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“Clear.” She giggles, wriggling, and as a consequence, my dick gets a firm grind of her arse. I groan. “We need to talk about my bachelorette party.”
I freeze. We absolutely do not. Quickly withdrawing from the crook of her neck, I place her back on the stool. “I’m needed.” I get up, plant a brief, pacifying kiss on her forehead, that I know won’t pacify her, and move away before she can pin me down. Tank steps aside, I step past him, and he quickly steps back into place like a sliding automatic bulletproof door.
I give him a grateful nod. It’s like he knew I needed a fast escape.
“I’m having one,” Rose calls from behind him. “So you better find a way to make it happen.”
Tank’s lip quirks, his eyebrows high. I don’t know what he’s finding so amusing. As soon as I’ve got word that he’s good people, he’ll have to deal with her too. “Can I clone you?” I ask, sizing up the other men in the semicircle, knowing James will be on the same page as me. They all look capable, all stoic, all unmoving. But Tank? He is literally that.
He releases a low, hardly heard laugh, but doesn’t reply, and I head toward the back of the club, giving Nolan a flick of my eyes. He joins me in a heartbeat. “Tank,” I say, making him look over his shoulder. “What do you know about him?”
“Ex pro cage fighter. Criminal history. Father dead, mother in a residential care home.”
“What’s the history?”
“He decapitated the man who killed his father.”
A mercy kill. He’s definitely my kind of people. “Do you trust him?”
“Of course. He’s honorable, Mr. Black. All the men we have here are certified loyal.”
I make it to the corridor that leads to the office. “But I haven’t certified them,” I point out, and he nods, backing down. “You have some employees arriving.” I nod past him, to the flurry of leggy women strutting up the metal stairs to the balcony bar where the dressing rooms are. “Tough job, eh?”
He laughs and gets on his way, and I look to Rose, knowing the appearance of an army of strippers is likely to draw a reaction. Problem is, I can’t fucking see her past the mountain of a man shielding her. It’s reassurance, and I need reassurance right now.
I head into the staged office and go to the bookcase, opening the way to the staircase that’ll lead me to the men. I punch in the code, take the stairs, and when I walk in, everyone falls silent. I’ve always said silence speaks louder than words, but now? Now, I have no clue what this silence is saying. I slowly close the door, casting my eyes across everyone in here—Brad, Ringo, Otto, Goldie, and Bud. “Is anyone going to speak, or are you all just going to sit there and leave me wondering why you look like we have a problem?”
“Because we might have a problem,” Brad says as he pours a Scotch. I have a feeling it’s for me.
“Might?”
“I’m being optimistic.” He slides my drink across the desk and necks his own. “We have a problem.”
“Wha—”
The door opens behind me and James strides in, coming to a cautious stop when he sees us all looking his way. Silent. “What?” he asks.
“Good fucking question.” I go to the wall of glass, where I have a perfect line of sight to Rose, Tank not quite towering to these heights. Beau’s with her now, the girls drinking and chatting. I’d smile if I wasn’t busy wondering, and worrying, what this fucking problem is. “Talk,” I order, going to one of the desks and pulling a chair out, lowering, expectant eyes on Brad.
“The guy who heads up the bank where Beau’s mother had her safety deposit box . . .”
“What about him?” James asks, settling beside me, his eyes lasers on Brad, waiting. “Fucking talk, Brad.”
“His name’s Kenny.” Brad pours a vodka and pushes it toward James. He doesn’t take it, his attention elsewhere. “Kenny Spittle.”
I recoil, stunned, immediately turning my eyes onto James, who’s resting back in his chair, the glass now in his hand. His expression. It’s taken on an edge of psycho.
“Brother?” Otto asks, going straight to his phone.
“Son,” Brad confirms, holding up a photograph, a picture of a very happy family by the sea. The Spittles. Father, mother, son, and, what I assume, girlfriend or wife to son.
“So the safety deposit box that supposedly has one key,” Ringo says, “of which we are in possession, is held at a bank that’s managed by the son of a corrupt, retired FBI agent who asked James to kill Brad and ratted out Danny?” He’s taken the words right out of my mouth. It’s too convenient to be a coincidence.
Brad nods, and I turn a look onto James. He’s quietly seething in his chair, his fingers clawing the glass in his hand tightly. “Drink it before you shatter it,” I say, reaching for the bottle to top mine up. “Whether whoever got into that box had a key is irrelevant. Either Spittle’s son granted them access to the vault, or he took the contents of that box to them.” Spittle must be having fucking kittens. It explains a lot. After his business with me three years ago, he would have avoided being trapped again. I’m a man of my word. When he fulfilled my final order, I got rid of the pictures that had held him to ransom for years. I didn’t need them anymore, since I was dead. But now Spittle’s involved with another player, and the other player—we all know who that is—has pulled Spittle’s son into the mix. It’s irony at its fucking worst. The man who helped me die has brought me back to life. Just to get me killed. And now I have fuck-all ammo to use against him.
