“Because of Trane, we understand that Valerie and you are off-limits. That said, there are a number of citizens in this town you love so much you’d betray your own father to protect it. These men will not mind doing what they have to do to get what they want and laying waste to this town in the process. Starting with Tyrell and Alexa Walker.”

Feeling his blood heat and his palms itch, Chace took a step into him, getting chest to chest, nose to nose and forcing Clinton to press himself back into the grill of the SUV.

“You f**k with Ty or Lexie, you f**k with me. You f**k with anyone in this town, you f**k with me. Those men wanna lay waste to Carnal, they gotta get through me first. Something you forget, Bonar, I may have left home, I may have become a cop but for seventeen years, I was at the hand of Trane Keaton and I learned every trick he has. To protect what’s mine, make no mistake, ass**le, I’ll use them.”

“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, ass**le, 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 f**k 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.