“Neither was I, honey, neither was I. Alas, it seems I am not only capable, but very much afflicted with this love shit.”
“This love shit,” she laughed, but her smile fell fast, reading something on my face that she didn’t like. “It sucks, right? Love. It’s a real mother fucker.”
“That it is,” I agreed.
I hadn’t been able to think of much else since I woke up alone. Business calls and emails went unanswered. Or, more likely, redirected to Alvy to delegate for me. I didn’t go out. I didn’t even think about it.
I just lay in a hotel room waiting until it was an appropriate hour to drink, then doing so until I passed out. Only to have dreams plagued with images of her.
I needed this case figured out.
I needed answers.
I need to track her down and talk this out.
Confrontation was not in my nature. It was why I had people in each of my companies to handle the reprimanding and firing and all that other unsavory shit. It wasn’t for me. I’d gotten too much of it in my life already. I didn’t want to invite more when it wasn’t necessary.
Just this once, though, it seemed necessary. “Figure this out for me, Nia,” I demanded, hearing an edge to my voice that had never been there before. Desperation, perhaps? Or something as equally unsavory.
I knew she liked a challenge. She thrived on them. The impossible cases, the information no one else could track down. Once she had a case, she worked on it day and night, barely catching snippets of sleep until she finally found what she was looking for.
“Okay,” she agreed, nodding. “But I am going to hold off on naming my price.”
“You have an IOU without an expiration date, honey. Anything you want.”
“Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “You really are lovesick for her, huh?” she asked as I climbed out of the chair, buttoning my center jacket button.
“Sounds about right,” I agreed, heading out of her office.
Love, yes.
That explained the borderline obsessive thoughts of her, memories of her.
But sick, yes, as well.
It explained the aching in my chest, the pit in my stomach, the lack of motivation, the siren’s call of my bed.
I had to get some answers.
Even if they weren’t what I wanted to hear.
It was better to know.
That was new to me. I’d always been perfectly content accepting a half-truth or a full lie if it made life easier, if it let the party go on, if I got to keep the status quo of light and easy and carefree.
I never needed to know someone’s deep dark secrets, their motivations, their reasons for their decisions.
But I had to know Wasp’s reasons for blowing into my life and out again, pulling some vital part of me along with her, refusing to give it back.
I had to know.
Then things could go back to normal.
I could go back to normal.
At least that was what I was trying to tell myself.
It wasn’t a long wait, in the grand scheme of things. Nia’s obsessive need for answers produced more in two days than the rest of the team had managed in two weeks.
“Nia,” I greeted her as I opened my hotel room door, finding her looking puffy-eyed and paler than usual, exhaustion taking its toll.
“You are not going to believe this shit,” she told me, brushing past, charging into the dining room area, waving at the empty seat.
“You found something?” I asked, hope a skipping sensation in my chest.
“Something,” she scoffed, dropping a file on the desk. “Try everything.”
“What did you find?” I asked, my chest feeling tight, my stomach sloshing around ominously, and I hadn’t even gotten to the drinking part of the evening yet.
“Your girl, Wasp—you’re not going to believe where she’s from.”
“Where?”
“Right fucking here,” she said, eyes huge, waving an arm toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“She’s from Navesink Bank?” I asked, not ready to accept that kind of coincidence.
“Her daddy was a biker. The local Henchmen kind of biker. But a long time ago. He was killed, leaving behind a wife, two sons, and a little girl,” she told me, waiting for me to put the pieces together.
“Her brothers,” I started, remembering her comments about them being arms dealers. Like the local outlaw biker club did for a living. “They’re Henchmen.”
“They sure are. Meet Reeve and Cyrus,” Nia said, flipping open the file, grabbing a picture of two men with light hair and eyes, one with longer hair, the other with a distant, tortured look to him. “And this is Raven. Her best friend. She is married to a man named Roman who also lives here,” she told me, producing a picture of a beautiful black-haired woman and a man who looked vaguely familiar, like someone I’d brushed shoulders with in the past, but hadn’t made any sort of connection with.