He limped after me, finally stopping to stand at my side near a quiet corner free of curious ears.
“Do you know where Franklin went after the fight?”
Lisbeth and I hadn’t stayed long following Connor’s win, mainly because Lisbeth looked ill after the fight. The guilt had gotten to me for forcing her to sit through something I knew upset her, so rather than keeping her there to watch the men in the audience haggle over the payment of bets, I’d led her from the viewing box directly to a car that waited for us out back.
The ride home had been made in silence, her thoughts lost to what she’d witnessed while mine were focused elsewhere.
Jacob turned to look at me, his brows tugged together in question.
“He stayed with me in the box for about ten minutes after you left, but then he took off saying he was headed home. He’s not here?”
“No,” I answered, my gaze crawling across the room, watching a group of people I’d come to call friends.
“Maybe he’s getting it on with that chick I saw him with the other day.”
My eyes snapped to him. “Who?”
A careless shrug.
“Didn’t know who she was, but she was pretty. Older, but pretty. I saw them talking out near the back gates of the garden when I was on guard duty. They were whispering about something. The conversation looked pretty hot and heavy from where I was standing.”
My thoughts went to the woman I’d seen him with the other night.
“What color was her hair?”
“Dark with grey in it. But that’s all I saw.”
Mentally jotting that information down to deal with later, I was about to walk the house again to see if Franklin had come in through a side door to escape the party. But then the front door opened, the man I’d been looking for walking through.
Jacob nudged my shoulder with his, tipped his chin.
“There he is.”
We both watched silently as Franklin made his way through the crowd, a fake, polite smile on his lips when people patted him on the shoulder as he passed, his stride quick as he wound around small groups to approach the stairs and climb up to the third floor.
I glanced at Jacob. “Keep an eye on Lisbeth for me. I’m going to talk to him.”
He laughed. “Lisbeth is with Haley. She’ll be fine.”
That didn’t make me feel better. Haley was a wild child, and we both knew it. Her attitude made her the perfect match for my best friend. Shooting him a look, I cocked a brow.
“And Haley became a good influence, when?”
Nodding, he smiled.
“Good point. I’ll keep an eye out, stop them if they start dancing naked on tables and shit.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel so much better,” I ground out as I turned to head in Franklin’s direction.
Slowly weaving a path around the group, I quietly ascended the stairs, turned a corner and crept down the hall toward the family suites. The door was left open, and I walked through to find Franklin near a side bar pouring a scotch.
His glass fell and shattered over the marble floor the second my hand wrapped around the back of his neck and I shoved his body against a wall, his cheek pressed to the plaster as my chest and hips caged him in place.
While Franklin was my height, he was nowhere near my build, and any fight he had in him was no match for the cold anger that ran like ice in my veins.
My mouth was close to his ear, the intimacy of it disturbing him more than the threat of violence.
“Either you’re here to fuck me or fight me, and I hope you understand that I care for you, Callan, but not enough for the former to be enjoyable.”
My lips stretched into a feral grin.
“You’re funny. Unfortunately, I’m not in the mood to laugh at the moment.”
“Let go of me.”
He put up a pathetic fight, but gave it up after realizing I wouldn’t budge.
The tip of my nose brushed his cheek, a subtle threat.
“I’m here because, once again, I know you’re lying to me. And we’ve talked about this before. Just the other day, in fact. Which means you had every opportunity to come clean about all the secrets you’re hiding.”
Franklin stilled, a breath escaping his lips.
“So, here’s how this is going to go: You’ll tell me everything. Right here. Right now. And I’ll consider not killing you. But if you lie again, if you keep one more fucking secret