Undercover Bromance

by Lyssa Kay Adams

  “I’m not lusting after Liv. I barely know her.”

  “But you knew exactly who I was talking about.”

  Mack sidestepped that one. “We’re talking about you, old man.”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “You need to learn how to talk to Rosie in a language she’ll understand.”

  “I know her language. Cranky.”

  Mack knew someone like that too.

  Hop wiped his bandana across his forehead. “Maybe the men of your generation talk about this shit, but mine don’t.”

  “And how’s that working out for you?”

  “How’s it working out for you?”

  Mack grinned. “Great so far.”

  Hop snorted. “Really? Because that doesn’t look like a woman who’s happy to see you.”

  Mack turned around in time to see Liv storming across the grass. She should have looked ridiculous in her rubber farm boots and a frayed oversize sweatshirt that looked like it had done hard time in a lost-and-found bin.

  But she didn’t look ridiculous. She looked beautiful.

  Like a beautiful storm.

  Thundering right toward him.

  She stopped with a hard glare. “You told the book club?”

  He winced. “That’s sort of what I came to tell you.”

  “You should have asked me first.”

  Mack held out his hands. “We agreed last night that we’re going to bring Royce down, whatever it takes.”

  “That didn’t mean you could run out and tell even more people without my permission. We’re supposed to be partners.”

  “The guys can help us, Liv.”

  She smacked her palm. “It’s a book club.”

  “A book club made up of the most connected, powerful men in Nashville. They can help us.”

  A breeze picked up a single curl and draped it across her cheek. He had an insane urge to wrap it around his finger and loop it behind her ear.

  “From now on, you don’t do anything without talking to me first,” Liv finally said. “I’m in charge.”

  Mack nodded. “You’re in charge.”

  Liv nodded, satisfied.

  “On one condition,” Mack added.

  Liv crossed her arms. “What condition?”

  “That you stop doing reckless stuff.”

  The look of offense on her face was so genuine it was almost comical. “What have I done that’s reckless?”

  “Last night with Royce? We have to be smart about this. If you want to be in charge, fine. But I get veto power over stupid ideas.”

  Behind them, Hop snorted again.

  “Look, we’ll get everyone together tomorrow, and we can come up with a plan,” Mack offered.

  “Fine.” Liv spun around and stormed back to the house. Rosie and the girls emerged from the root cellar, and before going into the house Rosie gave Hop the same look Liv had given Mack.

  Mack spoke over his shoulder. “Next Friday. Eight o’clock. The Six Strings Diner.”

  “I ain’t going to no self-help bullshit touchy-feely meeting.”

  “New guy buys breakfast.”

  “Fuck off.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Liv uttered the realization to herself shortly before three o’clock the next day as she surveyed Rosie’s living room.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Mack said. “I promise.”

  She wasn’t so sure. Malcolm she totally trusted. He was smart. She’d never met a couple of the other guys but recognized both of them. Derek Wilson owned a construction company or something in the city, and she’d heard both Gavin and Mack talk about him before, so she knew he was cool.

  But the Russian? She turned and looked up at Mack, voice low. “I can’t believe you invited him. This house has old pipes.”

  Rosie walked in with a tray of cookies and a man Liv didn’t recognize. He wore black-rimmed glasses, a slouchy hipster-style beanie, and a Pokémon T-shirt.

  “I found a straggler outside,” Rosie said.

  “Who’s that?” Liv whispered.

  “Noah.”

  “Who’s Noah?”

  “Computer expert.”

  “The one who found Jessica? You said he didn’t know anything about this!”

  Mack held up his hands truce-like. “Okay, I might have lied about that.”

  Liv slugged his arm. “That’s for lying to me.”

  She slugged him again. He covered his arm and whined. “What was that one for?”

  “Just because. Are you sure we can trust him?”

  “Don’t judge a book by its cover. I’m pretty sure the IT thing is just a ruse and he’s actually an assassin for the government.”

  Liv squinted. “I can’t tell if you’re serious.”

  Mack strode forward, hand outstretched. He and Noah did a manly handshake-chest-bump thing. “Thanks for coming, man,” Mack said.

  He did a quick round of introductions for Noah’s sake, listing each man’s name and what special skill he apparently brought to the table. The Russian was last.

  “He’s here for muscle,” Mack said.

  The Russian pounded his fist. “I beat him up.”

  Liv waved her hands. “Nope. No beating anyone up.”

  The Russian stuck out his lower lip. Rosie rushed over with the cookies to soothe him.

  “Don’t feed him any cheese,” Mack said quickly.

  Liv looked over. “Like, after midnight, or . . . ?”

  “Just whenever.”

  Rosie shrugged and moved on to Malcolm. “Can you eat cheese?”

  “Yeah, pretty much everyone else here can eat cheese,” Mack answered.

  Noah finally greeted Liv. She shook his hand and narrowed her eyes. “Do you kill people?”

  He tilted his head. “Not intentionally.”

  Mack clapped his hands. “Let’s get started.”

  Everyone who didn’t yet have a place to sit jostled for room on one of the two couches. The Russian had already claimed Hop’s recliner, which was going to be a problem if Hop decided to join them. Malcolm ended up sitting on the floor, which was going to be a problem if one of the hens decided to join them.

