I catch a scrap of their conversation as I’m walking off again.
“We know they’re going to do it,” Roman is telling Wes. “And if they don’t… my family will take action.”
The words pass through me like a ripple of fire.
No.
I know they must be discussing whatever I saw in Noah’s planner. And it sounds just as serious as everything Kieran has been afraid of.
Kierancan’tbe right. I desperately want him to be proven wrong, proven crazy for thinking that the Onyx guys would ever be involved in bribery.
And I feel like I’m hearing too much.
“It will be far, far better than last year,” Noah’s saying to Roman as I slowly walk off.
“We aren’t going to need your family to be involved any more than we already have,” Wes says.
My heart is twisting in a tight grip.
Just ignore it. You don’t know what they’re talking about.
But everything goes from bad to fucking catastrophic when I get back to the table I’m at with Kieran.
There’s a person sitting next to Kier.
A person I don’t recognize at first.
But when I look at him again, it hits me like a bullet to the face.
“Weston,”I say, immediately looping back around to the Onyx guys’ table.
“Everything okay?” Wes asks, glancing up with doe eyes like he already assumes he’s done something wrong.
“I need you,” I tell him, conveying every bit of urgency in my voice.
Wes looks flustered, but he pulls in a breath, looking at Roman.
“It’s all good,” Roman says, waving a hand. “Just come back over when you can. The execs are going to be here in a few minutes and you need to be here, Wes.”
“I’ll be back soon.”l
My heart is pounding and adrenaline is shooting through me as I pull Wes to the side, tucking behind a column with him.
“Bad news,” I tell him.
“The fuck are you doing, Sev? If I’m not there for this conversation I’m going to look like an ungrateful prick.”
“Look. Over there. Next to Kieran.”
Wes blinks, looking over. “Yes?”
“That’s the guy. The homophobe fucking freak I clocked in the jaw at the party.”
Weston’s face goes stony. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“And are yousureof that?”