Rock Chick Revolution

  “Love you too, Ren,” I whispered back.

  And I did.

  More and more every day.

  And right there in that bed with Ren was the reason.

  Precisely.

  Because when I had to be a badass all day and cases got tough and I came home, or when life just sucked, or when life was awesome and going along fine, I knew this was what Ren Zano would give me.

  Always.

  Exactly what I needed.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  On My Team

  Late morning the next day, I stood in my newly painted, newly carpeted office space—more accurately, in my soon-to-be office—and I looked out the window at the view.

  Downtown. Mostly other tall buildings. But around the corner of the one across the street, I could see the mountains.

  Righteous view.

  Slowly, I turned my head and took it all in. In my office, there was a box containing a brand new computer. There were two more, one in Daisy’s space, one in the extra office. There was also a printer box, scanner box and a fax machine box as well as boxes holding routers and other IT shit in Daisy’s space.

  There was a copy machine in the conference room.

  And The Majestic was already on the wall. Ralphie and Buddy had come in and hung it that weekend.

  The furniture was on order and would be delivered on Wednesday.

  Brody was showing on Wednesday night to set up the network.

  In other words, Daisy had been busy.

  And Ava had phoned that day and said she’d emailed five different logos to look at. It had been hard to choose, but I’d picked one that was classy and professional and had more blacks and grays than the hot pink, just so it wouldn’t be too girlie.

  Further, Mr. Kumar had stopped by Fortnum’s that morning to give me the “kitty” he’d collected from his neighbors. It wasn’t a lot, but since Tex, Hector nor Mace would accept payment, it worked.

  This meant I’d closed and been paid for my first case.

  And I was standing in my offices that would be furnished and operational by Thursday.

  It had happened.

  Me. Ally Nightingale was in the business.

  I smiled.

  The door opened and Lee appeared.

  My smile died and I drew in breath.

  Indy had come into Fortnum’s forty-five minutes ago, saying she was over the worst of it and was going to give work a try. Five minutes after that, Lee had called asking to meet me at my offices.

  I wasn’t apprehensive. I knew I’d passed the Lee Tests, all of them. He wouldn’t have involved me, given me a choice (and dangerous) assignment or a soft look before I left last night if I hadn’t.

  I just didn’t know what he was going to do with that.

  I didn’t move from my place at the window as he walked in, eyes on me, and stopped in the doorway.

  He leaned against the jamb.

  “Nice space,” he remarked, even though he barely looked at it.

  “Yep,” I replied because it sure the fuck was.

  Then he announced, “Luke fell last night.”

  Hunh?

  I felt my brows draw together. “Luke fell?”

  “If he was even on the fence,” he went on.

  “Lee, you’ve lost me,” I told him.

  His eyes grew intent when he said, “Thinks you’re the shit, Ally.”

  That was when I got it.

  Luke was backing my play.

  This meant I had them all, except Monty. And Jack and Matt hadn’t weighed in yet.

  Okay, I had a majority.

  That feeling hit me again, the fucking good one.

  But I just nodded and said, “That’s great.”

  “It was the right decision to come to me with that note,” Lee stated.

  I didn’t reply because I already knew that.

  Lee kept going.

  “I gotta say, that shocked the shit outta me. But in a good way.”

  “You’ve seen I’m good at what I do,” I reminded him. “And you know to be good at it, you gotta be smart.”

  “You got that goin’ for you.”

  I drew in a breath at the compliment.

  Lee again spoke.

  And when he did, he rocked my world.

  “I want you on my team so I can teach you and sign off on your hours.”

  Oh my God!

  This time I sucked in a breath.

  Then it hit me.

