I gritmy teeth and rub the spot where Marlowe sank her teeth into my palm. She didn’t hurt me but fuck, it sent sparks straight to my cock. What the fuck was that?
Marlowe Briggs had me arrested. Her da was there when they brought me in—he claimed I’d tried to assault his daughter, heavy on the innuendo, and robbed her of some jewels and cash. Like she some matriarch on Fifth Avenue wearing all her gaudy fucking heirloom baubles and carrying a safe’s worth of money.
But I didn’t blame him.
I blamed her.
One look at the man and it was clear he doted on his brat of a daughter. Gave her everything her spoiled little heart wanted.
Marlowe got her hot ass in a twist because she saw me with her friend, Emily. We weren’t even dating, for fuck’s sake.
I rub my eyes. Shit, I didn’t know Marlowe would be at the club that night. Whatever she thought she saw happen between us was in her head. My dealings with Emily were business, pure and simple.
Didn’t matter, though. I got arrested three days later. Princess’s revenge. Cal had to pull a number of strings to get me out, and it burned. Even a few years later, having to be bailed out over a fucking lass still burns.
All over some girl I never even banged.
Now her father’s missing. I try to sort through memories for anything that rings a bell about Briggs and his company. But nothing comes to mind.
I’d remember a missing asshole who tried to use his money to have me locked away on bogus charges on behalf of his spoiled daughter.
Not even anything unsavory with the business jumps up. Nothing outside the usual shady shit that big companies are involved in.
With a sigh, I pull out my phone, punch in a number, put it on speaker, and wait.
It doesn’t take long before vintage Irish punk fills my car. “Dec!”
I cut O’Shay off. “What the fuck?”
“Come join! I’m having some greatcraic!”He’s drunk.
“Not fucking interested in having fun right now.”
Even with the music blaring, he should register my dark and dangerous tone.
I might not be my brothers. I’m certainly not Callahan, who’s the deadliest, hardest motherfucker out there. Except when it comes to his Lucie, his almost two-year-old son, Rafferty or Raff, and his baby girl, Tallula, aka Tally. And I’m no assassin like Torin or even an emotionless enforcer like Seamus.
But I hold my own.
And I’ve learned to use my reckless streak. Well, controlit. Mostly.
“Don’t make me come and rearrange your face,” I say. “You’re not that pretty to start with. When I’m done...”
Like cold water in the face, I can almost see him snap to it. “What happened? The drugs are there at the truckyard, Dec. My contact said they’re there. He intercepted the dude who had them, the one who planned to sell them to the Cinco Cartel?—“
“Right.”
I ball my free hand into a tight fist. The Cinco fucking Cartel.
The drugs I sold were pure. We scored them from a rival we took out a while back. I figured I’d sell them on my own and make some money for the family.
Except the “money” I got from the buyer was a roll of blank pieces of paper with a few hundred-dollar bills over the top, not the million it should have been. I took it and became the world’s biggest gullible asshole.
Again.
My problem. One I need to sort. “Would the Cinco Cartel have arranged the buy since they deal in that part of Queens?”
Maybe even at the truckyard. Those who do business in that spot don’t mind the danger of playing by no-man’s-land rules.
