“I’ve gotta go.” He grips the back of his neck, the missing tip of his finger more obvious against the collar of his cream knit sweater. Tattoos and rings cover his scars, ones that I’ve felt when I’ve taken his hand. Lachlan gives me a nod, but it seems like more of an affirmation to himself than it does to me. “Leander will get impatient. And impatient Leander turns into weird Leander.”
“Okay. Text me the address. When I’m done here, I’ll get an Uber and meet you there. We can talk to him about … stuff. My family stuff.”
One final nod, like that’s all he’s capable of, and then Lachlan strides through the lobby and into brisk autumn wind. I watch as the Charger departs, and then I grab a fistful of candies for Ethel.
When I take them back to my aunt’s room, she’s pretending to be asleep.
“You’re hilarious,” I deadpan as I dump the candies on her blanket. “I know you’re faking. You snore when you sleep. Loudly, I might add.”
“Do not,” she says without opening her eyes. “You didn’t go with him.”
“Obviously.”
“Why not?”
“I’m busy here.”
“Well I don’t want you, girl. I need my beauty rest. And I’m assuming your husband needs something if he came in here.”
I cross my arms and glare down at Ethel, though she still hasn’t opened her eyes. “He said I can go to his boss’s house today, but he hasn’t sent me directions.”
One cloudy eye cracks open and scrutinizes me before Ethel reaches beneath her pillow and pulls out a phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting your husband so I can get some peace and quiet.”
“How do you have his number?”
My aunt glares at me as she puts her phone back and settles in deeper beneath her covers. “I get all the boys’ numbers, missy,” she says as she shoos me away, the IV tube dangling from the top of her hand. A heartbeat later, a text comes through on my phone from Lachlan with a dropped pin. “Now get out of here. And take the muffins for his boss with you. Made them fresh this morning with Nurse Lucy. They’re at the front desk.”
“How did you …” I shake my head, but still smile as I place a kiss on my aunt’s cheek. “Love you, hell-raiser.”
“Shh. Don’t give the devil any ideas. I want to sneak up on him. And don’t you and Lachlan go testing those muffins. Those are all for Mayes.”
Ethel blesses me with a cheeky grin, and then with a deep, contented sigh, she closes her eyes. With a shake of my head, I grab my bag and order an Uber, and before long I’m headed to the sprawling estate home of Leander Mayes with a box of my aunt’s muffins on my lap.
When we pass the fortified gate and the house comes into view, Lachlan is waiting for me at the entrance. We roll to a stop and he comes forward to open my door, his hand outstretched in an offer. I hesitate only briefly before taking it.
“Thanks for coming,” he says as we wait for the Uber to depart. He seems suspicious of my driver’s intentions until the taillights disappear around the curves of the winding driveway. I wonder how long he’s been doing that, studying everyday things and people, making sure nothing is amiss. I’ve seen it in him before, the way he scans a crowd, searching for threats. He’s vigilant, wary of enemies hidden in plain sight, an instinct that’s been carved into him, as indelible as the ink in his skin.
I wonder how tiring that must be, or if he even notices at all.
“Of course,” I say. I offer a smile he doesn’t return. “I promised I would.”
Lachlan’s face remains grim as he opens the door for me. His hand finds the small of my back as I pass the threshold, his touch igniting a hum in my belly. “Remember what I said.”
“That Leander’s a bit nuts?”
“Yes. And I don’t recommend accepting any hard alcohol. It rarely ends well.”
“Got it.”
“And pizza. If he orders pizza, we’re feckin’ leaving.”
“Okay.”
“Basically, don’t take anything he offers,” Lachlan says with a shudder as we walk through the foyer and down a wide corridor.
“Sounds super fun.”
Lachlan ushers me through another door, this one leading to a set of concrete stairs that descends to the basement. I can hear a man’s jovial voice talking over loud music. Before I can take my first step down, Lachlan presses a hand to my stomach to stop me.
“Let me go first,” he says. His touch is gentle, just his fingertips graze me, but somehow it sends a tingle along my skin. I clutch the box of muffins a little tighter. I don’t think he notices how my breath stops or my lips part. He just looks right into me with an expression so wary it looks like pain. “Just … be careful.”
He lifts his hand away and turns to lead our descent, leaving an empty ache behind.
No. No ache. That was definitely a hunger pang. It’s just all that talk about pizza. Probably.
And even if it wasn’t the pizza and it was an ache, it’s still just simple biology. I’m on a very long dry spell, that’s all. And Lachlan’s being extra broody and weirdly protective, and he’s hot, and I have eyes. I can appreciate hot. It doesn’t mean I want to fuck my husband.
I snort a laugh.
Lachlan’s head whips around as my outburst echoes across the concrete. He looks at me with both confusion and fear, as though Leander could come storming through the door at the bottom of the stairs to blow our heads off.
And that’s pretty much what Leander does.
“Bang bang bang.”
I’m looking down the muzzle of a gun.
