Ma’am? What a cutie patootie. “No, I haven’t called anybody.” True statement. “But since you’re here, I’m hoping you can assist me?” I open my eyes wider.
His hand on his holstered weapon, he turns and scans the entire diner before focusing back on me. “It looks like our call was a false alarm. What can I do for you?”
I shrug as helplessly as I can. “Well, I heard there were a couple of robberies around here. I was hoping one ofyou would walk me to my vehicle. I mean, since you’re already here.”
His gaze shifts toward Justice. “Of course.” He squares his shoulders.
“Thank you. My friend isn’t finished with his coffee.” I look at Justice.
His eyes glitter. I know how dangerous he is and can even see the math in his potential movements. He could take out everyone in the room if he decided to make a statement. Yet that would cause all sorts of problems for him.
“Nice move,” he mutters under his breath.
“Thank you.” I stand, slipping the damaged heel into my pocket.
He doesn’t move. “I’m going to see you real soon, Ella. I promise.”
My smile wavers. “Looking forward to it.” I turn before I can hesitate, stepping toward the cop. “I really appreciate this, officer.”
“You can call me John.” He gives Justice one more look and then gestures toward the door. “I’ll walk you out, miss.”
“Thank you.” I keep my steps quick but steady. I have a healthy fear that Justice will be behind me the second that door swings closed. I’m not ready for what will happen when he catches me.
SIX
Justice
Iknock back the last of the Irish whiskey, let it burn its way down, and place the glass on the older wood. The sound it makes is sharper than I intend, but Fergus doesn’t look up from the other side of the desk. He keeps typing, fingers rattling over keys like he’s beating them into submission.
We’re in the back office of the Blood Garnet Pub. The air is thick with old smoke, wood polish, and whatever the hell soaked into the floorboards over the years. The radiator coughs like it’s dying in the corner, but it still pushes out heat that settles under my skin and stays there. The walls are stained paneling, yellowed at the corners. There’s a file cabinet with a dent the size of a fist and a ceiling fan that clicks in slow circles, doing nothing but reminding me how long it’s been since I fixed the place. I built the pub to be a front, but it’s been too profitable to ignore.
Fergus is hunched over his laptop. He’s sixty-five,maybe older, but looks closer to ninety. His skin’s worn down to the grain, and his comb-over is offensive in a way that feels intentional. Like he’s daring someone to bring it up.
He glances at me without pausing in his work, his eyes squinty and bloodshot, the blue faded to that color plastic gets when it’s been in the sun too long. “The pubs all look good. We’re going to show a ten percent increase in profits from last year.”
I nod, but I’m not hearing him. Not really. I’m still in the diner. Still watching Ella walk out with a cop and a lie pasted across her face. I could’ve stopped her. Dragged her back, cleared the room, made a point no one would forget. But the timing was wrong. Too many witnesses, too many risks. And she knew that. She played me clean.
The problem is, I don’t know if I’m pissed at her for outmaneuvering me, or at myself for letting her. I’ll deal with her before Thorn comes home.
“Justice? I’m thinking we should open at least twenty more pubs this year. I know you thought we’d just use them as fronts, but we’re making real money now.” Fergus speaks in Gaelic, and with the softer sound of the language, nothing in my body hurts from listening to his voice. That’s rare.
“Fine by me. I assume you have locations?” I invested in my first pub before I could legally drink and moved on to the next, then the next after that, each one a piece of structure, leverage, and shelter. These pubs span across cities and countries now, and every one of them serves more than alcohol. They provide cover, information, and access. But apparently the alcohol is making me even wealthier. Who knew?
“I have several proposed locations, about fifty of them. But the smart play is to open twenty at the most this year.” He pushes his spectacles up his nose. “You’d need to look at each location, and I don’t want to pull you from Malice Media if Thorn is going to take some time away from the company.”
“He’ll be back in six weeks.” Which gives me a limited time to figure out what Ella’s virus did to me and fix it. Malice Media runs on neural interface technology capable of transmitting emotion, memory, and raw experience across distance without delay. It can take a thought in one city and deliver it fully formed in another. My brother created the architecture, and it’s brilliant.
Garnets have always responded to me, and the fact that Ella has fucked with that is pissing me off again. She somehow disrupted my current with the gemstone.
A knock hits the door, hard and fast.
“What?” I call out.
Bronco, my chief driver, pushes the door open and steps inside. “Hey. We just got word that our shipments have been delayed by about a week.”
I stare at him. “Which ones?”
He doesn’t flinch. His black hair frames a rugged face with Irish blue eyes. If we need to send someone in to seduce a woman, we send him. “The garnets and alexandrites coming by sea. Bad weather and nothing else, it seems. Still, I wanted you to know.”
