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Yeah, his life was good.
Well, not right now. He’d been on his fucking street, dreaming of his shower, his beers, and his sheets. But he was sitting in the fucking conference room after midnight wearing the grime from the road and serious blue balls. But Keltan had called him in. Said it was important. And if his boss said it was important, it was.
Keltan knew what Duke had been doing. Knew he’d been on the job for three weeks straight. He wasn’t an asshole, and he wouldn’t have called on him if it wasn’t serious.
He would not have called everyone in the employ of Greenstone Security from their beds, their wives, their kids if it wasn’t really fucking serious.
Having Keltan utter the name of the client had each of the men—and Rosie, because where the fuck else would she be?—looking pissed off. Rightfully so.
“Anastasia fucking Edwards?” Duke bit out.
The vision of the woman popped into his head. Red hair. Emerald eyes. Blowjob lips. Perfect tits.
Black fucking heart.
Still, his cock twitched at the thought of her, which must’ve been due to how long it’d been since he’d had a woman, not the woman herself. Duke might’ve been about no strings, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to go near a cold-hearted bitch like her, no matter how beautiful she was.
And she was a fucking knockout.
Keltan nodded, looking sorry, but not as sorry as he should be. Keltan knew how Duke felt about her. How the whole team felt.
Duke clenched his fists, hating the fact that her red hair would not escape his fucking mind. “Are you fucking kidding me? She’s a nightmare.”
“A nightmare is the kindest possible word to describe her,” Rosie said, something out of character, since the woman was not in the business of shit-talking other women. Even if they were bitches.
Keltan didn’t argue this because he knew firsthand. She’d been a client in the past. A bossy, bitchy, snobby client. Sure, they set up shop in LA, so that was expected. But she was something else. She had this way about her. It was hard to put your finger on—describe—unless you’d experienced it firsthand. It was an undefinable magic. Rosie had coined her “Voldemort.”
“She’s in deep shit,” Keltan told the table. His expression was grim.
That sobered Duke. Keltan wasn’t someone easily rattled or who looked grim. Since his wife had been stabbed on the sidewalk and survived, he had little to be grim about. Especially now that they had kids. As crazy as the bitch was, Duke doubted Lucy would get herself caught up in deadly shit that could take her away from her family.
“How deep?” Duke couldn’t imagine one of Hollywood’s most well-known actresses in shit beyond running out of cold-pressed juice. He knew she drank it, because she’d asked him to “run out and get her some” like he was her fucking assistant and wasn’t happy when he’d refused.
Duke had been spoken down to plenty of times working with celebrities. Not as often as one would expect, since a good majority of them were actually decent. The ones who weren’t had stopped bothering him.
Which was why he hated that Anastasia somehow managed to affect him so much. Duke considered himself someone who could keep his shit together. And he had. In many worse situations than some actress talking shit to him.
But it was her.
She snuck under his skin, drew blood. He fucking hated it. Hated her by proxy. No one had gotten under his skin since he’d returned stateside. Duke had believed that the war had turned that shit off. Made him incapable of feeling what the rest of his team did.
Anastasia didn’t make him feel good. But made him feel something. And that scared the shit out of him.
“She witnessed a hit,” Keltan clipped. “Obviously, this isn’t public knowledge since she has a damn good lawyer and publicist, and it pains me to say it, a good head on her shoulders.”
Everyone at the table was listening intently. No matter how big of a nightmare she was, she didn’t deserve to see someone die. No one did. But they also knew they wouldn’t be out of their beds, away from their wives, if this was a run-of-the-mill murder.
“She can put Coleson Kitsch at the scene,” Keltan added.
Swift intake of breath around the table. “Fuck,” Luke muttered.
Keltan nodded once. “Yeah.”
Coleson Kitsch was one of the richest and most crooked men in the city. And saying that about LA meant something. He’d been on Greenstone’s radar for a while. Same with about every law enforcement agency there was. Everyone knew the fucker was into drugs, murder for hire, and prostitution. Human trafficking, specializing in young girls. Shit that made them sick. But he had powerful friends. He was smart. Nothing more dangerous than a smart, rich psychopath with friends in high places.
