“I promised you long ago that I would watch out for Grace if need be. What can I do?”
He studied me for a long minute, giving me the sense he was about to drop a bomb in my lap. “I’m curious about your conversation with Grace earlier today while I was on the phone with Kelton.”
I looked at him like he’d lost his mind, even though the piranhas in my stomach woke up. “What about it?”
Duke’s perceptiveness had served him well in the cartel business. I even counted on him when we met with our enemies and associates.
“From my view, it looked like you two were flirting. Something I haven’t seen between you two ever.”
You and me both.That guilt I had over what I felt for Grace was riding me like a wild bucking bronco. “You really think I would touch your sister?”
In the blink of an eye, the tension between us skyrocketed.
“I don’t have to remind you that Grace is off-limits.” He whipped out that statement and threat like a seasoned lion trainer. “She’s fragile, man.”
I felt like I was in an alternate universe, looking at a man I didn’t know all of a sudden. “Is she off-limits because she’s fragile?” I knew the answer, but I needed to hear him say it.
He growled. “Don’t fuck with me, Brian. I’m in no mood.”
I narrowed my eyes at the person I considered a brother. Duke and I had mostly had arguments about business, hardly ever about his family.
I pulled out my wallet. “Your sister is thirty years old and a grown woman. Not to mention, if she can endure four years in sex trafficking and escape, she’s tougher than you give her credit for. And if she wants to flirt, there’s no harm in that. But you know what? I’m not in the mood either. Why don’t we call it a night, so you can rethink what you’re accusing me of?” I placed two twenties on the counter and glared at him. “Also, I won’t deny that your sister is fucking gorgeous and any man would be lucky to have her. But I promised you at nineteen that I would never touch her. And if you saw flirting, it was nothing more than me telling her how pretty she is. No crime in that, man.” I was about to stand.
He swung out his arm. “Wait. I’m sorry. I trust you. I know you adore Grace. I’m on that thin edge of strangling her. In one breath, I want to, but in the next I want to do everything I can to keep her from being her own worst enemy.”
“I get it. I would be acting the same way with Fran.” I gripped his shoulder. “It pains me to think Grace could be in danger, hence why I’m offering my help. Nothing more.”
Any further conversation about Grace died when we both heard her call Duke’s name. Grace stomped toward us, seething.
I didn’t know rage could look so damn sexy on someone. But she wore it like steel armor, as if she were about to go into battle.
“We need to talk,” she bit out to Duke. “Now. Outside.”
Duke swiveled on the barstool, anger oozing off him. “Not tonight, Grace. Go home. We’ll talk in the morning.”
She stuck her hands on her hips. “Don’t dismiss me like I’m eight. Do you want me to make a scene?”
Duke growled as his phone lit up with Fallyn’s name. He answered immediately, leaving a steaming Grace standing there with tears in her eyes.
I felt the need to console her, to wrap my arms around her and tell her I got her, that she could count on me. She seemed like she thought the world was against her and no one would listen or help her.
I climbed off the barstool. “Come on, baby girl. You need some air, and so do I.”
I’d been in Boston for merely a day, and the shit was piling up like ten feet of snow.
Once she and I were outside, she let out a strangled groan. “I hate him.”
A beefy dude with bulky arms and a military haircut pushed off from where he was standing against a building and started for Grace.
I guided her behind me until I realized it was one of Jeremy’s top bodyguards. “Knox, how the hell are you?”
He and I shook hands.
“Better if I had a client who was cooperative.” He regarded Grace as she stepped around me.
“I told you to go home,” she said in a terse tone to Knox.
I tipped my head toward the restaurant. “Dude, go inside and have a drink. Duke is at the bar. I’ll watch her for the moment.”
