There was that. Although it didn't make Phoenix feel any better. At all.

Leaning closer to Tarik, Phoenix met his unwavering gaze. "I want this shit buried. Got it? And I don't want Mia dragged into it anymore."

Tarik nodded affirmatively, his eyes hard, his expression harder. Phoenix knew he didn't have to tell Phoenix that Mia was the most important thing here. Whatever Landry wanted, he wasn't above using Mia to get it. Unfortunately for Landry, he was going to have to come up with another plan, because that was the last damn thing Phoenix was going to allow to happen.

This shit had gone on long enough.

"Find out where she is," Phoenix said, getting to his feet. "And let's go talk to Abbott ourselves."

Phoenix made it to the door, his hand on the knob when Tarik met him, crowding him. Before he knew what was happening, Tarik's entire hand was gripping his chin firmly and his mouth was claiming his. Not caring where they were, Phoenix gave in, pressing his mouth to Tarik's, kissing him back, thrusting his tongue into his mouth. Calm washed over him, as it always did when Tarik took the reins.

"We'll figure this out," Tarik said softly when he pulled back, releasing Phoenix. "One way or the other."

Phoenix nodded and adjusted his suit jacket before turning the knob and leaving Tarik behind.

"THANKS FOR MEETING me," Mia told Harrison when they were seated at a small table at the back of the cafe. The place was busy with the lunch crowd descending, but they'd managed to get a table.

"Sure," Harrison said, looking around as though someone might be watching him.

That was quite possible, although Mia doubted they were watching Harrison. She'd felt eyes on her ever since she'd left campus to meet Harrison. She wasn't sure the reporters were lurking, either. However, she had brushed off the notion that someone would be following her and made her way to the cafe where Harrison had agreed to meet.

"What can I get you to drink?" the harried waitress asked as she came to an abrupt stop beside their table, a pad and pencil in her hand.

"I'll take iced tea," Mia said, glancing over at Harrison.

"Water's fine," he mumbled.

"Be right back," the woman declared as she headed off as fast as she'd come.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Harrison questioned when they were once again alone.

Mia could tell he was nervous. She wanted to assure him that everything would be fine, but she didn't have a clue what she was getting herself into. "How are you?" she asked, hoping to ease into it.

Harrison looked around once before his weary brown eyes met hers. "Mia, I know you didn't just come to check on my well-being."

"Why would you think that?" she asked.

His eyebrow quirked.

"Okay, fine," she muttered, looking down at the table. "Do you know who Phoenix Pierce is?"

Harrison's eyes widened, but he didn't answer her.

"I take that as a yes. Well, it seems that Damien has an issue with him."

"The lawsuit," Harrison muttered.

"Yeah," Mia stated, watching Harrison closely. Clearly he was familiar with what was going on. At least from a news perspective. "I don't know exactly what Damien's after, or why, but ... well ... let's just say he's been stirring up shit, and he's dragged me into the middle of it. I don't know if it's relevant or not, but I thought maybe you could enlighten me on what happened between you and Damien."

Harrison immediately shook his head. "Nothing happened. We just had a disagreement, and I decided to go my own way."

"Right," she said, not believing him for a second. "Look. You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, Harrison, but I'd appreciate if you didn't lie to me. We can sit right here and have a nice lunch just like friends. Or you can help me out, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get some closure on whatever happened between you and Damien."

The waitress came by with their drinks and then asked for their order. Mia rattled off hers and Harrison followed. When she walked away, they sat staring at one another once again, neither of them saying anything. The normal busy sounds of the cafe rang loudly around them, the clank of silverware against glass and the drone of voices as everyone spoke at once. Every now and then, a loud voice would call out an order from the kitchen, causing the racket to dim slightly before it resumed once again.

Mia took a sip of her tea, wondering if Harrison really was going to avoid her question. But then, with his hands wrapped around his water glass, he met her gaze.

"About a year ago, Damien came to me to talk about an investment opportunity. A casino in Vegas. He was excited, wanted to pursue it sight unseen."

Looked like Tarik was on the right track. Mia nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"He asked me to go with him to Vegas. Invited my wife, as well. We made a weekend of it just to check it out. We met with a group who claimed to be leading the charge. Damien's excitement intensified."

Mia tried to remember when Damien had gone to Las Vegas. He'd gone on plenty of trips, but never had he mentioned he was going to Vegas. "He was interested?" Mia asked.

"Highly. I told him to give me a little time. I wanted to have someone look into the company's background, check out their financials. All normal stuff. He insisted that he'd already done that and this was a gold mine. He wanted to get in on the ground floor, aiming to take a larger share. He even mentioned moving to Vegas, resuming his business there."

