CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
RIGHTS AND WRONGS
RHYS
Historic preservation, my left nut.
I exited out of the news coverage before I threw my damn computer across the office.
With my luck, Butler and the rest of his merry band of assholes would somehow get that footage, too, and use it to further their cause.
Not that he’d named Rye, Wicked, or any of his other targets in his interview. He’d carefully skirted all references to the protest or closer of businesses and focused on the buzz words people loved.
That it was time to restore Boston to its roots.
That the focus should be on preserving the rich history of the city.
That the increase in crime and problematic behavior was the fault of the wild nightlife that was making the city unsafe for families and tourists.
People were eating that shit up. And they had been for longer than I’d been paying attention to.
I’d been banking on the momentum fizzling out after the few weekends they’d been posted outside, but after digging into the Butler and his brigade’s past, I realized the assholes were like dogs with a damn bone. Not that they had a perfect record. Some businesses they’d gone after were still thriving.
But the brigade had dragged out the drama for a long time.
Fine by me. I would take it as far as I could, and then past that if I had to. I wasn’t letting Rye go down without a fight.
And that meant knowing the enemy.
One of them, at least.
The visit to NashVille the night before hadn’t given me anything. Not enough to cross them off the list, but not enough to prove their involvement. Just enough to confirm Nash—or whoever was in charge—was still a sack of shit. Not that we had proof of that, either.
It left a bad taste in my mouth and a worse one in Luna’s.
Since the SBOOB brigade was the present threat—literally, since their people were outside and trying to scare off my Saturday night crowd—I’d spent most of a restless night and the day digging into them.
Not that it got me much further. A lot of names. A lot of connections. A fuck-ton of frustration.
I knew I would have to go see Butler, but I didn’t have much hope of actually getting any face time with him. All my attempts to call and email had resulted in radio silence. I was hopeful thatI would find some tie. Some connection. Some way to take the wind from his dickhead sails.
When the words started blurring together, I pushed away from the desk and went out to the bar. For one, it was picking up, and they could use the help. For another, I wanted to see Lo.
It’d been an hour—which was too fuckin’ long—since I’d touched her ass.
I checked in with the kitchen first, making sure they were also good, before heading out front. I moved to where Lo fixed a drink that she set in front of a guy who was way overdressed for a dive bar. We got all types in there, including people in their suits and ties. And maybe I was wrong. It wasn’t like I knew fashion beyond tees and flannels. His suit might’ve been a cheap knockoff he bought out of the back of a van.
Didn’t look like it, though.
I made a mental note to keep an eye on him—I trusted bikers a fuckuva lot more than I trusted businessmen—before grabbing Lo’s hip.
She moved away.
The fuck?
I went for her waist that time.
She twisted out of my hold, even as she turned her smiling face up to me. “How’d it go?”
