Rock Chick 08 Revolution (64 page)

He held my eyes.

Then he nodded.

“Baby.” We heard, and I let Smithie go in order to turn around.

I saw LaTeesha rushing in.

I got out of her way, and as she helped Smithie off the floor, I gave
them their privacy.

Mace was at the top of the stairs.

When I looked at him, for once, he wasn’t looking broody. His eyes were
warm and his face was soft.

It was a good look for him. Then again, for Mace, they all were.

“Good job,” he murmured.

“Thanks,” I murmured back and turned to the steps.

I was halfway down when he called quietly, “No, Ally.”

I turned back and looked up at him.

“All of it,” he said. He pointed at the office. “In there.” He pointed
toward the club. “And out there.”

Fuck, but that felt great.

I didn’t say that.

I nodded and repeated, “Thanks, Mace.”

He nodded back.

I went back to descending the stairs.

At the bottom were Darius, Lee and Ren.

 
I looked at Lee. “Am I done?”

“Yeah, Ally,” Lee answered softly.

His eyes were warm and his face was soft, too.

I gave him a chin lift. He gave Ren a look.

I didn’t try to decipher that look. I just turned to my man and he didn’t
make me say a word.

He just grabbed my hand and led me out the door.

* * * * *

We were in bed.

I had my face in Ren’s neck, my legs tangled with his.

He had an arm wrapped around me and he’d pulled up my nightie. He was
drawing lazy patterns on the skin above my ass. The fingers of his other hand
were laced with mine and he was holding them over his heart.

He hadn’t made a move on me. I didn’t make one on him. We just both got
ready for bed silently and then he drew me into him and held me close.

I suspected he did this because he knew it would happen.

And it did.

Dragging his hand with mine up to my face, I pressed them against my
lips as the sob ripped its path up my throat and out and my body bucked
violently.

Ren let my hand go and turned into me, both his arms closing around me
and holding tight.

I cried into his throat and I did it a long time.

When my sobbing started to die out, Ren pulled me even closer, giving
me a squeeze and whispering, “Love you, baby.”

That was it. No coddling. No offers to talk it out. No pressure.
Nothing. He let me be at the same time he gave me exactly what I needed.

“Love you too, Ren,” I whispered back.

And I did.

More and more every day.

And right there in that bed with Ren was the reason.

Precisely.

Because when I had to be a badass all day and cases got tough and I
came home, or when life just sucked, or when life was awesome and going along
fine, I knew this was what Ren Zano would give me.

Always.

Exactly what I needed.

Chapter Thirty-One

On My Team

Late morning the next day, I stood
in my newly painted, newly carpeted office space—more accurately, in
my
soon-to-be office—and I looked out
the window at the view.

Downtown. Mostly other tall
buildings. But around the corner of the one across the street, I could see the
mountains.

Righteous view.

Slowly, I turned my head and took
it all in. In my office, there was a box containing a brand new computer. There
were two more, one in Daisy’s space, one in the extra office. There was also a
printer box, scanner box and a fax machine box as well as boxes holding routers
and other IT shit in Daisy’s space.

There was a copy machine in the
conference room.

And
The Majestic
was already on the wall. Ralphie and Buddy had come in
and hung it that weekend.

The furniture was on order and
would be delivered on Wednesday.

Brody was showing on Wednesday
night to set up the network.

In other words, Daisy had been
busy.

And Ava had phoned that day and
said she’d emailed five different logos to look at. It had been hard to choose,
but I’d picked one that was classy and professional and had more blacks and
grays than the hot pink, just so it wouldn’t be too girlie.

Further, Mr. Kumar had stopped by
Fortnum’s that morning to give me the “kitty” he’d collected from his neighbors.
It wasn’t a lot, but since Tex, Hector nor Mace would accept payment, it
worked.

This meant I’d closed and been paid
for my first case.

And I was standing in my offices
that would be furnished and operational by Thursday.

It had happened.

Me. Ally Nightingale was in the
business.

I smiled.

The door opened and Lee appeared.

My smile died and I drew in breath.

Indy had come into Fortnum’s
forty-five minutes ago, saying she was over the worst of it and was going to
give work a try. Five minutes after that, Lee had called asking to meet me at
my offices.

I wasn’t apprehensive. I knew I’d
passed the Lee Tests, all of them. He wouldn’t have involved me, given me a
choice (and dangerous) assignment or a soft look before I left last night if I
hadn’t.

I just didn’t know what he was
going to do with that.

I didn’t move from my place at the
window as he walked in, eyes on me, and stopped in the doorway.

He leaned against the jamb.

