“Calm down, Chace,” he replied placatingly.
“Fuck calm,” Chace growled. “My father gettin’ off on sick-fuck, jacked up kink made my life a livin’ hell for far too long. I’m clear. I’m stayin’ clear. You tell your boys to stay clear, man up and take whatever’s gonna come to them.”
“We’re simply asking you to have a conversation with two men. Walker, to get him to collect his tapes, Newcomb, to get him to deliver on his part of the bargain. Very simple.”
“Gettin’ either of those men to do that is not about havin’ a conversation. It’s about usin’ a strong arm and I’ve done that for you and your boys. I’m done doin’ that too.”
“As you’ve brought it up, at this juncture, I unfortunately have to remind you that you have, indeed, acted as an enforcer for my colleagues. If this was leaked, you’d find the questions asked by your superiors very uncomfortable and you’d undoubtedly lose your standing in this town as its saving grace hero.”
“It’s not a role that fits, you know why since you and your colleagues jacked my shit. So leak it. I’ll take it.”
“It’s conceivable this would make the news. You were held up as the poster boy for bravery against corruption. The media enjoys building a hero. But they enjoy it more, tearing him down. It could destroy your life.”
“Clue in, asshole, my life’s already in the toilet. Not only would it be a relief but, I don’t think you get this, I know my father’s plays but I am not my father or any of the men you work for. I got a pair. Shit happens, I don’t hide behind my money and men like you. I deal. Dish it out. I want you to. I already live under a cloud. Nothin’ you or those douchebags you work for, who keep you in your expensive suits and shoes and haircuts, could do could make it any worse.”
“You are very wrong, Chace.”
“Try it and see.”
Clinton held his eyes and Chace let him.
Then he said quietly, “There could come a time when Trane can’t protect you.”
“Let that time be now,” Chace invited. “I don’t want that piece of shit’s protection.”
“This is the wrong decision,” Clinton whispered.
“No,” Chace did not whisper. “Your boys are runnin’ so scared at the same time thinkin’ their money and position can buy them anything, they haven’t been payin’ attention. Your first move is against Ty and Lexie, you’ll create a shit storm so extreme it’ll never blow over. Not only is Ty Walker a man who has taken enough and is not about to take any more and will do what he’s gotta do to protect himself, his wife and the family they’re makin’, he’s a man who’s got some serious power at his back. He stubs his toe and it looks suspect, the full force of the media, Samuel Sterling and whoever Sterling can round up will be all over your asses. I got their back and I’ll have it any way I have to have it even if it means throwin’ myself on my sword. Think of that in your strategy sessions. And since I’m handin’ out advice, Darren Newcomb is a racist asswipe, dirty cop who beat his wife so badly, the only play he gave her was for her to leave him and her kids. But he loves his daughter. He’ll go down for her. You fuck with him and any chance he has to help his daughter beat that shit eatin’ away at her, he’ll make it ugly. So counsel your boys to take on a new charity and learn to hope Newcomb doesn’t get greedy. You see his daughter through that shit, deal with him after. He deserves it. His daughter does not.”
“I’ll take this under advisement and share it with my colleagues.”
“Good call.”
“But you haven’t addressed the matter of your mother.”
Chace couldn’t beat it back this time and sucked in breath.
If his mother knew about his father, it’d kill her.
She’d been a beauty her whole life, even now, at age sixty. She came from money, had been spoiled but it didn’t make her like Misty, grasping and entitled. Nothing could beat his mother’s sweet. It was how she was because it was who she was.
She loved and adored her son.
She loved and worshiped her husband.
Trane Keaton was a lot of things and not one of them was good. Except the fact that in his sick way, he felt the same about his wife. Like Chace, he handled her with care, like she was exactly what she was, a delicate, fragile thing who gave nothing to the world but beauty.
But she wasn’t perfect precisely because she was fragile. The kind of fragile it took medication to strengthen or it would come flying apart. The kind of fragile that, before the meds and even sometimes after them, led to episodes that were at best unpleasant and at worst, especially when he was a kid, terrifying.
Fuck, she’d had a bad break that put her into treatment after reading an article about a little girl who’d been kidnapped, molested and murdered. As terrible as that shit was, she totally couldn’t deal.
Finding out her husband was unfaithful to her repeatedly throughout their marriage and how would end her.
Chace knew that. His father knew that. But it was Chace knowing it that bought them his cooperation, until he couldn’t stomach cooperating anymore because he couldn’t even look in his own eyes in the mirror.
His threat to tell her had been a bluff at the time and Clinton knew it. But now, as he had when he made the decision to approach Internal Affairs and offer to assist in exposing the corruption in Carnal, Chace had to weigh his mother’s mental health against the well-being of an entire town.
And he loved her a fuckuva lot.
But Ty and Lexie Walker had been through enough in their lives and they had a baby on the way.
Just they tipped the scales.
The rest sent them crashing.
“You force my hand, I’ll do what I have to do. I do what I have to do, I’ll deal with the fallout but you will deal with my father,” Chace replied.
Again, Clinton’s shades stayed locked to Chace’s eyes.
Then he murmured, “Please step away.”
“I will, I get your assurances I don’t see you again or hear from any of your crew of assholes.”
“I cannot guarantee that, Chace.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Chace whispered.
Clinton continued to hold his eyes long moments before he requested quietly, “I’m asking you to step back.”
Chace drew in breath at the same time he realized he couldn’t do what he very much would like to do. Use his fists to provide Clinton Bonar with the experience Darren Newcomb’s daughter was very familiar with and that was a prolonged hospital stay.
His only play was to step back and walk away.
So he stepped back and walked away. The direction he walked was toward the library.
“This isn’t finished,” Clinton warned his back.
“It never is,” Chace muttered, not knowing if Clinton could hear him and not giving a fuck if he could.
He watched the library coming closer as he thought of dancing with Faye after midnight to a fantastic fucking song while she smiled at him and let him hold her close. He’d sat in her truck, smelling her perfume, watching her expressive face, hearing her sweet voice using a variety of different tones that were as expressive as her face.
He’d bought her coffee. He’d watched a kid who had nothing grab five bags full of what he would consider gold that Faye Goodknight gave to him out of nothing but kindness.
He’d had a good morning, his first good morning in a really long time that his father and his bullshit had turned to shit.