“I CAN WAIT outside,” Strat said when he turned off the engine after parking much later that night.
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Imogen said. “Both of your children live here.”
“Yeah?” Strat said. “So does the guy you’re sleeping with.”
“Uh huh, he owns the building. Where else should he sleep?”
“Anywhere but next to you.”
Imogen twisted to look over the shoulder of her chair. “Jagg’s inside, my brother too. We’ll be fine.”
“I’m not afraid of Evander Manzani,” she said, freeing her seatbelt. “If you want to stay out here, Strat, stay out here… Though if whoever’s out there is taking potshots at patriarchs…”
“Shit,” Strat muttered, loosening his seatbelt.
“You’ll come in for your sake, but not for mine?” Imogen wasn’t amused. “Want me to ask Jagg to protect you?”
“No,” Strat said and got out to yank open the back door for her. “You might want to protect him from me.”
“Again,” Imogen said, righting the strap of her purse on her shoulder. “You already punched him in the face.”
“No one said I was done.”
Strat put an arm around her, pulling her close as they crossed the black tarmac that made up the backlot of Jagg’s Autos. Jagg owned the place and lived there with his best friend James Stratford, also known as Ford, Strat’s son, Imogen’s brother.
Jagg and Imogen getting together had been a surprise to everyone. Lachlan took it hard too. He didn’t say that, but she knew her brother. Love came in the strangest, sometimes most unexpected, packages. She didn’t like to see her brother hurt but couldn’t blame Imogen for falling in love with her brother’s best friend.
Strat took it so bad because he raised Jagg like another son. She didn’t know the latter’s family situation, but Jagg lived with Strat growing up, so it couldn’t have been great. That elder loved the boy as though he was his own.
Imogen opened the side door and led them into an office, behind the counter and through another door into a hallway.
She heard a TV before she saw what was in the next room. A living room, breakroom maybe, a large space with a kitchen in the corner, couches and armchairs in the opposite one, a pool table by the door.
The two seated guys stood up. Imogen went to Jagg and put an arm around him as he cupped her face. The other was Ford. She knew him. But even if she hadn’t, the resemblance to Strat would’ve made the ID easy.
“I’m sorry about the alderman,” Ford said. “About your loss.”
“Thanks,” she said, having lost count of how many times she’d heard those words that day.
“Strat,” Jagg said, holding Imogen against his side.
“We’re not okay,” Strat was quite firm in that. “But you keep my little girl safe.”
“Always.”
“It’s on you now, Dunn. All on you.”
“I get it.”
“He’s always looked out for me,” Imogen said and something of a saucy smile curved her lips. “Gone to all kinds of lengths to keep me, and my virtue, safe.”
Jagg’s hand dropped from her shoulder; it looked suspiciously like it landed on her ass. “You think that’s helping?” he asked, crouching to kiss the top of her head.
“I think I want to go to a club this Friday.”
“We’ve got our own private club.”
The couple shared a smile that hid few secrets. Transfixed, it was something to see love right there, in front of her, playing out in real time. Imogen was a good person. She didn’t love Lachlan like he wanted her to love him. Someday, her brother would find the love he deserved. There was more hope for him than her.
“This better be worth it,” Strat said, directing her toward a stool at the kitchen island.
“It’s a crapshoot with Evander,” she mumbled, keeping their conversation discreet.
“The guy’s not the most serious person in the world. You think he’ll take this serious?”
“I think he’ll like me asking for help.”
“And if he brings up Ire?”
She swallowed, sliding onto the stool, dumping her purse. “Then we’re all fucked, aren’t we?”
“Do you know what happened?” Ford asked. “You got any details?”
Jagg and Imogen were already sharing the couch under the TV, though they could’ve shared the smallest armchair for all the space they left between them.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Strat said to his son, probably blocking out the couple behind him. “We know his housekeeper found him midday.”
“Why so late?” Ford asked, sitting in the armchair perpendicular to Jagg and Imogen. “When was he last seen?”
“I know he talked to my brother late last night,” she said. “I don’t know who else might have seen him.”
Ford leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That’s usually the first thing the police zero in on.”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning back to put an arm around Strat’s waist.
He rested his arm over her shoulders. It was nice to have someone to lean on. A strong support who didn’t doubt or deny her.
“We’re not doing this by the book,” Strat said.
Ford scoffed out a laugh. “Your dad’s Superintendent, he doesn’t have answers?”
“Maybe he does, but he won’t give them to me.”