  I looked around the space and back to him. “Lee, I—”

  He cut me off. “Contract, Ally. You take your own cases. Once I assess your skillset, you contract with me when I need your skills or when I need a woman. One of my boys works your cases with you so they can validate your hours for the Licensing Board and to expand your abilities. I’ll back Shirleen’s play and punt cases to you that you’ll excel at. But it would be a mistake for us to work together on a day to day basis. The men and I work well together, but that’s because we have years workin’ together. We used to butt heads and frequently. Now, we know each other’s boundaries. You and me, we’ll likely butt heads unless we give it time to get used to each other. I’d like to avoid that.”

  I could not believe this.

  I was loving it, but I couldn’t believe it

  “I would too,” I agreed instead of doing a war whoop of joy.

  “So no day to day. But contract will work.”

  “Yeah,” I replied quietly.

  “You were excellent last night, honey,” he stated, just as quietly.

  My eyes started burning.

  “I’ll talk to Dad,” he continued. “Mom’s already on board. She knows she didn’t raise a weak woman and she knows you’re all Nightingale.”

  Oh shit. It was coming.

  I looked to my feet.

  “Ally,” he called.

  I deep-breathed and looked to Lee.

  “There are a million other things I’d want for you. It took me a while and Hank to lay it out, but the thing I should want most is what you want. So now I’m tellin’ you, like yesterday with that note, don’t ever doubt it, anytime you need me, I’m there.”

  He always was.

  Always.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  “I know,” he replied.

  I clenched my teeth to fight crying.

  Lee wasn’t done rocking my world.

  “After you left yesterday afternoon, Eddie got in my face.”

  Oh man.

  “We had words,” he carried on. “But I heard him and I heard you. Now I’m askin’ you to back off Darius.”

  Oh no.

  Hell no.

  He wasn’t buttering me up with flattery, acceptance and promises to work with the Hot Bunch Dream Team and then socking this shit to me.

  I turned fully to him. “Lee. No way.”

  He lifted a hand and dropped it, shaking his head. “Eddie and I are gonna talk to Malia. See if she’s down for a possible approach from Darius. We’ll make sure she knows it’s only possible. But if she’s not, and gives indication she never will be, Eddie and me do not want this brought up to him. He’ll fight it, but he also might hope. If there’s no hope, I don’t want to set him up to feel that pain.”

  That made sense.

  “Okay, I’ll give you and Eddie time,” I agreed and jotted a call to Duke to give him a status report on my list of things to do that day.

  “We make a miracle happen and talk Darius around, we pull in Jules. She knows the way to go about this shit and she can ease this for all three of them.”

  That was such a brilliant idea I wished I’d thought of it myself.

  “Right,” I said.

  “And until all that’s in motion, Indy, Mom, Dad, Tom, Shirleen, no one knows about this. Darius is not gonna take kindly to us gettin’ in his shit. He needs fallback positions. If he picks someone in our crew, you out of his picture, it’ll be Indy or Shirleen.”

  I nodded.

  “You down
with that?” he asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  That was when Lee nodded.

  “This is the right thing to do,” I told him.

  “It always has been,” he told me.

  He was right about that, and suddenly I realized this had been weighing on him, and Eddie, and it had been doing it heavily.

  For seventeen years.

  Which sucked.

  He looked away and I saw his jaw tighten before he looked back at me.

  “Eddie and me, both of us, when he got into that shit, we almost lost him, Ally. I was in the Army when he got dug in deep with Leon so I wasn’t around to get involved. Eddie was and did. Hank was and did. When I was around, I did. But there was no turning back for him, he was that angry. His mind fucked, he made misguided decisions, not cluein’ into the fact that the man who was usin’ him was the man who deserved his anger. If he can hold anger that deep and extreme that it blinds him to the right path, you need to be prepared for what will come of this.”

  “I am,” I assured him.

  Lee studied me a moment and it felt like he was assessing the validity of my statement.

  I would find he wasn’t when he admitted, “I’m not.”

  “That right there,” I declared instantly. “That loyalty to Darius, loyalty that would make you, the strongest most fearless man I know, shy away from doing what’s right in order not to lose your friend, that’s what Liam needs to know is in his father.”

