Crown of Sins - Chaelisa

-Chapter Eight-

*Lisa's POV*

My brooding has only worsened each day.

I mean, I can feel the crease between my eyebrows deepening. I should put stock in my local chiropractor business before I sign up. And my ankle is sore from all the jiggling it's been doing while hidden under my desk.

I may or may not have broken a mug—or two—from squeezing a little hard, too. But I'd still know even without a single of those internal signals.

Sipping my coffee, I look around the office, and every single person in here is avoiding me. My mood is clearly way worse than normal. Significantly. Since, as I watch, there's a new agent, I'm not even sure what team he's on, who goes the long way around the entire room to avoid walking too close to my cloud of resentment and explosive irritation. Great.

"Hey, Shawn?" I ask. The redhead just a few feet from me looks up from his computer, wariness in his eyes even though he's used to my shit. We went through training together, and it was his word that helped get me onto our team. But even he's on edge from one desk away.

A quick debate ensues inside as I try to convince myself to sound less concerned, completely nonchalant, and circle around what I actually want to know. But in the end, it's easy to decide how much more obvious that would be coming from me.

"How long has OC been working on the Park family?" I ask, with the very most ignorance I can get away with.

"Always," Shawn says without thought, looking away as fast as he can. I'm not sure why, but the non-answer pisses me off more than anything else I anticipated.

"Since before Ronan passed the torch?" I try again. Shawn nods, but says nothing out loud.

"Okay, what's the fucking deal?" I give up, letting my irritation through with the words. "Am I a part of this team or not? Why are you being so cagey?" I shoot the questions at him faster than he could answer even if he was going to.

He's not.

Working my jaw, and hearing the groaning of my molars, I take a deep breath before even trying to put together more of an argument. But he beats me to it, his mouth hardening even as he opens it to answer.

"Don't get too close to The Mafia Princess, or she'll destroy you," he says practically in code it's so cryptic.

My lips already parting to argue, my hand lifting with a pointed finger to throw accusations and denials both, he stops me before I can get too close to blowing up.

"She destroys everyone around her. Anyone who gets in the way. I'm not saying anything about you," Shawn says. Though he counters it with a lift to his eyebrows. Even though it's quick, I catch it. "Anyone who isn't in her family is fair game. And, intentional or not, she ruins lives to keep her status quo. So just stop. Quit while you still can."

Shawn's eyes are as solid, iced over and cemented down, as the angle of his posture by the time he finishes. It's not a way I've ever seen him, even in Qtown, or at his worst in the gym at the bag.

"It just happens," he adds.

I'd been about to let it go, I swear. I think. But the little addendum pulls words from me despite my knowing better.

"How can that be the case. How can one little woman, with one little club, in one city be so powerful? How?" I give too much, say it too loudly. But I want to know. I have to.

She's beautiful,and charismatic and was handed a decent amount of leverage and money to back her up. But still. Still she's just one amongmillions. Special or not, she isn't fucking magic. I want to add all of that, but I've got enough sense to shut the fuck up. For once in my life, maybe.

"She's just not what she seems. Not only too smart; she basically eats men for breakfast," Shawn says. Like somehow that explains anything.

My head dips toward one shoulder, my nose flaring and my eyelids coming closer and closer together. It's the most visual representation of calling bullshit ever.

"If you don't believe me, feel free to call up Lopez and ask him why he retired early," Shawn practically whispers. But it's the loudest, hardest-hitting comment he's made so far. "He fell to his knees before letting go of the badge and lost everything on the fall down." And it's the last thing I want to hear.

I don't believe it for a second, but if I have to stomach anything else, I'm going to tear his limbs off and force them down his throat. So instead, I stand, ending the conversation right there.

"I'm out," I say as I head out of the room, out of the building, off of work for the day.

****

I don't get very far, though. About ten steps from the building toward the salvation of driving home, my cell starts ringing. I want it to be Thora, or even Shawn or Maxwell. Hell, I'd even prefer my mother over who I can feel pulling me through the phone lines.

And yet, there's hope—too fucking much of it—as I pull my phone up to my ear as I hit the green button simultaneously.

Not that I can control my automatic thoughts, those instincts that take over before you really have time to consider, but the want in me that wants it to be her is disgusting. The hope that she wants to hear my voice, wants my opinion maybe, or just to bother me. Sick. I'm sick in the head.

"Roseanne." I don't wait, and it's not a question. "What?" It's not an unknown number this time; she's calling directly from the club. That feels wrong, before she even speaks. Sometimes I feel bad for being such a dick all the time. But now isn't one of them.

"Come over," she says.

It's short, shorter than me even. And the distress in her voice is unmistakable. She cracks even though only two words came from those beautiful lips of hers. It takes nothing else for me to start moving faster, getting into my car while responding. "What's wrong?"

The engine roars as I switch her to speaker and pull out onto the road. Speed limits be damned—the badge is good for a lot of things—as I press harder into the sole of my shoe.

"I'd rather not call in a favor this early in our relationship—I'd rather tease you and up the anticipation for a lot longer, but if you'd prefer to arrest me eventually instead of identify my body on a cold metal slab...then I could really use some help," she says.

Her words don't match her tone at all, like she's trying to bury the truth just beneath what sort of looks close enough to it. And the pedal makes contact with the floor then.