With her forearms on the cold metal table, she pushed her fingers together again, raising them up. “We were a… thing.”
When Wyatt didn’t say anything, she peeked up. His frown was still there, but was more quizzical.
“You know the guy?” he asked. “I don’t get what you… What do you mean a thing? What thing?”
Her inexperience with men correlated to an inexperience in talking about them. Maybe starting with her brother hadn’t been the best idea.
“Like a together thing,” she said. Arching her back a little, she squirmed. “Like a… physical thing?”
“You had sex with him?”
The booming declaration attracted the attention of a bunch of people.
Shyla lunged over to grab his hand. “Shh! Geez, Wy.”
Bowing, he pulled her closer so they were both hunched over the table. “Are you seriously fucking telling me that you’re screwing Score McDade?”
“I was,” she said, her eyes and head tilting to the side. “I… don’t know what we are now.”
“You’re whatever he says you are. Seriously, Shy, I don’t even want to guess how it happened, but getting mixed up with a guy like that…Why’d he send you here? He on a recruitment drive or something?”
“He didn’t send me. We were… well, whatever we were, we weren’t exactly… public knowledge.” She didn’t blame him for appearing confused. “But we became public knowledge and—”
“Now there’s a price on your head,” he said. Sitting up, his shoulders fell. For a second, he seemed to be thinking then a snap of tension went through him. “He’s not the married one… is he?”
She shook her head. “Biz is married, Parker McDade, to a woman called Nicole.”
“You met her?”
“No, I haven’t met the family. Score hasn’t been back there since… you know.”
“Where is he?”
“Home probably. He opened a club in Miami.”
His brows went up. “What kind of club?” he asked then answered his own question. “Guess it doesn’t matter if it’s a front. He won’t pedal his product through his own place; he might run it out the back door. A club is a great way to clean cash.”
Shyla hadn’t even asked a question about crime and Wyatt just got it. Her brother got it in seconds while she hadn’t been able to figure it out at all. Everything people said about her was true. She was an innocent child. Score might not have been aware the truth was a secret. Maybe not talking about it wasn’t the same as withholding. Chances were, he assumed she would know these things like Wyatt had known.
As soon as he said it, so much became clear. Demanding Beeks spell it out felt idiotic in light of Wyatt’s declaration. Why would someone like Score open a risqué dance club? He didn’t care about ogling semi-naked women. He was a McDade, he could snap his fingers and fear alone would bring women running to jump on his cock. He listened to soul and jazz; he sure wasn’t the type of guy to bust a move or care about keeping up with the latest music trends.
The only reason a man like him opened a nightclub was to launder money. Beeks words came into jarring focus. “He’s a McDade. Score is a McDade.” Whether he was in the bosom of the family or not didn’t matter. Given what he’d said about knots, he’d been coached in the family trade since before he could walk. That meant one thing.
Wyatt’s fingertips touched the edge of her hand, reminding her that she wasn’t in the best place to go into a trance.
“I thought he felt something… something for me.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Maybe he does. He say otherwise?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t get it… I don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“He doesn’t need to be doing anything like that anymore. Pedaling product, cleaning money, I thought that was in his past.”
Surprise smacked Wyatt hard. “He told you he was on the straight and narrow?”
Fidgeting with her fingers again, Shyla admitted her own stupidity. “I sort of just… assumed.”
His snort of disbelief wasn’t appreciated. “Sorry, sis. Look, guys like that don’t know how to be any other way. Don’t take it personal. It’s who he is.”
Everyone just accepted that Score wasn’t capable of anything else. The strong, determined, confident man she knew could be anything; he wasn’t any one thing. Yet, everybody seemed eager to classify him as a bad guy no matter what.
“I can tell you one thing for sure,” Wyatt said, inspiring her hope. “No woman ever changed a man who didn’t want to change.” He side-nodded back and forth. “Sometimes we say we’ll change, but, you know… we don’t always mean it.”
Which looped back to his advice about men only wanting one thing.
“Score didn’t tell me he was going to change.”
“No, ‘cause you thought he was on the righteous path.” Even if he didn’t mean to sound amused by her stupidity, she heard it in his tone. “You want my advice? Run fast and far. A woman like you—”
“What is that?” she asked. “A woman like me? I don’t know if I can handle it. I know I have a lot to learn. But as sure as everyone is that Score is evil, they seem just as sure I’m a saint.”
“Don’t think you’re a saint, but…” He paused to inhale, held the breath then released it in one long sigh. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have a problem with it.” Her offense must have been obvious because he raised a calming hand. “Don’t worry about it, I get it. It’s a dangerous life and what the fuck are you gonna do if he ends up inside while you’re left out there to deal with the crazies alone? If he’s out of reach, you take the heat on the street.”
“I’m not worried about heat,” she said, though that
