Sinful Desire

The pool game ceased and all eyes turned to Brent. After the murder case was reopened, Brent had mentioned spotting a guy in a Buick idling outside Shannon’s old condo. He’d snapped a photo at the time, and while the guy in the car hadn’t done anything suspicious, he’d spent far too long doing a whole lot of nothing in the car while staring at her building. Turned out Shannon had seen him at another time too. Shannon was living with Brent now, so she felt safer. Still, Ryan and his siblings all wanted to know more about the guy in the Buick, in case he’d been watching Shannon for some reason.

“Mindy talked to her friends on the force. Asked them if the ink on his arms looked familiar.” Ryan flashed back to Luke’s comments about the Royal Sinners, and the tattoos that bore their mantra, as Brent continued. “The picture I had of him wasn’t perfect, but we zoomed in as close as we could and it looks like one of the tattoos says ‘Protect.’”

Ryan’s blood chilled. Protect our own. “That’s the ink of the Royal Sinners,” he said, dread laced through his voice.

Shannon moved closer to Brent, visibly shivering, and he draped an arm around his wife. “Are you serious?” she asked.

Ryan nodded. “You need to be careful, Shan. I’m going to get you a security detail right away.”

“I can take care of her,” Brent said protectively.

“I know you can, man. I don’t doubt it for a second. But I’m talking about when you’re not with her,” Ryan added. “And you need to make sure you’re carrying, Shan.”

“Ryan,” she said, chiding.

“These guys don’t fuck around. Stefano has friends on the outside. And he had a kid at the time he went to prison. I heard the kid’s been getting into some trouble. What if this guy watching us is Stefano’s son? He looks young enough. We need to be careful,” he said firmly, in a tone that brooked no argument, then turned to Colin. “Same goes for you.”

“You’re getting me a bodyguard?”

“If you want one, I will.”

Colin shot him a look that said hell no. “Let me see the picture,” he said, and Brent called it up on his phone and passed it to Colin.

He stroked his chin and appeared deep in thought.

“What is it, Colin?” Shannon asked.

“This is going to sound strange, but I think I’ve seen this guy shooting hoops at the community center.” He tapped the screen and spoke to Brent. “Send me this picture. Let me do a little more digging.”

Brent swiped the screen a few times then said, “Done. And listen, we haven’t seen him around in a month, so my thought is maybe he was just trying to keep an eye on Shan before the case got reopened?”

Luke’s warning rang in Ryan’s ears.

You bump into a guy like Stefano on the street and you run the other way.

But he didn’t need that man’s words about the Royal Sinners to take the threat seriously. His father in the ground, courtesy of a gangland shooter, was all Ryan needed to make sure he did everything to keep his family safe. “We’re not taking any chances, because we don’t know what’s going on. That’s the issue. We don’t know everything that’s happening with the investigation. The only one who knows is the damn detective.”

They speculated more on the case while finishing the round of pool. When Shannon landed the winning shot, she declared victory for the two of them. Then she raised her cue, tapped Ryan on the shoulder from across the table, and poked him with it. “Now, fess up. What’s the story with the woman you had me buy the dress for? I want to know.”

“She’s pissed at me,” he said, heavily. He hadn’t heard a word from her since last night, so that was probably the end of Miss Peach Pie. A black cloud engulfed him at the prospect of never seeing her again.

“What did you do wrong?” Brent asked as he knocked back some of his beer.

Ryan parked his hands on his hips. “Now, why do you assume it was me who did something wrong?”

Brent nearly spat out his beer. “Dude. You just said you did. You said she’s pissed at you.”

“It’s a long story,” he muttered. “I don’t even know if she wants to hear from me again.”

Shannon hung up her cue, marched over to Ryan, and stared at him, her eyes saying we’re waiting.

Ryan gritted his teeth, pressing them hard together, locking up his words, and shutting the details in his head.

Old habit.

This was his way.

This was how he dealt.

Jam all the personal, private information into his mind vise, then crush it and let the tension live in his bones for years, like a coiled spring. The one time lately he hadn’t felt like a taut power line was when he’d given John the initials he’d gotten from his mom. Instead, he’d felt a sense of freedom from the weight of the past.

The memory of that feeling was a soft knock on the door. A gentle reminder that he’d gotten in this predicament with Sophie by keeping his secrets airtight.

Maybe it was time to try a new approach.

“So here’s the story,” he said, then told them about the only woman he’d ever even started to let into his heart. He kept it short and simple, sticking to basic facts.

When he was through, Shannon slammed her hands against his chest. “You ass.”

He stumbled into the pool table, surprise racing through him.

Brent cracked up. “She doesn’t pull her punches. You gotta watch out for Mrs. Nichols,” he said.