Champ pulled my chair closer to his and casually dropped an arm over my shoulder, which felt incredibly nice and incredibly right.
“Mr. Taffet,” Champ read. “It appears that my previous friendly warnings have gone unheeded, and you have decided to throw your lot in with Percy’s. I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not. Percy is good at inspiring devotion, even though he’s terrible at returning it. Yet I can’t help but urge you one last time to consider working with me. My colleagues and I can not only ensure you’re not prosecuted as an accessory to any crimes Mr. Champion and his fellows might have committed, I can also offer you financial compensation. Name your price—”
“He’s offering Quinn a bribe?” Elvo demanded. “Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
“My exact thought,” I agreed. “I’m no lawyer, but that doesn’t seem… ethical.”
“Or legal.” Champ dropped the letter back to the table and threaded his free hand with mine. “Shit. Is he that determined to get a promotion? Or is this personal for him?”
Several pairs of eyes wearing identical stunned expressions stared back at me.
“At the end of the letter, he says that he hopes I’ll stop by his motel later today to discuss my terms,” I told the others. “So I was thinking—”
Champ let out a humorless laugh. “Well, that’s not happening. Over my dead body. A wedding planner is not a security operative.”
I pulled away from Champ and tilted my head to look at him with one raised eyebrow. There was a difference between being lovingly protected and being told what to do. I appreciated the former, but I had never appreciated the latter, and that wasn’t going to change.
At no time had I been planning to actually go to Vince’s motel on my own without a plan, and yet suddenly, there was nothing I wanted more.
“Beg your pardon, Bossy Pants?” I asked between clenched teeth.
Champ looked around at his teammates as if they’d support him on his Neanderthal statement. “You’re not going over there. Case closed.”
“Okay, I can see there’s been a teeny, tiny miscommunication,” I fumed. “You and I might be together, but you are not the boss of me. I will make my own judgments and go where I want. If I want to go to Vince’s motel after I leave here, I will damned well go to Vince’s motel, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. So if you would like to offer a suggestion or an opinion, I would welcome that. But you can take your ‘that’s not happening’ bullshit and stick it where the Horn don’t shine. Understand?”
Carter leaned over to Riggs. “Is that how I sound when I’m arguing with you?”
Riggs nodded. “Mmhm.”
Elvo sighed and grabbed another sandwich before leaning back to watch the show.
Champ stood up and loomed over me, resting his knuckles on the table so he could get in my face. “Vince is using you, Quinn. He’s manipulating you to get what he wants. Surely you see that.”
The reminder made me angry. “Of course I do! I’ve seen it from literally the first time he introduced himself, and I’m so fucking pissed, because that day he visited me after the SnoBall… Fuck. He talked such a good game, he almost had me fooled. But I’m even angrier that he’s using you to do it. As if leaving you wasn’t stupid enough, now he has to mess with your life like this? I’m so mad at him, I can’t stand it. But you still don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do. You can protect me, Champ. I want you to. But you don’t get to manipulate me too!”
I could tell by the way his face fell that I’d scored a direct hit. My palms started to sweat. I didn’t want to argue with him, but my mouth was used to fronting, and apparently, my brain couldn’t stop it from going down this ridiculous road.
“Manipulate you? Me?” Champ demanded. “Why would I manipulate someone I love? Do you think so little of me that you’d actually think I’m trying to control you for my own entertainment? I don’t want you hurt. Do you understand? I don’t want you to die. Someone tried to break into your shop last night, and for a while there, I thought it might have been someone from the Cartel de la Luna. I was on my way out the door to find you, to protect you, when you arrived.”
“Oh. My. God.” I pushed to my feet and leaned into his space, too, so that our faces ended up inches apart. “So you’re saying it would be okay for you to be out running around if the Cartel is involved? Fuck. That. You might be a trained protector, but that doesn’t make you impervious to bullets. And if you think I’m going to let the most important person in my world put his life on the line while I sit back and make fucking flower arrangements, you’re out of your fucking mind.”