“You all right?”
“Yes,” I yelled back to the stubborn man. “Cat scared me, is all.”
I walked into my bedroom and rid myself of the horrid dress that felt like it was strangling me and tossed it into the pile that I reserved for the things that needed to go to the dry cleaners…though, I wouldn’t need that anymore.
Not when the only clothes that I got dry cleaned were the ones that I wore to work at the newspaper—a place where I no longer worked anymore.
I was standing there, contemplating whether it was acceptable to put on sweatpants, when I felt eyes on me.
I turned my head slowly, unsurprised to find him standing in the doorway to my room, staring at me.
“Yes?” I asked, reaching for the sweats.
He’d have to get used to them eventually.
When I wasn’t working, I was in sweats, comfy shorts, or no pants at all.
I hated wearing real pants almost as much as I hated my old job.
He watched as I slipped my feet into my sweatpants, and continued to watch as I pulled down an old t-shirt that I’d cut up and made into a work out shirt.
The next thing I did was bend over and put my hair up into a messy bun, snagging the black hair tie that was on the floor next to my feet as I gathered all my hair on top of my head and stood up.
As I stood, I came face-to-chest with Truth and froze.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“I had one of the shittiest days of my life today,” he swallowed thickly. “And then you defended me in front of my family and friends. I appreciate that more than you will ever know.”
I smiled and leaned forward, wrapping my arms around his hips and hugging his big body to me.
My face laid flat against the leather of his biker vest, and I felt at peace for the first time since I’d read that meme and seen my ass hanging off the back of Truth’s bike.
Though, I hadn’t felt all that great before that with the way he’d left so abruptly.
But now, standing in the man’s arms, I realized that none of that mattered right now.
Was I curious to know his secrets and motives behind doing what he’d done? Sure. Was I going to let that get in the way of what I knew was growing between us?
No way in hell.
“Let’s go watch some TV.”
He gave me one last long squeeze, and then let me go, taking my hand and leading me to the living room and my amazing couch where our glasses of wine sat.
Though, I noticed that he gave me the one he’d drank from already.
Not that I minded.
I just thought it was funny.
And as we watched season two of the show we’d started last week, I felt at home for the first time in a very long time.
Chapter 11
Just because I’m a gentleman, doesn’t mean that I won’t spank you.
-Food for thought
Truth
I woke up to the feeling of light touches trailing over my face.
My eyes slowly snapped open, and I came face-to-face with Verity, who was staring at me like I was some interesting science project she was trying to figure out.
“You’re awake?”
I nodded, a yawn stealing my breath as I moved my arms up high over my head and stretched my back and legs.
“Yeah,” I said gruffly in between yawns. “What are you waking me up so early for?”
She pointed to the side table where my phone started to go off, and I sighed.
“Big Papa,” I mumbled.
Reaching to the desk, I picked it up and answered it, listening to what Big Papa had to say.
“Is he dead?” I asked the moment he told me why he was calling.
“We found him in an alley right outside the pub,” Big Papa answered. “Not dead…yet. But he will be soon, if all the blood loss was any indication.”
I cursed.
“You get anything out of him?”
I crossed my fingers like a child but was disappointed.
“His throat was sliced when we got to him,” Big Papa answered. “It was obvious that we were meant to find him before he was dead. There was a note pinned to the body with a fucking knife dedicating the kill to you. The anonymous 911 caller also called and told us exactly where to find him.”
“Did you trace the call?”
“Yes,” Big Papa snorted. “Was traced back to a pay phone outside the pub.”
I grunted.
“What else is there?”
He didn’t pretend to hold anything back, but that was also because I was a knowledgeable source of information, as well as a good resource. I’d been an instructor for going on eight years now at the police academy, and I’d been a resource utilized by MPD for six of them.
“The academy was vandalized,” he answered. “Nothing too bad, but there’s graffiti, as well as damage to the outside gates and cruisers.”
“You think it’s related?” I assumed.
“Yes,” he answered. “But not because there’s any evidence that there is, it’s just a gut instinct.”
“Did you tap into the video surveillance?”
“Yes,” he sighed. “Nothing at all. Every single camera angle from both the store where he was found and at the academy was clean. Not one single person was caught on it.”
I growled in frustration.
Of course they were able to avoid them.
That spoke of professionalism, not petty crime to me.
It didn’t matter, though. I knew exactly who it was that left that particular calling card.
Elais fucking Beckett.
“Why do you say they’re connected?” I feigned confusion.
The less people that knew this man was in town, the better.
“Nothing concrete, just a feeling,” he answered. “I just wanted to give you a head’s up, anyway. Didn’t want to surprise you.”
You did enough, I thought morosely. Just knowing that man is in the same town as me is enough to set my hair on end…and that’s quite a feat seeing as I don’t have much in the way of fucking hair.
Beckett’s fault again.
Six years ago, when I got out of the Navy, I’d hooked up with a black ops group that was—or so I thought at the time—in the business of rescuing and recovering children who were kidnapped and being held hostage all over the world.
What it actually turned out to be, though, was my inability to see anything bad in an old man who looked and acted like my grandfather. The same fucking man that my grandfather had introduced me to and who had been like a second grandfather to me for the entirety of my life.
The same man that my father warned me about when I first started working for him.
I’d trusted my grandfather, though, and it’d been the one and only time he was ever wrong. But, Jesus Christ, was it a doozy.
Why? Because I’d killed a man. Although that man hadn’t been innocent by any stretch of the imagination, he did have the right to be tried for his crimes in the United States, and I’d robbed him of that right.
Five minutes later, I hung up the phone, letting it drop down onto the bed at my side.
“You okay?” She pressed a kiss to my pec, right above my nipple, and my dick stirred.
I was a sick mother fucker.