Page 101 of Ace of Spades
CHAPTER THIRTY
“So you get to sleep with the boss,” Madison said, her amused eyes on Taylor.
Taylor grinned. “Oh, yeah.” As the newly promoted special agent in charge of the Miami field office, Nate was now her boss. “And let me tell you, my boss is a very talented man.” She winked. God, was he ever! The man’s mouth—not to mention other parts of his body—was so, so very talented.
Lauren laughed. “And so is his new intelligence analyst.”
“Saying the same about his special agent in charge of investigations,” Madison said, a dreamy smile on her face.
His brothers had been happy with their new assignments, Court as an intelligence analyst and Alex supervising their operations. Taylor thought it was a brilliant move on Nate’s part, but then she might be a bit prejudiced where her man was concerned.
With Rothmire’s transfer to a troubled field office in the Midwest happening in three weeks, Nate had been offered his job. They’d talked late into the night about it. At first, he hadn’t been thrilled and had seriously considered refusing, but she couldn’t imagine a better replacementfor Rothmire. The thought of the bureau bringing in an unknown for the job if Nate didn’t take it was what had finally won him over.
“What if they send someone like your first boss?” she’d asked. From all she’d heard, that man had practically run the Miami office into the ground, had even been the reason one of his agents was killed.
That one question had decided it for him, and now Taylor sat in the office of Aces & Eights, waiting to watch the Gentry brothers’ “falling out” on the monitor. For the past several days, they had left her, Madison, and Lauren in stitches as they acted out different scenarios of how that could go down. Whatever they had finally decided to do they’d kept a secret, so Taylor sat with her new girlfriends, each of them practically bouncing with anticipation.
She’d never had close female friends before, and she treasured their friendship. If a tiny part of her heart envied that they could call their guyshusband, she did her best to ignore it. She and Nate had agreed that they needed time together before considering marriage, and even if she was ready for that next step, he wasn’t. That was understandable, really.
Although he claimed he was over his worry of being an abuser, she believed that was still a fear in his mind. Not in hers, though. The man would walk into the ocean and keep going until he drowned before he would touch her or the girls in anger. So time was what he needed and what she would give him.
As for the girls, they adored him and he them. And Rosie? She’d loved him at first sight, and all she’d said when they’d told her they were living together was “About time.” Neither one of them suspected that Taylor knew about the money Nate slipped Rosie on a regular basis. How could she not love a man who did things like that? Since they had too much fun thinking they were pulling something over on her, she let them have their little game.
“It’s starting,” Lauren said.
Taylor snapped her eyes to the screen, her gaze following Nate as he stomped toward his brothers.
Nate strode up to Alex and Court. “Which one of you assholes put that dent in my Harley?” he snarled, his voice raised. They’d spent the last week arguing about anything and everything with each other in front of their customers, building up to this moment.
At their silence, he poked Alex in the chest. “Was it you?”
Alex knocked his arm away. “Get your hand off me. I’m damn tired of you blaming me for every little thing that goes wrong.”
“He’s just pissed because he’s not getting any,” Court said.
Nate wondered what Taylor’s reaction to that was, considering they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She was probably laughing hysterically. None of their customers knew that his brothers were married or that he had a live-in girlfriend, since they fiercely protected their private lives.
He turned on Court. “You think not? That sweet little thing you’ve had your eye on? Guess whose bed she woke up in this morning.”
“You son of a bitch.” Court came at him with a fist.
Nate spun, using his legs to knock Court’s feet out from under him. They’d been tumbling on the floor for a few minutes when beer splashed on their faces. He looked up to see Alex standing over them, holding an empty pitcher. He and Court both went for Alex, ending up in a three-way brawl.
At tasting blood from the cut on his lip, Nate decided to end this charade. They’d done enough to make the final scene believable. Not to mention the bikers in the bar tonight were about to join in the fun.
He pushed up from the floor, dragging Alex—rather, Alex letting him pull him up—with him. “Go. I don’t care where. Just get out of my face.”
“I’ll go all right, but don’t ever expect to see me back here covering your ass again,” Alex spat. “I got much better things to do.”
Nate watched him walk out. Baby brother should have been an actor. “Did you put that dent in my Harley?” Nate yelled just before he walked out the door. His only response to that from Alex was a middle finger lifted in the air.
“Anyone tell you that you’re a total dick before?” Court said, looking up at Nate with his back flat on the floor. He rolled over, brought his knees under him, then stood. He glared at Nate. “If not, let me be the first. I put the damn dent in your bike. If you’d given me half a chance to tell you that before you hurt our baby brother, I wouldn’t be saying this ... Go screw yourself. I quit. Q-U-I-T.” He took a few steps away, then came back, putting his face too close to Nate’s. “I used to think blood was thicker than water, but you proved me wrong. See you in hell, brother.”
Nate stood in the middle of the floor of Aces & Eights—his hands fisted at his sides, his breaths fast and heavy—feeling strangely sad. They’d planned everything that had just happened, yet it felt real. Final.
As soon as he could realistically announce new owners, he would never come back to Aces & Eights. His brothers would never return. Alex and Court would have already left with their wives, but Taylor would still be watching. Although he’d wanted her to go when the other ladies did, she’d refused.
“Even though tonight will be for show, it’s going to hit you that this part of your life is really over. I’ll be there for you,” she’d said before they left for the bar.
