“You’re a fucking angel. It won’t come to that. Even if it does, I’m used to doing the difficult thing. Now tell me what happened to your job.”
I did, smiling at how he cursed my father and Lyle out.
On our approach to the warehouse, he kept hold of my hand, taking care to guide me around puddles that reflected the neon pink of the club signs. The last time I’d noticed that, Kane and I had been destined for a fall. Now, I felt invincible with him.
The crew member who unlocked the door congratulated us, as did a group of staff stocking the bar. In the main corridor, we passed the dark-haired brothers. The Atherons, I recalled.
Kane gripped my hand tighter.
The one with longer hair tied back with a strip of leather raised an eyebrow at him, and Kane pointedly glanced at me.
“Consider my reply changed.”
Whatever that meant, I was lost, but I didn’t have time to question men and their grunt-based communication as we continued on to the office. Tyler admitted us. Arran sat behind the desk, with Shade and Riot bracketing him. All four men had skeleton bandannas tied around their throats, and the overly bright visitor’s lamp shone at us.
Quite the intimidating sight.
Kane reached out a long arm to tap it lower.
Arran smirked and gave us an appraising once-over. “Congratulations to the happy couple. Kane, how’s that burning need to leave town?”
“Magically vanished,” Kane intoned.
Arran chuffed a short laugh. “So I assumed. To be discussed later. There’s more pressing shit to handle first. Tyler?”
The team leader held up a tablet displaying a CCTV screen of the interior of a room. A man thumped at the door, yelling soundlessly, a bed and a shelf of sex toys behind him.
Lyle.
I swallowed a knot in my throat at Lyle’s furious expression. “He’s been in there since last night with no one answering him?”
Shade turned a blade over in his hands, angling it to the light as if to check for imperfections. “He has, ever since arriving with a boner for ye. Then from the moment we cut off his screen, screeching like a stuck pig about how important he is and what a mistake we’re making.”
Kane took a deep breath behind me.
I hung my head. Arran had asked me for intel on Lyle when he was allocated to the Marchant ship. A case I felt out of touch with and couldn’t check on anymore. “I should’ve told you I had history with him when you asked. It didn’t seem important at the time.”
Arran shook his head. “You’re not beholden to me, Lovelyn.”
I wanted to say how I wasn’t anything now. That my father fired me, and I couldn’t do searches or provide information to the skeleton crew anymore. But the words lodged in my throat.
“Can I see Lyle? I’m assuming you’re going to have a chat with him, but while he’s still able to speak, I want to make sure he knows the facts.”
I reached for Kane. He’d stood behind me, never not touching me in some way. I raised our joined hands to make my point.
Arran’s lips twitched. “I’m not yet settled on his fate. The hotshot detective has been sniffing around for a while, making connections into the business and power dynamic of the city. His name came up in Cassie’s research.”
I widened my eyes. I had to find out in what capacity.
Arran stood, stalling my thoughts. “You get five minutes with him. I want my people back, and he’s had long enough to consider what he’s brought down on himself.”
We all filtered out of the room and travelled in the lift upstairs, exiting to the hotel floor that Kane had shown me what felt like forever ago. Tyler had left our ranks, but with the anger rising in my gut, I felt ready to take Lyle on solo.
He’d lost me my job. He’d tried to break into my house and had left a boot mark on the door my mother had painted.
Outside a door, Arran stopped. He eyed Kane. “Do we need a game plan?”
I shook my head. “I know what I want from him, and that’s to leave me alone.”
