The Firm Hand of the Law Read online

  “You lost the bar, dear. I don’t think giving you money is going to solve your problem. You’re careless, that’s the thing,” Gammy lectured. “I always knew you were careless. Remember when you were small and…”

  Lily couldn’t listen to the time she flushed her doll down the toilet all over again, especially considering it was being brought up in the context of why Gammy wasn’t going to help her out. She bit her tongue to stop a harsh retort, but it was impossible to hold back her tears. “I have to go, Gammy,” she said, giving the old woman a quick hug. “I will see you next weekend.”

  “So soon?”

  “Yes, Gammy, I’m sorry.”

  “I hope I live ‘til next weekend,” Gammy said, tucking her hands into her blanket and looking deliberately frail.

  * * *

  “Everything alright?” There was no mistaking Lily’s red-rimmed eyes as she got back into the car. She was clearly upset.

  “I love her,” Lily said, staring straight ahead, “but she makes me so mad sometimes. Can you believe she never told me she didn’t need me to pay for her home? She probably has enough money to live to three hundred after all I’ve given her over the years.”

  Gareth refrained from saying that he could very well believe it. Lily was too sweet to realize that she’d been taken for a ride her whole life by the people who were supposed to be looking after her. They smiled in her face, wrapped her in their arms, and stole what was rightfully hers—the innocence of her youth and the opportunity to make her own way in the world. She’d been sucked into a life of crime before she knew what a crime was. It was a crying shame and he couldn’t say a word about it. All he could do was be there for her.

  “Anyway,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’m ready to help you. They’re going to pay for what they did.”

  “That’s sweet,” he said. “Your desire for revenge is understandable, but I don’t see how you can help. The bar is gone. That means all the contacts, all the surveillance…”

  “The bar is gone,” she interrupted. “But I still know what I know. Jasper…”

  “Who is Jasper?”

  “Jasper is the one who organizes all the deals, who manages all the drops and all the locations.”

  “I wonder why Rex never mentioned him,” Gareth mused aloud. He didn’t have to wonder why she’d never mentioned this Jasper character. She’d been playing her cards too close to her chest, giving her loyalty to someone who quite literally ended up burning her.

  “Jasper didn’t deal with Rex directly. But he called me sometimes. I have his number.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Because he likes me.”

  “He likes you and he burned your bar to the ground?”

  “I said he likes me. I didn’t say he was a nice person. Or a sane person. Jasper’s dangerous. If people get in his way, he gets rid of them, they just… disappear. Believe it or not, burning the bar down is just a slap on the wrist in his world.”

  “Is that right.” Gareth kept his thoughts largely to himself. The fear Lily must have been living with for years, knowing that her livelihood and personal safety were at the whims of some madman with a god complex… she really was brave. “Come here,” he said, drawing her into a hug.

  She squirmed a little as his arms closed around her, then settled into his embrace. “The gear stick is poking me,” she said, her voice muffled.

  “Sorry.” He let her go. “Hey,” he reminded her, “you have me.”

  “Yeah, I have the cop I’m ratting all my friends out to.”

  “They were never your friends. Friends don’t turn your bar into an underground trading post, and they sure don’t burn your house down because you fraternized with the wrong people.”

  “If that’s the case, then I guess I never really had a friend, not as an adult anyway,” Lily said morosely. “I was always so busy with the bar. I had employees, but they’re not friends if you have to pay them.”

  “No,” Gareth agreed, “they’re not. Come on, let’s get you home. You’ve had enough for one day.”

  * * *

  Lily had experienced enough for a lifetime, or at least it felt that way as she laid out on the spare bed in Gareth’s spare room, a spare woman in a spare world. Depression was settling in. The loss of her bar left a hole in her world. Her entire adult life and much before had been spent in and around that place. It had been a full time job for as long as she could remember. And now there was nothing. No job. No money. No home. She was completely and utterly at the mercy of the cop who had surprisingly good taste in sheets. Lily was pretty sure that she was sobbing into Egyptian cotton.

  After sadness came a fresh burst of anger. She wished she hadn’t thrown her phone away; she would have liked to have called Jasper and given him a piece of her mind. Yes, he was a murderous maniac, but even murderous maniacs could go too far—and he had definitely gone far too far.

  “You’re going to pay for this,” she growled into her pillow. “I’m going to take every damn thing you have and send you to the deepest pit they have.” The threat couldn’t be heard outside the pillow, let alone outside the room, but she hoped it would somehow travel to Jasper and give him the same sense of unease she was suffering with.

  “Lily!” Gareth called her name. She dried her eyes and made her way out to the kitchen where he was waiting. “Here.” He handed her a credit card.

  “What’s this for?”

  “You need some clothes.”

  She pushed it back toward him. “I’m not going to take your money.”

  “Oh, so you have a bank account of your own to fall back on?”

  There was no account. Lily had always dealt in cash. The staff were paid per shift from the night’s take, and the profits were kept in the safe—which should have been safe in the concrete cavity where it had been installed.

  “The safe was fireproof. I have money there.”

  “That will have been confiscated as part of the investigation.”