“Nice space,” he remarked, even
though he barely looked at it.

“Yep,” I replied because it sure
the fuck was.

Then he announced, “Luke fell last
night.”

Hunh?

I felt my brows draw together.
“Luke fell?”

“If he was even on the fence,” he
went on.

“Lee, you’ve lost me,” I told him.

His eyes grew intent when he said,
“Thinks you’re the shit, Ally.”

That was when I got it.

Luke was backing my play.

This meant I had them all, except
Monty. And Jack and Matt hadn’t weighed in yet.

Okay, I had a majority.

That feeling hit me again, the
fucking good one.

But I just nodded and said, “That’s
great.”

“It was the right decision to come
to me with that note,” Lee stated.

I didn’t reply because I already
knew that.

Lee kept going.

“I gotta say, that shocked the shit
outta me. But in a good way.”

“You’ve seen I’m good at what I
do,” I reminded him. “And you know to be good at it, you gotta be smart.”

“You got that goin’ for you.”

I drew in a breath at the
compliment.

Lee again spoke.

And when he did, he rocked my
world.

“I want you on my team so I can
teach you and sign off on your hours.”

Oh my God!

This time I sucked in a breath.

Then it hit me.

I looked around the space and back
to him. “Lee, I—”

He cut me off. “Contract, Ally. You
take your own cases. Once I assess your skillset, you contract with me when I need
your skills or when I need a woman. One of my boys works your cases with you so
they can validate your hours for the Licensing Board and to expand your
abilities. I’ll back Shirleen’s play and punt cases to you that you’ll excel
at. But it would be a mistake for us to work together on a day to day basis.
The men and I work well together, but that’s because we have years workin’
together. We used to butt heads and frequently. Now, we know each other’s
boundaries. You and me, we’ll likely butt heads unless we give it time to get
used to each other. I’d like to avoid that.”

I could not believe this.

I was loving it, but I couldn’t
believe it

“I would too,” I agreed instead of
doing a war whoop of joy.

“So no day to day. But contract
will work.”

“Yeah,” I replied quietly.

“You were excellent last night,
honey,” he stated, just as quietly.

My eyes started burning.

“I’ll talk to Dad,” he continued.
“Mom’s already on board. She knows she didn’t raise a weak woman and she knows
you’re all Nightingale.”

Oh shit. It was coming.

I looked to my feet.

“Ally,” he called.

I deep-breathed and looked to Lee.

“There are a million other things
I’d want for you. It took me a while and Hank to lay it out, but the thing I
should want most is what you want. So now I’m tellin’ you, like yesterday with
that note, don’t ever doubt it, anytime you need me, I’m there.”

He always was.

Always.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I know,” he replied.

I clenched my teeth to fight
crying.

Lee wasn’t done rocking my world.

“After you left yesterday
afternoon, Eddie got in my face.”

Oh man.

“We had words,” he carried on. “But
I heard him and I heard you. Now I’m askin’ you to back off Darius.”

Oh no.

Hell
no.

He wasn’t buttering me up with flattery,
acceptance and promises to work with the Hot Bunch Dream Team and then socking
this shit to me.

I turned fully to him. “Lee. No
way.”

He lifted a hand and dropped it,
shaking his head. “Eddie and I are gonna talk to Malia. See if she’s down for a
possible approach from Darius. We’ll make sure she knows it’s only possible.
But if she’s not, and gives indication she never will be, Eddie and me do not
want this brought up to him. He’ll fight it, but he also might hope. If there’s
no hope, I don’t want to set him up to feel that pain.”

That made sense.

“Okay, I’ll give you and Eddie
time,” I agreed and jotted a call to Duke to give him a status report on my
list of things to do that day.

“We make a miracle happen and talk
Darius around, we pull in Jules. She knows the way to go about this shit and
she can ease this for all three of them.”

That was such a brilliant idea I
wished I’d thought of it myself.

“Right,” I said.

“And until all that’s in motion,
Indy, Mom, Dad, Tom, Shirleen, no one knows about this. Darius is not gonna
take kindly to us gettin’ in his shit. He needs fallback positions. If he picks
someone in our crew, you out of his picture, it’ll be Indy or Shirleen.”

I nodded.

“You down with that?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

That was when Lee nodded.

“This is the right thing to do,” I
told him.

“It always has been,” he told me.

He was right about that, and
suddenly I realized this had been weighing on him, and Eddie, and it had been
doing it heavily.

For seventeen years.

Which sucked.

He looked away and I saw his jaw
tighten before he looked back at me.

