This is bad, I told myself. But it’s so damn good.

Lord finally pulled away, steadying me, his hand lowering to my hip as I fell forward into him.

“Whoa. You okay?”

I didn’t know what I was, but I strongly suspected I wasn’t okay. In fact, I strongly suspected I might have just left okay behind and headed straight into this man is more dangerous than the one he’s set on protecting me from territory.

I nodded anyway. “I’m fine.” Because I was always fine. Even when I wasn’t.

“We’ll eat our supper, and then I’ll run you home. You can take your weekend and figure out whether you can handle what’s going on here.”

“And if I decide I can’t? Then what? It’s done?”

Lord’s dark gaze grew sharp. “Then I get to change your mind. Clothes optional.”

I shoved at his chest. “You’re such a guy.”

He grabbed his crotch. “And thank God for that.”

“Classy, Lord. Real classy.”

His smile was wide and the most open I’d ever seen it. “You’re the classy one here. We both know that. Now sit. I’ll get your food.” I had no idea how we’d gone from stand-off to laughing, but here we were. I’d been wound up, ready to run, and now I was sitting down and reaching for my po’ boy. It was like the man had defused a bomb and lived to tell about it.

What the hell was I going to do now?

That was a question for which I had no answer, so I just sat, and we ate in surprisingly companionable silence while I ignored the Dom on the desk.

When we’d finished, we headed back out into the shop … smack dab into the cops.

It’d been a lot of years since I’d been in handcuffs, and the way Hennessy was studying me told me I was narrowly avoiding being in them right now.

“When? And how?” I demanded.

“Two rounds to the back. Brianna Sanchez’s time of death is estimated to be approximately one o’clock this morning. Her body was found by sanitation department workers two blocks off Bourbon around seven A.M.”

“Holy shit. Bree?” Mathieu breathed. “No fucking way. She was just here on Saturday.”

Hennessy glanced to Mathieu and looked back to me. “And I understand from her mother that you fired her on Saturday. Accused her of stealing?”

That look he was giving me? That was the ‘did you fucking kill her, you motherfucker’ look. Except because Hennessy was a good detective, he didn’t actually have to say it out loud to let me know he was thinking it.

“You here to take me in?” I asked. I wasn’t beating around the bush on this one. If he wanted me to come to the station to be questioned, then he could take me in. “Because if you are, I’ll be calling my lawyer.”

“You got something to hide, Lord? Is that why you need a lawyer?”

Typical cop. Always assuming that someone who wanted a lawyer was guilty instead of smart. “Just protecting myself.”

“The crazy girl with the bad extensions? The one who used to work here? She’s dead?” All the color had drained out of Elle’s face.

Hennessy’s attention cut to her. “Yes. And you are?”

“Elle Snyder.”

“Are you a customer or an employee?” he asked.

“Umm … I started this week.”

Hennessy’s eyebrow went up as he looked at me. “And you knew Ms. Sanchez?”

“I didn’t know her … I just … saw her that one day when she decided to pretend she was a rock star and smash a guitar.”

I cut in. “Back off, Hennessy. Elle didn’t even know her. They barely crossed paths while I was firing Bree.”

He held up both hands. “I’m just trying to get all the facts, Lord. No need to get defensive.”

“Where off Bourbon did they find her? Like which end?” Elle asked, drawing the attention back to her.

Hennessy told her, and she reached a hand out to steady herself on the glass case behind her.

I could’ve muzzled her when she said, “Oh. Wow. That’s only a couple blocks from my place.”

Hennessy’s interest in Elle jumped about twenty notches. “Where were you at one o’clock this morning?”

Oh fuck no. “Elle, don’t say a damn thing. If Hennessy wants answers out of you, he’ll get them through your lawyer.”

“I don’t have a lawyer anymore.”

It was the anymore part that caught my attention—and Hennessy’s. “Did you need a lawyer before, Ms. Snyder?”

Elle’s face grew even paler, and she lifted a hand to smooth her hair. It was a nervous tell if I’d ever seen one. “No—I mean… No.” Finally, she shook her head and seemed to snap out of it. “I just never really thought of where I live as being that dangerous. Sure, pickpockets and purse-snatchers. Maybe a drunken fistfight occasionally. But murder? What the hell?”

Considering I’d been a pickpocket, a purse-snatcher, and a drunken fist-fighter, I tried not to wince. But going from that to murder was big leap.

“You find the murder weapon?” That’s the reason Hennessy usually stopped in here—not to question me, but to see if we’d gotten any guns in that might match cold cases or ongoing investigations. My range in the basement was set up for basic firearms identification. Nothing like what the cops had, but I gave it my amateur best. It was the whole reason Con had bought Chains in the first place and asked me to run it—to try to find the gun that had been used in the murder of his adoptive parents. We’d found it—against all odds. So what were the odds that we’d find the one that had killed Bree? My heart squeezed at the thought. Why the fuck did death keep touching us? Couldn’t it keep its dark and destructive fingers out of our fucking lives until we were all old and gray? We didn’t survive a war and expect to come home to more violence.

“No murder weapon was found at the scene. No casings either. So it was either a revolver or someone policed their brass.”

“Caliber? What do I need to be looking for?”

Hennessy didn’t answer right away, and it hit me that this time he might not share any information.

“Look, if I had killed her, would I offer to help you find the fucking gun?”

The tilt of Hennessy’s head pissed me off even more. “Wouldn’t you, though? You’ve helped with every other case when I’ve asked. If you refused to help on this one, wouldn’t that just look suspicious as all hell, Lord?”