  “What?” she shrieked. “I earned that fair and square. That was all legal.”

  “Maybe, but it was found at the scene of an arson in a building at the center of a smuggling operation.” He pushed the card back toward her. “Take it.”

  “I can make my own money.” She pushed the card back to him yet again. “I will see you later.”

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Shopping.”

  “You don’t have any money.”

  “I will have.”

  “Young lady, you are not going to mug, steal, shoplift, or commit any other crime. You’re going to let me take care of you.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Not without breaking the law, you can’t.” He finished his coffee and put the cup in the dishwasher. “Looks like we’re going shopping together,” he said, taking her hand in his.

  “Oh God no.”

  “Yes, but you don’t have to call me God.” He slapped her ass and winked. “If you’re good, Daddy might get you some ice cream.”

  His words were teasing, but they made a little jolt of electricity shoot through Lily’s body. Gareth’s patronizing ways were starting to grow on her just a little bit, though she would never have admitted it. She knew she was lucky that he’d taken an interest in her. If not for him she would have been on the streets. Of course, if not for him, she would still have her bar. Then again, she would still be Jasper’s bitch. There were a lot of ways to look at her situation, so many it made her head hurt sometimes. Lily gave up trying to work things out and consented to go shopping.

  Against all probability, Gareth turned out to be fun to shop with. They got smoothies at the ice cream bar and walked through the mall almost like normal people. Almost like a couple.

  “How about this?” He reached for a puce pink sweater hanging on a rack outside a store aimed at the conservative knit and pearl set.

  “Ugh, no. Tell me you’re not going to pick out my clothes.”
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  Gareth grinned. “That could be cute.”

  “Not if that’s what you like,” she pointed at the sweater as he returned it to the rack. “Don’t come at me with that.”

  He put it back on the rack. “What do you want, then?”

  She shrugged. “Clothes.”

  It struck her that she had a chance to reinvent herself. For a long time she’d worn bar clothes, jeans and tank tops and short little skirts. Anything to keep cool and look hot. But what did she need to dress for now?

  “You look lost,” Gareth observed.

  “Not lost, just thinking.”

  “Get something to be comfortable in,” he suggested. “Some underwear if you like that sort of thing.”

  Comfort was one consideration. Practicality was another. Fierceness was yet another. Revenge was on her mind, a thought too dark for the brightly lit mall with its candy stands and pulsating music emanating from every store front.

  “Jeans,” she said. “Black jeans.”

  Black jeans were acquired. As were black tank tops, black sweaters and some black boots. Black on black on black.

  “I should dye my hair,” she said, catching sight of herself in one of the many mall mirrors, “to blonde.”

  “You’re perfect as you are,” Gareth disagreed. “And I think you have every bit of black clothing in this place. You look like you’re in mourning.”

  “I am in mourning,” Lily said. “I lost my everything.” She selected several different shades of black nail polish, all of which Gareth paid for without comment. There were a few more items slipped into bags which were not on Gareth’s tab. It was a risk, but she figured he’d long ago lost track of what she was buying.

  “It’s always darkest before dawn,” he said in an effort to be comforting.

  “It’s always cliché before cliché,” Lily replied. “Some things are just bad. This is one of them.”

  He swatted her bottom, right there in the store. A few looks were shot in her direction, making her blush. “Okay, that’s enough,” she hissed. “Seriously.”

  “I quite agree,” Gareth growled. “It’s more than enough. You’re acting like a spoiled little brat.”

  “I am not!”

  “Yes, you are, pouting around the mall.”

  “Well, sorry if I’m not super happy. My house and business burned down yesterday.”

  “It’s fine to be sad. It’s not alright to be a sassy little brat.”

  She opened her mouth, but saw that he was ready to swat her all over again. Looking into his face, she saw a grim kind of determination. His blue eyes were boring into her without any kind of sympathy. Arson or not, he was not going to let her get away with a damn thing. Except maybe the items in her bags, the ones he didn’t know were there.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. “Before you get yourself into trouble.”

  She agreed, gathering her bags. She walked out of the store in front of him, and was horrified when alarms rang out. The security gates must have been hidden in the clothing racks on either side of the door.

  Ordinarily she would have made a run for it, but there wasn’t time. Gareth grabbed her before she could take another step and hauled her back into the store as if she were already guilty.

  “Something probably didn’t scan properly,” an apologetic salesgirl said. “We’ll just run it all through again.”

  “Ugh, I don’t have time for this,” Lily complained.

  Gareth shot her a dark look. “Settle down and be patient,” he growled. “She’s just doing her job.”

  Lily watched the salesgirl do her job, the one she was going to get in trouble for any second now. Yes. There it was. A silver Judas lurking amidst the legitimately purchased items.

  “Um,” the salesgirl held up a silver necklace. “This isn’t on your receipt.”

  “Weird,” Lily said.

  Gareth wasn’t buying it. He paid for the necklace, apologized, and dragged her out of the mall by her hand. She was in trouble. She could feel it emanating from him, though he did not say a word until they were back in the car.