  “Gavin and Del have a home game today, so we’ll have to fill them in later on what we decide.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Derek asked, reaching for another cookie. “These are fucking awesome.”

  Rosie beamed. Hop strode in then, noticed Rosie smiling at another man, and scowled. Then he noticed the Russian in his chair, and his expression turned murderous. He jerked his thumb in a get the fuck out fashion. The Russian quickly joined Malcolm on the floor.

  “You’re late,” Rosie scolded Hop. She gave him a cookie anyway.

  “One of the most important things we need to do is find out how many women Royce has done this to,” Liv said. “And we need to figure out how to expose him.”

  “Why not just go to the media and tell them what you saw?” Derek asked.

  “That would violate my NDA, and I don’t want to give him that ammunition to shut us down,” Liv said. “Besides, reporters need to do their own research, and that could take a long time. I want to go bigger.”

  Mack glanced down at her, eyebrows furrowed. “Bigger?”

  “I want to confront him with it at his big cookbook launch party.”

  “That’s just three weeks away,” Mack said.

  “I know.”

  “That’s impossible,” he grumbled.

  “Why don’t we just kidnap him and make him talk?” Everyone looked at the Russian as soon as he said it. He shrugged. “Happens all the time in Russia.”

  Liv shook her head. “No. No kidnapping. Nothing violent.”

&nbs
p; “But maybe we could try to get him on tape admitting it,” Derek offered.

  Liv looked at Mack. “That could work,” she said.

  “But how?”

  “What about at the Chamber of Commerce gala?” Derek said. “He’ll be there. Maybe someone could record him on their phone or something.”

  “He’s not going to just admit at a chamber fundraiser that he’s been harassing women,” Mack said.

  “Maybe he’d admit it to someone who already knows,” Liv said. “Like me.”

  It was strange how Mack’s face could go from totally neutral to completely stony in a split second. “No. I don’t like that. We need to come up with a different plan. That will never work.”

  “I might be able to help with part of that,” Noah said. He leaned forward on the couch and withdrew a rolled-up wad of papers from his back pocket.

  He held them out to no one in particular, and Liv grabbed them before Mack could. “What are these?”

  Mack peered over her shoulder.

  “I did some snooping in Royce’s bank records,” Noah said.

  Liv choked. “You did what?”

  Mack patted her on the back. “Deep breaths.”

  “How is that legal?”

  “Technically, most of what I looked at is public record,” Noah said.

  “Most?” Liv squeaked.

  Noah lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted apology. “Some of it may have been acquired through means of questionable legality.”

  “Just tell us what they say,” Mack said.

  Noah bit into his cookie. “I found a series of weird transactions, so I pulled them together into a spreadsheet to look for patterns and found something interesting.”

  Mack stood so close that he was pressed against Liv’s back. “I don’t get it,” Mack finally said, glancing up. “What are we looking at?”

  Noah nodded. “Royce’s company has sent a series of wire transfers of varying amounts to a vague, nondescript charity with an offshore address. Each of those transfers was then immediately redistributed to unknown parties.”

  “You think these are hush-money payments,” Hop said.

  Noah shrugged. “If I were trying to pay people off in a way that ensured no one would ever know, this is how I’d do it.”

  “Can I see them?” Malcolm asked.

  Mack handed him the papers. The Russian and Hop looked over his shoulder as he shuffled through them.

  “Doesn’t tell you anything,” Hop said, sitting back. “Just a bunch of numbers that you obtained illegally, which means you’ll be in as much trouble as Royce if you use them.”

  “Then maybe we just use them to get more information,” Derek said.

  “What are the rest of these pages?” Malcolm asked.

  “Tax court shit.” Noah took another bite of cookie. “Royce registered a—”

  Noah stopped at the sound of a soft cooing. Hazel had wandered into the room, head bobbing, searching for cookie crumbs. Noah blinked. “Does anyone else see the chicken?”

  The Russian’s eyes lit up and he held out his arms. “Chicken.”

  “What were you saying?” Mack asked, agitation evident not only in his voice but in the clench of his fists.

  “Royce registered a nonprofit several years ago but didn’t report the taxes properly,” Noah explained. “He got hit with some big fines, didn’t pay them, and had to get it worked out with the tax court.”

  “So?”

  “So it was the very next year that this new charity was created in Panama.”

  Malcolm’s eyes bugged out. “That was seven years ago.”

  Noah nodded. “He’s been doing this shit a long time.”

  Liv felt sick. Seven years? And that was just since he’d moved the fake charity overseas. But then nausea became rage, because how many fucking women had he done this to? He’d gotten away with it for years. And all along, there had to have been countless people who knew, who enabled him, who covered it up.

  “So where does this leave us?” Derek asked.

  “We obviously need to prove this money went to women he harassed,” Malcolm said.

  “Yeah, no shit,” Mack said. “How do we do that?”

  “I mean, I could keep hacking into shit,” Noah said with a shrug.

