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“Why don’t we just find a bank teller and fuck the vault codes out of someone who actually knows them?” Myles, timid though he was, spoke up from his spot beside Ethan, and Dylan looked at his brother the way a man might look at a worm wriggling on the sidewalk.
“Kid’s got a decent point, Dylan. If you’re serious about hitting up a bank—an actual fucking bank—wouldn’t it make sense to go for someone closer to the source?” Ethan jumped back into the conversation automatically, not so much because he thought Dylan would go for his suggestion, but as a reflex to take the heat of Dylan’s attitude off of Myles. The kid was quiet and jumpy, as opposite of Dylan as it was possible to be, and he didn’t handle his big brother as well as Ethan did.
Myles caught his eye, and a knowing look passed between them. He was grateful for the intervention and Ethan was happy to provide it. He’d never had a little brother of his own, but Myles was about as close to it as a man could get.
“That’s how you get caught.” Dylan leaned back and dropped his boots back on the coffee table. “If you’re going to do an inside job, you have to stay a step removed. Everyone at the branch is gonna be looked at real hard when the cops show up.”
That made a kind of sense Ethan couldn’t argue with, and he didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Not that he had an objection to the idea of getting more than friendly with an attractive woman, but he knew Dylan well enough to recognize when he was dreaming up something unusually reckless, even for him.
Ethan had been part of those plans since he was sixteen and he knew how they usually went down. There was more than a slight chance that if Eloise was involved, even without her knowledge, she’d get hurt.
“It won’t be a problem for you, will it?” Dylan was staring at him, eyes narrowed, and Ethan felt Myles shift uncomfortably again. They both knew it wasn’t a good idea to say no to Dylan once his mind was set on a plan. He sensed money like a shark sensed blood in the water and there was no getting around him. “You know how much I depend on you, right? We’re family.”
Ethan tightened his jaw, his initial resistance fading away beneath memories of being sixteen and terrified, still bruised from that last confrontation he’d had with his grandfather and then the cops. He’d been big, but young and wet behind the ears when they’d tossed him into juvie and left him there to rot till he turned eighteen.
He didn’t know what would have happened to him if Dylan hadn’t decided to give him a chance. They were the same age, but Dylan was more than just big. He was mean and calculating, years of experience being bounced from abusive dad to foster homes to juvie and back again having sharpened all his broken edges.
There was nothing Dylan wouldn’t do to get ahead, and he had taken Ethan with him. That two-year stint had flown by and when the system had spit him back out again, Ethan was a different, more violent man than he would have been otherwise. He had Dylan to thank for that transformation.
And for his survival.
Whether Eloise deserved what he’d unintentionally dragged her into or not, he wasn’t going to step away from what had been asked of him. He couldn’t. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to ignore his reservations to do what was required for a job and Dylan had no reason to believe Ethan would fumble instructions now. Current personal feelings aside, and he had more of those than he probably should have, he owed Dylan too much to let him down.
“No problem,” he said, his gaze level on Dylan’s. He could handle this. He would handle this because he had no choice. As long as he was careful, he could manage Dylan’s demands and keep him far from Eloise at the same time. “I’ll get whatever you want from her.”
Six
“Eloise? Are you listening?”
Eloise jumped, the background noise of a crowded Friday night restaurant rushing back as the voice cut through her thoughts. The air was heavy with the sound of music and the scent of frying onions but she had been oblivious to all of it. It was rare for her to go out on the weekends, especially to a place with twinkle lights on the wall and a brightly colored plastic menu, but Chloe had chosen the location, insisting that the fishbowl sized margaritas and excellent food would make a fun night.
She flushed and turned to look at Sarah. “Sorry,” she mumbled, a guilty flush rising to her cheeks. “Just a bit distracted.”
“What could be so distracting that it takes away from my birthday dinner? And does he have a set of gorgeous bedroom eyes?” Sarah waggled her eyebrows suggestively and leaned in to put her hand on her chin. She’d let them put a small, sparkling pink birthday hat on her head but she managed to remain dignified. They were two margaritas into her special evening—the regular kind, thankfully, not the fishbowls—and there wasn’t a single dark hair out of place, not a smudge of lipstick or shadow of mascara anywhere she hadn’t intended it to be. She was a queen holding court in a party hat instead of a crown.
As always, it was just the four of them—herself, Kim, Chloe, and Sarah—and they were all looking at Eloise now. She wasn’t sure how to answer Sarah’s question. He did have gorgeous bedroom eyes, but she hadn’t mentioned the dinner she’d had at his place to anyone else or the way he’d left so abruptly, words of danger and warning on those soft pink lips.
He was an enigma she couldn’t quite unravel, this man that held squirming puppies and worked magic on a car engine but clearly had plenty of dark secrets to hide. She didn’t like riddles and her temper hadn’t cooled in the days that had passed since then.
Sarah spotted the flush on her cheeks immediately and clapped a hand to her mouth. “It is about a guy, isn’t it? Spill!”
Eloise hesitated, looking away and focusing her attention on the paper straw wrapper she was busily winding around her finger. She’d still rather not tell them—it was easier to pretend it hadn’t happened that way—but Sarah knew how to read her better than anyone. She’d already spotted Eloise’s blazing cheeks and guilty expression. There was no way to hide it from her now and trying would only make Sarah that much more determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Remember that new neighbor I have?” Eloise glanced up once, quickly, and then back down at her straw paper. The tip of her finger was turning a little purple from lack of blood supply but she wasn’t ready to give up her grip on it just yet.
“The flower destroyer who fixed your car?” Kim asked. Her eyes were wide and slightly glassy. She rarely drank and was more than a little tipsy. Her cardigan had slipped down off of one shoulder and her short red hair was disheveled from running her fingers through it.
Eloise nodded. “That’s the one.”
“Wait,” Chloe said, leaning forward eagerly, margarita clutched in her hand. She had been only half paying attention, turned around in their booth to flirt with a man behind them, but Eloise had her full interest now. “The bad boy next door that you hate has hot bedroom eyes? You didn’t tell us that part!”
“It’s a long story,” Eloise hedged. Long and embarrassing. “Apparently he has this really cute dog and we made spaghetti and after that I thought he might kiss me. Strangely enough, for one very brief moment I thought that I might be okay with that, even after everything that’s happened, but then his buddies showed up and he got all bristly and threatening and …” She trailed off, sucking in a deep breath and shrugging. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I know I don’t like it.”
“He made you spaghetti?” Chloe asked. She finished her drink and started looking around the crowded restaurant for a waiter. He wasn’t immediately visible and she drummed her fingers impatiently on the tabletop and grinned knowingly at Eloise. “Sounds like a date.”
“No, I made the spaghetti. He was going to make me dinner. I even went to his house but it turns out that he’s not a very good cook.”
Sarah swirled her straw in her margarita and gave her a pointed look. “He let you cook in his kitchen? That’s definitely a date.”
