Too late.
“Jesus,” I groaned. “Don’t you have a job to get to?”
“Nope.” She popped the P. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Lucky me.
Turning my back on her antics, I readdressed my second-in-command. “It’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive.Wouldn’t it be easier if I called him? Get his officers to do a little recon? We aren’t even sure if Nelson’s theory has merit.”
“Of course it has merit. Jett and I found all the information on the dark web.”
“Oh shit,” Lanie groaned, followed by a chorus of “Fucks” from everyone else.
Jett was Koen’s seventeen-year-old brother-in-law. The kid was a damn genius and we’d put his computer skills to good use after he’d gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd.
“What?” Nelson frowned.
Koen clapped him on the shoulder, a touch harder than necessary. “Please––for the love of all things holy––do not tell me you got Jade’s baby brother involved in this shit.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
“Dammit.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I better not end up sleeping on the couch because of you.”
“All right. Can we get back on track?” Duncan pushed off the wall he was leaning against. Turning to me, he said, “It pains me to say this, but Mac may take the call better coming from you, Way. See if his boys can rattle some cages. In the meantime, we’ll keep searching as if we don’t have any suspects. For all we know, Cain Lewis is an innocent man.”
Everyone scattered, going back to their desks to dive into whatever they’d been working on, while I dragged my feet to get to mine. It would be the second time in a few months I’d had to make this particular call. We were friends, and while I held no romantic feelings toward Mac, we’d still seen each other naked; multiple times. The fact I was calling him about a case surrounding a man I was currently involved with could be messy as hell.
“Do you want me to wait in the hallway?”
I should’ve known Finn would pick up on my distress. He read me fairly easily, not that I was trying to hide anything from him.
“No, it’s okay. You can come in.”
“Should I be worried about this Mac guy?”
Closing the door behind us, I motioned for him to have a seat in one of the wingback chairs in front of my desk. I took the other, not wanting to be far away. This wasn’t exactly the way I envisioned broaching the subject of our exes, however, circumstances being what they were, there was no time like the present.
“Mac and I were over before we ever really began, if I’m being honest. He’s not a bad guy, he just wasn’t the guy for me. Our lives were too different for us to be anything more than friends.”
“Was he the last relationship you had?”
“If you can call it that, then yes. It ended two years ago.”
“No one since then?”
“Not a soul. How about you? How many exes are in your closet, Mr. O’Lachlan?”
Finn closed his eyes. I’d meant it to be funny––a little mood lightener if you will. It seemed the joke was on me though. The coffee I drank earlier threatened to make a repeat appearance. Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit about someone’s past. It was irrelevant in terms of the future. But everything, it seemed, was different with Finn. I cared, dammit. Even though I’d fought like hell against it, this beautiful man had wormed his way into my heart.
Finally, he broke the silence, piercing me with his ocean blues. “It’s been closer to three years for me, maybe longer.”
“What? How?”
“Money changes people. More to the point, they act differently when you have it and they want it. It wasmuch less disappointing to be alone. Besides, I didn’t want to introduce anyone to the twins who wasn’t with me for me.”
“You’ve never mentioned their father. Where is he?”
“I have no idea.” He soldiered on before I had a chance to question his evasiveness. “I’m not trying to blow smoke up your arse, I really don’t know. Sloane was and is very tight-lipped about anything having to do with their conception.”