  “You’re all high.” Hop stood up from his recliner, shook his head, and started to walk away. He made it as far as the door before turning around. “You should be calling the police, not messing around with this shit yourself.”

  “What are we supposed to tell them?” Mack said. “Jessica has made it clear that she doesn’t want to report it, so it’s Liv’s word against her and Royce.”

  “Well I can’t be party to anything illegal. I’m a cop, dammit.”

  “Retired cop,” Rosie said. “And no one invited you to be part of it.”

  “Then you’re fools too,” Hop scoffed. “Because I’m the only one in here with any investigative experience, and what you’re talking about is an investigation.”

  The Russian began to rock, singing softly to Hazel the chicken in his lap.

  “And that guy is flat-out nuts,” Hop said, pointing at the Russian.

  “He’s a hockey player,” Mack said.

  “Jesus Christ,” Hop muttered from the door, but he walked back to his chair.

  “Right now my biggest concern is Jessica,” Liv said. “She was apparently scared enough to tell Royce that we talked to her, and he was apparently scared enough about that to confront us. Things are going to get worse. I have to get her out of there.”

  Noah popped the rest of his cookie into his mouth. “Luckily, I can help with that too.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “You’re sure this is where Noah said she’d be?”

  The following Thursday, Liv eyeballed the door to the dive bar with a look that said she wasn’t only skeptical but maybe a little scared too. Mack didn’t blame her. The place was the ambient equivalent of a middle finger—dirty and offensive with an enter at your own risk vibe.

  Mack shrugged. “Noah said she posted on Facebook that she’d be here tonight.”

  “Her page is set to private. How does he see that stuff?”

  “He hacked into an overseas bank. You think he can’t get into Facebook?”

  She looked at him sideways. “Good point.”

  Mack settled his hand on her back, smiled to himself at the way her muscles twitched beneath his touch, and nodded to the door. “Let’s go. Hopefully we beat her here.”

  The handle of the heavy wooden door had been worn smooth over its thirty years as a student favorite, but the door itself bore the rough scars and dents of what appeared to be countless boot kicks and bouncer throws. That didn’t bode well for what they’d find inside. Mack kept his hand on Liv’s back as they walked in.

  They both stopped briefly to let their eyes adjust to the low lighting. It was only nine o’ clock, still apparently early for the college set, because fewer than twenty people were there. And those who were barely looked old enough to drink.

  “I suddenly feel a million years old,” he said.

  “You’re over thirty. To them, you are.”

  “Is Jessica even old enough to drink?”

  “No, but I don’t think they pay much attention here.”

  Too few places did. Mack had zero tolerance for underage drinking in his bars. His bouncers were trained regularly on the latest in fake ID techniques, and at least a dozen people a day were turned away from his clubs. Bachelor and bachelorette parties were the worst offenders. Not a day went by that someone didn’t try to sneak in their younger cousin with a pretty-please bat of the eyes or a none-too-subtle slip of a twenty-dollar bill. Neither worked on his guys. Mack made sure of it.

  “Let’s get a table by the back so we can watch for her,�
�� Liv suggested, pulling away from his hand.

  She stopped at a curved booth beneath a broken MILLER LITE sign in the far-back corner. Someone had carved a penis into the tabletop, and the vinyl cushion was more broken than not. “I shudder to think what a black light would reveal on this seat,” Liv said, but she scooted in anyway.

  “Stay put,” he said. “I’ll get us a drink so we blend in a little more.”

  “I’ll blend in. You have some gray at the temples.”

  Mack’s hand flew to his hair before he saw her grin. She was lying. He pointed. “Not funny.”

  “You’re so vain.”

  He nodded toward the bar. “What do you want?”

  “I’d ask for a Dos Maderas and Coke, but I’m guessing this is more of a Captain Morgan joint, so . . .” She shrugged.

  “Lady knows her liquors,” he mused, absurdly aroused by the notion. “Be right back.”

  The two women tending bar barely looked older than the clientele. They wore matching black tank tops with the name of the bar emblazoned across their breasts, and judging by the way the younger one kept tugging at the straps, she wasn’t happy about the uniform.

  “What can I get you?” she asked, flashing a smile.

  “Do you have Dos Maderas?”

  She blinked. He shook his head. “One rum and Coke and a Sam Adams bottle.”

  He carried the drinks back to the booth and slid in next to Liv. She tried to scoot over, but he slung his arm over her shoulders and tugged her back.

  The side-eye she gave him carried enough attitude to fuel a sitcom. “What are you doing?”

  “Blending in. We’re just a romantic couple enjoying a night out.”

  “You wish.”

  He did wish. Like, all of a sudden, he was wishing it a lot. He took a long pull on his beer. This might have been a strategic mistake, sitting so close to her. She smelled good. Not like the flowery good he’d read about so many times in romance novels, but, like, just good. Her skin had a scent like vanilla or something. Sweet.

  He rubbed his hand under his nose.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You look uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not.”

  She shrugged, sending her shoulder into his armpit. He swallowed hard. The door opened, and they both sat up straighter. And immediately slumped again. It wasn’t Jessica. A group of five women stumbled in looking like they’d gotten the party started elsewhere before showing up here.