“Eddie and me, both of us, when he
got into that shit, we almost lost him, Ally. I was in the Army when he got dug
in deep with Leon so I
wasn’t around to get involved. Eddie was and did. Hank was and did. When I was
around, I did. But there was no turning back for him, he was that angry. His
mind fucked, he made misguided decisions, not cluein’ into the fact that the
man who was usin’ him was the man who deserved his anger. If he can hold anger
that deep and extreme that it blinds him to the right path, you need to be
prepared for what will come of this.”

“I am,” I assured him.

Lee studied me a moment and it felt
like he was assessing the validity of my statement.

I would find he wasn’t when he
admitted, “I’m not.”

“That right there,” I declared
instantly. “That loyalty to Darius, loyalty that would make
you,
the strongest most fearless man I
know, shy away from doing what’s right in order not to lose your friend, that’s
what Liam needs to know is in his father.”

I muscle jumped in his jaw before
he jerked up his chin.

Badass for
You’re right.

I fought my smile.

Time to move on, though not to more
pleasant things.

“I have a stalker,” I announced.

Immediately Lee straightened away
from the jamb.

“What the fuck?” he whispered
scarily.

“Not an old client or anyone
affected by my work. An old neighbor. Don’t know him. Never met him. He was
just around. And he takes pictures of me.”

“Are you shittin’ me?” he asked.

I wished I was.

I shook my head and said, “Ren
clocked him and looked into it. Found the pictures at his pad. He’s not happy.
As in Grade A, bona fide
pissed
. He’s
protective of me and has made it clear he’s leading this charge, but he wants
you invol—”

I stopped talking because Lee
turned on his boot and stalked to the door.

Well, I guessed Ren was going to
have an unexpected guest.

And that meant Dawn was going to
come face to face with the man she’d wanted for her own (though she’d had no
shot) who chewed her ass out and fired her.

I really wanted to go watch that,
but with the way Lee moved, I figured I already missed it.

It then hit me that Dawn likely
didn’t know that Lee knocked Indy up.

And she would
hate
hearing that news.

I also scratched it on my to-do
list to inform her of that and with Lee’s meeting done (and entirely
satisfactorily, in a
big
way), I had
another item on my agenda while at that location.

Actually two. The first one, not so
easy. The second one, talking Ren into having sex on his desk; probably not
hard.

So I had Torture Dawn Time.

Since I wanted to get to the second
one, as well as ruin Dawn’s day, I hauled my ass across the office so I could
see to the first one.

I hit the hall, moved across it and
entered Ren’s office.

Dawn looked a little freaked, which
made me smile and greet enthusiastically, “Hi, Dawn.”

She stopped looking freaked and
glared at me for a nanosecond before her mask slipped into place.

“Hey, Ally,” she replied,
sugar-sweet.

I stopped at her desk. “Did you see
Lee?”

Her nostrils flared but she answered,
still in her sweet voice, “Yes. He’s in with Ren.”

“Cool,” I stated. “Did he tell you
the good news?”

“No,” she forced out, the sweet
faltering.

“Indy’s expecting. How awesome is
that?” I asked.

“Brilliant news.” She was now
sounding strangled.

“So, let me see,” I said, lifting
my hand and counting it off. “Jules had Max, but I figure they’re due to start
trying again.” I leaned toward her and smiled huge. “Not that they aren’t
trying—just that they aren’t
trying,
if you get what I mean.”

She stared at me, lips thin.

She got what I meant.

I added another finger. “Jet’s due
in a few months. Indy’s knocked up. Ava and Luke got married a little over a
week ago, and the way they go at it, who knows when she’s gonna have a baby on board.
Mace and Stella aren’t married yet, but she’s a rock ‘n’ roll goddess. They
could decide to start before they’re legal.” I dropped my hands. “All this
happy, I’m beginning to feel maternal. Maybe I’ll talk to Ren about trying. Do
you think it’s too soon for us?” I queried chattily.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replied
coldly, sweet gone, pure Dawn all I could hear and see.

“No,” I shook my head, inwardly
giggling my ass off. “I want him all to myself for a while.” I leaned into her
again and dropped my voice, “Seeing as there’s
so much
to enjoy. You with me?”

Her head made a weird jerk that I
decided to take as
Yes.

“Anyway,” I started to move away.
“Thanks for the chat.”

I hit the hall and Dawn said
nothing.

I
so
could not
wait
to
invite the girls over for Dawn Torture Sessions. My office was perfectly
located for hitting Dawn with Rock Chick verbal drive-bys.

On this thought, I
really
hoped my next meeting would go
well, and I’d already
really
been
hoping it would.

