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It was interesting that even the biting way Sean said Henri’s name made Bailey’s pulse race, but Bailey decided it best not to focus on that if he wanted to get through this one-on-one with his brother. He was the one at a disadvantage here. He had no idea how Henri and Sean knew each other.
“Boudreaux?” Bailey said, deciding to give Sean an opening to see what he would do with it.
“Yeah, Henri Boudreaux. Tall motherfucker who lives in a leather jacket and has a perpetual smirk on his face. Don’t play with me, Bay. Kieran gets away with it still, but not you. I know that’s his fucking car. I’ve been in it.”
Bailey made a show of looking past Sean to the Aston Martin parked in his driveway, and then brought his eyes back to his brother, whose face was close to the color of a tomato. “Why have you been in it?”
That question seemed to trip Sean up for a second. “What?”
“I asked why you’ve been in Henri’s car.” Bailey crossed his arms over his chest. “But let’s take that back one more step, because I’m still trying to work out how you know who that car belongs to, and what you’re even doing here.”
Sean shoved his suit jacket aside and planted his hands on his hips, the frustration all but pouring off him when it became clear Bailey wasn’t budging. “I was coming over to pick your brain about a case, if you must know. But then I saw—”
“Henri’s car, and lost your mind instead.”
Sean’s teeth clicked together as he took a step forward and lowered his voice. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, Bay, or why Boudreaux’s here.”
“He’s here because I invited him over, unlike you. He’s also here because I went on a date with him yesterday, and I’m a grown adult and have a right to see whoever the hell I want. So if, and when, you decide to knock on the door and act like a human being, I will open it and we can talk. Until then…” Bailey took a step back inside the house and reached for the door, ready to close it in his brother’s face. But Sean gathered his wits about him and reached out to put a palm on the wood.
“Bay, this is—”
“What?” Bailey said, the challenge in his voice and stance one hundred percent obvious and totally unlike him. He was usually the peacekeeper out of the three brothers, the levelheaded one. But something about Sean’s contempt for Henri was rubbing Bailey all kinds of wrong, especially considering the two worked together.
“This is not a good idea. Boudreaux, he’s…”
“He’s what?” Bailey said. “He told me you two work together. Is that true?”
Sean looked off to the left, and Bailey could see him chewing the inside of his cheek.
“Sean?”
Sean’s head gave a clipped nod. “Yeah, it’s true.”
“Then what’s the problem? I don’t see you working with someone you don’t trust.”
“The problem is, Bay, he’s bad news. You know how CIs are. We trust them to an extent, but we work with them because they can get into spots we can’t. They have connections due to their…less-than-upstanding pasts, and Boudreaux? He’s no different. Don’t let his charm and bad-boy side fool you. He’s trouble, even if he is packaged nicely.”
Bailey bristled with indignation on Henri’s behalf and shook his head. He might not know Henri all that well, but he prided himself on being able to read a person. His father had always taught him to trust his gut, and one thing he felt all the way to his core was that Henri was a good man. “I think you should leave.”
Sean blinked, the shock on his face evident. Bailey had never shut the door on any of them, had never felt the need to in the past and really never thought he should, since this was where they’d all grown up. But right now he wanted some space, wanted to talk to Henri, and he wanted to do it without his brother breathing down his neck.
“I can meet you tomorrow about the case, if that works? But right now, I need you to leave.”
“Bailey—”
“Sean,” Bailey said in a tone he himself didn’t even recognize, and Sean’s eyebrows slashed down in a V. Then, seeming to realize he had pushed hard enough, Sean muttered something and turned to head off toward his car.
Bailey watched as Sean climbed inside and started up the engine. As his brother pulled away from the curb and punched his foot to the gas, Bailey slowly shut the door and let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
As he shut his eyes, Bailey’s mind reeled at everything he’d just learned even as it tried to piece together all that he was still missing. As he did, the intoxicating scent of Henri’s arousal and cologne swirled around him, reminding Bailey that the man who held the answers to all of his questions was still inside his house. And the only way he was going to make any sense of what the hell had just happened in the last ten minutes would be to go in and start asking questions.
