Neanderthal Marries Human (Knitting in the City #1.5)(40)
Author: Penny Reid

Dan muttered a sacrilegious curse. He then followed it with, “What are you even doing here, huh? What are you going to do? Send more guys to Chicago to get stabbed with knitting needles? Just let it go, Seamus.” He huffed in exasperation.

“I can’t,” Seamus said to his brother, but his eyes never left mine.

“You need to because Quinn is out; he’s been out for almost a decade, and everyone he cares about is untouchable.”

“That’s a load of shit, Dan.” Seamus turned to his brother. “He isn’t out. He’s been building an empire, a global f**king empire of contacts, of people to use. He is the master of using people. I think I’m an excellent delegator, but I’m nothing, nothing in comparison. Now he wants to wash his hands? Too bad! Hands that dirty don’t get clean.”

“Nothing we do is illegal.” Dan threw his hands up and yelled this to the ceiling.

“Yeah, except the part about knowing. Your guy here is an accessory to hundreds of felonies because he knows.”

I was bored. Seamus’s dramatics were boring.

“Get to the point.” Dan sliced his hand through the air. “What do you want?”

“I want assurance that your decade of squeaky clean information gathering isn’t going to come back and bite me in the ass, that’s what I want.”

Seamus wasn’t the first person I’d had this conversation with. The first question most of my private clients had after they found out I was offloading their account was, “What assurances do I have that you’re going to keep my secrets?”

What they didn’t know was that if the secret was bad enough, I’d already spilled it. People with reprehensible secrets weren’t used; they were exposed.

If the secret was drug distribution, human trafficking, or any other form of mass destruction or exploitation of an individual, that information had already been passed to the right people, people who could make it stop without my involvement being revealed.

I knew with certainty that my involvement would never be known because the right people—the people who ultimately made the bad guys pay—didn’t know I’d been the one to provide the evidence.

Luckily, very few of the private clients were of this type. Most of them were of the hiding funds offshore type, the tax evasion type, the recreational drug user type, or the cheating on their spouse type. Their secrets ranged from embarrassing to potentially life and career devastating, but very rarely—in my estimation—consummately evil.

“Seamus, you’re an idiot.” Dan was out of patience.

I glanced from one brother to the other. Physically, they were very similar, six foot, stocky, brown eyes. They could have been twins. My brother Des and I didn’t even look related. We were approximately the same height, but he was blond and took after my mother.

Des had been my hero; just like Seamus had been Dan’s hero. But whereas Des’s values of honor and courage were easy to admire, Seamus was a selfish ass**le.

Seamus glared at his brother. “Get off your f**king high horse….”

“That’s enough.” This conversation was going nowhere and it needed to end. “Seamus, I have nothing to offer you other than assurance that I am entirely disinterested in your existence.”

Seamus sniffed, scowled, but nodded. “Yeah. Okay…good.”

I waited a moment, allowed him to relax, get comfortable in the promise of my indifference.

Then I added, “Don’t give me a reason to become interested.”

***

Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse, more hell broke loose.

I walked into my parents’ house and found Jem.

Actually, I walked in on my dad slapping handcuffs on Jem. She was lying face down, her cheek pressed into the wood floor of the entranceway. He had one knee on her back, pinning her in place, though, giving credit to her crazy, she was doing her best to break free from his hold.

“You haven’t read me my rights, pig,” she shouted as she squirmed, thrashing her long legs.

“Fuck a duck, look who it is.” Dan stopped short just inside the door then glanced at my dad, “Sorry, Mr. Sullivan.”

My dad heaved a sigh; otherwise, he appeared to be completely composed.

“Where’s Janie?” I asked, craning my neck to check the living room.

“Not here,” my dad answered. “They left this afternoon, aren’t back yet.”

Worry surged in my gut, and I pulled out my phone. I turned away to call Stan.

“Boss.” He answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?”

“Beau Boutique.”

I frowned. “What the hell is that?”