Mia wondered if Damien had gotten caught up in the glitz and glamor associated with Sin City.

"I got very little research done. While we were still in Vegas, I reached out to a couple of people on my staff, had them do some number crunching to see if this was even a possibility for Damien. At the time, Damien's company was showing a continued profit, but when I was reviewing some of the reports, I noticed something strange. What we thought was continued growth actually wasn't correct. There was a glaring error in the numbers that I looked at. Turned out, DL Properties had a trending loss for a few months."

"Damien was losing money?"

"Yeah," Harrison confirmed, taking a sip of his water. Mia noticed that he didn't meet her eyes when he continued.

"The falling out happened while we were in Vegas..." Harrison glanced up toward the door, his eyes widening. Mia turned to see what he was looking at, and that was when she noticed two incredibly attractive, albeit extremely determined-looking, men stalking toward them.

Good grief. If Harrison hadn't been on edge before, he certainly would be now. Hell, just looking at Phoenix made her nervous. He did not appear happy that she was having lunch with Harrison.

Neither man bothered to introduce himself as they took seats at the table, their attention fully directed toward her.

"Hi," she said hesitantly, glancing back and forth between Tarik and Phoenix.

"You forgot to invite us to lunch," Phoenix said sternly. Only then did his eyes move to Harrison. "Phoenix Pierce. You must be Harrison."

Harrison nodded.

"Please continue; we didn't mean to interrupt."

Mia laughed. "You didn't mean to interrupt, huh? Then why are you sitting here?" she asked, trying to keep her voice down. She'd just been getting somewhere with Harrison. She doubted he would continue with Tarik and Phoenix now glaring at him.

"Harrison, I'd like you to meet Phoenix and Tarik. They're..." She didn't know how to finish that sentence.

"Her boyfriends," Phoenix inserted, surprising Mia to the roots of her hair. Had he really just said that?

Harrison's eyes widened, proof that she hadn't been hearing things.

The table was silent for a moment, and Mia knew she had better do something or Harrison was going to bolt. As it was, he looked incredibly uncomfortable.

"Harrison was explaining how he and Damien had a falling out."

Tarik turned his hardened gaze on her at that point, and Mia nodded, letting him know that his original suspicions had been accurate.

"We aren't here to make things difficult for you," Tarik said, his tone even, although it held a dangerous edge to it. "As you can imagine, we're a little concerned about Mia's ... safety. Please, do continue."

The waitress interrupted once more, bringing their food and taking an order from Phoenix and Tarik as though this were a normal lunch date for the four of them. Mia wasn't hungry, but she did want Harrison to continue, so she started eating, trying to keep things casual. As casual as possible, considering.

"Harrison," she said softly, "I really would like to hear what you have to say."

Harrison nodded, his eyes dropping to his plate as he opened his mouth, closed it. He took a deep breath and then cleared his throat. "We were having dinner in Vegas. My wife was there with me and..." Harrison looked up then, hesitantly casting a look at Phoenix, then Tarik. "Damien was there with Teresa Somerhaus."

Mia's harsh intake of breath had all three men looking at her.

"I'm sorry, Mia. I should've told you."

"Yes, you should have," Tarik growled.

"It's just... Things weren't that simple." Harrison looked at her again, remorse in his dark brown eyes, and continued, "It was that night that I told Damien to hold off on pursuing the casino investment and gave him a few details about my suspicions on his financials. I hadn't even had a chance to look into the group backing the casino. He got pissed, told me I didn't know what I was talking about. It was very volatile. Turned out, Damien had already moved forward without the consent of those who worked for him. It was an emotional decision. That I was certain of."

"Damien invested in the casino without having all of the details? Or the money?" Mia asked, surprised. Damien had always been so level-headed.

"Yes. I tried to encourage him to wait. I even informed him in detail about the problem, not in so many words. Teresa was paying close attention to everything I said. Oddly, Damien told me not to worry about it. Told me mistakes happened and it wasn't a big deal. He was sure that it could be fixed. I knew immediately that something was off. First of all, a mistake of that nature should've been grounds for termination. Since I was ultimately responsible for missing the error, it should've been my head on the chopping block.

"Needing my job, I dismissed Damien's nonchalant response. He quickly changed the subject that night. I was already suspicious, but I let it go."

"So Damien was having financial problems before then?" Phoenix inquired, sitting back in his chair, looking as though he didn't have a care in the world. Mia knew better. He was hanging on Harrison's every word.

"Looked that way," Harrison confirmed, hardening his gaze as he looked at Phoenix. "But I quickly learned, the following week, that Damien already knew that, which was how he ended up in bed, so to speak, with Teresa. He was looking to partner with her father."

