“You’re sure I look okay?” Lauren asked.
I glanced at her in the passenger seat, sitting demurely in her cute little sundress. Was she serious? “If we weren’t already running late, I would pull this fucking car over and have you bouncing on my lap within half a second.”
She shook her head. “Don’t start. I’m trying to be good.”
I raked my gaze over her. “I mean, we’re already late. What’s a few more minutes?”
“Minutes?” Her tone gained a teasing edge. “Oh, who could ever turn down such a promise of pleasure?”
I reached out and gripped her thigh. “I think I’ve proved that minutes is all the time I need to get you off.”
That shut her up.
I grinned and stroked my hand upward. “What are you wearing under this dress? Give me something to look forward to, so I can get through the next few hours.”
Despite her telling me not to start, she sure was quick to widen her legs. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”
Up ahead, the light turned green. I swore, removing my hand because I needed it to shift. I should have asked to borrow Stefan’s Range Rover instead of taking my own car, but it had been a while since I’d driven this beast, and I thought Lauren would appreciate its throaty engine and the way it sent constant low vibrations through the vehicle.
“Maybe later,” she said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat and closing her legs.
What the hell did she have going on under there to make her smile like that?
“Remind me of your cousin and her fiancé’s names again?” she said.
“Aly and Josh. Their two cats are Maud and Fred, and I think Josh’s old roommate will be there. I don’t know who else will be. Probably Aly’s work friends.”
“You said she’s an ER nurse?”
“Yup. We cut ’em up, and she stitches them back together.”
Lauren was quiet so long that I snuck another look at her.
Her eyes were narrowed, studying me. “I don’t know if you’re joking or not.”
I winked. “Me neither.” She shook her head, expression turning contemplative, and I decided it was time for a distraction. “None of Aly’s friends know that she has mob ties, and she wants to keep it that way.”
“My lips are sealed,” Lauren said.
I glanced at her lap. “Don’t break my heart.”
She smacked my arm. “I meant my mouth.”
I grinned and gunned the engine, throwing her back in her seat.
There was a line of cars parked outside Aly’s house by the time we arrived. I found a spot as close as I could and went around to open Lauren’s door for her while she snagged the gift bag she brought. She seemed perfectly steady on her heels when she got out, but there were cracks in the sidewalk, so I offered her my hand just in case.
“Such a gentleman all of a sudden,” she said, wrapping her fingers through mine.
“That’s me, a real gentleman. Grab her hand in the streets and her hair in the sheets.”
She laughed, a bright, infectious sound that had me turning my head to look at her. It was the first time I’d seen her laugh like this, loud and open, and my ego swelled a little, knowing I’d caused it. Until now, I’d mostly made her frown or moan, and I decided that needed to change. The moaning, we could keep, but the frowning had to go.
A sign on the front door said the party was out back, so we followed the sound of voices around the house. There were maybe thirty people filling Aly’s backyard, a grill going on one side, and two sets of cornhole boards set up on the other, with tables and outdoor furniture in between. Josh was easy to pick out because of his height, standing as far away from the grill as humanly possible. Aly was much closer.
“Oh, hey!” she said, turning as we approached. “You made it.”
Lauren shifted beside me. I pressed my hand against her lower back and guided her forward. “Aly, this is Lauren. Lauren, Aly.”
“Hi,” Lauren said, lifting her gift bag. “Congrats on your engagement. Junior said you liked white wine, so I got you a little something.”
“Oh, thank you,” Aly said, taking the bag and then leaning down to hug Lauren. She pulled back and tugged the wine free, her eyes going wide. “No, really. Thank you.”
Huh. Must have been a nice bottle.
Lauren grinned. “You’re welcome.”
A familiar, pathetic mewl came from nearby, and we turned toward it. Last month, I’d spent a gross, sweaty weekend helping Josh and Aly turn their back porch into what they were calling a catio (See? Weird.), framing the space out and then stapling heavy-duty screens in between the wood. All so Fred could sit outside and watch the birds while Josh and Aly drank their coffee. And then they’d adopted Maud, who now had all four paws dug into the screen, crying to be let out. Fred sat on the cat tree behind her, looking unimpressed by her behavior.
“Oh my god,” Lauren said. “That is so cute!”
She and Aly headed toward Maud, and I ambled after them.
“Cat people,” a low, disgruntled voice said from behind me.
I looked over to see a blond guy almost as big as Josh walking over.
“Tyler, right?” I asked as he stopped at my side.
He nodded and took a sip of his beer. “Junior?”
I nodded back.
His gaze went to Lauren. “How’d you manage to bag such a baddie?”
I took a deep breath. Yup, he was still a fucking douche. I’d only met him once before, when we’d helped Josh move in here, but those few hours were enough to get a good read on him and wonder how the fuck Josh had put up with him for so long.
Be nice, I told myself. You can’t go threatening Josh’s only other friend in the world just for pointing out how hot Lauren is.
