Page 37 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

It was two more weeks before shit hit the fan.

~*~

“I gotta go meet Kat,” Shep announced while they were rinsing the breakfast dishes.

“Kat Rydell?”

“Yeah. He said it was ‘important.’” He did air quotes and rolled his eyes, but they both knew Prince’s crew didn’t reach out unless it really was important.

“Jamie’s coming into the city this morning,” she said. “She wouldn’t text me back at all for the longest time, but she wants to have coffee before I go to class.” She was choosing to take it as a hopeful sign.

Shep, though, frowned as he slotted plates into the dishwasher. “Want me to come with?”

“Because she reacted so well the last time she saw you? No, but thank you,” she added, when his nose wrinkled up, and tickled his stomach through his shirt in the way he liked when she sidled past him at the sink.

They finished up in the kitchen, donned their jackets, and Cass gathered her bag.

He kissed her on the sidewalk and put her in a cab with instructions to text him when she got to the coffeeshop and then when she got to class.

It was all very domestic and left her warm and humming.

A happiness high that lasted up until she walked into Starbucks and caught sight of Jamie jammed in a corner table in the back of the shop.

She looked like hell. Pale, with sleepless circles as dark as bruises under her eyes, hair scraped back in a greasy bun. She wore thick, shapeless clothes, and sat hunched forward over the table, both hands wrapped around a to-go cup.

Cass’s smile froze, and then slipped. She hustled across the shop, dismayed at the way Jamie startled when she approached.

“Hi.” She slid into the chair across from Jamie, relieved to see Jamie’s shoulders drop when she recognized Cass. She didn’t relax , though.

“Hi,” Jamie said back. Her gaze shifted over Cass, from windswept hair to freshly painted black nails. “You look good.” She frowned. “You look happy .” The concept sounded foreign to her.

“I am. But you don’t look like you are. Are you doing okay?”

Jamie checked over her shoulder toward the bathroom, and shook her head when she turned back. “I don’t have a lot of time. Mom’s in the bathroom, and I—”

“Jamie.” Cass slid her hand across the table and Jamie pulled back. So far back she was pressed to the wall, cup clutched to her chest. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not…” Jamie gulped in air, gasping as though she’d been running. “Cass, I’m so sorry, but I’m recanting my statement. I can’t testify against Sig.”

All her warm fuzzies from the morning evaporated, replaced by cold dread. Shep had warned her of this, had said weeks ago, in her dorm room, that Jamie would recant.

“Jamie, no.”

Jamie closed her eyes tight and shook her head so hard Cass thought she’d hurt herself. “I can’t, Cass, I’m sorry, but I just—” She gasped again, choking on a sob. “He threatened me. There was a note in my mailbox, and there’s these guys in a van outside the house. I can’t, I can’t .”

“Jamie. Jamie , listen to me.” Cass stood, leaned across the table, and laid a hand on Jamie’s wrist. Jamie whimpered, and flinched, but at least she didn’t throw herself to the floor, so that was something.

Jesus . “I know you’re scared, and I know the whole situation is scary, but I can help you. ”

“No, no, you—”

“My family can help,” Cass insisted. “My sister, and my friend Ian, and my boyfriend. You remember Shep, right? Who came to our dorm?”

Jamie’s eyes popped wide. “Your boyfriend? Are you dating that guy? That old guy ?”

Cass ignored that. “We can help keep you safe, we can—”

“What are you doing?” a woman’s voice snapped beside the table.

Cass had only met Jamie’s mother once, at orientation. She was a sturdy woman with graying red curls and a strong jaw. She’d been friendly and smiling at orientation, but now glared daggers at Cass.

“Mrs. Simpson,” Cass started.

“Get away from my daughter. You’re the whole reason she has to drop out of school.”

Cass whipped back toward Jamie. “You’re dropping out? No, Jamie, you can’t—”

Mrs. Simpson slammed a hand down on the table, the resultant smack drawing looks from other patrons. The woman’s face flushed red, jaw quivering with anger, with fear. “Leave my daughter alone! Biker slut!”

Cass wasn’t hurt by the words. She was hurt for Jamie, who shot her a furtive, terrified look as she stood, turned, and walked out of the shop.

