Damaged Grump (Bad Chicago Bosses)

Look at her.

As tired and frazzled as she is, there’s pride in her voice, in the way she carries herself.

She was given an unexpected challenge today, and she rose to it. Now she can go home satisfied she did everything in her power to make things right.

It’s more than just her backbone that has me staring in admiration.

What must that feeling be like?

What must it be like to end each day knowing you did something good?

I only realize I’m gawking at her when she gives me a quizzical glance. Her eyes widen slightly as she cocks her head. I clear my throat, averting my eyes.

“So? Your report, then?” I demand.

“...yeah.” One word, and yet so pained. “You were right. I hate it. I hate that you were right. Not because it’s you, but because...” Her voice cracks. “Because he hurt her. Right in front of me. In front of Milah Holly, too. If he’s willing to do that in public... God, just what do you think he’s doing in private?”

“Nothing good,” I agree.

A grim anger hardens inside me, steely with resolve.

Turning my chair to face her, I lean my elbow on the arm, resting my jaw on my knuckles.

“Did you get anything I can use to help her?” I ask sharply.

“I don’t know. Not unless I’m sure what you’re going after.” Callie stares at her lap. Her eyes turn liquid when she’s troubled, from bay mist to mercury. “But I have an interview with her this week. Her idea, not mine. If we’re lucky, maybe she’ll feel open enough to talk to me, instead of being on the defensive.”

Am I staring in awe and trying like hell to hide it?

Yes.

I was more right about this girl than I knew.

About her innocence, her openness, the draw she has on people.

She really might be the skeleton key to locating Haydn’s weak points and destroying him entirely.

Until she lifts her head, looking at me with vulnerable, wondering eyes.

“Mr. Osprey—”

“You can call me Roland,” I say, cutting her off.

“Uh, Roland...”

She says my name like she needs something from me.

Like she needs me.

My cock aches with the world’s worst timing.

It hits me like a bolt, and I clench my jaw, forcing myself to keep up my mask.

“What is it?”

“If I’m going to help Easterly Ribbon, I need to know what I’m up against.” Gone is that tart, prideful cattiness, leaving a woman with a soft heart aching for a girl she wants to save. “I need to know what you know about this guy, even if it’s top secret. Just tell me what he’s done. And what you’re going to do to him if he’s exposed. Because, I mean, if you swat a fly with a sledgehammer—”

“Then everything around it gets destroyed,” I finish for her. “I know, Miss Landry. However, Vance Haydn is no small, defenseless fly. Far from it.”

I swivel my chair away.

Fuck, I have to.

It’s the sight of her so close, so open, so vulnerable, this delicate pixie balanced on my desk with her warmth and soft scent clouding my head.

My nostrils twitch as another wave of something distinctly primal tears through me.

“First, sit down,” I command, staring out at the Chicago skyline like a landscape for meditation. Anywhere but her.

“Huh? I’m not a dog,” she pouts at my back. “And I am sitting.”

“In the chair,” I growl.

I need her off my desk now.

I need her away from me with those legs, those lips, those frosted eyes I want to melt.

Not so close I can smell her, floral and creamy-soft and reaching down to stroke my inner beast on its muzzle.

After a few confused seconds, I hear her dress sliding against the polished wood of my desk, the click of her heels, and then the downright sulky scrape of chair legs from the captain’s chair. I forgot to remove it after her last official visit, as if part of me wanted to leave a spot for her.

I don’t dare dwell on what that means.

Instead, I focus on her question as I look over the city’s bristling lights, my fingers laced together.

“Let’s talk about bugs since you brought them up,” I say.

“Come again?” She blinks at me.

“Vance Haydn. He’s less dumpster fly and more like an Asian giant hornet. You do know the other name for those, don’t you?”

“Murder hornets, right?” she answers faintly.

“Correct.”

I sigh. What can I tell her without skinning myself alive?

There are so many things she doesn’t need to know, deep buried nightmares.

Personal ones.

Cruel ones she wouldn’t understand.

Some people are too soft to fathom justice delivered as vengeance.

Some people are too righteous to work out what’s right.

I turn my thoughts for a good, long while, then say slowly, “When a murder hornet invades a nest of bees, it decapitates them all. Even the ones it doesn’t eat. It can slaughter whole legions of small, vulnerable insects in an hour, without a care that without those bees, the whole ecosystem shuts down.”