alone.”
I sighed my relief when he didn’t argue. While Loren showered, I went downstairs to wait to give him some privacy and figure out my next move. I was so deep in my thoughts as I descended the stairs that I didn’t notice the ambush I was walking into until it was too late.
A spitting image of my best friend, though his hair had long turned gray and thinned, Loren’s father waited at the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t flinch as I held the cold and cunning gaze of Orson James. Loren might have thought he hated me, but true hatred was found in his father’s eyes. Loren looked to me, he’d given me the respect Orson desired but never bothered to earn, and sometimes Loren even obeyed. For those reasons, Orson James despised me.
“Orson,” I forced myself to greet.
Laine Morrow wouldn’t care how much contempt I held for the man. My grandmother wouldn’t approve of me not showing anyone the proper respect in their own dwelling.
“Get out of my house, Morrow.”
“Gladly, but I’ll be taking your son with me.” My manners only went so far. Fuck him.
“Loren’s place is here. He knows that now. That’s why he’s come home.”
My skin crawled hearing the way he talked about Loren, but I forced myself to push past it and keep my composure. “Funny. You didn’t seem to think so when you literally threw him out in the rain and the street like a dog.”
“He was a man. It was time he acted like one.”
“Finally, we can agree, but don’t think for one second you had anything to do with Loren standing on his own. He didn’t do it for you.”
“I suppose I have you to thank?” Orson taunted as he straightened the cuff on his blue suit. Someone must have alerted him of my presence if he was here instead of at the office. “Fine. Thank you. Now you and that sad, little black-haired shit can watch me reap the rewards.”
“That will never happen, but if somehow, I died and let you have him, you’d have Loren to thank, not me.” I shoved past him, clipping his shoulder before striding out the door.
An hour had passed when I heard shouting. I was out of my truck and ready to storm back inside when Loren came waltzing out of the door with a sinister smile and looking like himself again. His hair was slicked back, and he wore fitted navy blue pants that hung off his hips and a matching short-sleeve button-up that he’d left undone. The only noticeable difference was the medallion he no longer wore.
My heart was still pounding, however, until I saw the bag with all his shit packed inside and hanging from his shoulder.
Reaching the truck, he climbed inside, and so did I. I could smell the fresh mint from the gum he was chewing and the bergamot in his cologne as he slumped in his seat and got comfortable.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Lo mumbled without looking at me. He was busy staring through the windshield at his father, who was standing on his massive front porch, fuming and holding Loren’s medallion, which hung from his fingers.
Wasting no time, I hit the gas.
I then flipped off Orson James through my lowered window when I sped off with his only son riding shotgun.
I ignored my exhaustion after flying round-trip from Los Angles to Portland in one day as I climbed from the back of the town car Dani had arranged to pick us up. Together, Loren and I walked into the building that held Savant Records, with two of our private security trailing us. Our strides never broke with the knowledge that our girl was thirty floors up fighting Carl’s lawyers alone.
That was until we got through the building’s security and reached the bank of elevators.
Loren, spotting Rich waiting, stopped in his tracks. “I want to make something clear,” he said to me, jaw tight as he glared ahead at Rich, who watched him too but with bleakness in his gaze, “this doesn’t change anything. I’m here for Braxton, and that’s it. I’m done.”
Yeah, we’ll see about that.
“You really want to argue about this right now?”
“I’m not arguing. I’m telling you.”
“Let’s go,” I said dismissively. Loren wasn’t leaving shit, and it wasn’t because I’d make him stay. He couldn’t walk away any more than the rest of us. “We’re already late.”
Rich pushed away from the wall he was leaning against as we approached. For the