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Ten minutes later, we were all piling plates and sitting down to eat together. Like some ragtag family of sorts
The food?
Banging.
It was the kind of thing a man could happily get used to having around.
A beautiful woman in the kitchen making you food.
I had never considered how good that could be until I had it.
"I'm not challenging you," McCoy said, shaking his head, bringing me back to the present moment. "I'm just reminding you that there is other shit going on. You might be catching feelings, but it won't do you any good if we all end up with bullets," he told me, giving me a nod before moving off.
"I think I am regressing," Harmon called, throwing up her arms.
"Yeah, maybe time for a break, babe," I suggested, waving her over.
McCoy had always been my right-hand, my second-in-command, and the bastard had a good head on his shoulders, so if he was stepping to me to tell me to get my head in the game, then it was out.
Hell, we shouldn't have even been in the driveway at all.
I was being careless.
And I hadn't spoken a word to Arty in days, hadn't checked in on him, didn't know if he was sleeping or eating since the case was proving harder than we'd anticipated.
I owed the kid more than that. He'd done a lot for me over the years.
"I'm sorry I scratched up your bike," Harmon said a moment later, voice tentative, chewing on her lower lip, worried.
"I don't give a fuck about the bike, babe. I just... I need to go handle some business today," I told her.
"Oh. Okay. Yeah. I understand. Actually, I should probably record today too, if you are heading out anyway."
"Sounds good. I will leave Remy here with you. He can keep his beasts quiet, so you can focus."
"That would be great," she agreed, smiling.
Twenty minutes later, McCoy, Che, and I were heading out, leaving Seeley and Remy to do some work on shoring up the basement for the coming shipment of guns we had coming in from Russia in a week.
It wasn't ideal to have the guns on the premises in case of any police caught wind of what we were up to, but until we dealt with a couple of the standing threats in the area, we had to keep everything close.
But if we were going to have them in the clubhouse, we wanted them locked up tight and maybe harder for prying cops to find.
"Jesus Christ, Arty," I hissed when we moved into his place, finding it stale and airless, some festering old Indian food uneaten in a bag near the door.
We were literally kicking cans of energy drinks out of the way as we moved inside.
"Crack that fucking window," I demanded to Che who moved across the room to jack it open, parting the blinds to let some light in the dark space.
The place was a wreck, but not as concerning as the state Arty himself was in.
He'd never been overly put together, and was a terrible sleeper on his best of days.
But his eyes were sunken, red, lined with bags and purple smudges. His hair looked limp and greasy. His beard—if you could call it that—was growing in. And he was still wearing the same outfit he'd been in when I'd first put him on the job.
"Arty, man, what the fuck?" McCoy said, shaking his head.
"I thought I had them. The white car with the plate. I thought I had them. But then, I lost them. I lost them around the corner of Gable. And I don't know where they went. Where could the car just disappear to?"
"Alright, bud," I said, sighing. "I am going to need you to dial back the crazy about ten notches," I said as his eyes bulged, his fingers frantically tapping at the screen.
Che moved in behind Arty's chair, head whipping to the side, breath catching, when he got a whiff of him.
"Show me the video," Che demanded, trying to speak while holding his breath.
"I've watched it a million times," Arty insisted.
"Yeah, but have you ever been around that area?" Che asked, clearly onto something that the rest of us weren't in on.
"I don't... I don't go far," Arty said, shaking his head.
Arty's safe space was about five square miles, anywhere-he could walk by foot since he didn't have a car.
"Yeah, here," Che said, stabbing a finger at the screen as Arty paused the frame. "I thought it sounded familiar. Right here, there is a small underground garage. Maybe big enough for three cars. Back when I used to race, when the cops would show up, it was always a spot everyone tried to snag, leave their cars, and take off on foot."
"But why would they park there if they weren't racing? No one was chasing them in that video," I said, moving closer, regretting it immediately when all the various unwashed man smells hit my nose.