“I’m good at making her come,” I said.
Tyler huffed a low laugh. “Fair enough. She got a sister?”
“Yeah, but she’s older and married with two kids.”
“Shame.” His gaze swung back to me, taking in the tattoos on my neck, the words scrawled across my knuckles. “What is it you said you do again?”
“Imports,” I said. “You?”
He grinned. “Finance.”
We fell silent, watching the women play with Maud through the screen. At least the two of them seemed to be hitting it off.
A waving motion caught the corner of my eye. I glanced left, over the heads of the crowd, to see Josh motioning to me. I pointed to the women and motioned him our way instead. He shook his head, waving harder.
“He won’t come near the grill,” Tyler said. “The smell of cooking meat makes him puke.”
“Oh, so he’s vegan, vegan.”
Tyler let out a humorless snort. “Yup.” And with that, he sauntered off, back into the crowd.
I shook my head at his retreating form and then went to join Aly and Lauren by the catio. “Josh is trying to summon us to his lair.”
Aly winced. “I told him we should keep things vegetarian, but he didn’t want to put everyone else out.”
She headed over to him, and we followed after her. Three feet away from Josh, Lauren stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him. I tried not to let it get to me. I was man enough to admit that Josh was probably the handsomest bastard I’d ever seen outside of a movie, but I didn’t love the fact that Lauren seemed to think so, too. Until I realized she wasn’t looking at his face, but his arms and the tattoos crawling up them.
She glanced from Josh to Aly and back again. “Aly . . .” Her eyes flared. “Oxen free?”
“Oh, Jesus,” Aly said, grabbing Lauren’s arm and dragging her away.
I frowned as they brushed past me. “The fuck?”
Josh had a sheepish expression on his face when I turned back around. “Don’t look at me. I have no idea what that was about.”
For some reason, I didn’t believe him.
Forty-five minutes later, I’d eaten, suffered through small talk with Aly’s coworkers, met the older couple who lived next door to her, had another awkward exchange with Tyler, and was ready to get the fuck out of there.
Lauren did much better, befriending everyone she met, kicking ass at cornhole despite the fact that her heels kept digging into the grass, and doing an excellent job of making me seem like less of an asshole.
Josh and I now stood in the corner, him drinking a beer, me a macchiato from the fancy new espresso machine my father sent Aly as a birthday gift. I didn’t miss the fact that Josh had spent most of the party half turned away from the others when he wasn’t forced into conversation with them. My father was bad, but his father was an infamous serial killer, and Josh looked a lot like the guy, something he was still self-conscious about. He’d come a long way in the past six months, but I could tell being around a crowd this size still made him uncomfortable.
“Were you able to find out who owns McKinney’s debts?” he asked.
“Jesus, keep your voice down,” I said, pulling him farther away from where Aly, Lauren, and a handful of other women sat nearby, sharing the bottle of wine Lauren brought.
Josh winced, glancing over his shoulder like a little kid worried about being overheard. The man was not cut out for stealth work.
“Yes, I found out,” I told him once we’d retreated all the way to the fence line.
“Aaand?” he said, excitement in his eyes. This was probably why Aly wanted to keep him away from illegal shit; he seemed far too tempted by it.
I shook my head. “It’s some newer bookie. He stepped onto the scene a year ago and has been slowly moving up the ranks, running bigger and bigger card nights, slipping his guys into the horse tracks and the stadiums and pissing everyone off.”
“How so?” Josh asked.
“By not doing things the old way. He’s crossing into people’s turf without asking and then leaving it before they can track him down. Finding him is going to be a pain in the ass, and no,” I said, when he opened his mouth, “you can’t help. None of this requires a computer.”
Josh eyed me. “Everyone has a digital trail.”
“Not this guy,” I said. “Apparently, he’s a paranoid bastard. And cutthroat. I have my brother Stefan on it. He can find anyone in the city.” And out of all of my brothers, was most unlikely to rat on me since he was Dad’s least-favorite kid (which the asshole made no secret of) and was generally left alone because of it.
“Cutthroat, how?” Josh asked. “You’re not putting yourself in danger, are you?”
The concern in his voice made me want to squirm. Having friends was going to take a while to get used to. “I’m fine,” I lied—I was always in danger. “He’s not any worse than the other people I deal with. I meant cutthroat with money. If I have any hope of getting a fair deal, I need to catch him off guard. If he has time to look into the debt or McKinney’s holdings, he’ll try to milk me for every penny I’m worth.”
Josh frowned. “Let me know if you need extra cash. We have some lying around.”
I waved him off. “Save it for your wedding and honeymoon. I’ll be fine. Crime is lucrative, and besides my bike and my piece of shit apartment, I don’t spend money on anything but investments.”
Josh perked up. “I didn’t know you were into the stock market. How’s that going?”
