Chapter 32

“Inourcircles, it’s callednever going home again,” he grits out. “How you describe this afternoon’s events will affect how this situation moves forward for me. I deserve no grace, Chief. But if you could?—”

“Wait.” I draw a deep breath until it stretches my lungs, expands my chest, and fills my cheeks. Then I let it all out again, noisy enough to fill the car with just that sound alone. “Hang on. Are you… Are you hitting me with Mafia Speak right now? By resignation, do you actually mean termination? And by termination, you mean sleeping with the fishes?”

He nods.

No fanfare, no excuses, not even a plea for leniency.

“Yes, Chief.”

“Are you insane?!” I tear my bag open and snatch out my phone. Unlocking the screen, I go to my text inbox and discover not just one, not even two or three, butfivegifted rocks from Archer. One every hour, on the hour, for the last five.God, I love that man.I type a quick message requesting a callback when he has a second.Because Gloria Donohue is dead!Hitting send, I bring my focus back up to a white-faced Harrison. “No one’s going to kill you, so calm the hell down.”

“You were ambushed!”

“So? If you truly cared about unprovoked attacks, you’d commandeer my electronics and filter outallcommunication from a man named JustinLawrence. He’s the bane of my existence, I swear.” I look down at my phone: no call yet. “That idiot with a camera has been an irritation in my life for months already. In fact, you’re lucky you didn’t get too close, or he might’ve ruined your fancy suit with all the Cheetos dust on his fingers.”

“This isn’t a joking matter, Chief!” For the first time,ever, Theodore Harrison steps past‘oh, she’s cute when she doesn’t listen,’and into‘I’m sick of this bitch’s shit.’ “My literal job is to shield you. Always. Fromalldangers, including the fat fucks who want a sound bite to play on the news. Instead of being by the car, which is where I should have been, I was hiding in the shade.”

“Because you wear a black three-piece suit in hundred-degree weather. In direct sunlight! I’m surprised you haven’t already passed out and smacked your head on the concrete. I’m not tossing you into the ocean because Harold-from-the-basement got in my face for two seconds. It’s not even something I’d think to tell the Malones about, so I don’t know why you’re freaking out so much.”

“You don’t have to tell them,” he snarls. “My failure will literally be on national television in about ten minutes anyway.” He lowers his chin. “I’ll stand tall and accept whatever punishment Mr. Malone wishes to dole out. I choose honor over cowardice.”

“Good freakin’ lord.” I unlock my phone again and swipe to my call log. “Which Mr. Malone were you talking to when I came out?”

His eyes swing to mine in the rear-view mirror.

“And what were you talking about?”

“Felix,” he grits out, but then the fury in his tone turns to hesitation. “He actually called to inform me of Gloria Donohue’s death. He assumed this news would shock you.”

No shit it was shocking!

I tap Felix’s name and bring the phone to my ear. Holding Harrison’s gaze, I simultaneously loathe and take pleasure in the way his cheeks turn a deathly shade of gray. Not because I enjoy his fear, but because this whole thing is ridiculous.

“Doctor Mayet?” Felix answers on the third ring, the constant hum of a car’s engine playing through our call. “Hi. Are you, uh…” Hesitant, he pauses for a beat. “I know we had words yesterday, but you’re aware I love you, right? I fuckin’ adore you. So if you’re mad at me, I’m sorry. You and Soph can have New York. I don’t even care.”

“Jesus.The sky is falling.You and Ialwayshave words, Felix. I’d be worried if we ever stopped.” I tip my head back and stare up at the ceiling.Gloria Donohue is dead! “Harrison’s currently having a conniption, just so you know.”

“He…” His breath comes to a sharp stop. Then, “What?”

“I came out of my building earlier than he was expecting, and because the big badMr. Malonewas distracting him, I walked face first into the media assholes who get off on hounding me for a quote. Now he’s spinning out, because he thinks you’ll punish him for it.”

“He—”

“Willnotbe punished. Ever. The poor guy sweats all day long in the sun and fries his brain while I spend my day inside a climate-controlled building. I have no clue why he insists on driving me around when he should be back in New York anyway, but for as long as you’re over there begging me not to hate you, and since Archer will do anything I ask anyway, I’m saying Mr. Harrison willnotbe penalized because he was half a second slower off the mark than usual. It’s not his fault that wank-stain from Channel-Mommas-Basement likes to stalk me.”

Felix is his own person, his own personality, and a man freely running his own life. But his father is in there, too, just a little, and it becomes evident as tension falls heavily across our call. Those mafia beginnings work tirelessly to reach up from the grave and pull his strings. “How slow was he, Mayet? Because his job is literally?—”

“Notto read minds. I run that poor man ragged. Ineverleave my office at the same time two days in a row, I communicate nothing, since I think all this is dumb, anyway, and I have zero desire to dip his boots in fresh concrete or drop him into the ocean. I have extensive practice dodging the camera guys, since I’ve been doing it for months already, but they caught me off guard today with the Gloria Donohue stuff. In his defense, ifyouhadn’t distracted him, he would’ve been where he was supposed to be. So this is me calling it.”

“You’re calling… what?” he drawls. “What are you saying, Chief?”

“That Harrison gets to grow old and fat and jolly all the way to the ripe old age of a hundred and three. I believe I acquired certain decision-making powers over the weekend, no?”

Felix snorts.

“With the power vested in me by the great state of Estefan Cordoza’s abandoned dining room in the middle of no-freakin'-where, I’m declaring permanent protection for the poor, befuddled Theodore Harrison. He can’t sustain these levels of stress, Felix! It’s not normal to think you might die just because you stood in the shade for a minute.”

“You sound awfully comfy up there on Cordoza’s throne. I thought you said yesterday you’re taking a hands-off approach?”