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“Fucking hell, this is all we need.” Gage downs the rest of his drink and drops his head back on his chair to look up at the ceiling. “This shit is never fucking ended. Who’s the target and where is it?”
Stone stays quiet, his face contorting in rage and frustration. It makes my hackles rise.
“Who?” I bark out, completely fucking over all of these damn surprises.
“This order came with a reason for execution this time. One line in the text that says “failure to pay tithe over an extended period of time” and the location is East Bay, MacArthur Boulevard to be specific,” he murmurs.
My head shoots in his direction at the same time Gage’s scotch glass slams against the wall, shattering.
“Are you fucking serious? Deloris Garza is the fucking target? An 88-year-old widow who has done nothing fucking wrong besides refuse to close her failing business? That’s who Gus thinks is such a fucking threat that he has to send the best sniper on the West Coast to execute?” Gage bellows and a stoic Stone nods.
“And he’s got a few guys on her to make sure she doesn’t run,” Stone grunts, looking as pissed off as we feel. Yeah right, the woman has a walker and Gus thinks she’s a flight risk.
“Nyx, you and Stone go with Maddox. Take out the protection detail, we’ll tell Gus they got in the way and we had to get rid of them. He doesn’t give a fuck about the lackies he sends out on those jobs. Split up and take Deloris to the safe house in Gilroy if she’ll go. She’s stubborn as fuck so I doubt she’s going to want to go willingly but she needs to close the doors on her business. If she has family somewhere else, we’ll take her wherever she wants but she can’t stay here. Anything else for now?”
“Yes. If your girl is in danger, do you think it is for the best that she stays here?” Stone asks with a shrug, “If the Governor and whoever the fuck else is actually after her, do you really want to put another bullet on our backs? We are already—”
“She’s staying here!” Gage barks, interrupting Stone. “Where the hell else would she stay that’s safer? We can protect her here far better than anywhere else.”
“Right, but what happens when one of us can’t be here, Gage? She’s on the entry-level by herself and she is still injured, correct? If someone gets through our defenses or she lets someone in unknowingly, she is unprotected and our house is compromised.” Gage opens his mouth, more than likely to chew Stone’s ass out. “Before you cut in, I understand Gage. You like the girl, you want her here. I get it. But we have never been down this road before. We have never welcomed anyone into our home let alone our family. If she is really that important to both of you and apparently, this guy,” he gestures to me and shakes his head like we’re all idiots.We are. “then we need to talk about this.”
“What do you want me to say, Alec?” Gage grunts like he’s already tired of the conversation before it’s even started. Stone eyes Gage speculatively, in that all-knowing way of his before replying.
“How important is she? How permanent is all this?”
“She’s important to both of us. All three of us if Nyx is being honest with himself. As far as how long it will last? I don’t fucking know Stone. As long as we can make it last. As long as she wants to be here with us,” he shrugs but doesn’t lose the serious look on his face, daring either of us to argue. Stone looks to me and I fight the kneejerk reaction to storm out the way Madd did. He doesn’t wither under my glare, just arches a brow.
“She stays,” comes out of me in a low snarl. My fists are squeezing the arms of the chair in a death grip as I war with the voices in my head telling me to make her leave and get the fuck away from us, frommeand my soul that wants her as close to us as possible.
Closer.
Stone processes for a minute before nodding and looking back to Gage. “Then I think we need to move some shit around. Maybe swap the Med room that she is staying in with the Comm’s room so she can be on the second floor with us. If anyone somehow does get in, she has a floor between the attacker and herself and more of a chance to hide. The panic room is off the closet in this room, which is yet another piece of protection for her.”
I stare slack-jawed at my best friend, completely taken aback by his calm demeanor about this shit. He so willingly and quickly accepted her place in our lives, in our home. Not only is he cool with it, but he’s actively making changes for her safety.
Another layer of self-hatred washes over me. He doesn’t even know her, hasn’t even seen how incredible she is, and he’s already accepted her into the fold. I’m halfway in love with her and I’m still pushing her away. Rejecting even the idea of her being in our lives.
“Good, I like that idea. I’ll talk to her about it tonight, and let her know she’ll be moving rooms. Me and Madd can work on moving shit while you guys are gone at the end of the week. I’ll save the tech equipment for last so you can do it when you’re back.” Gage smiles softly and the look is so foreign on his face that I have to do a double-take. “One more thing, Stone. We haven’t had a chance to really talk about Ella since you’ve been so busy and I know the SoCal job is about to make that worse, but I need something from you.”
Both Stone and I look at Gage questioningly. Gage hesitates before running a hand through his hair and sighing.
“Look, I don’t want to break her confidence, but I need you to look into her. Actually, I need you to look into her and her best friend. Maybe vet the whole crew, I’m not sure. Something is just off and no I don’t think she’s lying or that something nefarious is going on, so stop looking at me that way. I wouldn’t bring her into our home, our lives, if I didn’t trust her. But her past, it’s fucked.”
He stands and refills his tumbler then walks over to windows that offer the same view as the living room of the Golden Gate. I momentarily get distracted thinking about Ella in this room. The guest room downstairs looks over the main road and has a shit view. I wonder if she’ll think of me when she looks out at the bridge.
“What do you mean it’s fucked?” Stone grunts, already having moved to Gage's vacated seat at the desk so he can use the computer.
Gage takes a deep swallow of his scotch before turning to look back at him. “She doesn’t remember her childhood. She woke up in a hospital bed at Saint Francis after being in a medically induced coma for almost two weeks due to a brain injury. She was abandoned outside the hospital. She was incredibly injured and had undergone quite a few surgeries. She doesn’t remember what happened before then and when the police and hospital staff tried to locate her family, no one came.”
Stone stops typing and his head flies back and forth between Gage and me as if he’s waiting for the punchline of a joke. I wish he could find one. Her story is fucked. Hearing it made me understand in a whole new light why she was out on the bridge that day. A part of me regrets not exchanging information or getting to know each other. I wish I would have asked more, and dug deeper into her story. She’s been alone her entire life and when she needed someone the most, I left her, the same way everyone else has.
Fuck.
“Jesus, are you serious?” Stone sputters. Gage and I both nod solemnly. “Fuck, alright. Well, memory loss is not uncommon with traumatic brain injuries or catastrophic events.” He runs an agitated hand through his hair before turning back to the computer. “If no one came for her, where did she live? With who? Foster care or something?”
“Yeah, she said no one claimed her and she was in foster care for a few years before she was adopted as a teen. The people who have guardianship of her now are who she considers her parents. She has two close friends, Gianna and Olivia, who both work with her atThe Grind. But Hunter Morris seems to be her best friend. They are,close.” Gage grinds out the last word like it’s physically painful to say and if I wasn’t so irritated by this conversation, I might have laughed.
“Hunter Morris? Why does that sound so familiar?” Stone murmurs before looking back up. “He works for us, right? AtRush.He’s a bartender there. Nice kid, 24 years old I think. I did his background check when I hired him. Moody but quiet. Keeps to himself, good employee.” Stone shoots the facts out off the top of his head like the human database that he is. “You want a deeper look into his life or just her for now?”
