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Virgil opened his mouth to say something, but Maisie put two fingers to his lips. “It’s fine. I don’t need to know. I don’t even want to know. But I want to make sure Kat is all right before I go back to the casino.”
And with a clap of her hands, Maisie the magician managed to get the toughest people I knew to disperse without an argument. “That’s pretty impressive. Can you teach me that trick?”
Maisie’s pink lips curled into a hint of a smile but her blue eyes were filled with worry. “Sure. As soon as you teach me how to dive bomb over the hood of a car. Sounds scary.”
“It happened too fast to be scared or anything else.” I closed my eyes and thought about the fear and worry that sounded in Terry’s voice.
Kat, watch out!
How could three little words hold so much emotion?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Terry
Emmett was still upset about the attack and I was happy Sadie didn’t make a big deal about me going up to check on him. Now, I hoped Emmett didn’t make a big deal about it either. Three sharp knocks on the door and I shoved one hand in my pocket and waited while my brother took his sweet ass time opening the door.
“Hey, man. How you doing?”
Emmett shrugged his broad shoulders and stepped back. “I’ve been better, man. What’s up?”
“I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to you since you got your ass beat. You okay, man?”
Emmett snorted and turned away, shoving his hand through his hair as he made his way to the other side of the room. “You want to talk about me getting my ass whooped or how I’m doing?” He peered at me over his shoulder, half bitter and half sarcastic.
“Why does it have to be an either or type of situation?” I hated that he questioned if I was here for him or for the Ashby family, but it was the nature of our work.
“It doesn’t.” His shoulders fell and he dropped down into a sofa near the window, wincing slightly. “Sorry, I guess I’m out of sorts.”
I nodded and stepped inside the room, taking the slightly uncomfortable chair pushed up to a desk Em had no reason to use. “You should be out of sorts; I’m fucking furious.”
His lips curled into a grin. “Yeah, thanks. But if you were really furious, you’d send me a shit ton of food like Kat did, since you were having lunch together.” I ignored the taunt because I wasn’t touching that shit with a ten foot pole. Not even a twenty foot one.
“Walk me through what happened.”
Emmett laughed. “So much for being furious,” he snorted under his breath. When his expression sobered, I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and listened to every fucking detail.
“After the fight at Emerald Isle, I went back to the locker room to clear my head. The night was mostly a success but something didn’t feel right about Ravager’s win. I didn’t want to think about it with fuckin’ cameras and microphones in my face.” His gaze damn neared pierced through me and I knew he suspected the truth, knew it in his heart, but he didn’t want confirmation.
“Anyway, the locker room was empty. Suspiciously empty right after a big fight like that. So, it took no time to grab the House of Ashby swag and then I left, thinking I’d talk to the fighters in the morning. Chicken shit, but it is what it is.”
“That’s what you normally do after a fight?”
He nodded. “Not really. Usually, the losing fighters want to talk a bit, maybe look at some tape. But, since they were all gone, I decided to go home and have a drink. Forget about everything until morning.” He blew out a breath and leaned back as if he couldn’t get comfortable.
“Which exit did you use when you left?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I tried to get out through the west hall because it was closest to where I parked, but it was locked down for some reason.” I told him about the asshole following Kat.
“Same guy we spotted on HOA surveillance. Kat made sushi out of the motherfucker.”
Emmett snickered. “You’re proud of her? I don’t know how you’re okay with that.” I just shrugged. No need to confirm or deny anything yet. “Anyway, it took fucking forever to get out of the other exits, and I was too pumped up to pace around my apartment alone, so I went to House of Ashby.”
To an outside observer, Emmett’s activities might look suspicious, but he was a workaholic and I was fairly sure he had some PTSD he hadn’t dealt with, so I understood.
“Did you park out front?”
He nodded. “Yeah. The first spot right out front. Same place I always park. Just as I lifted my hand to shove the key into the lock, someone called my name.” His eyes slammed shut and his head fell forward. “Whoever called my name, it was from a distance. I turned to see who was calling me and the next thing I saw was a fucking fist barreling toward my face. I turned enough that it hit my cheek instead of knocking my eye out of the fuckin’ socket.”
