Apparently, his ex-bodyguard had taught him how to be a bodyguard, and now, Davis was putting out his shingle, so to speak.
Though, from what I understood, it wasn’t because he was out of money so much as he was out of things to do. Being bored, apparently, wasn’t a good thing for these guys.
From what I’d heard, Bain was the same way.
He didn’t need to work, yet from what I’d heard tonight, he was starting a new job at the chemical plant in the morning.
What was in the water here?
Jesus, what had I gotten myself into?
“Someone’s coming up the front walk,” I heard someone say.
Then the man who was working on the alarm walked around the edge of the kitchen and jerked his head toward the group of men.
This man was much smaller than the rest, had glasses on and looked like the quintessential nerd.
You could tell that out of all the men in the kitchen, he was the one that didn’t belong.
Not that any of the other men made him feel that way.
There was just a difference in the violence level between them.
“Food’s here,” I said softly.
Bain walked to the door with a wad of cash in his hand, nodded his chin at the skinny kid, then all but slapped the cash into his hand. “Thanks.”
The kid looked at the cash with wide eyes. “Holy shit. I took that order because nobody else was taking it. Thank fuckin’ God.”
Bain frowned. “What’s that mean?”
“It means that when there’s no tip associated with the order, it’s almost a guarantee that nobody will take it. I took it hoping, since it was in the ritzy neighborhood, that people would tip when I got here. Sweet.” He waved and walked away.
Bain turned around with his hands loaded with bags and sat all the food on the counter.
“You said for an army,” I said when he looked at me with raised eyebrows.
He flashed me a grin. “You are correct. I did.”
They all dug in and Dutch and I sat down toward the side of the table while the men congregated around Bain’s island and discussed the predicament I found myself in.
“Was there anything special in the wallet?” Dutch asked curiously.
I thought about that for a second and then said, “Despite two hundred bucks and a bunch of receipts that I was going to throw away? No.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “There wasn’t some sort of winning lottery ticket in it?”
I took a bite of burger and then went to the small end table where the nerdy guy was working on his laptop.
I took the pile of receipts I’d taken from the wallet and then spread them out on the side table.
The man on the computer working on the security system looked over when he saw what I was doing and narrowed his eyes at one receipt.
“That’s not a receipt,” he said as he’d overheard what I’d said to Dutch. “That’s code.”
I looked at him curiously. “It’s on receipt paper.”
As in, it looked like a normal receipt. It had a store, albeit one that I’d never heard of, at the top of it. With a time stamp, a date, and the person that checked out the items. A ‘Harvey M.’
It also showed that the receipt was for two drinks for eight dollars and ninety-nine cents apiece.
Side note, but who the hell would pay practically nine dollars for a single drink? That was ludicrous.
“It’s still code,” he took it, glanced at it for a long time and then set it down and started doing something more on his computer.
He hissed when something popped up.
I glanced at it, then blinked owlishly at it.
“What is that?” I breathed.
I felt more than heard Bain come up behind me and then heard him say, “Looks like a sex club.”
The way he said “sex” sent shivers down my spine. Just the thought of the word “sex” leaving his lips did it for me. But him actually forming the word and then emitting the word through that sexy, smoky voice of his? Wowza, it was enough to set my panties on fire.
I tilted my head and started to inch in so I could see better and sure enough, it was about twenty cameras worth of video feed that showed various sex acts taking place.
“Wow,” I said. “Do you think that’s what he wanted back?”
“Maybe,” I heard the computer guy say. “Without this specific code, there’s no way he would’ve been able to get in.” He hesitated. “Not to mention, this is a lot of code to remember.”
I shivered at the feel of Bain’s heat at my back.
With my eyes taking in the sex club and Bain’s heat and now smell—oh my God, he smelled like leather and pine, mixed with blueberries of all things—and holy cow, was that his breath on my neck?