‘Don’t know. Lucy was filling them in. I wanted you to have time to come to grips with this before you had to put on your Mr Teflon face.’
His lips twitched, despite the gravity of the situation. ‘Mr Teflon?’
‘Yes. The one that says nothing fazes you. Everything just slides off.’
‘That face fools most people,’ he said lightly.
‘Most people don’t know you like I do. Most people don’t . . .’ her cheeks pinked up so damn beautifully, ‘feel for you. Not like I do.’
Emotion overwhelmed him, foreign and intense. Yes, she’d told him that Evan had hurt her worse than he’d known. But she’d also told him that he was hers. And she was his. He knew this woman. He’d loved her for years. She needed him to focus on the strong woman she was today, not the broken woman she’d been before.
He tipped her chin up, staring at her mouth, hoping his intent was crystal clear. ‘Please?’
She swallowed hard. ‘Please,’ she whispered.
He bent down, taking her mouth with his, feeling her melt into him. Her hand gripped his cheek and held on. Her lips parted when his tongue stroked. And it was good. So good. He kept it as gentle as he was able, pulling back to stare down at her face. Her eyes were still closed, lashes fanned out on her perfect skin.
Her lips curved in a satisfied smile. ‘And?’
‘I’m already wondering when you’ll let me do that again.’
She opened her eyes and he swallowed, his mouth gone dry once more. Because there was want there. Lust and want and everything he’d always hoped to see. She’d dreamed about him. He wished to heaven and hell that they had more time, because he desperately wanted to know what those dreams entailed.
A carefully cleared throat had them jerking apart, turning to the doorway as one. Lucy stood there, arms crossed over her chest, an uncomfortable expression on her face. ‘I gave you as much time as I could,’ she said apologetically. ‘But they’ve closed down the club and arrested Mowry, Ming and Laura.’
‘Mowry said he’d been paying the Freaks out of petty cash,’ Gwyn explained. ‘Ming was the one who threw the two men out last night.’ She looked at Lucy. ‘Why did they arrest Laura?’ Their bartender was one of the most upstanding citizens they employed. Single mother, putting herself through business school.
Lucy bit at her lip. ‘They said she was dealing from behind the bar. They found drugs back there. Coke and some fentanyl. All packaged up to sell.’
Thorne came to his feet, stunned. ‘What the fuck?’
Lucy sighed. ‘I know. Jamie and Frederick are on their way to the police station. JD is taking me to the club so we can close it up properly. We’ll have to figure out what to do once we get all the information.’
Thorne gritted his teeth. ‘You can’t go, Luce. He’s already shot at Gwyn and Stevie today. I don’t want you anywhere near the club.’
‘That’s what I told her,’ JD said, coming in to stand next to his wife, scowling.
‘Sheidalin is our business,’ Lucy protested. ‘We can’t just hide from it forever.’
‘You can’t go in there anyway,’ JD said. ‘They’ve declared it a crime scene, because of the drugs.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Gwyn said angrily. ‘We employ at least thirty people. We can’t just let them close us down.’
‘This is Tavilla’s doing,’ Thorne said, then extended his hand to Gwyn, tugging her to her feet. She immediately slipped into her shoes, making herself four inches taller and bringing the top of her head level with his shoulder. He found himself hunching a little and realized he’d done so thousands of times over the years. But unlike those thousands of times, she sidled closer, sliding her hand to the middle of his back.
‘Did you text your contact about meeting you?’ Lucy asked, eyeing them with what looked like relief. JD wore the same expression. Somehow it made the situation a little easier to bear.
‘Yes,’ Thorne replied. ‘But after this latest clusterfuck, I don’t know that the cops are going to want to cooperate in a sting.’
‘What did your contact say?’ Gwyn pressed.
‘He said he’d meet me at eleven p.m.’
Gwyn huffed. ‘That’s original.’
Thorne shrugged. ‘It’s our normal meeting time. I could slip out of the club and back without being noticed.’
‘Don’t think I didn’t see you guys changing the subject,’ JD said, irritated. ‘Lucy and Gwyn need to stay away from the club.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Please, Lucy,’ he added in a whisper. ‘You can’t take chances. You just can’t.’
‘He’s right, Luce,’ Gwyn said. ‘You’re a mommy now.’
‘Hey,’ Lucy snapped. ‘If I’m not going, you’re not going either.’
Gwyn crossed her arms and made an unimpressed face. ‘I know.’
She looked like a five-year-old who was being sent to bed early. Thorne might have smiled had the situation not been so serious. ‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t want to kill me. Just . . . ruin me, apparently. I need to borrow a car.’
‘I’ll take you,’ JD said. ‘You two’ – he gestured to Gwyn and Lucy – ‘stay here. We’ll come back for you.’
‘Did Phil go with Jamie and Frederick?’ Thorne asked. ‘Or is he still here?’
‘Neither,’ JD said. ‘Sam took Phil home.’
Lucy held up her hand when Thorne started to protest. ‘Relax, Thorne. He had some medication to take or something. Sam’s going to stay there with him until you get home. And you’ll still have your tail. Agent Ingram is covering Phil because JD’s got you. I trust Ingram to keep Phil safe.’
‘Meet me at the front door,’ JD said. ‘I need to get my gun from Clay’s safe.’
Lucy waited until her husband was gone before lifting one corner of her mouth in a tiny smile. ‘You have a minute to finish what you were doing when I interrupted you.’
Gwyn wasted no time, grabbing Thorne’s shirt collar and hauling herself higher on her toes. ‘You take no chances,’ she growled. ‘Got it?’
‘Got it,’ he murmured, then bent down and kissed her just as he’d always wanted to. She responded just as he’d always dreamed she would. Hard and hot and so damn perfect.
Too quickly she ripped her mouth away, panting. ‘Come back to me, Thomas Thorne,’ she whispered. ‘Promise me.’
He understood, both what she was asking and what he might be giving up to make the vow. He’d have to take backup with him to Ramirez’s house. He’d have to take JD to Ramirez’s house. And if by some miracle the man wasn’t dead, Thorne would be breaking his promise to him, because JD would be compelled to arrest him. Ramirez was too high up in Tavilla’s organization to have committed no crimes.
Still, he couldn’t make himself refuse the desperation in her eyes. ‘I promise.’
Fifteen
Baltimore, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 10.45 P.M.
‘This is a nightmare,’ Thorne murmured.
JD gave a grunt of assent as he exited off the parkway and slowed to stop at the light at the end of the ramp. ‘Right now? Yeah, I’d concur with that assessment.’
Going to Sheidalin had been a huge mistake. The cops had not only shut down the club, the media had been there to cover it. Now Thorne, Lucy and Gwyn were the focus of headlines and soundbites. Especially Thorne.
The cops hadn’t let him anywhere close to the club. Someone had applied liberal amounts of crime scene tape to the doors, which made the reporters very happy because the bright yellow ‘popped’ against the club’s dark exterior.
Thorne’s arrival had caused quite a stir, with the vipers descending upon him with microphones and vicious accusations they didn’t even bother to veil. He’d managed to hold his temper, but barely. Eventually JD got them out of there, taking them to the police station, but Thorne hadn’t gone inside because Jamie had warned him against it.
There was no warrant out for Thorne’s arrest, but showing up at the police station might push them to that extreme. Plus, Jamie and Frederick had everything under control. They’d gotten Ming, Mowry and Laura out on bond and were disgruntled to have to owe that favor to Lieutenant Hyatt, who’d greased the skids to make it happen faster.