Page 12 of Cruel Debts
But here we were.
I could hear him packing the room, his heeled boots clacking rhythmically against the tiles as he continued his increasingly heated conversation.
“If you want to keep your little secret quiet, you know what you have to do. I don’t care how many people you have to pull to work this case. Find her, or I’ll wreck you from the ground up,detective.”
He was talking to our police contact. McCoy—or, rather, not McCoy, just a man wearing his name.
“Listen, Mistwood. You’ve got two options. Either you make this happen and find the McCoy girl, or I won’t even need to bother exposing you. Her case will make sure it happens regardless.”
The McCoy girl.
Find the McCoy girl.
Trinity McCoy.
Why was he looking for Trinity McCoy? What case was he talking about?
Clearly, there wasn’t much I’d get out of him, because it was clear he had no intention of telling me. I wondered if he’d bothered to trust Asher with whatever news this was. That left me with only one solution.
I had to corner the detective and figure out what was going on behind my back.
Especially since it concerned Trinity McCoy.
A girl I’d sworn to protect.
By the timeLiam emerged from the bathroom and reappeared in the main hall, I was already back at the table like I’d never left, dealing a new hand with a lethal grin and a pretty girl on my lap,her fingers trailing down the side of my neck, nails scratching my skin in that way that usually would make my cock twitch.
But now, there were other things on my mind. Namely, one Trinity McCoy.
Liam didn’t even look my way when he sat at the bar, and I let him play his little games, getting a little rowdy to remind him of my presence, playing up the drunkenness that I wasn’t feeling because every drink I’d ordered tonight was a virgin.
I didn’t drink, not after watching my father slip into a debilitating alcoholism that led to my mother’s suicide.
Coming back from the war to find out your own mother took her life and the man responsible didn’t have to suffer any consequences for driving her to it—that took a toll on my mental health.
If Asher hadn’t dragged me out of the South End and forced me to remember what it was like to be a civilized human, I might still be there, living under a bridge or in some back alley in an abandoned building, stealing from people and sucking dick to survive. Anything was possible when you were stuck in the South End with no means of survival. People did things they never thought they’d do to stay alive there. I witnessed more than my fair share of it.
I almost became a casualty of it myself.
It’d been almost three hours since we first walked into this place when Asher finally walked out of the office, Minnie trailing behind him in the most precocious getup I’d ever seen her wear. They exchanged a curt handshake, and Asher turned to the room, marching in Liam’s direction with a scowl on that perpetually pissed-off face. I thanked my stars that he wasn’t
I didn’t question it when they came over to the card table and tapped me twice on the shoulder as they passed—our signal that it was time to go. Sure, I could stay and have more fun, and they wouldn’t stop me, but I knew when it was time to call it a night.
Besides, I had better things to do.
Like undermine whatever it was Liam was hiding.
The Guild was neversilent at night, as most of us preferred to operate in the dark, hiding in the shadows to keep from drawing attention to the illegal activities we participated in. Some of us were just nocturnal by nature, like the Scots used to be. I swore they were vampires, the way they hid from the sunlight.
Others, like our group, could operate in whatever manner we pleased. The Skeleton Crew, those brothers who were busy these days with their newest member—their stepsister—they didn’t hide from the daylight, so much as preferred the night for other reasons.
But the Guild was our safe space, the asylum we called home our protection, like political asylum from the law. And as such, when we rolled in at around three in the morning, there was no lack of activity in the common areas.
Unfortunately, the kitchen was filled with degenerates, making a quick and quiet meal impossible. We had the capabilities to cook in our rooms, but St. Clair had outfitted the communal kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances and tools, and I was nothing if not a sucker for a well-outfitted kitchen.
Cooking was what kept me sane some days.
Asher nudged me as he walked by, heading for the cabinet that held a plethora of snack foods that St. Clair kept on hand for whoever might need them. I knew already what he planned to bring back out with him, and my suspicions were confirmed when he emerged seconds later with a bag of mixed nuts in hand.
