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“Ow,” the older man said as he slowly stood once more. “Yeah, man, I understand. Thanks for not being a dick.”
Diesel snorted and turned to exit. I stayed put, my gun still trained on the men in the room until the last second.
“You believe him?” I asked as we headed out to the lot.
“Yeah,” Diesel said, staring ahead with a glare, but Mav and I remained on watch with our guns in our hands, in case anyone came running out after us hot. “But not so much that Slate won’t be looking into this shit and confirming.”
“We coulda just offed them now and gotten it over with,” Maverick grumbled, but I sighed.
“Red Skulls are pretty strong.”
“And we don’t need a war on our hands right now, if we can avoid it,” Diesel continued for me. “If Boomer was telling the truth, it’s best to let this end where it is.”
“He did have a set of balls on him though, you’ve gotta admit,” I said.
We got on our bikes without an issue, and switched locations to wait for Slate. There was no need to ask for trouble, after all.
As we waited, I pulled out my phone to check it. I’d turned off the ringer because I didn’t need any distractions, since I didn’t know what we were walking into with the Red Skulls. I needed my mind clear and focused.
I noticed a missed call and then a text message, both from Peyton. “Well, shit.”
“What’s going on?” Diesel looked up with a frown.
“That asshole Zachary who bumped into Peyton at the jail and creeped her out? He showed up at her friend’s house asking about her.”
“D’you think that could be the married fucker boning her roommate?” Hawk asked.
I shook my head. “I didn’t get a look at him, but Peyton says he’s in his twenties, not fifties.”
“Then he’s probably just some loser drooling after her in class. Don’t stress.”
“She did mention that he might go to her college…”
“After we figure out who the fuck hired the Red Skulls,” Diesel said, giving me a comforting slap on the back, “we’ll figure her shit out, brother. I promise.”
“And hey, Slate sent all our info to the cops, too,” Mav added. “With any luck, they’ll actually do their job and figure this shit out first, like they’re supposed to.”
What could I do other than nod? Other than accept that was the way of things for the foreseeable future? I couldn’t ask the MC to put the safety of one person before the safety of many. Even if that one person was someone I was beginning to suspect I wouldn’t be able to live without.
I’d just have to make sure to do a good enough job of protecting her myself.
Chapter 28
Peyton
The doorbell rang, and I woke up from my afternoon nap with a start.
I blinked blearily around the room for a moment, disoriented. Nobody had ever rung Rocky’s doorbell the entire time I’d been there. I didn’t know why, and I’d never even noticed it until that moment, but I honestly didn’t think he had a doorbell.
Was it Nolan? Had he come to check up on me again? But he had keys, why would he—
Another chime of the bell rang out through the house, and I pushed my hair out of my face and grumbled as I stood. “Okay, Jesus, I’m coming…”
It rang again, extra annoyingly, as someone pressed it five or six times in quick succession, and I stumbled down the stairs clumsily to get to it.
“Uh, who is it?” I squinted sleepily through the peephole, catching a glimpse of blonde hair and a solemn black tie under a baseball cap, before a police badge flashed across my view.
“Jackson?” What the hell was he doing here? I lifted a hand and unlocked, my half-asleep brain still kicking into gear. But then, wait. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes with a frown. Should I really be opening?