At first it’s all I see, a snapshot etched into memory. Lachlan’s hand darts out and he yanks me up onto the step behind him. The movement takes just long enough that I capture the image of Leander on the threshold of the open door, gun raised, a welcoming yet terrifying smile on his face. And then all I see is Lachlan’s back, my body sheltered by his.
“Christ feckin’ Jesus, ya psycho. Put that away before you kill yourself and then the rest of us,” Lachlan says, his accent thicker with his irritation.
Our host laughs and lowers his gun before stepping back from the doorway in an invitation to pass. “Can never be too careful.”
“You were just trying to scare her.”
“He’ll have to try harder next time,” I say even though my heart is pounding its way up my throat. I try to maneuver around Lachlan but he slides an arm around my waist, gluing us together. I extend a hand toward Leander. “Lark Kane, pleased to meet you.”
Leander grins as he shakes my hand. There’s something off about this guy, just like Lachlan said. A disconnect between his sharp green eyes and cutting smile. “Kane, huh? You don’t have to keep that up here.”
“I’m not.” My smile has an edge when I pull my palm away and pass him the box of muffins clutched in my other hand. “Per your request. These were made fresh this morning by my aunt herself. Her famous brown butter apple cinnamon muffins.”
“Oh, you spoil me. I like you already,” Leander says, and I know with the way he beams at me that it’s not the butter or sugar or apple cinnamon he craves. It’s power. To bend the dying matriarch of Montague Muffins to his will.
Rather than return my hand to my side, I take Lachlan’s arm instead, a detail that Leander absorbs before he ushers us inside.
Leander welcomes us into a room that’s meant to look like a pub, with a stocked bar and a big-screen TV and a dartboard. He offers us drinks that we decline and directs us to a set of leather couches and chairs. I don’t feel any comfort in this space that’s meant to feel familiar. All I feel is out of my depth.
But he can’t know that. And neither can Lachlan.
I might not know what the fuck I’m doing negotiating contracts in this underground world, but one thing I do know is how to play a part.
“I’ve come to discuss the Montague contract,” I say. Leander is about to take a bite of a muffin but pauses. A slow smile stretches across his lips.
“Right down to business, hmm? I knew I liked you.” That grin of Leander’s reaches his eyes as he looks to Lachlan. He takes a bite of the muffin, leaving us in silence as he chews and swallows before he speaks. “I thought you said there would be two contracts in exchange for your retirement.”
Lachlan is rigid beside me. He’s sitting so close to me that I can feel the tension radiate from his coiled muscles. “I said my wife will make you a deal. The conditions are up to her.”
“One contract now, I’ll pay the full retainer, and I’ll initiate one job immediately,” I say, forcing myself to hold his penetrating gaze. “Once that job is done, Lachlan is out, and you’ll have your second contract.”
Leander’s brows flick once, a reaction that feels too much like dissatisfaction for my liking. His head bobs with a pensive nod and he takes another bite of the muffin before he raises his eyes to me. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll follow through on the second contract?”
“You don’t,” Lachlan says before I have the chance to answer. “So I won’t leave until you have it.”
I dart a sharp glance toward Lachlan before he can make any further promises. I know how much he wants out. He needs it. And I don’t want him to stay on Leander’s hooks longer than he has to. Something about that just doesn’t sit right with me.
My focus returns to Leander as he washes the last bites of the muffin down with a long sip of beer. “I will get you the Covaci contract, but this job needs to be done first.”
“Search, protection, and kill, is that right?” he asks, and I nod. “Lachlan mentioned the muffin business is darker than it seems. Certainly is delicious though.” Leander finishes the last bite and brushes the crumbs from his hands before he sets the baking paper aside. “Some of the last ever made by Ethel Montague herself. Chef’s kiss.”
I watch as Leander kisses his fingertips in a dramatic al bacio gesture before his gaze settles on mine. With just a blink, he goes from jovial and amused to stern and shadowed. My eyebrows raise in a silent question. What now?
After another pull from his pint glass, Leander leans a little closer, steepling his fingers as he regards me. “One million for the retainer. Five jobs a year.”
“You told me five hundred thousand,” Lachlan says. “And she gets unlimited access to the office to use the investigational resources whenever she wants.”
Leander’s smile is predatory as it shifts from Lachlan to me. “She can have unlimited use. For double. And five jobs a year.”
“Six hundred thousand, unlimited access to the office, and four jobs a year. And I initiate that job today with a one- hundred-thousand-dollar bonus if the aggressor is identified and killed before my aunt passes away.” I feel the fleeting graze of Lachlan’s knuckles across my wrist and turn, meeting the question in his eyes. Just like at brunch with my parents, I know what he’s asking without words. “I want her to know her family is safe before she goes.”
A smile sneaks across Leander’s lips as he extends a hand across the space between us. “Done.”
I take his hand, and as soon as I let go, he’s writing in the agreed numbers and passing me the paperwork to sign.