"Because he lacked the funds?" Tarik questioned.

Harrison nodded. "Someone was trying to cover it up. He called me into his office that week and asked for my honest opinion on the Vegas deal. I told him that it wasn't a financially sound decision at the moment, considering the errors I'd found. This time he got really pissed. Told me this was unacceptable, that he was working with Teresa's father on the Vegas investment; they were both moving forward. Informed me that I needed to find a way to fix the problem immediately. Basically, he asked me to make it go away. Things got tense at that point."

"Make it go away? How is that possible? It's not like you can just summon money from the sky. If he didn't have it, he didn't have it," Mia stated. "I don't understand."

"Neither did I."

Chapter Thirty-Six.

TARIK SAT BACK and watched the interaction between Harrison and Mia. Although he and Phoenix had crashed their little lunch date, he was doing his best to pretend he was invisible. More for Harrison's sake. The man clearly had some secrets, and he wasn't above sharing them with Mia. It was just a damn good thing the man looked remorseful or Tarik would've punched him in the fucking face at this point.

The bastard had known that Damien was cheating on Mia from the beginning. He would've been her proof, netting her the additional ten mil that the prenup had declared was hers in the event Landry was unfaithful. Mia didn't seem concerned about the money, though, and that had him paying close attention to her. No, she seemed more concerned about getting information that would help Phoenix, although the man she was talking to had known the fate of her marriage long before she had.

He wondered if Phoenix noticed. Likely, since the guy was pretty damn perceptive. However, Phoenix was being equally silent, allowing Harrison to spill his guts.

"So is that why you no longer work for him?" Mia questioned.

"Damien became obsessed with the Vegas property. He went off on tangents that this could be the biggest deal of his lifetime."

"How did my father play into this?" Phoenix asked.

Harrison turned his attention back to Phoenix. "I don't know exactly. I do know that Damien mentioned running into Sid at one of the Arrows games. Before the Vegas deal, he'd had an obsession with hockey. Wanted to own a team. He went on and on that he'd had a conversation with the Arrows owner. I joked that he should offer to buy the Arrows and then he wouldn't need the Vegas investment."

Phoenix's gaze hardened. "Did he or did he not make a deal with my father?"

Tarik already knew the answer to that question, as did Phoenix. Evidently Phoenix was looking for confirmation.

"I have no idea, honestly. Damien's obsessions multiplied, and for the next few weeks, while I was still employed, he mentioned wanting to own the team once again. Said it would be a solid investment. I laughed it off, considering he'd said the same thing about the Vegas opportunity, but he seemed serious. Then" - Harrison looked back at Mia - "Mia asked for a divorce, and all hell broke loose."

"But you said Damien was already out of control," Phoenix mentioned.

"He was, but when Mia left him, he became someone different. Someone I'd never seen before. Within a few days, he fired me."

Tarik noticed the sadness reflected on Harrison's face. He only questioned the look because he couldn't imagine that he was upset that Damien had let him go after all the hell he'd been put through. "Did something else happen?" Tarik asked.

"Yes," Harrison said, looking up, his eyes hard. "My wife informed me that she'd cheated. With Damien."

Mia gasped and Tarik automatically reached for her hand.

"After Mia left him?" Phoenix asked, his tone serious.

"No. She ... had apparently been sleeping with him for a while. According to her."

If it hadn't been for the fact that he was holding Mia's hand, he would've balled up his fist. Not only had Harrison known about Damien and Teresa, but he'd also known his own wife had had an affair with Damien. "I take it the two of you weren't really friends." Tarik nodded between Harrison and Mia. "If you were, I'd like to think he would've shared this information with you. Before now," Tarik said snidely, his eyes locked on Harrison.

"I confronted Damien about it. Not only did he fire me but he'd been knowingly screwing my wife," Harrison retorted angrily. "Damien threatened to announce that I'd intentionally made the accounting error," Harrison added quickly. "He informed me that if I said one word about what had gone down in Vegas, or that he'd been cheating, I'd lose my CPA license."

Mia was silent, as was Phoenix, but Tarik could see that he was fuming. He was probably trying to keep himself in check the same way Tarik was.

"Is there anything else I can get you?" the waitress asked as she made a drive-by.

"The check," Phoenix said harshly.

The woman nodded warily, pulling a pad of paper out of her pocket. When she went to hand it to Phoenix, he pointed to Harrison. "He'll be picking up the tab today."

Harrison didn't bother to argue. If Tarik had to guess, the guy felt bad about what he'd done to Mia; however, that still didn't make it right, in his opinion.

"Thank you for the information," Phoenix said, taking Mia's hand and helping her up. She went willingly, her expression sad.