I’ve had yours. I kept you safe when you needed me and gave you a place to go when you got out of juvie. Don’t forget those things because of some twit with perky tits.”
“I’ll get it done,” Ethan said flatly. Guilt and rage coiled inside him, but he let none of it show. “I’ve never let you down or failed to pay back what I owed you. Do you really think that’s going to change after all these years?”
Dylan paused, leaving the question unanswered, when Myles came out from the back, arms loaded with boxes and a line of sweat down the back of his T-shirt. If Dylan ever worked as hard at the bar as his little brother did, it would have been a thriving business. It had the potential but Dylan was too lazy to put the work in. It wasn’t as thrilling doing inventory as it was planning a robbery.
Myles spotted them and set the boxes on the bar, pinning Sunny with a hard look and indicating she needed to put away whatever was inside. She rolled her eyes when he turned his back, which made Dylan laugh as Myles headed their way, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and grabbing a beer as he went.
“Ethan.” He sat in the chair beside Dylan, reaching across the table to shake Ethan’s hand. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.” The kid was probably right. He’d been up most of the night wondering if he’d done the right thing by leaving Eloise standing on her doorstep looking disappointed at the end of what was absolutely a fucking date, no matter what she said about it.
“If you’re done?” Dylan’s meaning was clear as he stared down his brother and Myles, smiling and happy a moment before, diminished under his glare. He mumbled a barely audible apology that Dylan ignored. He turned his attention back to Ethan and continued where they had left off as though Myles didn’t matter and his presence didn’t warrant an acknowledgement.
“You’ve never given me a reason to doubt you,” Dylan shifted in his seat, looking over his shoulder again before continuing, tone colder than anything Ethan had ever heard aimed in his direction before, “but I was assuming you’d have something for me. Are you losing your touch or just enjoying the piece of ass and paying no attention to what the bitch says otherwise?”
Ethan flicked a glance at Myles and found that both men were watching him carefully. Myles had always been quiet and timid, following in Dylan’s footsteps without question and with such devotion that Ethan had often wondered if it was due to loyalty or fear. Either way, no matter how often he jumped in to protect him from Dylan, he was unlikely to find support in that corner.
“I didn’t find anything because I doubt there’s anything to find. She doesn’t know anything about the local branches and it’s a waste of time for me to keep pumping her for information when she doesn’t have any.”
“Are you going to stop fucking her?” Ethan’s emotions, usually so carefully controlled, must have shown on his face. “You haven’t managed that yet, either? Well, I doubt you’re going to walk away and leave that well untapped. As long as you’re sniffing around, you might as well keep trying. We’ve got other options but you know they’re risky. This would be easier and help maximize potential profits.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do.” This time Myles shot him a surprised look at the aggression in his tone. He didn’t know if she had anything they could use but he did know she’d get suspicious if he pushed her about it and he didn’t want her to have any more to do with this if he could figure out how to get her out of it. Convincing them she was worthless was probably his best bet, though it made him sick to lie to Dylan. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“I want you to figure something out.” Dylan spoke slowly and showed no outward reaction to Ethan’s outburst. “Everyone knows something, right? If she can’t access work schedules or vault codes, maybe she can work some fancy magic on those ledger books.”
Ethan snorted. Dylan must really be frustrated if he was talking out loud at the bar about vault codes. Usually those conversations were carefully saved for safer locations. “Auditing would catch her before we had enough to pay next month’s bills.”
“You always see obstacles and not opportunities” The bar door swung open and momentarily bathed them all in light from outside. Two people strolled up to the bar and Dylan sniffed and lowered his voice. “If you need someone in auditing, then figure out a way to convince them.”
It seemed simple enough. Ethan had to admit it was a better idea than any he’d had, but it would involve putting Eloise directly into the mess unless he could work out a way to go around her completely, which was unlikely. Finding someone else to work with that would be willing to take such a risk wouldn’t be an easy task, but it would be worth it to keep her away from Dylan.
“I’ll try.”
Dylan seemed pleased with that, and he smiled as he downed the rest of his beer. “In the meantime, don’t let her distract you from the job we’re doing tomorrow. This one’s dangerous and it’s going to take everyone at their best if we’re going to pull it off.”
Ten
A loud banging pulled Eloise out of a restless sleep. She picked up her phone, turning it over and blinking against the sudden burst of light to find it was nearly midnight. She’d gone to bed almost an hour ago and had yet to fall into anything deeper than a light doze. It was shaping up to be her third night without sleep, her dinner with Ethan playing through her head each time her head hit the pillow. She had tried everything from warm milk to counting sheep but she still tossed and turned.
The banging came again, louder and more desperate this time, and she grabbed a robe to toss over her pajamas as she hurried down the stairs. She tried to reassure herself that it was probably just Jackson or David but there wasn’t any reason for them to be coming by this late unless it was an emergency. She sped up as the pounding started again, loud enough to vibrate the pictures on her walls.
She wrenched the door open and stumbled backward, a cry of alarm on her lips as a hard, hulking body pushed inside and quickly closed the door behind them. She sucked in a deep breath, preparing to scream, and a large hand closed forcefully over her mouth.
“Shhh, it’s okay! It’s just me!”
“Ethan!” His name came out garbled behind his hand and she swatted it away. “What the hell are you doing? You scared me half to death.”