  I muscle jumped in his jaw before he jerked up his chin.

  Badass for You’re right.

  I fought my smile.

  Time to move on, though not to more pleasant things.

  “I have a stalker,” I announced.

  Immediately Lee straightened away from the jamb.

  “What the fuck?” he whispered scarily.

  “Not an old client or anyone affected by my work. An old neighbor. Don’t know him. Never met him. He was just around. And he takes pictures of me.”

  “Are you shittin’ me?” he asked.

  I wished I was.

  I shook my head and said, “Ren clocked him and looked into it. Found the pictures at his pad. He’s not happy. As in Grade A, bona fide pissed. He’s protective of me and has made it clear he’s leading this charge, but he wants you invol—”

  I stopped talking because Lee turned on his boot and stalked to the door.

  Well, I guessed Ren was going to have an unexpected guest.

  And that meant Dawn was going to come face to face with the man she’d wanted for her own (though she’d had no shot) who chewed her ass out and fired her.

  I really wanted to go watch that, but with the way Lee moved, I figured I already missed it.

  It then hit me that Dawn likely didn’t know that Lee knocked Indy up.

  And she would hate hearing that news.

  I also scratched it on my to-do list to inform her of that and with Lee’s meeting done (and entirely satisfactorily, in a big way), I had another item on my agenda while at that location.

  Actually two. The first one, not so easy. The second one, talking Ren into having sex on his desk; probably not hard.

  So I had Torture Dawn Time.

  Since I wanted to get to the second one, as well as ruin Dawn’s day, I hauled my ass across the office so I could see to the first one.

  I hit the hall, moved across it and entered Ren’s office.

  Dawn looked a little freaked, which made me smile and greet enthusiastically, “Hi, Dawn.”

  She stopped looking freaked and glared at me for a nanosecond before her mask slipped into place.

  “Hey, Ally,” she replied, sugar-sweet.

  I stopped at her desk. “Did you see Lee?”

  Her nostrils flared but she answered, still in her sweet voice, “Yes. He’s in with Ren.”

  “Cool,” I stated. “Did he tell you the good news?”

  “No,” she forced out, the sweet faltering.

  “Indy’s expecting. How awesome is that?” I asked.

  “Brilliant news.” She was now sounding strangled.

  “So, let me see,” I said, lifting my hand and counting it off. “Jules had Max, but I figure they’re due to start trying again.” I leaned toward her and smiled huge. “Not that they aren’t trying—just that they aren’t trying, if you get what I mean.”

  She stared at me, lips thin.

  She got what I meant.

  I added another finger. “Jet’s due in a few months. Indy’s knocked up. Ava and Luke got married a little over a week ago, and the way they go at it, who knows when she’s gonna have a baby on board. Mace and Stella aren’t married yet, but she’s a rock ‘n’ roll goddess. They could decide to start before they’re legal.” I dropped my hands. “All this happy, I’m beginning to feel maternal. Maybe I’ll talk to Ren about trying. Do you think it’s too soon for us?” I queried chattily.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she replied coldly, sweet gone, pure Dawn all I could hear and see.

  “No,” I shook my head, inwardly giggling my ass off. “I want him all to myself for a while.” I leaned into her again and dropped my voice, “Seeing as there’s so much to enjoy. You with me?”

  Her head made a weird jerk that I decided to take as Yes.

  “Anyway,” I started to move away. “Thanks for the chat.”

  I hit the hall and Dawn said nothing.

  I so could not wait to invite the girls over for Dawn Torture Sessions. My office was perfectly located for hitting Dawn with Rock Chick verbal drive-bys.

  On this thought, I really hoped my next meeting would go well, and I’d already really been hoping it would.

  There were a number of doors off the hall, the Zano offices way bigger than mine, and I had to guess which one was his.

  But I knew he was in because I saw his Caddy in the parking garage.

