Page 47 of His Lovebug

War could protect Kit and Derek.

Me? I was going to have so much fun with Quin.

16

QUIN

For a long while, Derek and I stared at each other across the table we’d moved to. I suspected the scrutiny was because he’d already lost track of me once tonight. With a grin, I crossed my legs and leaned back in my chair. His gaze darted down as I arranged my skirt so it fell smoothly.

“I look good, but not that good.”

He snorted and shook his head, then shifted to staring down into his empty mug. “You don’t have to play coy with me. Just stick to saying you know you look good.” His smile was wide and goofy, and his face had pinked up.

The bartender caught my eye from across the room, and I shook my head. No, I needed Derek clearheaded, not halfway drunk.

“You’re not going to your room yet?” He tipped his head back, moving a little more loosely than normal.

Shrugging, I tapped my nails on the table, and he watched them as if hypnotized. “Is there anything we can do about that terrible detective? The one we saw tonight.”

“O’Neill?” he said, sitting up in surprise. “You don’t need to worry about him. We’ll take care of it.”

I shrugged. “Oh, but I would like to do something about him. He wasn’t nice to me today, and I know Matt was going off to do some things he probably can’t ever tell anyone about, but I don’t think they involved O’Neill. That jerkoff of a detective threatened us all tonight.”

Derek leaned back in his seat, a snake coiled and ready to strike. “Yeah, I was going to try to see what I could make happen.”

“What does that mean?”

He grinned. “When you’re in my line of work, there’s always someone in debt to the house. You know, me.I’mthe house.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And generally speaking, when that happens, those people would rather not be in that position. Unless they’re ultrarich, they struggle once they’re in the pit too deep. And that’s good for certain other parts of my business, but overall, I try to avoid letting people get in that bad. Unless it might be useful.”

“This makes you sound like a bad guy, Derek.”

He sighed and nodded. “Yes, it does.” There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“So, who do you know that can help with O’Neill? Who owes you?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.”

“And?” I leaned forward and settled my elbows on the table, propping my chin up with my hands. Adrenaline twisted in my belly.

“O’Neill has a partner. Well, sometimes they’re partners, sometimes they work alone these days. But a few years ago, you always saw them together when they were out harassing people. His name is Hanlon. We could get to him that way.”

“I met him today. Why do you think that?”

Derek sighed and pulled a quarter out of his pocket. He flipped it, and when it landed heads up, he grimaced. “Hanlon is an old-school cop like O’Neill, but he’s matured. He’s grown with the times. O’Neill is stuck in the past. He thinks he’s better than everyone else, and there’s no reason to change if you’re already perfect, right? Hanlon sees all the shitty things that O’Neill does, and I know for a fact he doesn’t love it. For a while Hanlon soothed his conscience with a nasty cocaine habit.”

Frowning, I bit my lip. “Does he still have one?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “No. It’s a long story, but he almost got caught and straightened himself out. It’s heroic, actually.”

“How do you know about it?”

“I saw him snorting a line in a bar parking lot ten years ago and made it my business.”

Sighing, I cupped my face, avoiding my lipstick. “How is this useful now?”

Derek’s smirk was pure evil. “I run a casino because I’m a betting man. I went inside the bar and paid the bartender a few hundred bucks to let me schlep through the video of the parking lot, and low and behold, I got a perfect view of Hanlon doing lines off the spoiler of his Hyundai Genesis Coupe. I’ll never forget the car because he had it painted the most disgusting gold metallic color.”

“Hey! My car was golden pink!”

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