Ken waited, then gave her an impatient look. ‘Don’t be melodramatic. Just tell me.’

Alice mimed sniffing a line of coke off the back of her hand.

‘Cocaine? Demetrius? No. He’s an athlete. He wouldn’t do that shit.’

She laughed derisively. ‘An athlete? Do you know how many athletes “do that shit”? And don’t get me started on the steroids. How do you think he keeps up with those muscles? He’s not twenty anymore.’

‘How do you know any of this?’

‘I found the steroids in his sock drawer.’ She shrugged. ‘I snooped around Demetrius’s house after I let DJ fuck my brains out.’

He put his hands up in surrender. ‘Don’t.’

‘I found Demetrius’s stash.’ She softened her words with a smile. ‘You guys aren’t getting any younger, you know. Demetrius is pushing fifty. And so are you.’

Ken winced, knowing she was right. ‘Ouch. Should I be worried?’

She sipped her tea demurely. ‘Daddy, you won’t get a chance to get worried. If you threaten the business with stupid shit, I’ll take you out myself.’

‘Oof,’ he grunted placidly, but took no real offense. He’d expect no less. ‘I’ve been thinking about selling out my share and retiring to my own island.’

‘Maybe you should,’ she said kindly. ‘You’ve worked every day of your life. Why not enjoy the next forty or fifty years surrounded by half-naked women serving you fruity drinks?’

He laughed at the mental picture, pretty much a dead match for his own daydreams. ‘I’m thinking about it. Can you and Sean buy me out?’

‘Yes,’ she said seriously. ‘Unless you plan to charge something exorbitant.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I have to sleep someti—’ The ringing of his cell phone cut him off. ‘It’s Demetrius.’

‘About time,’ Alice grumbled. ‘Put him on speaker, please.’

He pointed his finger at her. ‘Then you have to be as quiet as a church mouse.’ She mimed locking her lips while he answered the phone. ‘D. Where the hell have you been, man?’ he asked, even though he knew exactly where Demetrius had been.

‘Uh . . . it’s bad, Kenny. I’m hit. And I’m bleedin’. Maybe bleedin’ out.’

Alice’s eyes grew huge with consternation. ‘Idiot,’ she mouthed.

‘What happened to you?’ Ken asked.

‘Followed one of O’Bannion’s reporters, like we talked.’ Demetrius’s voice had grown slurred. ‘Shot him with the Ruger and was digging out the bullet—’

‘So that the wound would match the girl’s in the alley,’ Ken said impatiently. ‘And?’

‘O’Bannion’s damn dog bit me. Then the damn reporter stabbed me.’

Alice’s eyes rolled.

Ken kept his voice calm. He was seeing her point. ‘With what?’

‘My own goddamn knife,’ Demetrius muttered.

Ken rolled his own eyes. For God’s sake. ‘Did you bleed in O’Bannion’s apartment?’

A long pause. ‘I never said I was in O’Bannion’s apartment.’

Alice’s brows lifted. ‘Busted, Daddy,’ she mouthed.

Shit. She knows. She knew that he’d been tracking his leadership team.

Setting her teacup on his desk, Alice took her own phone from her pocket and began typing. She was intent on whatever she was doing, so Ken let her comment go for the moment, keeping his tone level. ‘His dog bit you, Demetrius. Unless you shot his employee in the goddamn dog park, his apartment seemed a reasonable assumption.’

Alice looked up from her phone. ‘Nice save,’ she mouthed, her expression dry.

He jabbed a warning finger at her and she shrugged, dropping her attention back to her phone. She must have found what she was looking for, because her expression abruptly became darkly furious, making him worried.

‘Oh.’ Demetrius gulped audibly. ‘Okay. That makes sense, I guess. No, I didn’t bleed anywhere. Not till I got to my car. I kept the knife in my arm till then. Didn’t want it to spurt if the little bastard hit an artery.’

If O’Bannion’s employee had hit an artery, Demetrius wouldn’t have made it to his car, Ken thought sourly. The man was such a hypochondriac. ‘Did it spurt?’

‘No, just a slow bleed. But it’s a mess. I can’t go to the hospital. Didn’t Decker fix up Reuben’s guy that got shot this morning?’

‘He did. Where are you, buddy? I’ll come get you.’

Alice’s mouth opened to protest, and Ken shook his finger at her again while he listened to Demetrius give his address.

‘Hold tight, D. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He hung up and glared at Alice. ‘Give me a little credit, kid. You’re not the only one with a brain, just because you have a damn law degree.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Go get Demetrius and make him tell me his suppliers and contacts.’

‘You think he’ll just tell you? Really?’

‘Really. Demetrius acts like a big stud with all his love of torture and beating people up, but he’s a whiny baby when it comes to pain. He acts like a paper cut is a double amputation. I’ll get what I need out of him after Decker makes sure he’s not going to bleed to death.’

‘Nice,’ Alice said approvingly.

His finger hovering over Decker’s speed dial number, he glanced up at her. ‘You knew about the tracking?’

‘Yeah,’ she said in a duh voice. ‘For several months now. You stopped asking me where I was when I went on dates. Sean, too.’

‘That’s why I didn’t know about you and DJ.’

She tapped her nose.

‘It doesn’t . . . bother you?’ he asked. ‘That I was tracking you?’

‘Yeah,’ she repeated, annoyed. ‘But we knew you were worried about your leadership team, so we just left our phones behind when we didn’t want you to know where we were.’

‘How did you know for sure?’ he asked, positive that he was not going to like the answer.

‘Sean hacked your phone. Took him a minute and a half. Before you even consider being soft on Demetrius, though, I want you to see this.’ She showed him her phone, and he heard himself gasp.

‘Fuck.’ It was the local TV news website, and the shooting at O’Bannion’s apartment building was the top story. Two victims en route to the local hospital with ‘grave wounds’. The building was on lockdown. It was good that Demetrius had gotten out when he did.

‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘He didn’t mention that he didn’t actually kill the employee, or that he shot the security guard, did he?’ She let it sink in, then turned to go. ‘I’ll get the room upstairs ready for him.’

‘Alice, wait,’ he said, and she paused mid-step. ‘You’re right. Both of them need to go. I’ll take care of Demetrius. O’Bannion is now officially yours.’

She gave him a hard nod. ‘Thanks.’

‘Two more things.’ He waited until she’d turned around to fully face him. ‘Are you still monitoring McCord’s partner?’ The partner who would have been exposed if Marcus O’Bannion and his Ledger team had continued to dig for the story nine months ago.

‘Yes. He seems to be in control and to have learned from Woody’s mistakes.’

‘Has he added any assets?’

‘A few, but not from us. We’re still taking a cut of his profits, though. Not huge profits, but steady, and there’s promise for future expansion. McCord’s partner welcomed Sean’s e-commerce expertise. Locating his server offshore and teaching him about proxies was also . . . appreciated. His appreciation increased the profit trickle to a steady flow. We haven’t made personal contact in months. He knows I watch his progress, but as long as the deposits are made every month, I don’t bother him.’

It had been an agreement among the team, to take a cut of the business that high school teacher McCord and his more socially prominent partner had successfully started and maintained. But then McCord had thrown his share away when he’d attracted O’Bannion’s attention for being a little too friendly with the students in his class.

Wanting to expose McCord’s lechery, O’Bannion had somehow hacked his way into McCord’s computer and discovered his collection. What O’Bannion had believed to be his collection, anyway. The newsman hadn’t realized what he was looking at, because most people didn’t have the stomach for those kind of pictures to begin with. To clinically analyze them required a specific kind of individual. Marcus O’Bannion was not that man.