“Pretty decent,” I said. “It’s a good nest egg.” It was better than a nest egg. I could retire tomorrow and live off the dividends for the rest of my life if I was frugal. Not that my dad would let me.
“No shit?” Josh said, eyebrows rising. “I’ve wanted to start investing more myself. I have a decent portfolio, but it’s managed by some douche on Wall Street. You know, Tyler’s a financial analyst. We could invite him over too and make a whole night of it.”
I had no idea how to answer diplomatically, so I went with being direct. “No offense, but I’d rather rip my own fingernails off than hang out with that guy.”
I gestured with my coffee cup behind Josh’s back, and he turned to see what I’d been watching this whole time: Tyler, about to start a fight over cornhole. He’d lost and wasn’t happy about it.
“Because you kept stepping over the fucking line,” he said, loud enough for his voice to carry.
Josh turned back to me, wincing. “He has a thing about rules.”
I just looked at him.
“And he doesn’t exactly make the best first impression,” he tacked on.
“Or second,” I said, sipping my coffee.
Josh nodded. “I think he’s just not good in new situations or with new people so he ends up acting like more of a douche than normal. But once you get past that hurdle, you’ll never find a more loyal friend.”
Behind him, Tyler flipped a cornhole board and stalked away from the party.
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
Josh turned just in time to catch Tyler disappearing around the corner of the house. With a sigh, Josh swung back my way, eyes snagging on Aly and Lauren and the other women shaking their heads at Tyler’s outburst.
“Lauren’s nice,” he said.
“Too nice for me?”
“Oh, without a doubt.”
I shot him an unimpressed look.
He elbowed me. “You guys are good together. Complement each other.”
I peered up at him. “Is that what you’ve been doing over here in your Creep Corner all afternoon? Studying the rest of us?”
“Yeah,” he said, and I could hear the unspoken duh in his tone. “The fuck else was I supposed to do for entertainment?”
“I don’t know, this is your engagement party.”
“No, it’s not. It’s hers,” he said, tone softening as he glanced toward Aly.
I followed his gaze and caught her admiring the rock on her finger, a smile on her face that told anyone who saw it just how happy she was, how content. She glanced up, saw Josh, and smiled even wider, and he let out a low whuff of breath that made it sound like someone had gut-punched him. I decided in that moment that if my father ever tried to tear them apart, it would be open war between us.
My gaze drifted to Lauren. She was talking animatedly with one of Aly’s colleagues, but I wasn’t worried about what she was saying. I’d asked her not to bring up certain subjects, and I trusted her to keep quiet. Hell, I trusted her, period. Spending the afternoon in her company, out in the light of day together, had been . . . interesting. Easy. It was a glimpse of normalcy, what life could be like if I was able to break free.
Lauren laughed at something Aly said, and they clinked their wineglasses together before drinking. My chest warmed at the sight of them getting on so well, and I had to remind myself not to get ahead of myself, that we still hadn’t discussed what the hell we were doing.
And then Lauren’s gaze caught mine and held, heat sparking between us.
I sent her a smile, winked, and turned away, not wanting her to see the rage taking hold of me. My fucking father. His threats, his slyness, his control, they were the reasons I held myself back with Lauren. Because I was afraid of what he would do, how far he would go to retain his hold on me. The mob had rules against hurting women, but I didn’t trust him to honor them, and I knew all too well that you didn’t have to use physical force to harm someone. Psychological weapons could be just as devastating.
I just needed to find a weakness I could exploit. Planning a move into legitimate business was all well and good, but it wouldn’t free me from my dad’s claws, wouldn’t keep him from threatening or coercing me into doing whatever he wanted.
Think, I told myself. What did Dad value more than anything? What could I threaten to take away from him that would finally get him to back down?
“You all right?” Josh asked.
I shook my head, trying to pull myself back from the brink. I didn’t trust my temper when I got like this.
“Come on,” Josh said, shoving my shoulder to get me moving. “Inside.”
I stalked into their house, glad for the silence. It was too loud outside to think straight.
“What’d you do to get free of my old man?” I said, finally asking Josh outright.
He looked toward the back door and the party just beyond, checking to see if we were really alone. “Threatened to rip his entire life apart, including your family. No offense.”
I blinked. That was it. Family. The one thing Dad cared about more than anything else in the world. It was why he’d blackmailed Aly and Josh into coming to monthly dinners, why he tried to exert so much control over me and my brothers. His own parents had disowned him when he joined the mob, and his greatest fear in life was that everyone else he loved would one day abandon him, too.
“Can you actually follow through on your threats?” I asked Josh.
He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded, his other side entering the conversation. “Yes.”
“I’ve got a plan brewing in my head, but I don’t know if it will work or blow up in my face.” I laid it out for him from start to finish, watching his eyes widen and his brows climb up his forehead.
When I was done, he smiled. “That sounds like a complete shit show.”
“You in?”
“Fuck, yeah,” he said.
