Ivy doesn’t fight as she follows, just looks back at me. “Joey? What do we do?”
“Be strong,” I say quietly as I rub my shoulder.
And when the trapdoor shuts and I’m alone, I realize what utter bullshit that advice is and start to cry.
Ford
From my corner office on the sixth floor, I look out over the Boston skyline. The morning sun is just about to peek over the horizon, and I lean back in my chair, waiting.
I used to love sunrise. My best memory—the one I pull up when everything else goes to shit—is of dawn on Pacific Beach, down on one knee with Joey practically glowing in the morning sun.
“I know it’s only been a year, buttercup. And I’m leaving in a month. But…you’re my sunshine. Marry me?”
The past few weeks, I can’t stop thinking about her. Maybe it’s knowing Wren found her forever. Her other half. Even if the guy is a brooding asshole.
Hell…what do I know? I’ve met him three times. But Ryker McCabe ghosted my best friend and boss, Dax, when he needed the guy most. I just don’t know if I can forgive him for that.
Pulling up my email, I find a message from Wren. Good. My current client, the director of the Boston Museum of Art, suspects her husband is embezzling money from his brokerage firm, and while I’ve found plenty of shady behavior on the guy’s part, I’m shit at the computer angle. That’s all Wren.
Ford, here’s everything I could find on Barry Martin. He’s good—or has someone good covering his tracks—but no one has this many offshore accounts unless they’re hiding something. Still digging. I have a line on a shell corporation I think I can trace to him. More this afternoon. How’s things? Miss you. Seattle’s great, though. It’s actually a lot like Boston. All neighborhoods and traffic. You’d like it. Take care of Dax, will you? He’s been…well… I can’t tell him to call Ry. But maybe you can? -Wren
Dammit. When Ryker and Wren got back from Russia, Dax decided to forgive the guy for ghosting on him for six years after they both escaped Hell—a system of caves deep under a mountain in the Hindu Kush where the two of them were tortured. Fifteen months they spent there until Ryker escaped. The asshole in charge of Hell blinded Dax in revenge for the escape, and when Ryker came back to rescue him and found him unable to see, he couldn’t deal with his guilt.
Dax’s shocked swear booms down the hall, and I push away from my desk and take off at a run as Trevor starts frantically apologizing for something. Now what?
“Oh, shit.” Sheer packing tape stretches from one side of the front office door to the other—except where it’s stuck to Dax’s face, hands, and arms. “Trev, what the hell were you thinking?” I ask as I start peeling the tape from Dax’s glasses.
“That Clive needed payback for putting lube on my desk chair last week. I called Dax to warn him…”
“Thirty seconds before I walked into…what is this? Packing tape? It’s not like I can see the damn stuff. No more pranks at the office. Period,” Dax growls.
After a few minutes and lots of excuses, I manage to free my boss from the tape and press his cane back into his hand. He grunts something unintelligible, stalks off towards his office, and slams the door.
“You know you screwed up big time, right?” I ask Trevor.
His green eyes darken, and he drops his gaze to the floor, a huge wad of tape in his hands. “I called to warn him.”
“Look, I know you and Clive always try to outdo one another. I get it. I used to pull that shit when I was enlisted. But you gotta think, man. Keep the pranks to ones Dax can avoid.”
He offers me a wry smile. “So you’re saying I should fight dirty?”
“No!” Trevor may be one of the scariest and deadliest men I’ve ever met—outside of Dax and Ryker—but he’s only thirty-three. Practically a kid. And today, I’ve had about enough of his shit. “I’m saying keep it localized to Clive’s office. No public areas. Ever again. Got it?”
His expression sobers, and he nods. “Understood. Sorry.”
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to. But give him an hour or two. Otherwise you might not get out of his office alive.” With a sigh, I head for the coffee pot as Trevor rushes back to his dark, windowless space next to the kitchen. As I pass Wren’s old office, I frown. She was always the peacekeeper. Always the one who could make Dax stop and take a step back. Without her, it feels like we’re all walking on eggshells.
Heading for Dax’s office, I psych myself up for a fight.
Hours later, I walk our latest client to the door. Evianna Archer is a little skittish. Understandable, since she’s being stalked, but all throughout that meeting, I felt like she was drawn to Dax, even though I’m the one handling her case.
Shake it off. She probably just responded to him because he’s the owner. And he took the initial call. Whatever.
It’s not like I’d start anything with her. Every relationship I’ve had—since Joey—has ended within weeks. No one else lives up to my memories of her.
“Marjorie,” I say to our receptionist when we reach the front desk, “can you get Evianna set up with our billing system? Clive is going to follow her back to her office.” With a quick check of my watch, I frown. The dude’s taking his sweet time getting up here. “And book me from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. every night for the rest of the week. Will that be appropriate for getting you to and from the office, Evianna?”
“Oh, yes.” Her cheeks flush, like she doesn’t want to be any trouble. “I can firm up my schedule this afternoon. I don’t want you to have to wait in the lobby or outside my house for hours.”
