Lee’s little sister, was in the conference room of her private investigations offices chatting with Knight, Rhash and Daisy Sloan, Ally’s receptionist, but more importantly on the Denver scene, Marcus Sloan’s wife.
Ally had her feet up on the table, ankles on those long legs crossed, a pair of high-heeled shoes on her feet even the most committed man would feel in his dick, and she was laughing her ass off.
She was older than Rush, taken, as in married with children, but if she wasn’t and there was no Rebel, she’d have been his type (barring the fact she was a brunette) and he’d have gone for a go. Ballsy. Smart. Knew what she wanted. Badass. And she had a heart bigger than Colorado.
The minute his father and Rush walked in, her eyes came to them.
“Have you seen it?” she asked.
“What?” Tack asked back.
“Valenzuela’s sex tape.”
Rush felt donuts grumble in his gut.
“Not yet,” Tack answered.
“It . . . is . . . priceless. I sent a choice snippet to Luke’s phone,” she shared, lifting up her cell in her hand. “He said he’s not talking to me for a year.”
Rush chuckled, though he thought she got off easy. Luke Stark, Lee’s righthand man, seeing that, could have threatened much worse and carried it through.
Knight got up with a smile on his face to shake Tack’s hand, then his eyes came to Rush. He did a thorough scan, read the situation, and the smile was different when he took Rush’s hand.
Rush held his eyes, returned the firm grip and let go.
“Good to see we can hit a meet that’s gonna include Valenzuela with a smile,” Rush muttered.
“Dawn of a new day, my man,” Knight replied.
“Marcus and me made a sex tape,” Daisy shared as she got up, and Tack and Rush shook Rhash’s hand. “Though, that gets out, it’ll make my honey bunches of love even more of a legend.”
That might be true.
Rush still didn’t want to see it.
“Have fun dethroning the pretender,” Daisy bid as she strolled out on her own brand of fuck-me shoes, but hers would be proudly worn by a stripper.
“You guys want coffee?” Ally offered, pulling her heels from the table. “We’ll DoorDash some from Fortnum’s. Tex hates DoorDash. He’ll have something to bitch about. It’ll make his day.”
“Not sure we’ll be here that long,” Tack replied, taking a seat.
Rush took a seat at his side.
Ally got up. “Righty ho then, boys. Have fun.”
And with that, she strutted out.
“You got the tape?” Tack asked Knight when the door closed on her.
“It was messengered this morning to my office,” Knight answered.
“You share it with Ally?” Tack went on, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“Too good not to share,” Knight replied. “Though that depends on you understanding the various nuances of the words ‘too good.’”
Rush watched his dad’s lips twitch as he hit his screen then put his phone to his ear.
It didn’t take long before he was saying into it, “Red? You’re gonna get a messenger delivery. You can open it, but trust me, you don’t wanna play it.”
He paused, grinned.
Then, “Yeah, baby. Love you too. Later.”
He took the phone from his ear just as a voice came from a box on the table.
“Showtime, badasses,” Daisy said through it.
They all looked out the wall of windows.
Valenzuela came in, looking dapper, his usual, and pissed as fuck, not his usual. They’d gotten mostly smug with healthy sides of superior and asshole for years.
Rush fought breaking out in a huge motherfucking smile.
This was going to be righteous.
But Valenzuela had no man with him.
“No second?” Rush muttered.
“Sixx is meticulous,” his dad muttered back.
Jesus.
Serious respect for that woman.
Daisy made a show of letting Valenzuela in the conference room.
He didn’t even glance at her as he stalked to the table, sat at the head and barely made eye contact with a single man in the room.
“I’m sure you all will be gratified to know I’ll be exploring prospects outside Denver for the foreseeable future,” he declared, now deciding to scowl between the men, as if winning a staring contest would bolster his flattened rep.
He took a lot of time doing this, which was annoying.
Finally, he settled on Tack. “I’m having the paperwork drawn up. You’ll have to sign it and I’ll leave you to deal with the titling agencies. But by the end of the week, my production facilities will be switched into the hands of Ride LLC.”
“Say what?” Tack rumbled.
Valenzuela’s gaze had drifted away, but at Tack’s words he focused on