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Yearning.
I hadn’t felt it in forever, and now it was growing on me.
And so was the thought of her warming my bed.
I BURNED THE rest of the weekend doing fun stuff, like drinking in my study, plotting to destroy Rowan and thinking about eating my wife.
Brock’s weekend, meanwhile, seemed to have left him drained and irritated. A bonus, as far as I was concerned.
On Monday, he walked into his office at Rouge Bis—no, fuck that, my office. I was the one who footed the bill for the place. Not that he saw it that way. He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, eying the glass desk as if I’d invaded his space.
“You look like shit.” I spat out my toothpick and wheeled the office chair backward so I could take a better look at him. “Rough night with the missus?” I cocked an eyebrow.
“Fuck you.”
I smirked. He and Catalina weren’t fucking nowadays.
I nodded at the chair in front of the desk, inviting him to sit down. He tugged at his breast pocket, fishing out a pack of smokes, his ass hitting the seat. He lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply and exhaling through his nose. The way he held the cigarette, between his index finger and thumb, like he was Clint Eastwood in a Western, made me want to laugh out loud. Instead, I glowered quietly.
“Smoking inside this building is prohibited.” I pointed to a sign saying just that behind me, barely containing my glee.
“So is every single thing you do, Troy. Don’t give me shit. I’ve had a rough morning. You needed me?” he asked.
“Trouble in paradise?” I tilted my chin toward the cigarette that hung in the corner of his mouth. Fuck, I bathed in his misery like it was pure water in the Sahara desert.
Brock sucked hard on the cig. This time his mouth hung open after he exhaled, a swirl of smoke traveling upwards. “Cat treats Sam like dirt.” He ran a hand over his hair. “This morning, he went to school wearing filthy clothes because she’s decided he’s not worth doing the laundry for. I almost flipped when he tugged at his shirt, seconds before I dropped him off, sniffing it to make sure he didn’t smell too bad. He said that he didn’t want kids to make fun of him. Man, this is the kind of shit that breaks your heart.”
He rubbed his eyes, continuing before he realized it was me he was confiding in. He must’ve been desperate. “Anyway, I did a U-turn. We ended up buying fresh clothes at Target, and he changed in the bathroom before I dropped him off. Spent the next thirty minutes sitting in my car in front of his school, practicing this stupid-ass breathing exercise from that tape you bought me for Christmas.”
I almost snorted. This was too much. The only reason I’d given him the tape was to piss Catalina off. She was whining like a bitch about Brock being too good and proper. It was a joke aimed at him. And he’d walked right into it.
Brock looked up at me, searching for my response.
I eased back into his soft leather chair and knitted my fingers together. “Some piece of work, your wife is. If you ask me, I always preferred the single life.”
“You’re married now,” he reminded me.
“I guess sometimes it’s easy to forget,” I said through my smirk.
He lolled his head sideways, stubbing the cigarette into an empty mug with a picture of him and Cat. Something she gave him to remind me of her every time I walked into his office.
It was cute how she thought I cared.
“I’m guessing you’re not here to discuss my marital problems.” Brock leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees, and tapped his fingertips. “Why are you here, Troy?”
“Patrick Rowan.” I cut straight to the chase, looking out the window, people-watching as I spoke. “I wanna know what ties he has left in Boston.”
Brock raised his brows, throwing himself back and sighing loudly. He didn’t like this turn of events, and I had no idea why. Rowan, my father’s right hand before everything flushed down the shitter, was just an old washed-up mobster. He’d kept the gambling piece of my father’s empire alive for him for a while even after my dad was dethroned, but eventually Paddy had branched out on his own. He’d high-tailed it out of the state to Miami when the Armenians decided they wanted his head on a plate. I discovered why a few months after my father was killed.
Yeah, Rowan had left enemies everywhere, but on Friday night, he’d made one too many of them in the form of me.
“Rowan?” He frowned. “Why?”
My jaw tightened when I thought about the answer to this question. Did I still hold a grudge against Rowan for stealing money from my father years ago? Sure. Did the fact that he touched my wife act as an incentive to finally seek retaliation? Hell yes. Was I in the mood to watch bad people paying for their sins? You fucking bet.