  He started the engine, then looked at her. “Why on earth would you shoplift when I was right there to buy you what you wanted?”

  Lily shrugged, feeling small and guilty. “I don’t know.”

  “You just need to be in trouble, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The drive back to Gareth’s house was ominously silent. Lily was feeling very guilty, knowing she had disappointed him, and in a sense, thrown his hospitality and kindness in his face.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Go inside. Go to my bedroom. Take your clothes off and wait for me.”

  He gave the orders calmly, but they made her stomach quiver. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but shut it again and decided just to obey. Whatever he had in store, she probably deserved. Maybe he was right. Maybe she did need to be in trouble. As she stripped out of the dress she had been wearing since their date, she figured she was probably too messed up in the head for anyone to really know what was going on in there.

  Gareth entered the room, holding a long silk tie in his hands. He didn’t have to say what it was for. She was going to be cuffed, but this time he was using something a little less institutional to take her freedom away.

  “Seems to me you can’t get by without being in trouble,” he said, swirling his finger in a gesture to make her turn around. “Put your hands behind your back.”

  She did as she was told, feeling vulnerable and excited at the same time. His bedroom smelled of him, warm and masculine. Gareth looped the silk around her wrists with a practiced touch which made her think he’d probably done it before. Within seconds she was both naked and restrained, completely at his mercy.

  Gareth gathered the pillows from the head of the bed and piled them in the center. “Bend over.”

  It was an awkward task, crawling onto the bed without hands, but she managed to shuffle over the soft coverlet and put herself in the position he asked for. It wasn’t uncomfortable once she laid over the pillows which supported her hips and raised her cheeks.

  “You’ve been bad, Brannigan,” he drawled, slapping her bottom lightly with his palm. “But you know that already. What you don’t know is what’s going to happen when you’re a bad girl.”

  He was so perfectly calm and in control that Lily was a little worried. He should have been madder. He should have been lecturing and growling. Instead he was just firm and determined. She could hear it in his tone and see it in his eyes.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” He was unbuttoning his shirt as he spoke, revealing a muscular expanse of chest covered in a pelt of thick, dark hair. His biceps and forearms rippled with the motion as he prepared for God only knew what.

  “I…” Lily didn’t have the words to explain herself. She didn’t understand herself, not really. Anything she could have said wouldn’t have helped. “I’m sorry,” she said, realizing how lame that sounded.

  “It’s easy to be sorry when you’re caught,” Gareth said, slapping her bottom with hard, resounding strokes that made her bottom jiggle and burn. A few more slaps like that and she was struggling against her bonds in an effort to protect her bottom. It was to no avail. The soft silk was just as effective as handcuffs as he palmed her bare bottom, then slapped her right cheek hard enough to make her squeal. “You wanted trouble,” he growled, prowling around her in his shirtless state. “Now you’re in real trouble.”

  Gareth stood before her, letting her watch as his thick fingers went to his waist and began working at his belt. It made a soft thwip sound as he pulled it out of its loops and doubled it over in his fist.

  “Let’s see how you like the consequences of real trouble.”

  “No! Jesus, Gareth.” She heard the panic in her voice. So did he. Before lashing the belt down across her oh so deserving cheeks, he paused and patted her bottom.

  “You’re safe,” he said in that low rumble
that made her believe him. “You’re safe, but you’re about to have a very sore backside.” She felt the leather drift over her buttocks in slow, almost hypnotic swirls. “Count each stroke,” he instructed. “You count nicely, and you’ll save yourself some trouble.”

  Just when she didn’t think it could get any worse, he’d made it worse. Bad enough to be vulnerable to his belt, even worse to be vulnerable to his authority. If she was counting out loud there could be no denying that he was in charge. There could be no struggle if she was complicit in her own discipline. As she was struggling with his instructions, the belt cracked down across her bottom without warning.

  “Count it.”

  She made a whining sound before nearly whispering the word. “One.”

  “Good girl,” he said. “But I want to hear that louder.”

  “Gareth!” She whined his name, but he wasn’t having it. He slapped the leather down again, catching the bottom of her cheeks.

  “Two,” she gasped as her skin stung.

  “Good.” He raised the leather again. Lily was starting to relax and settle down. It wasn’t as painful as she had expected it to be. It wasn’t pleasant, but she could stand it.

  The third stroke landed against the crowns of her cheeks. It fizzed and stung and maybe left a little bit of a welt. She couldn’t see of course, but there was something about the way the belt caught her bottom that gave her the impression she was going to be in some serious trouble next time she came to sit.

  “Five!”

  “Five?” He repeated the word, incredulous. “You think this is funny, girl?”

  She looked up into his face, hoping to see a little glimmer of amusement. If there was any, he was keeping it very well hidden. His stern features were perfectly composed.

  “Three?”

  He shook his head curtly. “We’re starting over.”

  “No! Please! I’m sorry.”

  “You said you were sorry, then you tried being cute. Let’s see where cute gets you.” He put his hand on her lower back and brought the belt down one, two, three, four, five times in quick, hard succession, leaving her writhing and squealing too loud to count. “You want to be cute some more?”