“True.”
“So that just leaves you and Andrei.”
Lucas rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. “Andrei isn’t even officially living with me. He’s still got his apartment.”
“Even though most of his clothes are at your place now.”
Lucas shrugged.
“Have you at least told him?”
“What?”
Rowe groaned, wanting to shake Lucas. The man wasn’t this dense. “That you love him.”
“He knows.”
“That’s a no.”
Lucas frowned, looking more than a little uncomfortable. “I start to and…the moment never seems quite right.”
Reaching over, Rowe placed his hand on Lucas’s broad shoulder, giving in to the urge to shake him. “Let me tell you this, as someone who has loved and buried the other half of his soul, every moment is the right moment.”
Lucas nodded, the lightness evaporating from their conversation. But then, any mention of Mel tended to do that. Rowe hoped that it would stop soon and they’d hold their smiles when they thought of her. She would have hated to see anyone sad on her account. The woman had hated to be serious.
“I’m guessing that you caught the news about Jagger yesterday,” Lucas said after nearly a minute of silence.
“Fucker,” Rowe snarled. “How the hell did he get off?”
Boris Jagger was Cincinnati’s top crime boss with ties to both drugs and sex trade in the city. Unfortunately, Rowe, Snow, and Lucas had suffered a run-in with Jagger several years ago. The good thing was that they’d managed to save Ian.
After a deal had been struck and money had changed hands, Rowe had always thought they’d never cross paths again. But something had gone wrong.
Jagger had loosed his favorite butcher on them. Dwight Gratton was dead, but Rowe had a sick feeling in his stomach that it wasn’t over. Gratton had been hired to kill Lucas and Rowe after he was done with Snow. They just had no clue as to why they were on Jagger’s shit list again.
“How could the feds have fucked up the case?” Rowe demanded, raising his voice. Lucas frowned at him in warning and Rowe huffed, but lowered his voice when he spoke again. “They had to have gotten something on him in relation to that sick auction you stopped.” While Rowe had been off mourning his wife, his friends had helped stop an auction of underage kids. The police had been able to get the missing children home to their families.
“They likely had problems getting anything to stick after two of the witnesses ended up dead.”
Rowe quickly downed the last of his drink, letting the liquor warm him against the chill trying to sink into his bones. “You know he’s not done.” His voice was now rough and bourbon burned.
“You don’t know for sure Jagger started this. Gratton could have been lying to Snow to fuck with his head. Jagger has no reason to go after us.”
Rowe stared at the other man in shock. Lucas was not one to stick his head in the sand and pray that it would all blow over. Lucas faced shit head on. Hell, he usually led the charge into the fire. But then…for the first time in his life, Lucas was in love and he was terrified of risking Andrei’s life. Especially after coming so close to losing him.
The noise from the second floor spiked above the screeching guitar blasting through the speakers. Lucas started to say something, but Rowe grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him forward, swapping places so that Lucas’s back was against the wall and Rowe was closest to the stairs leading to the first floor. His heart pounded hard in his chest, but the same calm he always felt in dangerous situations swept over him, clearing his mind and giving him the sense of peace he couldn’t find in day-to-day life. Killers and thugs he could handle. This was familiar territory.
The noise grew, punctuated by screams as people rushed for the front exit. Just as Andrei reached the top of the stairs, Rowe caught the first whiff of smoke.
“Fire!” Andrei shouted above the noise. His eyes drifted to Lucas for only a heartbeat before locking on Rowe once again. “Get everyone on the second floor out using the rear emergency exit. I’m going back to oversee the first floor evac.”
Rowe nodded, but Lucas was already stepping forward, reaching for Andrei.
“Andrei, no—”
The bodyguard spun around and grabbed Lucas by both shoulders, slamming him against the wall. Hard. “Listen to me. You will leave here now. Get everyone out safe. You will be safe and smart so I can do my job without worrying about you.” Andrei paused for a second, frowning. “I almost lost you here before.”
Rowe stared open-mouthed at Andrei as he held Lucas pinned against the wall for another breath before he charged down the stairs. Someone had hit the main lights in the growing chaos, but that only made the smoke more visible. Looking back at Lucas, Rowe’s heart lurched at the fear etched in his friend’s face. Mel’s death had done that. They all felt a little more vulnerable, a little more fragile now.