“The hell if I know. I’ve never seen so much pink in my life. How many dresses does she hafta try on? And they’re all white! The ladies are drinking champagne outta glasses the size of my thumb. But don’t worry, Boss. They don’t have beer. I asked.”

“Jesus Christ, Stan….”

“I know, right?”

“No.” I hit my fist against the door jam. “You were supposed to bring them home.”

The line was silent for a moment then Stan whispered, “You want me to take champagne from your mom?”

I rolled my eyes, thought about telling him to get his ass back to the house, but then I imagined Janie and my mom’s reaction if I tried to dictate their comings and goings. It was better that my mom stay and drink her champagne. Under the circumstances, it was probably good the ladies were out.

“Fine. They have one hour. Text Dan the address.”

I ended the call and turned, found Dan standing behind me.

“Everything okay?”

I nodded, glaring at him. Then, because all hell was breaking loose and Dan was keeping his shit together, I decided now was the moment.

“Will you be my best man?”

He blinked at me. Then his eyes narrowed and he looked abruptly irritated. “Of course. Why the hell you even asking that shit? I’ve already talked to your mom about the tuxes.”

“Good.” I tried to frown, failed. “Let’s go.”

We walked back to the entranceway where my dad and my handcuffed future sister-in-law were still on the ground. I nodded once to my dad, communicating silently that Janie and Mom were fine, then shifted my attention to Jem. She was intermittently mumbling to herself then screaming. She had just tried to bite my dad’s arm, and was being giant a pain in the ass.

She wasn’t supposed to be in Boston. She wasn’t even supposed to be in the States. I’d dropped her in Rio with a hundred thousand dollars in cash and a new passport. She promised me that she would disappear. I didn’t really believe her promise, but I hoped she would never be my problem again.

I stepped into her line of sight, leaned against the wall, and rubbed my forehead. I was getting a headache. She looked tan, which—for her—meant very freckled. It also meant her eyes seemed lighter, not amber like Janie’s looked against her pale skin. Jem’s looked almost yellow.

“I just left Seamus,” I said.

Panic flickered behind her eyes. She quickly clamped down the flare of emotion and lifted her chin defiantly. “So? What do I care?”

“So, if you don’t stop kicking, biting, and pissing me off, then I’m going to call Seamus and ask him to come pick you up.”

Considering the fact that Seamus wanted Jem dead, I felt this threat would be most effective.

Her eyes fired shards of yellow glass at me. “You wouldn’t. Janie would never forgive you.”

“You know Janie. She’s very pragmatic.”

Jem huffed, growled, screwed her eyes shut, then stopped kicking. Her legs fell to the floor with a thud.

My dad glanced at me, cocked an eyebrow.

I considered which version of the truth to tell him and finally settled on, “Seamus is her man.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “And Dan is your second in command, and Janie is your woman….” His eyes narrowed slightly, and I could see that he was assembling an invisible relationship diagram. “Small world.”

I shrugged, decided to tell him later that I’d first noticed Janie in Chicago at the Fairbanks building because I thought she was Jem. I uncomfortably realized that, in a way, Jem was partially responsible for Janie’s and my relationship.

I dismissed the thought.

For the second time in less than as many hours, I found myself asking an individual on my list of top three people I’d like to have disappear the same question.

“Why are you here?”

Her eyes were still shut, but the muscle at her temple jumped when I spoke.

“Tell your douchebag doppelganger to uncuff me.”

“Nope,” my dad responded. “I’m arresting you for something. I just haven’t decided on the full list of charges yet. No need to uncuff you if I’m just going to do it again in five minutes.”

“I’m not going to jail!” she screamed, her eyes flying open.

“Why are you here?” I repeated, my fingers digging into the space between my eyebrows. I needed an ibuprofen.

“Listen….” She licked her lips, her eyes darting around the room. “I’ve been in town for two weeks, heard you were here with my sister. I need to speak to Janie and…I need money.”