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“I suspect he’s already begun pressuring Poppy,” Jack reported.
“She’s the only one that can get you where you need to be, Jack,” Ian stated. “She’s part of upper management and close to the owners. And, she has access to every single property they own. We checked Tessalon, by the way. He’s clear. Poppy’s meeting was observed by several other parties who overheard Ms. Porter effectively putting him in his place before she left.”
Jack nodded at the information.
“Clear her and bring her into the op? If she agrees to help us, she could get us into the properties without all the deception,” Lucas mused.
That would be the perfect answer. Except…
Jack shook his head. “She was raised with them. Known them all her life. Besides, she doesn’t lie worth shit in most cases. She’ll have to believe whatever she’s told, and I have to be damned careful there. She’s smart. Intuitive. And she’s careful about where she places her trust. That’s what Crossfield-Dawson’s group has. Implicit trust.”
“She has access to the properties. You have access to her,” Kira stated regretfully. “Unfortunately, no one can run interference with her brother, because your cover depends on everyone believing you’re the self-serving little fucker it details.”
“I am that self-serving fucker,” he assured her, glancing up at her in unconcern.
“Whoever we’re after has to believe it. No matter what. And making John David Porter a believer is especially important. He’s even closer to the two men than his sister is. He can make the believable the Holy Grail.”
Jack stared at the diagram, then gave an unconcerned shrug.
“I’ll handle Junior. And I’ll handle Poppy. No worries.”
And he knew he would do exactly that.
What other choice did he have?
God knew he had too much blood on his hands to deserve her, but he wasn’t about to allow that to stand in his way.
“She’s a good woman,” Reno stated then. “Everything we found on her points to that. And a woman like that, she can hate with the same depth of emotion as she loves, once she’s been betrayed.”
Jack’s gaze met the other man’s, flat, hard. He had known the second he saw the file what he’d end up doing to her. And decided the cost was worth it.
He was just praying that her belief that hiding certain things to protect those she loved would extend to understanding that there were times that he had to do the same.
“I killed my own father when I was fourteen years old,” he reminded Reno, the subtle growl in his voice a reminder of the lethal predator he could be. “With zero remorse. I have twenty justifiable kills to my record, and trust me when I tell you there are some whose bodies will never be found. And I have zero remorse. When I’m done here, that single weakness you claim I have will still be living, breathing, and a part of this world. And I’ll have zero remorse.”
At the end of the day, Poppy’s safety was really all that mattered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next evening Poppy bypassed stopping by the house after work to change clothes, choosing instead to go straight to the small bar she and her friends met at most nights for drinks and a light dinner.
Several meetings in South Point, Ohio, with potential lessees for commercial offices she managed had ran much longer than she’d anticipated, and she knew that if she made the detour to the house to change she’d be more than an hour late.
She entered the bar ten minutes late as it was, thankful she and her friends had a standing agreement for them to order for her if she wasn’t there by the time the others arrived.
She’d been friends with the four women since grade school, and they’d stayed close where other friendships hadn’t survived. Sasha Crossfield and Saige Dawson were sisters to her bosses Caine Crossfield and River Dawson and worked at Crossfield-Dawson Commercial and Residential Properties and Storage as well. Erika Boone was a teacher at the local high school and Lilith Preston owned a clothing boutique in town.
They were all as different as night from day. Sasha was a cool, sophisticated blonde whom others often saw as stuck-up or superior, but she had a heart of gold. Saige was the quiet one of the small group, usually watching and listening rather than being an active contributor to the hilarity, though when she did join in, things could get hysterical. Erika was the instigator of the group and had been the one behind some of their more outrageous pranks growing up. She still managed to cause chaos and mayhem at odd times.
Lilith was their oddball. Her hair could be any color at any time, though it had been several colors at once lately. She was prone to wearing colored contacts, to dress with a flair for the outrageous that actually worked for her, and to come running, no matter the time, if one of them needed help.
She was also the niece of the bar’s owner and kept them in free beer and food whenever they were there.
The four women were waiting at their usual table close to the bar, drinks in front of them, a plate of sliders and wings in the center of the table.
“There she is,” Sasha drawled as Poppy slid into her seat, pushing her purse beneath the table along with four others. “You’re late again, girlfriend.”
“Blame your brother.” Poppy grimaced. “The majority of my meetings were in Ohio today. The one in South Point was a killer.”
