“What? He didn’t expect you to stay working for him, right?”
“I don’t think he cared one way or another. It wasn’t that.” I gripped the bottle. “He knew about DJ and me.” Just saying the words turned my stomach. “Seems he had a private investigator spying on us, and he told me he’d make sure I’d never get another job in the industry again.” I couldn’t reveal that DJ had been cheating on me. That news was mine and mine alone. At least for now.
“That son of a bitch. I never liked him. Dirty fucker. I can’t believe it.” Isaac continued to rant as I finished my beer.
“Anyway, that’s that. I need to regroup and figure out what the hell I’m going to do.”
“He can’t really do that, can he?” Worry creased Isaac’s normally carefree face. “You’re the best of the best.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to see when I put feelers out.”
Isaac studied my face and slapped his thighs. “Well, screw him. I’m sure it’ll be all right. Lemme get you another one, and we’ll order something, then figure out what the hell you’re going to do.”
Listening to him putter around in the kitchen, I ran through my options. I had enough saved plus the year of severance to make it for at least a year unemployed before things got dicey, but I didn’t want that. I enjoyed being a bodyguard and making arrangements, scoping out the intended area ahead of time, and most of all, people-watching. After several years as a beat cop, followed by eighteen months on the mayor’s personal-security detail, I learned to listen to what people were saying and not saying and watch body language for cues.
“Hey, dude, heads up.” Isaac stood in front of me, a bottle extended. “You were totally zoned out.”
Giving him a sheepish grin, I took the beer. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
“You have plenty of time for that. You can start looking for a new gig tomorrow, but as far as tonight, I decided we’re going out for dinner. There’s a good Italian place on Ninth Avenue we can go to, stuff our faces with pasta and drink some Chianti.”
Iz had spent a year in Italy, and if he said the food was good, I was all in.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Get your ass in gear, then. I got a six a.m. shift, so I need to go to bed by nine. The brass are working me now that I’m back from Bali.”
“Poor baby. And don’t bullshit me. They love you. Who’s the face of the department in their television ads, and always in their yearly calendar? ‘Firefighter McHottie,’” I joked, and he grinned and flipped me off.
I went to take a shower and get ready, and it wasn’t long before we were sitting outside under a red umbrella, the dinner as delicious as Isaac had promised, full of red wine andcacio e pepe.
Afterward, as we strolled down the sidewalk toward his apartment, I noticed a small group of people holding up signs in front of a luxury building.
“What’re they protesting now?”
“Oh, some guy who got out of prison lives there. The one who embezzled the trust funds of sick kids and old people’s retirement pensions? Remember? It was all over the news—you really have to be a lowlife to steal from the elderly and little kids. They’re not happy he was released early.”
“Can’t say I blame them. I vaguely remember it, but I was in Europe with Fontaine then in DC. Did he pay it back?”
“Not sure, but I know the scam went on for years until he was caught. They only found out because one of the little kids died, and when they went to disburse the trust-fund assets, there was almost nothing there. That’s when they checked everything else and discovered that the firm’s pension investments they were supposedly making money for were basically zero-balanced. Started a whole investigation. Just weird that the guy has millions in his own right. What the fuck was he stealing for?”
Intrigued, I glanced at the luxury building he lived in and listened to the grumbles of the people standing around. “Millions? How so? Is he a trust-fund baby?”
“Nah. Lawsuit. Got pinned under a tractor trailer on I-95. Parents were killed, but he survived. Has a younger sister. You’d think that would make him more sympathetic to people’s problems.”
I gazed up at the windows of the modern glass-and-brick building. “Yeah. You’d think.”
I’d thought DJ had meant it when he said he loved me. I’d thought a father was supposed to love you no matter what. I guessed you never really knew the people you trusted most in the world.
Chapter Three
Ronan
I was a prisoner in my own damn apartment.
I thought once home, things would get back to normal, but it seemed like I was the only one who understood the term “paid his debt to society.” Ever since that news reporter’s story on my release, a small but growing and loud-as-hell group of protesters had decided to make my life miserable and stand outside my apartment building, letting everyone know that while I might be out, I was a thief and a liar and still deserved to be behind bars. One of them even called me a sorry-ass rich boy.
They weren’t far from the truth. With a little digging, I’d discovered that not all the money I’d designated to Marty to give to the attorneys had gotten there. I’d allowed him to handle everything, and it looked like my darling brother-in-law had skimmed some off the top.
