My speech about Evie being happy didn’t make Cisco happy.

But he didn’t comment on that.

He said, “That’s another reason you’re here. I wanted to share with you, so you’d share with others, that I didn’t do what you…and she…think I did.”

I said nothing to that.

“In fact, Evan isn’t the only reason you’re here. I have another message for you to deliver.”

Okay, how did I become this guy’s messenger girl?

I mean, seriously.

I thought I’d already had a bad day.

But this whole scene was a new definition of a bad freaking day.

“Listen, Cisco—”

“Please, call me Brett,” he allowed.

I didn’t want to call him anything.

I shifted in my seat, uncertain how to play this.

He was seemingly mellow.

The henchman with the gun was behind the double doors.

But I didn’t want to upset that applecart because he was a man who’d order someone to guide a woman into a room with a gun to her head, and I wasn’t the only one in our tribe who’d had that happen to her. He’d had a minion do it to Pepper during our kidnapping.

What I wanted was to get the hell out of here, do it still breathing, and get home, lock myself in, pull out my Taser and consider, after the day I had, moving to Maine before I fell asleep, Taser clenched in my hand.

“You were gonna say something,” Cisco prompted.

“I’ve had a bad day.”

I watched his head tick and I knew why.

My voice was suddenly strange in a way I’d never heard it be before.

Small.

Defeated.

“Like, a really bad day,” I told him.

“Kathryn—”

“Ryn,” I whispered.

Was I going insane, or did his eyes just warm?

Something about the fact that I couldn’t deny it, his eyes had just warmed, made me blather on.

“My brother’s a raging, uncontrolled alcoholic. With two kids. Two kids I adore. And I found out today his ex is a swindler who’s been fleecing me for years, making her kids eat Cap’n Crunch and running out of food and laying it on thick so I’d take them shopping for clothes, while she’s off using the money I gave her to have massages.”

“Jesus,” he said, sounding stunned as well as annoyed.

“I know, right?” I replied. “And I liked her. She wasn’t just my niece and nephew’s mom. She was a friend. I’ve known her for years. I can’t say she’s like a sister, because she’s been having a pity party for a while now, and it’s been getting aggravating. But I care about her. And now that I confronted her with the whole fleecing-me thing, she’s threatening that she won’t let me see the kids anymore.”

I leaned forward in my chair, put my hand to my chest and kept blabbing, laying all my shit on this felonious dude who’d had one of his men put a gun to my head.

But I guessed when you had to get it out, it didn’t matter who you were getting it out to.

“And those are my babies.” I banged on my chest. “With Ang checked out like she’s been, I’ve been like a mom to them.” I leaned back. “Well, one of three moms, my mom and Ang’s mom have helped. But still.”

“You learned that today?” he asked.

“Yeah, and I found all this out because this guy I like was looking into it because he’s kinda, sorta a friend, when I want him to be more than a friend and I want that in a big way. You know what I’m saying?”

He nodded. “Mm-hmm. I know.”

“But I was stupid, and I said no when he asked me out, so he moved on and got himself another woman, but he threw down with me today and he’s pissed I got pissed that he was investigating my brother’s ex. But I wasn’t really pissed. I was shocked and hurt at Angelica, and you know, kind of mad he gave up so easily and went off and found someone else. I took all that out on him, so we had words and he pretty much told me he doesn’t like me anymore.”

“Going easy here, girl, but if he wanted you, he wouldn’t have given up after asking you out only once.”

“He actually did it three times.”

Cisco/Brett’s brows shot up. “And you shot him down three times?”

I made an eek! face.

“I assume you know that wasn’t smart,” he muttered.

“Well, you know,” I threw out my hands, “what am I supposed to do? He’s perfect. He’s handsome and he’s got a good job and he swings the way I don’t swing, if you know Corinne, you get what I’m sayin’.”

One nod. “I get what you’re sayin’.”

“And he’s super sweet to Evie and Lottie and what do I do with that, hunh?”

“At this juncture I’ll remind you I got a dick, not a vagina, so my answer is bound to be wrong, but I’d start with saying yes when he asks you to go out with him.”

Had he lost his mind?

“You don’t get it,” I huffed, looking away, crossing my arms on my chest and slouching in my own chair.

“You’re right. I don’t.”

I sighed.

“All this happened today?” he asked again.

I looked to him. “Yeah, though I hadn’t gotten to the part where I had to do my stripping shift and then I got bamboozled into a semi-kidnapping.”

“You haven’t been kidnapped,” he said flatly.

“I had a gun held to my head.”

“I really gotta tell the boys to stop doin’ that shit to you girls,” he mumbled.

“Brett!” I snapped. “Seriously?”

“They get overzealous. I think they’ve seen too many movies.”

“Am I free to leave?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Sure, though I’d prefer you didn’t since we got more conversating to do.”

“But if I left, no one would shoot me.”

He pushed out an exasperated breath on his “Hell no.”

“Then yeah, it’s time for a training sesh with the boys because guns may seem like accessories to you, but to those of us not in the life, they’re scary as shit.”

He inclined his head. “Point taken.”

“And I’m kinda tired and I realized when I got here that I shouldn’t come because I’m into this guy and we haven’t even kissed and he’s still ruined me for all other guys so I just want to go home and freak out I had a gun held to my head, then go to sleep. In other words, my sharing time is over. It’s your turn.”

“I did not kill Tony Crowley.”

Well, hell.

I sat still and said quietly, “That’s not a lot of words, but that’s a lot of sharing, Brett.”

“It’s important that’s understood.”

“Who’s Tony Crowley?”

“The cop who was investigating the filth in the Denver PD who got capped because he was getting close to somebody and whoever capped him stole my gun to do it. A gun that naturally, as it was mine, had my prints on it. I’ve been framed.”

Well…

Hell.

“You didn’t kill that police officer that everyone thinks you killed?”