“Come on, Blake, answer the door!”
I’ve been knocking on his door for the last ten minutes. I know he’s home because I saw his Jeep parked downstairs.
I bang on the door again. “Blake, open up!”
I hear him fumbling with the lock and the door swings open. Blake is standing in the doorway, wearing nothing but his boxer briefs. His eyes are half shut and his face puffy with sleep and a possible hangover.
“Fuck, man. Where’s the fire?” His voice is rough and laced with irritation.
“I need to talk to you about something. It’s important.”
“What?” He yawns, scratching his chest. “Dude, it’s like six o’clock in the morning.”
“It’s ten o’clock, idiot.”
“Oh, well then, come on in.” He gestures dramatically with his arm, and I push past him into his place.
“What the hell happened to you? You look like shit.”
“You don’t want to know,” he says on a groan.
“You alone?”
He stares at me and his eyebrows drop low. “No. Why?”
“I need what I’m about to say to be kept private.” My eyes dart to the hallway that leads to his room, then back to him. “You mind sending your sleepover guest home?”
“Fuck. Yeah, hold on.”
He disappears down the hall, and I walk to the other end of his living room. Last thing I want is a front row seat to the dismissing of his overnight guest. I watch out the ten-foot-tall window of his modern townhouse and shudder at the show his neighbors must get most nights.
“But, I thought you said you’d make us breakfast,” a female voice whines from the hallway.
“Yeah, you said you’d feed us your sausage,” says another.
Fucking Blake.
“Change of plans, ladies. Maybe next time.”
“Aww.” The disappointed reply sounds in unison.
Blake walks to the door with two girls. One stumbles, trying to slip on her high heel, while the other shoves a wad of lace and silk into her tiny purse. I recognize them immediately as Cage Girls. And I am intimately familiar with both.
“Hey, Jonah.” The tall blonde calls out as she passes me in the living room.
I nod.
The brunette tosses me a wave. “Hi, Jonah.”
“All right, ladies, thanks for last night . . . and this morning.”
He all but shoves them out the door, slamming it behind them.
“Screw you later,” he mumbles.
I shake my head. “You’re a pig.”
“So were you once.” He plops down on the couch, still in his underwear.
“You want to get some fucking clothes on?”
He looks at me like I just asked him to wear a dress. “You want to tell me why you’re beating down my door at the shit crack of dawn?”
Dropping down in the seat across from him, I fill Blake in on my situation. His jaw locks down as I tell him every detail of Raven’s meeting. A whispered curse breaks free when I tell him about how I found her after.
“That motherfucker!” Blake jumps up from the couch to pace the room.
“I have a plan, but I need your help. I know Dominick is part owner of Zeus’s. I need you to get with one of the girls and find out when he goes in there.”
He’s still pacing and hasn’t acknowledged that I’ve said a word.
“Blake. Can you do that?”
He stops and turns toward me. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
Grabbing his phone, he takes his seat back on the couch, this time not slumped over, but tense and leaning forward. “You’re not meeting with that asswipe alone. I’m going with you.”
“No, I have to do it alone. I won’t drag you into this.”
He pins me with a glare. “Drag me into this?” His arm shoots out to point a finger to his wall window. “That girl’s cool as shit.” He points at me. “She’s your girl. That makes her my responsibility too.”
“Blake, anything could happen. You sure you want to get messed up in all this?”
He coughs out a laugh. “Let me ask you something. What’re you going to do when Morretti makes some comment about Raven taking cock for cash, huh?”
I suppress a growl. A low vibration in my spine amplifies to a buzz. My teeth grind together and I scowl at Blake.
“That’s what I thought. You’re going to flip the switch on that dicklick and he’ll shoot your dumb ass and claim self-defense. And where does that leave Raven, hmm?”
I narrow my glare on him.
“Exactly.”
The cocky ass is right. Dominick will most likely try to get me riled up, and I can’t be responsible for what happens if he disrespects Raven.
“You’re right. I’ll need you there. How soon can we get the ball rolling?”
Blake already has his phone to his ear. “Selena, baby, it’s me. I got a question for you.”
Fifteen
Raven
The bay doors slamming shut pulls me from the wiring of a ’57 Chevy. The halogen lights of the garage replace the sun that shone in when I started this project.
Where did the time go?