While I stood there dumbfounded and completelyupended, Sayer walked into the office. My glare turned to him. He didn’t thinkthis was a piece of information I would want to know? He didn’t thinkmentioning it might have been helpful? When he was practically dry-humping meagainst his cabin?
And then—andthen—he had the nerve to speak.
“Did you forget something this morning, Six?”
My mind was too jumbled to figure out what he meant.“No?”
“My wake-up call,” he bit out.“At seven.That’s what I’m paying for.”
I chomped down on my bottom lip and contemplated thebest way to dispose of a body. I glanced up at the security camera that focusedon the front office. I couldn’t have witnesses. “Can I, uh, talk to you for asecond? In the back?”
He raised his eyebrows and I noticed he was withoutglasses today. I wanted to know what the deal was with them. I wanted to knowif he was wearing contacts now and when he’d gotten them and how bad hiseyesight was and why I even cared.Goodgrief.
“Lead the way.”
I was surprised he was so willing to follow me. Maybehe didn’t realize how murderous I was. Or maybe he thought his big, toughmuscles could protect him. But he was about to find out that hell hath no furylike a woman left in the complete dark!
Pushing open the door to Maggie’s office, I gesturedfor him to go walk inside. He did. I shut the door behind us and glanced aroundfor the closest weapon.
He took a seat on the top of Maggie’s ultra cleandesk, his legs spread wide, a boyish smirk tilting that wicked mouth of his.“Got something on your mind, Six?”
My hands were perched on my hips and my toe wastapping a hole through the floor. “The DC syndicate is shut down?”
His head dropped back and his fists gripped the edgeof the desk. I heard him growl, “Fucking, Gus,” at the ceiling.
I didn’t know what to think of that response. But Iclung to my anger and decided to push for answers until one of us broke.
“Sayer, what the hell? You didn’t think that maybe youshould have led with that when you rolled into town? You didn’t think that wasmaybe something I would want to know? Are you kidding me?”
He straightened, crushing me with that furious gaze ofhis. I thought he was going to yell at me again, but his careful words were icecold, not explosive. “It’s not exactly a secret. It was all over the news.”
“I watch the news, Sayer. I never saw anything aboutit.” But had I been watching the news recently? I’d kind of let that slip. I’dbeen busy at work. And national news wasn’t necessarily something I wanted myfour-year-old to see. So maybe I’d been slipping.
Maybe I hadn’t been quite as on top of things as Ishould have been.
Sayer lifted one shoulder. “Regardless, it was there.”
His lack of angry engagement let some of the air outof my fury. I was still pissed. And paranoid. And freaking irritated. But I wasless…ragey. “So that’s how you got out? They went toprison. You got early release. And now you’re in retirement?”
“Something like that.”
I tapped my fingers against my hip bones, trying todecide if my next question was worth it, if I even cared. After I’dsufficiently chewed my lip and worn holes in my jeans, I huffed out a breathand gave into my curiosity. “And my dad? Was he one of the guys arrested?”
Sayer watched me for a minute without answering. Wewere yin and yang, total opposites. I was nothing but nervous energy, a ball offrenetic electrons that couldn’t sit still or be still or do anything but waitin uptight anxiety.
And he was nothing but calm. His body was relaxed onthe desk, his expression reserved, thoughtful. His hands still rested on thedesk, not fidgeting, not moving, not trying to convince himself he didn’t care.
“Listen, I don’t have a lot of love for your dad,” hetold me.
“Yeah, me either.”
“But.” I stopped wiggling and blew out a steadyingbreath. Sayer continued, “Before Gus and I left there were rumors that he wasin debt in a big way. Severed hands kind of big way.”
A nervous flutter circled in my hollowed belly. Thebratvawerebrutal with people that crossed them or didn’t live up to their promises. Abookie that couldn’t settle his own debts would be high on their intolerance list.
Which meant they would take a hand.
Depending on how bad his debt was, they could takeboth.