  I made my choice, tapped on a closed door, heard an impatient, “What?” and found I chose right.

  I opened the door and stuck my head in. “Hey, Mr. Zano. Got a second?”

  He’d looked up from his desk looking ornery when I’d opened the door, but the minute he saw me his face was wreathed in smiles.

  “Ally,” he called, getting up and throwing his arms out. “A pleasant surprise. Of course I have a second for you.”

  I entered, closed the door and turned back only to have Vito on me, hands firm on my biceps. I made a mental note that the old guy could move when he pulled me in, kissed one cheek, then the next, then pushed me back and jiggled me.

  “And you don’t call me Mr. Zano. Uncle Vito!” he declared.

  “Right,” I murmured.

  He let me go with one hand and pulled me deeper in the office with the other. “Now, why do I have this pleasure?”

  “I was just across the hall checking out the progress on my offices and thought I’d pop by.”

  Lie.

  It was totally planned.

  I then stopped lying. “Ren’s busy so I needed to wait and I didn’t want to wait in reception. Dawn…” I trailed off as we stopped by one of the chairs in front of his desk and I gave him a look.

  “Ah, Dawn,” he mumbled, indicating a chair with his hand so I sat. He moved around the desk and continued talking. “Not hard to look at.” He sat behind his desk and leveled his eyes on me. “But sometimes something pretty on the outside can hide…” he paused and stated extremely diplomatically, “interesting things on the inside.”

  He had that right.

  And he had Dawn’s number.

  Then again, no one would mistake Vito Zano for dumb.

  “I hope you don’t mind me interrupting you,” I said, and he again threw out a hand.

  “Not at all. I’ve been wantin’ to hear how your meetin’ went with Father Paolo.”

  Hmm.

  “I haven’t spoken with him yet Mist… uh, Uncle Vito.”

  He ticked a finger back and forth at me. “Don’t delay, cara. Catholic classes last a year.”

&nbsp
; They did?

  A whole year?

  Yikes!

  “I’ve been kinda busy,” I told him.

  He nodded and watched me closely. “The business at Smithie’s.” He shook his head. “I heard. Very disturbing.”

  He had that right, too.

  “It’s done now. Time to heal,” I shared.

  “I would say that last part would be the part you and your Rock Chicks would be involved in. Not the…” another meaningful pause, “other.”

  He knew I was stripping.

  “You do what you have to do to get the job done,” I informed him

  His eyes narrowed and he leaned toward me, but I got there before him and leaned toward him, putting my hand on his desk.

  “Don’t, Uncle Vito. With respect, I’ve worked this out with Ren and my family. I understand and appreciate your concern, but they’ve come around, and although that’s important to me, bottom line, it’s my job, my choice. And, no offense, truth be told, what you need to focus on is not me or what’s happening with Ren and me or Catholic classes. It’s doing everything in your power not to lose your son.”

  I heard his swift intake of breath and caught the flash of pain in his eyes he couldn’t quite keep hidden before his expression turned scary.

  But I was a Nightingale. This didn’t affect me.

  So I kept going.

  “You’re hurting him with this. He’s torn between loyalty to you, loyalty to his mother and where he’s at in his soul. You’re the only father he’s ever known. Are you really okay with attempting to bend him to your will? Even understanding his will was forged through your own blood, so you know that won’t ever happen? Thus forcing him to make decisions that will hurt people he loves?”

  “This is not your business, Ally,” he clipped, eyes cold.

  “Ren is absolutely my business, Uncle Vito,” I returned.

  We went into staredown.

  I didn’t back down.

  He didn’t either.

  This meant our tense silence lasted a long time.

  Surprisingly, Vito broke it.

  “I’ll not discuss this with you,” he stated.

  “I’m okay with that,” I replied. “Just as long as I know you heard me.”

  He scowled at me and said nothing.

  He heard me.

  “I’m gonna see if Ren’s free,” I said.