“Let me guess,” I continued. “They’ve decided that Wicked is on a bus route where children might pass and see the exterior of the building.”
“Don’t give them that specific idea because I’m betting they’ll run with it.”
“How’d Lars find out he’s a target, and what did that have to do with you and his father-in-law?”
“Because Wicked isn’t the only one on their radar.”
I sat up quickly, and Rhys’s gaze dropped to my naked chest. I grabbed the sheet for yet another attempt at a layer of armor, and he shockingly allowed it. “Tell me everything.”
He filled me in on Joss’s dad, SBOOB, and Butler’s slow rise to power within the business group thanks to promises that he wanted stability and longevity for other small businesses like his.
I’d seen the billboards, TV ads, bench ads, and signage with his company logo. It seemed like more budget than most small businesses had at their disposal, but whatever.
“According to Joss’s dad,” Rhys continued, “Butler believes that robberies, assaults, car accidents, and everything else bad that went bump in the night were a direct result of Boston’s seedy underbelly. As more and more locally owned places have gone under for a variety of reasons, his ideas have gained traction.”
“Too much traction,” I said, thinking about the fuss they raised over every tiny concern. Some of the businesses they’d targeted with protests and whatever else had deserved to close. I wasn’tdenying that. They also didn’t have infinite pull. I could think of a handful of clubs off the top of my head that had closed thanks to their efforts, only for the space to be sold and reopened as another club. All that effort was for nothing because their reach was… well, a reach.
They had no real reason to go after Rye or Wicked. But both places—along with half a dozen other bars—had been labeled as problematic.
Luckily for us, Mr. Butler was unaware of the connection between Wicked and Joss’s dad. Or that Joss had mentioned her own friend-group connection to Rye.
“I’ll contact my handler in the morning,” I said, though I didn’t have high hopes anything would come from it.
Rhys opened his mouth before closing it again.
My eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing, hellcat. Come here. I’m fuckin’ beat.”
“Give me a minute.”
Unlike that morning, I didn’t stall. I quickly went to the bathroom and did my bedtime routine so I didn’t fall asleep without brushing my teeth for the second night in a row. But much like that morning, I did it with a pleasant tenderness between my legs.
I turned the light all the way off before climbing back into bed and promptly being repositioned. “You can just ask me to move.”
“I don’t ask.”
I was shockingly okay with that—mostly because I was comfortable.
But I was also me.
Which was why I rolled to face the other direction and tried to put space between us.
“Starting a new tab? That’s fine. I charged the underwear vibrator.”
I rolled right back, put my head on his chest, and threw my arm and leg over him for good measure.
“That’s what I thought.”
I would’ve rolled my eyes if my lids weren’t so heavy.
Rhys’s hand rubbed across my back in a soothing way, and I sank into him. When his fingertips grazed the puckered scar at the top of my shoulder, I knew what was coming even before he asked, “What happened?”
“Untrained dumbass with a gun for protection. He almost shot an innocent bystander because he was coked out and thought they were trying to steal his car when they were just walking by it. Thankfully, he missed both of us.”
He tapped the mark on my shoulder. “Wanna try that again?”
“It could’ve been worse. Barely a graze.”
