walk away, but not before raising her right arm in the air and flipping me off. “There’s your princess, Manning.”
“I see her,” I told her as I walked about five feet behind her to make sure she made it to her car and out of the lot safely. “Not a bad view,” I called out, smiling when my words made her stumble slightly.
Yeah maybe Emmett was right. Maybe I still had it bad for the Ashby princess. Not that it mattered.
It couldn’t.
Not ever.
There was too much at risk.
Chapter Three
Kat
After getting my butt saved by Terry in the visitor’s lot at House of Ashby, I spent the night thinking of all the people who might want to do me harm. Most of them were probably employees, pissed off because everyone had to work harder and longer hours until after fight night. Some might be men I’ve turned down for dates, but that was unlikely given my last name, and how infrequently I actually dated.
Which meant it likely had everything to do with the block of rooms that had occupied too much of my attention over the past few months. The Mueller Suites, as I started to call them, after the degenerate bishop connected to the rash of murdered priests. The rooms had been blocked off through a standing reservation for the foreseeable future, through the Church of course, to make sure the reservation couldn’t be denied. Or revoked.
When I first found out, I was outraged. Angry as hell that neither Ma or Jasper would allow me to lose or double-book the suites, especially considering what those fucking perverts had done to my brothers. But the more I sat on that anger, and stewed in it, the more I realized that this was my way to do something.
Back then we were still kids, and I’d been too young to understand and when I was old enough to understand, I had so much anger toward the church, I was useless. But now, as a grown woman, I knew exactly how to channel unhealthy emotions into healthy solutions. Including keeping an eagle eye on the pervert suites, watching every move they made.
By any means necessary.
At my desk on the top floor of Emerald Isle, the desert sun brightened up my office and caused a glare on the screen. I was watching a nondescript couple check into one of the Mueller Suites. They’re almost too non-descript, I mused, her ash blonde hair and plain brown eyes, his blend of silver and brown hair, even plainer brown eyes. They were unremarkable in every way, their khaki shorts giving them the look of middle-aged vacationers and the plain glasses made them look kind. Normal. Forgettable.
If not for the fact they were checking into one of the pervert suites, they’d seem perfectly harmless. And that was why they were so goddamn dangerous. Watching surveillance footage of them walking side by side down the hall brought to mind one of my daddy’s drunken lessons.
Never trust anybody working too hard to blend in, they’re trying to hide something as sure as the day is long. Colm Ashby was a drunk motherfucker, but knowing people and reading them, manipulating them, that was his superpower. He could make you think the bad idea that landed you in trouble was your idea and get you to thank him for the tips. I learned at his hip until the day he didn’t come home.
He wasn’t a good man or a decent man, but the lessons I learned—good and bad—shaped me into the woman I was today. Currently, that woman was surveillance stalking the too-plain couple. I watched them walk hand in hand down to one of the hotel restaurants where they each enjoyed one glass of wine with dinner, steak for him and chicken for her, before retiring to their room for the night. They’d been in the hotel for two days and hadn’t made any phone calls, no charges to the room, not even a mini bar water. There was nothing to comment on and no real reason to keep watching them. Except that it was the Mueller suites which were suspect enough, even when they were empty.
I kept an eye on the couple, but I had too much work to do to keep playing private dick on the almost certain perverts sent by Mueller, or the Church. Fight Night was just around the corner, and I still had to make sure that everything went off without a hitch, even though it wasn’t