There were a number of doors off
the hall, the Zano offices way bigger than mine, and I had to guess which one
was his.

But I knew he was in because I saw
his Caddy in the parking garage.

I made my choice, tapped on a
closed door, heard an impatient, “What?” and found I chose right.

I opened the door and stuck my head
in. “Hey, Mr. Zano. Got a second?”

He’d looked up from his desk
looking ornery when I’d opened the door, but the minute he saw me his face was
wreathed in smiles.

“Ally,” he called, getting up and
throwing his arms out. “A pleasant surprise. Of course I have a second for
you.”

I entered, closed the door and
turned back only to have Vito on me, hands firm on my biceps. I made a mental
note that the old guy could move when he pulled me in, kissed one cheek, then
the next, then pushed me back and jiggled me.

“And you don’t call me Mr. Zano.
Uncle Vito!” he declared.

“Right,” I murmured.

He let me go with one hand and
pulled me deeper in the office with the other. “Now,
why
do I have this pleasure?”

“I was just across the hall
checking out the progress on my offices and thought I’d pop by.”

Lie.

It was totally planned.

I then stopped lying. “Ren’s busy
so I needed to wait and I didn’t want to wait in reception. Dawn…” I trailed
off as we stopped by one of the chairs in front of his desk and I gave him a
look.

“Ah, Dawn,” he mumbled, indicating
a chair with his hand so I sat. He moved around the desk and continued talking.
“Not hard to look at.” He sat behind his desk and leveled his eyes on me. “But
sometimes something pretty on the outside can hide…” he paused and stated
extremely diplomatically, “
interesting
things on the inside.”

He had that right.

And he had Dawn’s number.

Then again, no one would mistake
Vito Zano for dumb.

“I hope you don’t mind me
interrupting you,” I said, and he again threw out a hand.

“Not at all. I’ve been wantin’ to
hear how your meetin’ went with Father Paolo.”

Hmm.

“I haven’t spoken with him yet
Mist… uh, Uncle Vito.”

He ticked a finger back and forth
at me. “Don’t delay,
cara.
Catholic
classes last a year.”

They did?

A whole year?

Yikes!

“I’ve been kinda busy,” I told him.

He nodded and watched me closely.
“The business at Smithie’s.” He shook his head. “I heard. Very disturbing.”

He had that right, too.

“It’s done now. Time to heal,” I
shared.

“I would say that last part would
be the part you and your Rock Chicks would be involved in. Not the…” another
meaningful pause, “other.”

He knew I was stripping.

“You do what you have to do to get
the job done,” I informed him

His eyes narrowed and he leaned
toward me, but I got there before him and leaned toward him, putting my hand on
his desk.

“Don’t, Uncle Vito. With respect,
I’ve worked this out with Ren and my family. I understand and appreciate your
concern, but they’ve come around, and although that’s important to me, bottom
line, it’s my job, my choice. And, no offense, truth be told, what you need to
focus on is not me or what’s happening with Ren and me or Catholic classes.
It’s doing everything in your power not to lose your son.”

I heard his swift intake of breath
and caught the flash of pain in his eyes he couldn’t quite keep hidden before
his expression turned scary.

But I was a Nightingale. This
didn’t affect me.

So I kept going.

“You’re hurting him with this. He’s
torn between loyalty to you, loyalty to his mother and where he’s at in his
soul. You’re the only father he’s ever known. Are you really okay with
attempting to bend him to your will? Even understanding his will was forged
through your own blood, so you know that won’t ever happen? Thus forcing him to
make decisions that will hurt people he loves?”

“This is not your business, Ally,”
he clipped, eyes cold.

“Ren is absolutely my business,
Uncle Vito,” I returned.

We went into staredown.

I didn’t back down.

He didn’t either.

This meant our tense silence lasted
a long time.

Surprisingly, Vito broke it.

“I’ll not discuss this with you,”
he stated.

“I’m okay with that,” I replied.
“Just as long as I know you heard me.”

He scowled at me and said nothing.

He heard me.

“I’m gonna see if Ren’s free,” I
said.

“You do that.”

Meeting done, and by the look on
his face, I didn’t make a friend.

God.

Vito.

Stubborn.

I nodded and got up.

But once up, I looked down at him
and fired my parting shot.

“I love him. He’s my world. So
obviously I want him to be happy. This dissension is making him unhappy. I also
want to work across the hall from him so we can carpool. He wants that, too.
And I know you want him to be happy. There is no way the man who looked after
Ren and his family, the man who gave a father to a fatherless son, the man who
stepped up for Ava and Sadie, would hurt someone he cared about. Not that
deeply. And it would be disappointing to me, devastating to the man I love, to
learn that’s not true.”

