Forever Never

For once, the law wasn’t on his side. The gap between black and white, right and wrong, had widened overnight into a foggy, murky swamp of gray.

No judge would issue an arrest warrant based on some news clippings and a shredded painting. Certainly not when the defendant was a United States senator.

But that didn’t make the threat any less real. Senator Warren Vorhees was a fucking monster. And sooner or later, he’d escalate beyond vague threats. And Brick would be ready for him. It was with boiling blood he’d logged the evidence and opened a case file. An unofficial one.

He included Remi’s thick stack of research. It made his stomach churn to think of her alone, scared, scrolling through internet searches for hours hoping to find the key to putting the man who’d hurt her behind bars.

Well, she wasn’t alone now. And Brick would build a goddamn prison around Vorhees if that’s what it took to keep him away from Remi.

His phone signaled an incoming text.

Remi: Do you really think I can’t bust out of Brick Jail when you leave Spencer in charge?

He’d charged Spencer with keeping an eye on her while he went back into the station.

It made him anxious to be away from Remi. Especially after seeing how upset she was over her own desecrated painting. She’d covered it up. But he could still see the hurt. That alone made him want to break the asshole’s jaw.

Brick: I know exactly what you’re capable of. I’m just hoping you’ll choose to behave yourself until I get home.

Remi: Me? Spence is the one who just challenged Phil Coolidge to a pull-up challenge.

Brick felt the ghost of a smile on his lips. Phil Coolidge was an 82-year-old, retired triathlete who’d called Mackinac home since the late ’90s. His husband was in a rehab hospital on the mainland recovering from bypass surgery, and Phil was lonely without him.

Brick: Don’t let either one of them break anything.

She responded with a short video of Spencer and Phil running wind sprints on the street.

His phone rang and he answered.

“Remi.”

“You can’t keep me under guard forever, you know,” she warned.

He closed his eyes. “I realize that. This is a temporary solution until I can find a way to keep eyes on Vorhees.”

She blew out a breath. “This doesn’t need to be your fight, Brick.”

“I thought I made myself clear this morning.”

“Your testosterone was in the stratosphere after fucking my brains out. You weren’t thinking clearly.”

He glanced around, making sure none of the other officers were within earshot. “You need to accept that this is the way it is. I know you’re scared. But you’re not alone anymore, and if you think I’m going to let you face this alone, then I really must have fucked that brain right out of your beautiful head.”

“Dirty dirty dirty,” she purred.

His cock stirred in his pants, and he pressed the heel of his hand against it. “Behave yourself.”

“Do you have plans tonight?” she asked, all innocence now.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.

“They involve you. Naked. In my bed.”

“What about Spence?” she asked, sounding a little breathless.

“He’s not invited.”

Remi laughed. Then sighed. “By the way, the show you put on for Mira this morning seems to be the equivalent of pissing in a circle around me. Phil congratulated me on our ‘new romance’ when I got here.”

“Good.”

“Brick,” she groaned.

“Remi.”

“You can growl my name as sexy as you want, but we’re still going to discuss this. There’s no reason for you to sign up to be my friend with benefits and my bodyguard.”

If she thought the two were mutually exclusive, he had a lot of educating to do tonight. But he had to walk that line with care. Too much pressure, too many rules, and she’d spook.

“Looking forward to it,” he said as Carlos Turk strolled over and leaned against his desk.

“Oooh. Cop voice,” she purred. “Are you trying not to say anything personal? Like how hard you had to work to get every inch of that huge—”

His dick was engorged and throbbing. “I’ll see you soon.” It was a threat, and she knew it.

“Looking forward to it, big guy. Gotta go. Spence just took a header into a trash can. Bye!”

He hung up. “What can I do for you, Turk?”

“Heard about you and Remi Ford.”

Brick looked up, ready to meet the challenge. “Oh, yeah?”

Carlos broke out into a grin. “Good for you, man. She’s just what you need.” He rapped his knuckles on Brick’s desk. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks?”

With a frown, he watched the corporal walk away.

Congratulations? She was just what he needed?

Why was everyone so happy for him? For them?

He’d been prepared to fight the island over her. Prepared for their derision, not blessings. Whispered truths that he wasn’t good enough for her. Hints that maybe this attraction got its start before it should have. Hell, at the very least, he’d been sure there’d be barbs about fucking the chief’s daughter.

These congratulations baffled him. But he had bigger problems on his hands.

Namely Remi’s immediate safety.

He took his reports and tucked the printouts into a folder. He’d done a standard run on both Mr. and Mrs. Vorhees. Both had come up clean. But where Camille Vorhees had a few typical brushes with traffic citations in her younger years, Warren was spotless.

Spotless didn’t mean clean. It just meant they were better at hiding the dirt.

A man didn’t go from zero to abusive asshole to attempted murder overnight. There would be a pattern. Other incidents. Other victims. He’d find them and build his case. Whatever it took to get him out of Remi’s life permanently.

But money and power brought with it special privileges. The kind his own father thought could be stolen, rather than earned or born into.

While he dug into the man’s past, Brick needed eyes on the man in the present. It wouldn’t be too difficult to keep tabs on him in Washington with such public work. But Chicago wasn’t that far from Mackinac.

He couldn’t afford to let him anywhere near Remi.

He debated for a solid hour before picking up the phone.

There weren’t exactly a lot of options for a part-time island cop when it came to unofficially investigating a bad guy a few hundred miles away.

But he had one.

“Dad,” Brick said.

“Will! Is it really you?” William Eugene Callan II sounded delighted.

“Yeah,” Brick said gruffly, chafing at the name. “Are you still doing the investigative thing?”

“I sure am. Got my license and everything,” William announced proudly.

A few years back, his father had decided to make good use of all his underworld connections and hung up a shingle as an investigator. Brick hadn’t paid much attention to his father’s latest vocation, but Spencer insisted on keeping him up to date. And while Brick had expected it to turn into yet another scam, his father had stuck with it.

“Then I need a favor.”

“Anything, son. You name it.”

The excitement in his father’s tone irked him. “I need eyes on a suspect.”

“Oh. A job. Okay.” William cleared his throat. “Sure.”

“Is there something wrong?” Brick asked.

“No. No. I just thought maybe you wanted… Never mind. Tell me who I’m looking into.”

“First this needs to stay between you and me. I can’t have anyone on your end getting a whiff of this.”

“Of course not,” his father scoffed. “What do you think I am, an amateur?”

“I’m serious,” Brick said. “Lives are on the line, and if this guy has any cause to believe he’s being followed, he could retaliate.”

“If it helps you out, I’m willing to do whatever. I have a lot to make up for.” William let out an awkward laugh. “I know I wasn’t much of a father but—”

“This is what I need you to do,” Brick interrupted. He filled William in on the basics of the situation, leaving Remi’s name out of it.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, asking for help from the man who had only ever let him down. But he didn’t have any other options. If he flew to Chicago himself to do the legwork, he’d have to drag Remi with him to make sure she didn’t get into trouble on her own. And he wasn’t putting her in the same state, let alone the same city, as a monster like Vorhees.

No. He didn’t trust anyone else to watch Remi, certainly not his own father. But he could trust the man to watch the monster.