Page 51 of The Devil's Playground

“I do, too, and he’s been toeing the line so far. But I’m not worried about Jake right now. I’m worried about you.”

He’s not the only one.

I shake off his hand, then demand, “Do you trust me?”

“Royce—”

“Link. Do you trust me?”

“You know I fucking do.”

“Then I got this.” I give him my winning grin even though, behind my smile, my jaw is tight, my teeth grinding. I breathe in through my nose, and pretend to relax. “You’re right. I won’t fuck with the truce. I’ll leave Alfieri alone, keep my eye on Nic the same time as I make sure Jake doesn’t get into any more trouble.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“But if he comes after her?—”

I don’t even have to finish my sentence. This is the man who watched Damien Libellula put a gun to Ava’s head in order to get his damn truce. It made sense at the time, but I know Link. He probably wonders why he didn’t put a bullet in Damien once Ava was safe.

I’ve never shot anyone before. But if I’m put in a situation like that?

I will.

The first thing I do after our meet is split off from Link, then head out to the club.

Jessie’s off tonight, but Francesca is in charge of the floor. Considering she’s as much Jessie’s second as I am Link’s, I have a quick conversation with her over the posted schedule. At the Playground, Jessie makes up three weeks in advance, letting the waitresses, the bartenders, the barbacks, and the bussers know when they’re expected to work. If they can’t, it’s on them to find a replacement.

Tonight? I put Francesca in charge of covering about half of Nicolette’s shifts. Taking her off the schedule completely might be too much. The last thing I want is to be as controlling as her asshole ex was, but if he could follow us to Riverside? If he’s been leaving fucking trinkets in her mailbox, walking around in a hoodie on her camera? How much do I want to bet that he’s been sneaking around the Playground?

I don’t blame her for keeping him a secret. I wish she hadn’t, if only because it makes my job protecting her that much harder when I didn’t even know that she needed to be protected from some Dragonfly scum.

Know what else makes it hard? Link’s goddamn truce.

My first instinct is to ban any of Damien’s guys from our club. Since part of pretending like we don’t hate the damn Dragonflies just for existing is letting them visit the Playground if they dare to, it would be going against the truce to block all of them from entering. Since I can’t do that, I settle for showing the picture of Kieran Alfieri to the bouncers, warning them that it’s their dicks if they let him in.

I can’t ban all of the Dragonflies. I sure as fuck can ban this one.

Between cutting the amount of time Nicolette spends here and putting the fear of Devil into the staff to keep Alfieri out, my bases are covered. I head back to the Suites to retrieve Nic.

That’s another issue. I want her to move in, but I know better than to push that right now. The most I can do, though, is invite her to stay over tonight while she’s shaky, then hope that she doesn’t want to go back to her place tomorrow.

The hug she gives me when I walk into Link and Ava’s penthouse tells me that she missed me while I was gone. It’s late at this point, after one in the morning, so she doesn’t argue at all when I bring her a couple of floors down to my apartment instead of bringing her back to her mother’s house.

I do expect Nic to give me shit when I tell her that she needs to cut her shifts back while we figure out just how we want to handle the Alfieri situation. Is it a dick move to tell her when she’s still shaky from seeing him? Probably. Should I have waited until morning when we were both rested and a little removed from what happened tonight? Oh, yeah.

Do I?

Nope.

I expect her to give me shit, though I’m hoping that she won’t because I’m dropping this news on her before she gets some sleep. To my surprise, though, she doesn’t.

Instead, she takes my hand in hers, tilting her head back so that she’s meeting my gaze. “Okay.”

We’re standing in the foyer of my apartment. I flicked on the light after I invited her in, but she’s not looking around at my bachelor pad. Her eyes are completely on me.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. If you think that’s a good idea, I’m okay with it. Not for long… I can’t give up all that cash… but I trust you.”

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