On that, I took off.

But I’d seen his head jerk and I
hoped I got in there.

I closed the door behind me and
headed to Ren’s office, wanting Lee to be gone. Not because I didn’t love my
big bro, but because I didn’t want to delay in breaking in Ren’s desk.

I didn’t stop at Ren’s door because
I heard a voice in reception. It was Dom’s, and he sounded angry.

I was Ally. Always curious. So I
moved stealthily toward the mouth of the hall, but stopped when I could hear
and not be seen.

“…IT guys and they found that
shit,” Dom bit out.

“I—” Dawn started.

“Fuck no,” Dom cut her off. “That’s
your written warning. From now on, company email only. Not that bullshit you
been writing to your girls. That’s fucked.”

I grinned.

Ren had had Dom check her emails.

And I’d been right. She was catting
with her girls on company time.

Now she was getting a written
warning.

This was
so totally
a happy day.

“And, just sayin’,” Dom continued.
“That fucked up shit you been tellin’ your girls about what’s gonna go down
between you and me, get that shit outta your head. I’m married. I got a wife I
love and a kid I also love. I’m not gonna do jack to fuck with that. Not with
you. Not with anybody. And, babe, just sayin’, take a good look at my wife the
next time she comes in. I know you think your shit don’t stink, but you don’t
hold a candle to her.”

Suddenly I decided I liked Dom.

Unfortunately done tearing Dawn a
new one, he stalked into the hall and scowled at me.

“That was righteous,” I whispered
when he got close.

“That bitch is a bitch,” he
replied, not in a whisper.

I couldn’t argue that.

Dom continued stalking down the
hall.

For (hopefully) future reference of
the lay of the land at Zano Holdings, I made note of which office he went into.

Then I went to Ren’s, knocked and
entered when he called, “Yeah?”

“Hey,” I greeted, closing the door behind
me, noting Lee wasn’t there, so no delays to nookie.

“Hey,” he replied, getting up and
making to move around the desk.

“You don’t have to get up, babe,” I
told him, moving to him.

We met up. He lifted a hand to cup
my jaw and tip my head back before he bent to give me a quick kiss.

When he lifted his head he said,
“Yeah, I do.”

Stand up kissing with Ren. Only
second best to lying down kissing with Ren.

So I agreed, “Yeah, you do.”

He slid his arms around me. “How’s
the office?”

“Operational come Thursday.”

He gave me a squeeze and murmured,
“Good, baby.”

“I told Lee about Snookie Rivers,”
I informed him.

“Yeah. I got that.”

I bet he did.

“Any news on that?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he answered. “But I
suspect there soon will be. Both Santo and Lucky are on it. I was just about to
go in and talk with Vito and Dom so they’d know Santo and Lucky have a priority
mission and are unavailable. Lee and I agreed to tracking you. He’s having a
device put on your car, he wants one in your bag and he’s going to get Brody to
track your phone.”

My man
so
loved me.

So did my brother.

“I’m cool with that,” I told him
then asked, “Anything I can do?”

“Although Lee’ll be keepin’ an eye
on you, I still want you to let someone know where you are, or alternately
where you’re gonna be, and when you expect to get there and do that at all
times.”

I could do that.

So I replied, “Copy that.”

He shook his head but his lips
quirked.

“Okay, so, I have to get to Smithie
and check in. But first, I have to have sex with my man on his desk. Can we do
that pronto so I can get a move on?”

It wasn’t a flowery statement or a
seductive one, but on the word “sex”, his eyes heated and his body moved,
backing to his desk and taking me with him. This I took as him agreeing to my
plan.

And he did. He just had additions.

“First, you go down on me in my
chair. Then I fuck you on the desk.”

Total happy place spasm so big it
sent quivers down my inner thighs.

“You get that, then I get you
returning the favor with me on your desk,” I bartered.

Ren was an easy sell.

I knew this when his mouth came to
mine, his eyes burning, and he replied, “Done.”

Then his arms closed tight and he
kissed me.

In the end, I really couldn’t tell
you which phase of sex on (and around) Ren’s desk was the highlight.

So I figured we had to do it again,
and soon, just so I could make sure.

Really hoped Vito would cave so my
man could be close to me.

Seriously.

And not just so we could carpool.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Salvation

One week later…

I drove my Mustang into underground parking at my office.

It was nearly noon and I was still working mornings at Fortnum’s
because Indy was still in the throes of morning sickness, and according to her
doctors, would be for a while.