Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
At this intel, they were all casting glances at each other.
“What?” I asked.
Jessie caught my gaze and said, “The guys got word this morning that the cops in Tucson found the triggerman dead. Shot in the forehead, execution style. He’d been dead awhile.” A heavy pause. “And they reckon that while is a little over a week.”
“Fucking hell,” I breathed, unable to absorb the news that Rocco, or God, I hoped not, Gypsy ordered a hit.
Alternatively, perhaps feeling some tardy fatherly (or brotherly) love, one of the other ones had done it.
“Gypsy, or this Rocco guy, had him whacked,” Raye laid it out plain.
“Fucking hell,” I repeated. Then I asked her, “Are they going to tell Knox?”
Those times when it was okay to be a wuss?
Not having to be the one to tell your man it was a good bet a member of his family called for the murder of a human being was one of them.
“Obviously, Cap and Eric knew this meet was going to happen, so they were going to connect with him while you were gone,” Raye answered. “Then Knox texted Cap about a ride, so he’s going to do it when he goes to pick him up.”
A car was heard outside.
There was rarely much traffic at the storage units (as in…none), so this was a surprise, though clearly only to me.
What was more of a surprise was when Jayden, Shanti’s extortionately good-looking cousin, also a cop, came strolling in.
It was hard to take my eyes off him, he was that good-looking, but I did when I felt the waves of displeasure beating at me from two sides.
Jayden’s, when his eyes fell on Clarice.
Clarice’s, who, when I checked her out, was glaring at Jayden.
“You,” Jayden said, that one word a huge-ass accusation, of what, I did not know.
“Me,” she drawled.
Jayden looked around, and it was clear he was already in no mood due to Clarice’s presence, but still, he was impressed taking in our sweet conference room/lounge/war room, particularly the kickass pop art portraits of all the Angels on the walls.
His gaze sliced back to Clarice. “You know better.”
“Do I?”
“You kit them with this pimped-out bat cave?” he demanded to know.
“It’s not a bat cave. It’s an Angels’ lair,” Clarice returned.
Oo.
Nice.
Angels’ lair. We had to start using that.
“And no,” she answered him. “I have way better taste than this.”
No shade to our conference room/lounge/war room, because on a certain level, it was tight.
But it was also loud and kind of obvious.
I’d mentioned Clarice’s sweater. She always dressed like she’d just arrived back from Milan.
Thus, I had no doubt she spoke truth.
Tension flowed between them, and on the surface of this, it wasn’t surprising. Her day job when she wasn’t moonlighting as our Bosley was a defense attorney, and a very good one. He was a cop. These twain did not normally meet.
But when I probed at the tension I was feeling and realized it was sexual, I sent wide eyes to Shanti.
Jayden was married. We hadn’t met his wife, but Shanti reported she was extra.
So…what gives with the sexual tension?
“Why are you here?” Clarice lashed out.
“Because Shanti wanted me to talk to these women about what to do in a stalking situation,” he fired back.
I hadn’t had the time to ask her, so…
Good call, Shanti.
“Do it, and go,” Clarice returned.
“I’ll do it then state very clearly, these women should stay far away from that mess that’s leaking north from Tucson,” Jayden retorted.
All the Angels on the couch were turning our heads back and forth like we were at a tennis match, and this didn’t stop when Clarice rejoined, “They are not in that.”
“They better not be, because it’ll be on you if I have to console Aunt Tandi after I carry Shanti’s casket into the church,” Jayden replied.
Yikes.
Clarice opened her mouth, but I got in before she could say anything.
“Do you know about the feud?”
From his place behind the couch, Jayden looked down at me. “What feud?”
He didn’t know?
It also seemed Clarice didn’t know.
Was the Chambers family keeping it under wraps?
Could two, essentially, gangs keep something like this under wraps?
Or maybe it hadn’t escalated very far.
Should I tell the cops (or this cop) about it?
I made a decision, because if the cops didn’t know, they should.
“Gypsy and Rocco have broken off from the dad and brothers,” I shared.
Jayden’s face got hard.
It made him no less hot, in fact, it made him more so.
I sallied forth beyond what his expression did to my nipples. “They’re at war. I don’t know what it means—”
“I do,” Jayden said heavily.
I kinda, sorta did too, in the sense that however that came about it’d be bad, or worse, considering we already had one dead-by-execution guy.
“So? Stalkers?” Clarice prompted.
Jayden moved around the couch so he could take a position leaning against the side of the desk.