“Oh fuck,” Brad breathes, immediately starting to pace. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.”
The rage is instant, it’s hot, and it’s going to erupt. “Get him here,” I demand, standing from my chair. “No, fuck it. I’ll go to him.” I round the desk and stalk toward the door, stopping when I reach Rose, taking her wet cheeks in my palms and kissing away her tears.
“What’s going on?” she asks, taking my wrists. “Do you know why?”
“Am I going to fix this?” I ask, resting my nose on hers. She nods, sniveling. “You bet your sweet arse I am.” I push my lips to her forehead and leave her, walking through the mansion with purpose. “Get me his office address,” I call back to whoever’s following me. “And my machine gun.”
“Danny.” Tank appears, looking a bit bewildered. And worried.
“She’s in my office,” I snap, my pace not faltering, my purpose unwavering. “Why didn’t you know that?”
“I did know that.”
I stop in my tracks, and all the men behind me grind to a halt too. So why the fuck is he looking so worried? “I’m in the middle of something here, Tank.”
“It’s important.”
Important? “As in, it concerns my important wife?”
He nods, his eyes flicking to the men behind me, prompting me to turn too. They’re all silent, uncomfortable, and I realize that whatever has Tank looking worried isn’t because he briefly misplaced my wife.
“I’ll meet you at the cars,” I say and, of course, there’s no contesting. They all file past, Brad giving me a look to suggest I should keep my cool no matter what I’m about to hear. Likely. James comes out of my office with a machine gun in each hand, looking as murderous as I feel. “She still in there?” I ask him.
“Opening a bottle of vodka,” he says, handing me one of the guns.
It’s eight o-fucking-clock.
“I’ve called Beau down,” he adds as he walks on, obviously reading my mind.
“Thanks.” I give Tank my attention again. “Talk.”
“She’s throwing up. All the time.”
I back up, my head tilting, my mind refreshing the memory of her in the shower last night circling her tummy, looking mildly uncomfortable. “Since when?”
“That I know of? Yesterday morning.”
“Why am I only finding this out now?”
“You were a bit sidetracked yesterday.”
When we took a call from The Bear and left the mansion like missiles. “Does she know you know?”
“She warned me not to tell you.”
“Why?” I ask like a dick, as if Tank might know the answer. Of course, he doesn’t. For fuck’s sake. I slap his beefy bicep. “Good man.” I leave him and burst into my office, finding Rose on the couch with the vodka in her hand. I narrow my eyes. “When I get back, we’re going to have a little chat.”
“What about?”
“About your vomiting episodes.”
Her jaw hits her lap. “He told you?”
“Yes, he told me. Because he works for me, Rose. Me!” I point the machine gun at her, this situation doing my other situation no favors. Why is she throwing up? Is she ill? Obviously, I’m thinking the worst, and that only serves to bring my already terrible mood down to the gutter. “Be here when I get back.” I turn and leave, slamming the door behind me.
“Where the fuck do you think I’ll go?” she yells.
I snarl my way down the corridor. “Watch her,” I order Tank as I pass, seeing Beau hurrying out of the kitchen.
She looks at me with the machine gun in my hand, her face a picture of disbelief, and she quickly backs up to the kitchen, pulling the door closed. I couldn’t give a fuck if her father’s here. “Did you know she’s been throwing up?” I ask, hostile and threatening.
She recoils, a filthy look passing over her pretty face. “Who the fuck are you talking to?”
“You! Did you know?”
“Calm the hell down,” she shouts, just as James walks back through the door, obviously wondering what the commotion is all about.
“What’s going on?” he asks, eyes swaying from me to Beau.
“He’s being a prick,” she snaps. “Do I know what?”
My jaw rolls, but I do my best to rein in my temper. “That Rose is puking her guts up,” I say calmly, feeling anything but.
Beau pulls up, thinking. “I did think she looked a bit pale yesterday.”
“She did?” She did. Why didn’t I pay more attention to that? I recoil at my own thought. Am I a terrible husband?
“Yeah,” James says, and I blink, wondering if I asked that out loud. “She disappeared into the bathroom pretty sharpish after we’d found Lawrence.”
I am a terrible husband. And that’s the fault of all the criminal bastards out there who are monopolizing my attention. I’ll kill every single one of them. Even more slowly than I’d planned.
“Is she still in your office?” Beau asks, and I nod. “Where are you going?” She moves around me.