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Chapter Thirty-Seven
Lowell
They’d brought Tamsyn home from the hospital that morning, and gotten her settled in her crib. Of course she’d insisted she wasn’t tired, because that’s what little girls did.
He’d made a bargain with her that he’d read her a story if she laid down with Octavia and took a paci. Shocking no one at all, her eyelids had gotten heavy within a few paragraphs, and she was out like a light in a few pages.
Hux had been sitting in the rocking chair, and after Tamsyn had fallen asleep, he opened his mouth like he was about to say something. Lowell was so damn grateful that his phone buzzed in his pocket at that very second. Taj.
He held up the phone and gestured to the hall with his thumb—he didn’t want to wake princess sleepy pants unless absolutely necessary. Hux nodded but looked vaguely disgruntled.
After the past few days of calling in every favor he’d ever been owed, pulling every string that dangled within his reach or that of his family, he had very little patience for Hux’s feelings. They could deal with that and the matter of his own future after they knew who’d tried to kill their babygirl and ensured that would never happen again.
Taj had cleared Pete Surry yesterday, saying the kid was a first rate asshole but the overgrown frat bro had an airtight alibi and probably not enough brains to put a hit on someone without getting caught by the Keystone cops. That was fine, but Lowell cared far more about who had hurt Tamsyn than who hadn’t. Pete was still on his shit list, but it would be a while before he got around to dealing with that fucker. If Tamsyn ever let him, anyway.
“Got something?”
With Taj, he didn’t worry about niceties. The gruff man seemed too busy for that shit and Lowell also felt a mutual respect had grown between the two of them during the conversations they’d had in the past few days. They both had tactician’s minds.
“I’m used to being the bearer of bad news but this is flat out awkward. We tracked down Tamsyn’s assailant—”
“Tell me where he is,” Lowell snarled, knowing he shouldn’t take out his rage on Taj, but not trying that hard to cover up his baser instincts. It would take more than that to disturb the ex-Navy SEAL, and he suspected Taj could empathize with how he was feeling.
“I’m not going to do that right now because you’re not going to do Tamsyn any good sitting in a prison cell.”
This time Lowell did have to swallow a growl. Taj was right but it was really fucking annoying to be told he wouldn’t be able to rend this guy limb from limb and then spit roast his dismembered corpse over an open fire. Nah, that’d be too good for the man who had nearly killed his sweet princess.
“Fine. But you’re going to tell me who he is, right? You’ve got to give me something.”
“I can tell you who he is, but I think you’ll be far more interested in who hired him. And this is when I’m going to remind you it’s not cool to shoot the messenger.”
A prickly chill ran up the back of his neck, felt like it reached cold tendrils into his brain stem. It was like his intuition was trying to tell him something but it wasn’t any faster than Taj’s mouth.
“Can you think of any reason why your brother Cabot would want Tamsyn dead?”
The lack of surprise was telling. It was fucking monstrous, but it wasn’t unbelievable. If someone told him Hux had put a hit on someone, he would swear on their father’s grave that wasn’t true, couldn’t be true. Cabot on the other hand? He didn’t want to believe it but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Jesus, what a family.
“To be completely honest, yes.”
The beat of silence that followed told him that wasn’t the answer Taj had been expecting, or was used to getting. To save Taj from deciding what to do with that charming nugget, Lowell continued. “It’s not a good or honorable reason. I firmly believe some people deserve to die, but Tamsyn isn’t one of them. This literally has nothing to do with her. I assume you feel no obligation to report him to the authorities immediately?”
Taj snorted. “I feel no obligation to report anyone to the authorities ever unless they fuck with kids. We deal with this shit ourselves as often as not. You just let me know what you want to do.”
He owed Ian, big time.
“Thanks. For all of this.”
“Just doing my job. And this probably isn’t the time, but when you’ve got a minute, I’d like to talk to you about coming to work for me.”
For Taj? Bodyguarding seemed like on-the-ground dirty work, and Lowell prided himself on keeping his hands clean. Ish. Or at least keeping the blood and muck metaphorical.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but what do you want from me? I can carry but I mostly shoot at the range. And I’m not exactly a bruiser. You could probably hire half a dozen hitters for what I would cost you.”
“I don’t want you for your brawn,” Taj told him. “I have enough muscle. What I don’t have is enough brains.”
Even if he were a modest sort, which he wasn’t, Lowell would have to concede. “I’ve got plenty of those.”
“Oh, I know. And I hear from our friend Ian that they’re not being put to particularly good use. I’d like to change that.”
