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Drake lets his lips curl up into a smile, but it’s fake. He hurts for her. He really does love her. “I’ve got it. I wanted the collar, anyway. We’ve got a bet at my station; most arrests in a month wins. Most arrests in someone else’s town gets a trophy. You know I like them trophies.”
“Yeah.” Grimacing, Libby pushes me back a step to make space, then she begins to slide off the stool one shaky foot at a time. The stools are too tall for her short legs, so what she intends to be a graceful slide becomes a stumble. Her eyes lock onto mine as though surprised to find me here. She has no clue what’s happening around her, but it clicks, her brows furrow, then she drops.
“Fuck!” I grab her before she hits the floor, sweep her up to cradle her against my chest, and snarl when Sophia and Drake swoop in thinking they’re going to carry her. “Back the fuck up.”
“Bring her to the office.” The woman behind the bar, the short one that I know is married to one of the fighters, climbs over the bar like she’s done it a million times in the past. She moves from the bar to the stool, then to the floor as everyone in the booths pauses what they’re doing and watches the commotion in front of them. “You guys can rest in Tina’s office and wait for Luc. She needs dark.” Stopping in front of me, the woman with a pixie haircut frowns. “She needs quiet, too.” Snatching keys from the pockets of her tight jeans, she leads me away from the bar and into a hall not a hell of a lot different from the hall I stood in with Libby twenty-two years ago.
Switzerland. Safe.
Sophia follows close behind, and though I should be worried about that, I can’t stop staring at Libby’s busted face. The right side of her lip has already doubled in size, and blood slowly coats her teeth. Her nose isn’t busted, it’s not bent or broken, but it’s bleeding. Her eye is swelling, the purple bruising already stretching across her cheek and cheekbone.
I should be concerned about the fact I’m standing inside a club that used to belong to Sean Frankston. This clubstillbelongs to his daughter; Evie Kincaid is a rich little girl and barely knows it.
Her folks have been running the place for more than a decade, keeping the drugs out, keeping the entertainment legitimate, and every unlawful thing that happens in here – according to every scrap of data I can find – has nothing to do with the owners, and everything to do with clubgoers looking for a little extra buzz. The Kincaids are keeping the club clean until, one day, if Evie decides she wants it, I guess they’ll hand it over.
I should be worried about stepping into an office that technically belongs to a Frankston. I should refuse to let Sophia step in behind me. And I should be triple fucking worried about the fact that Jay Bishop appears and follows us in with a dangerously ticking jaw. But these people aren’t a threat to me the way I am to them. Bishop is pissed that I hit on his girl, but he has no clue my true reasons for being here. He’s here to make sure I don’t hit on her again, not to watch me because of the blood that runs in my veins.
He stands at the door with sparkling black eyes and a ticking jaw. He wears dark jeans, a black shirt, and a black beanie over his head, pulled down to cover his eyebrows. He’s on security detail tonight, and doesn’t like it when I sit at the desk with Libby in my arms, and Soph bends over us to work with the ice pack.
I can’t see shit, but no doubt Jay sees her goods as she bends and helps me.
“Hold the ice pack on her face,” Sophia whispers. She’s barely a foot away. “You don’t have to worry about him, okay? He’s super mad and super protective, but he’s not gonna stop you from taking care of her.”
“I’m not worried about him.” I stare at Libby’s swelling face as Sophia drags her eyelids back with rough movements and studies her pupils. “I didn’t know he was your man when I offered dinner…” I grin. “The first time.”
She snickers. “Nasty little surprise for you, huh? I don’t know your game, Griffin, but I can’t say you don’t intrigue me.”
“Who says I have a game? I think you’re beautiful, we have mutual interests when it comes to work. Why can’t I just like what I see and not be shy about asking for it?”
She lowers into a crouch and rests her elbow on my knee to keep her balance, her actions accented by Jay’s growl. With gentle fingers, Sophia strokes Libby’s hair back. “I’d almost believe you. I almostdid. Your arrogance game is strong, and you really do have that forty-three floors in Griffin Plaza and enough money to buy almost anyone. But the thing is, you were on a dinner date withme, and this other chick walks into the club, and suddenly, I’m not the most beautiful woman in the room anymore. You don’t hear anything I say from the moment she arrives, and you run so fast when she’s hit that you leave scorch marks on the floor.”
Her eyes meet mine. “You called her babe, you caught her when she fell.” Then they soften. “And you can’t stop staring at her. Your heart races because she’s hurt; I can see your pulse racing in your throat. Your eyes refuse to stop cataloguing her injuries, and your brain screams of concussion and how you’re not gonna let her sleep alone tonight, for fear she won’t wake up. If it was Jay who caught her, he’d have already laid her on the desk. He’d make sure she’s okay, he wouldn’t walk away, but he’d have put her down by now. But you… you hold on like she’s your floatation device in the sea. I didn’t know you had a thing with the local police, Griffin, but it adds another layer to the puzzle you present me with. That means you’re playing a game, and I like to think I’m smart enough to figure it out.”
Libby’s eyes flutter open every few seconds. She’s not fully out. She’s mostly just… floating. Can she hear Sophia’s words? Can she hear the way my heart races against her ear?
“I saw a woman get hit. It’s in my nature to take care of her.”
Sophia’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t argue. “Okay.”
The door pushes open again and brings Jay around in protector mode. I know he’s protecting Sophia, but Libby is right here, and the fact he’s on the door at all makes me breathe a little easier. These clubs give me the fucking creeps. Being with Libby in one of these clubs makes me break out in a nervous sweat.
A blonde EMT moves through the door with a second, darker guy right on his heels. Luc is the third sibling for the Lenaghan family, the one who’s saving all his pennies for what I suspect might be a wedding in the near future. The guy behind him, Mitchell Rosa, is nobody to me. I recall his name from my searches of the Lenaghans in the last week, but it was a relief to finally come across a name that has no connection to the world I escaped. Every name I ran before him popped somehow. Someone knew someone, or someone’s daddy knew someone else’s. But Rosa was just a dude that goes to work and goes home again.
It’s refreshing to me that not everyone knew Colum Bishop in some way. It’s almost like he made it his life’s business to have a finger in everyone’s pie.
“What’s happening?” Luc moves around Jay and drops a bag of medical supplies on the desk in front of me.
Sophia stands with a grunt when Luc needs the space she’s in. Stepping aside, she leans against the desk and grins when Libby snuggles closer to me.
She’s not knocked out. She’s sleeping.
“Dude?” Luc asks.
“Luc Lenaghan,” Soph waves a hand in my direction. “Theo Griffin. Theo, Luc is Jess’ big brother and our local doc. You can trust him.”
I scoff. “I don’t even trustyou, Sophia. What makes you think vouching for him changes shit for me?”
She shrugs as Luc leans in and takes a look at Lib’s face. “There’s no reason why you can’t trust me. I’ve never hurt you, and you’re the one who came to us, not the other way around. We have no beef with you–”
