“Hell no,” Stella answered right away. “My record company is beside themselves. They say those books are gonna sell a shit ton of records. Mace is still pissed though. First he was pissed because the books existed. Now he’s pissed because he can’t say anything. Then again, Mace has a short fuse and he gets pissed a lot.”
This was true, but the sultry grin on her face said, at least for her, this wasn’t a bad thing.
“I know,” Jet put in. “Anyone but Jane, those guys would lose their minds. Jane, though, she wouldn’t hurt a fly. So what do you do?”
“Hector doesn’t care,” Sadie added. “Then again, he was more worried about me.” Her eyes wandered the room and she continued quietly as they did, “But this place, it’s where dreams come true.” She looked to us. “So why shouldn’t Jane’s come true, too?”
“You got that right, sister,” I replied and Sadie smiled.
The bell over the door went and a couple of customers walked in.
Tex took this as his prompt to shout, “Hello! Empties?”
Jet jumped up.
I reached in, commandeered the laptop touchpad, clicked and looked to Roxie. “Can we work with that one?”
She smiled. “Absolutely.”
I smiled back, got up and got to work.
In order not to set Tex off, I bided my time and corralled Duke when Tex had plenty of clean mugs to fill, Jet was not in the bathroom and we were in a rare lull.
I approached Duke behind the book counter.
“Two shakes?” I asked.
“Got as many shakes as you need, darlin’,” he answered.
I grinned, got close and put my back to the room. “Don’t wanna take you out of this space and make anyone curious by going into the books but I need your wisdom. I also need your promise you won’t share anything I say until we decide it needs to be shared.”
“Won’t say a word, Ally.”
I nodded and got a little closer. Then, as quietly as I could, as fast as I could but as thorough as I could, I shared the situation with Darius, Malia and Liam Edward Clark.
When I stopped talking, his eyes were wide and his lips formed the gravelly words, “Fuckin’ hell.”
“I know,” I agreed.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he repeated.
“I know, Duke,” I replied. “Now what do we do?”
For some reason, he turned his head and looked to the front door. What he did not do was look back at me.
“Duke?” I called.
That was when he looked back at me to say, “It’s worse than I thought.”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled.
“I need time with this,” he told me.
I got that, so I nodded.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Duke repeated.
“Duke—”
He interrupted me. “Would sell my soul to have Joshua back. He’s got a boy in this town he don’t see?”
Uh-oh.
I got closer. “Duke—”
“No, Ally,” he shook his head, “not angry. Just thinkin’. And I need time to think more.”
“Okay, I feel you,” I said. “But can I ask you don’t take too much of it? We’re already way out of the zone where a successful reunion would be anything but difficult for them. We don’t need to be so out of that zone it’s an impossibility.”
His gaze grew intense. “No way I’m gonna fuck around thinkin’ on this, Ally. There are many things in life that are precious. Your child is the top of that list.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
Duke started to walk away, but before he could pass me, I reached out, grabbed his hand and squeezed.
I let him go just as quickly as I grabbed him and he kept going.
I got back to work, but I found the time to hit the shelves again to make a call to Jane to let her know at least the girls were cool so she could come out of hiding. But I got her voicemail so I left a message.
As I was walking out, while I was shoving my phone back in my pocket, it binged.
I looked at it and saw a text from Lee. I didn’t need to open it as it was short and the entirety of it fit on the notification.
Team meeting. Office. Two hours.
He had something.
Already.
God, my brother was good.
Team meeting.
That feeling stole through me again.
Therefore, I was grinning when I went about yet again collecting empties.
Chapter Thirty
For Me
Ren
Ren Zano hiked the strap of his workout bag more firmly on his shoulder as he walked from the gym to his Jag while pulling out his ringing phone.
The display said Santo Calling.
He engaged and put it to his ear. “Santo.”
“Boss, you need to get here.”
Ren stopped at the door to his car and looked at his boots, his gut twisting.
This was because he gave Santo a job that morning. And that job was getting into Snookie Rivers’s apartment to have a look around.
“What?” Ren asked.
“You need to see,” Santo replied.
Ren clenched his teeth and beeped his locks.
Pulling open the door and folding in, he asked, “Is he out for a while?”
“Lucky’s on him. He makes to come home, Lucky’ll give me the heads up.”
“Be there in ten,” Ren stated.
He disconnected and turned on the ignition.