While my plan had been to get to New York and quickly locate Ray and threaten him to within an inch of his life, it had all gone to shit the moment I’d gotten off the plane and my phone had rung. I’d tasked our IT girl, Daisy, with trying to locate Ray since he’d gone off the grid after leaving Seattle. His phone had re-emerged briefly in New York the day before, but had gone silent again shortly thereafter, presumably so that it couldn’t be tracked. But it had been enough information for me to get on the plane and when Daisy had called me to tell me she’d found the guy, it hadn’t been at his apartment or at a casino like I’d expected. Nope, she’d tracked him down only because his name had popped up on a police report.
It had turned out that Ray hadn’t just borrowed money from the two loan sharks who’d been harassing Tristan. No, he’d started playing with the big boys, but when his bill had come due, he’d paid for it with his life. The man’s body had been found near a desolate underpass in New Jersey. There’d been a bullet in each knee, each elbow and finally one to the back of the head. I’d had no doubt the man had probably tried to sell out his son to whatever guys he’d fucked over this time, but clearly they hadn’t taken the bait. Still, I’d told Phoenix and Cain to be on the lookout and to expect to be shadowing Tristan and Brennan for the foreseeable future. The two loan sharks I’d taken care of had left Seattle a few hours after my visit, but since they’d driven instead of flown and I’d had the sense to put a tracking device on their car at the motel, I knew they hadn’t even made it out of Seattle when Ray had been murdered.
I hadn’t told Tristan what had happened yet and I wasn’t sure how he’d react. I wasn’t as concerned that he’d be devastated by the loss because I doubted he loved the man; it was more that he would mourn anyone who’d come to that kind of end. It was just in his nature.
The discovery meant I’d ended up staying in New York longer than I’d planned and I was itching to get back to Seattle for reasons I wasn’t ready to admit to. But that was only part of the truth, because otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting at the coffee shop waiting for the one man I hoped could give me some answers to questions I was afraid to ask.
I glanced at my watch for what had to be the tenth time in as many minutes. When I finally saw the man I’d been waiting for round the corner, I wondered what the hell I’d been thinking.
I’d worked with Mace Calhoun on several occasions when he’d still been a member of Ronan’s group. He’d left the group almost six months earlier after he’d fallen for the young man he’d been assigned to take out for crimes that it had turned out had been fabricated by one of our own men. But it wasn’t just the young artist, Jonas Davenport, who Mace had fallen for. No, he’d become involved with a second man, Cole Bridgerton, and from what I knew, the three men had pursued a relationship together.
I’d lit on the idea of talking to Mace on my way to New York, but now I was wondering if I hadn’t made a mistake.
“Memphis,” Mace said as he neared the table and held out his hand. I stood and shook his hand and then stiffened when he leaned in to hug me and clap me on the back. “Good to see you,” he said as he took a seat.
I slid the coffee I’d gotten for him across the table. “Cinnamon is in it already,” I murmured.
“Thanks,” he said with a smile and then he was taking a sip. He reminded me of Ronan, because the Mace before me looked nothing like the cold, emotionless man I’d met two years earlier when we’d worked our first assignment together. If I hadn’t been sure the man was in love, I knew it without a doubt now.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Mace said as he slid a hand through his thick head of dirty-blond hair.
I was too distracted by the real purpose of our little chat to really understand what he was saying and he must have noticed my perplexed look because he said, “Ronan says you’re leading the team now.”
“Oh, yeah,” I managed to say.
“And I understand Ronan and Seth’s wedding was beautiful,” Mace continued and I had no doubt it was to fill the dead air between us since I was struggling to find my voice. Maybe I didn’t want answers to my questions…maybe it would mean I couldn’t go back to what was waiting for me in Seattle.