~*~

Shep wouldn’t say he liked Katsuya Rydell, but appreciated the man’s quiet, direct approach to business.

He didn’t like to chat. Shep, oddly enough, did like a good chat, but with the right person.

(He could now admit to himself that he could talk for hours with Cass, though most other people bugged the shit out of him with chitchat.)

He waited for Shep in the same corner booth at Hauser’s where Cass had attempted her little birthday seduction routine.

He wore his usual uniform of hoodie, leather jacket, and black baseball cap, long black hair hanging down to his shoulders.

He was nursing a vodka rocks, and nodded a greeting when Shep slid in across from him.

“Is this about the Russians?” Shep asked when he was settled.

Kat sent him an unreadable look from under the brim of his cap and said, “No.” He took a sip of vodka, and the back of Shep’s neck tingled. A premonition. This wasn’t, he suddenly realized, going to be a quick-and-easy business meeting. “I’m here as a personal favor.”

“To who?”

“You.” Kat lifted a folder from the booth beside him, but held onto it a moment, rapping its edge on the table.

“What the fuck?”

Kat said, “I’ve been taking on more PI jobs lately. Someone got in contact with Prince about contracting me, and I decided to take it just so no one else would wind up with the gig.”

Shep’s neck prickled some more. Gooseflesh broke out all down his back. “And I’m the target?”

“No.” Kat slid the folder over. “Cassandra Green is.”

Shep snatched the folder and flipped it open, already knowing what he’d find, but not knowing how badly it would rattle him.

The first photo was of Cass climbing off the back of his bike in front of her school building, his colors on display, her face unmistakeable.

The next photo was taken just moments after the first, Cass’s small hand on his shoulder as she leaned in to kiss him.

Next was the two of them at the bodega down the block from the apartment: going in with their arms linked, coming out with his free hand jammed in her back pocket, her head tipped back as she laughed up at something he’d said with a look of complete delight on her cute face.

There were more. Dozens. Holding hands, or his arm around her, or them kissing. None of it was X-rated, but it was unmistakeable all the same: Cass was with him. Anyone trying to dig up dirt on her would know exactly who she was sleeping with.

The last photo was one he wanted to keep…

and also to tear into a thousand pieces.

His hand on her face, thumb at the corner of her mouth, in the moment just before they kissed.

Her eyes were huge, and blue, and beautiful, her face soft with want, with affection.

If he’d ever doubted, and he didn’t any more, that she adored him, that photo left no doubt.

When he blinked, and examined it from an outside perspective, he saw a grown-ass man laying hands on a girl with her whole life ahead of her, and he snapped the folder shut with a curse.

“Who hired you? A guy named Blackmon?”

Kat nodded. When he nudged his glass forward in offering, Shep snatched it up and drained it.

“Fuck, I hate vodka. What did he ask for? Proof she’s, what, associated with the Dogs?”

“He wants to know what sort of illegal activity she’s caught up in, if any. Obviously, I didn’t catch any of that on film. But.” He tilted his head, gaze still unreadable, but shrewd all the same. “I’m guessing the rest of the family doesn’t know you two are fooling around.”

“I’m not fucking fooling around ,” he growled, incensed. “Fuck you.” He gathered himself to stand.

Kat stayed him with a hand. “I’m not judging, okay? Calm down.”

“ You fucking calm down. I’m—” Shit, he was out of breath.

Kat said, “Obviously, I’m not going to pass any of that on to Blackmon. In a couple days, I’ll return his money and tell him I couldn’t find anything.”

“He’ll hire someone else,” Shep said, realizing.

“Yeah. I’ve bought you some time. You need to be careful going forward. Tell Cassandra to be careful. I don’t know what he wants—”

“I do,” Shep said, grimly, and tightened his hands into fists until his knuckles cracked.

Kat nodded. “Okay. Keep that.” He gestured to the folder. “And good luck.”

“Thanks,” Shep muttered, and slid out of the booth. He paused, though, and turned to Kat, and said, sincerely, “Thank you.”

Kat nodded again, and reached for his empty glass.