“And your brother—”
“I won’t put him in that position,” she said, having thought about calling Lachlan on and off since they’d left her place. “Someone knows something.”
“They say the devil’s in the details,” Jagg said. “The more you know about what was going on in his life—”
“This came from the top. It didn’t happen on the street. He didn’t stop a mugging or step out in front of a car.” She braced for Imogen’s reaction, but her friend offered an encouraging smile. Friend? Were they friends? “It happened in his home. He has an alarm. A security man who stays in the building all night. But he wasn’t found until lunchtime. That means no one heard anything. Nothing was off.” She glanced up at Strat. “There’s a lot of push and pull in the council these days.”
“He was suspicious.”
“He was,” she said.
Evander wanted rid of his father. And his father wanted rid of her. Or he had. Don Silvio Manzani had ordered the attack on her. Appealing to the Manzanis for information was dangerous. Evander was working with Connel in the shadows, feeding him information. While Manzani Senior was trying to blow up the Harvest deal that would see McDade territory expand right on Manzani’s border.
No one had paid off her grandfather. At least, Connel hadn’t… not the last time they’d talked about it anyway. Maybe things had changed since. Except her grandfather had been suspicious and asking questions.
Had asking those questions got him killed?
For one glimmer of a second, she’d speculated her father may have been aware of the planned attack on her. But she’d shrugged that off, incapable of believing a man so duty bound would do something so heinous.
But others were on the take. Others she’d seen with Connel. Divides were prominent, lines drawn. For those in on it, this was a tale of two sides. Manzani and McDade. For those not in on it, for the decent, honest people unwilling to take a bribe, there were two sides too. Right and wrong. Her grandfather was an advocate for the first. Every time. Maybe getting too close, passing judgment, finally caused his demise.
An abrupt buzzer startled her.
Ford got to his feet. “I’ll get him.”
“You should wait next door,” Jagg said, squeezing Imogen as he kissed her head.
“Why?” she asked, getting up as Jagg did. “No! I thought this was my home.”
“It is your home, Genny. Which is why I want you safe here.”
“He’s right,” Strat said, though it sounded like it pained him. “Evander Manzani is an asshole.”
“I’ve met him before, Dad,” Imogen sneered.
Fury lit Strat as his attention flew to Jagg. “What the fuck are you doing letting her around pissheads like that fucker?”
“I make my own choices,” Imogen said. “I don’t see either of you trying to chase Sersha out of here.”
“He’s obsessed with her,” Jagg and Strat said in unison.
“Shouldn’t that be more reason to—”
The door opened and the debate ceased. Evander came strolling in, smiling, absorbing the scene.
Ford appeared behind him and closed the door. “He’s got three guys in the hall.”
“Which means nothing to Dunn,” Evander said, coming her way. “He’s faced rougher odds.” He picked up her hand to kiss her knuckles. “I’m sorry for your loss, Princess.”
Her instinct was always to pull away from Evander when he made physical contact. This time, she had to resist the urge. If she needed his help, she had to tolerate his advances… to a point.
“I want to know who did it,” she said, plain as day, just like that.
Beating around the bush got no one anywhere fast.
As Evander straightened, he checked every other face in the room. “And you came to me,” he said. “I’m honored.”
“I’m exploring a lot of avenues. You’re one of them.”
“And if I come up with the goods?”
“You don’t seem shocked,” Imogen said. “That he’s dead or that Sersha’s asking.”
“Sersha and me go way back,” he said, turning to peruse Imogen’s figure. “Every time you’re stunning.”
“Focus, Evander,” Sersha snapped, trying to save Imogen from the leering she knew only too well. “What do you know?”
“You’ve got nothing to be jealous about,” Evander said, coming in closer, putting himself between her and Strat. “You know I’m all yours. Just say the word.”
“What do you know, Evander?”
He inhaled. “Not much. But I can find out… After we talk.” That piqued her interest, especially when she read the gravity in his. “Alone. Outside.”
“Not outside,” Strat said. “In here. We’ll give you the room.”
Outside could lead to kidnap and torture and God knew what. Did she think Evander would do that to her? No. But she would be the first to admit she didn’t always make the best choices.
None of the others argued; they filtered out while Strat held the door for them. They made eye contact. He’d be right outside. Strat wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He cared about her… And knew more about her relationship with Connel than anyone else.
“What do you want, Evander?” she asked.
“I’d think that was obvious by now,” he said, his hands sliding onto her hips. “You.”